The Van Buren press., 1897-09-11
GENIUS AND STATURE.
The Incorrect Belief That Nearly All
Great Men Are Little.

We may safely conclude from the fig
ures that the faith cherished by many
that nearly all great men are little-a
very venerable faith, as indicated by
the ancient sayings collected in Bur-
tons Anatomy of Melancholy con-
cerning great wits with little bodies
is absolutely incorrect. Some deduc-
ton must doubtless be made in view
of the fact that our medium is made on
the basis of the general population,
while the majority of men of genius
belong to the educated classes. This
deduction would tend to equalize the
two extremes, but that it would not
destroy the slight prominence of the
tall men of ability is perhaps indicated
by the fact, shown by the anthropo-
metric committee, that the stature of
98 fellows of the Royal society (who
from the present point of view may be
counted as men of genius) was nearly
half an inch above that of the profess
sional class to which they usually be-
long. At the same time it is clear that
the belief in the small size of great
men is not absolutely groundless.
There is an abnormally large proper
ton of small great men, 1t is me-
diocrity alone that genius seems to
abbor. While among the ordinary pop
ulation the vast majority of 6s per cent.
was of middle height, among men of
genius, so far as the present investiga-
tion goes, they are only % per cent, the
tall being Al per cent, instead of 16,
and the short 81, instead of 16.
The final result is, therefore, not
that persons of extraordinary mental
ability tend either to be taller or short
er than the average population, but
rather that they tend to exhibit an un-
usual tendency to variation. Even in
physical structure men of genius pre-
sent a characteristic which on other
grounds we may take to be fundamental
in them; they are manifestations of the
variational tendency of physical and
psychic yariational diathesis.
There are certainly at least two types
of short men of genius; the slight,
frail, but fairly symmetrical type Tap
preaching what is called the true
dwarf), and the type of the stunted
giant Ga type also to be found among
dwarfs proper. The former are fair
ly symmetrical, but fragile; generally
with little physical vigor or health, all
their energy being concentrated in the
brain. Kant was of this type. The
stunted giants are usually more vigor-
Gus, but lacking in symmetry. Far from
being delicately diminutive persons,
they suggest tall persons who have been
cut short below; in such the brain and
viscera seem to flourish at the expense
of the limbs, and while abnormal they
often have the good fortune to be ro-
bust both in mind and body. Lord
Chesterfield was a man of this type,
short for his size, thick set, with a
head big enough for a Polyphemus;"
Hartley Coleridge carried the same type
to the verge of caricature, possessing
large head, a sturdy and ample form,
with ridiculously small arms and legs,
so that he was said to be ''indescribablv
elfsh and grotesque." Dryden-"Poet
Squab'-was again of this type as was
William Goodwin; in Keats the abnor-
mally short legs coeXisted with a small
head. The typical stunted giant has
large head; and such stunting of the
body has. indeed, special tendency to
produce large heads, and therefore
doubtless those large brains which are
usually associated with extraordinary
intellectual power.-Havelocl Ellis, in
Nineteenth Century.