New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-02-03
Clews to Genius

DR.. Arthur C. Jacobson makes useful
suggestion in "The New York Medical Jour
nal" to those earnest and painstaking per-
sons who spend their days in what they
are pleased to call psychic research. He
holds that the tomfooleries of the most
celebrated mediums are at best trivial and
insignificant in comparison with the feats
Of men of genius; and as he conceives that
both groups of phenomena have common
origin in SO far as each is the expression
of secondary personality, so it seems to
him that an inquiry into the nature Of
genius would be more interesting and more
fruitful than the tedious collection Of
Imediumistic vaporings. "Why dclve so
exhaustively into the lesser sphere he
asks, land fool with Calibans, when the
Prosperos, waving their magic wands,
stand before u.s."
The enthusiasts Of automatic writing
and planchette will quarrel with him at
the outset for jumping to conclusion.
"There is, of course" he says, nothing
supernatural about mediumship. The
medium is merely controlled by a
secondary personality that has come out of
his CASUALLY herr own subconscious mind
The "of course" will be objected TO by
spiritistic folk as too magisterial, just as
others will doubtless object to the ofhand
"of course" of naive enthusiast who in
commenting upon DR.. Jacobson's concep-
tion of genius remarks that "of course it
gains pausibility from the fact that it is
solidly based on Freudian psychology"
1t is the fashion at present TO trace
everything to Freud by way of establishing
its responsibility, but in truth there is
nothing inevitably Freudian in DR.. Jacob
sons discourse, except possibly the trick of
putting forth improved conclusions with
only a bare "of course" TO establish their
authenticity. And as DR.. Jacobson is only
offering suggestion for a systematic in
quiry, that is perhaps allowable.
If the dabbers in the spirit world resent
this unceremonious way of dismissing their
pet hypothesis there are others who will
join with them in denouncing his teach
| ings for other reasons. AS his notion is
that "thc genius is superman-a man
plus a secondary personality, his genius re-
siding not in the primary self, but in this
secondary personality" so he fancies that
useful field of inquiry would be found in
the inhibitions Of potential genius. "Thc
real miracle that invites our contemplation
is the paralysis Of inhibitory mechanisms.
And then, drawing examples "from the
clinic of life" he proceeds TO give long
list of great men supposed to have over
come the paralyzing inhibitions by the use
Of alcoholic beverages.
| His conclusion is that "the release OF
creative secondary personalities would
seem TO depend largely upon some sort OF
intoxication," and this he believes to be
"obviously true" not only Of alcohol but Of
tuberculosis, the toxins Of which are also
credited with the liberation of a multitude
Of ingenious personalities.
The truth is so far from obvious to all
men that Huxley, for instance. held that
one who required alcoholic provocation tc
produce work might take it as sure sigr
] that il was work for which he was untitled
II may well be that he was wholly wrong
it may be- too, that DR.. Jacobson is wholly
right in his assumption that his long list