Synopses & Reviews
FROM CRETIN to GENIUS Serge Vowttoff ALLIANCE BOOK CORPORATION Neio York TO MY WIFE GERTY 7s not love the most marvelous stimulant to thought and inspiration Contents CHAPTER PAGE I The Soul and the Mind 11 II Mind and Matter 17 III From Cretin to Genius 29 IV The Precocity of Genius 43 V The Role of the Subconscious in the Work of Genius 57 VI The Creative Process in Poets and Writers 73 VII The Creative Process in Composers 85 VIII The Creative Process in Scientists 93 IX The Creative Process in Mathematicians 105 X The Influence of Stimulants and Excitants on Cerebral Activity 111 XI The Role of Chance in the Creative Process 125 XII The Forerunners Genius in the Past 145 XIII The Origin of Genius 169 XIV The Straggles of Genius 181 XV The Straggles of Poets and Writers 189 XVI The Struggles of Composers 205 XVII The Straggles of Artists 221 XVIII The Straggles of Scientists 231 XIX The Straggles of Philosophers 257 XX From Genius to Cretin 273 CHAPTER I THE SOUL AND THE MIND My study of rnind and emotion in the animal kingdom, Love and Thought In Animals and Men, was published in London in 1937. The authentic instances cited therein prove that animals can make decisions which are deter mined by voluntary thought processes, in situations for which their instincts do not provide. Intelligence varies in degree among all species of ani mals, just as it does among men some individuals are in telligent, and some are stupid. Certain horses are very wily, and many dogs, foxes, bears, etc., show traits of intelligence. Indian elephants are known to take inde pendent action after careful deliberation, and to act ex actly as men would under similar circumstances. While observing my monkeys, Ihave not only seen acts which demand concentrated thought, but I have also noticed, among the more intelligent, a tendency toward inventiveness, and an ability to adapt for greater utility the objects placed at their disposal. My researches have afforded me exceptional opportunities to observe animals, especially monkeys more than a thousand in the last twenty-five years, and I have appraised their intelligent acts carefully on innumerable occasions. 11 FROM CRETIN TO GENIUS The cerebral cells of the higher animals show under the microscope the same general construction as ours, but they are less evolved. The brains of chimpanzees, orang utangs and gorillas, of which I have some specimens preserved in my laboratory, do not differ from ours in structure, but only because they have fewer folds and circumvolutions. Therefore, since there is no fundamental difference between the brains of the higher animals and our own, it follows that the relationship between their cerebral matter and their minds must be of the same na ture as the relationship between ours. In this present volume, a study of the manifestations of genius in the human mind, I give examples of men absolutely deprived of intelligence, cretins with atrophied brains, yet gifted with some kind of genius, thanks to the survival of some cerebral cells endowed by chance with extraordinary qualities. Such extreme cases help us to a clearer understanding of the relation between mind and cerebral matter, and prove that as long as the smallest fragment of brain exists, it will produce thought. In my chapter on the subconscious, I emphasize the connection between mind and matter by even specifying the part of the brain which harbors thethoughts created by genius in flashes of inspiration, without the genius him self being aware of them, and the part of the same brain which is responsible for the conscious thoughts common to all men. 12 THE SOUL AND THE MIND In several chapters I study the role played by the sub conscious part of the brain in the works of poets, men of letters, composers, scientists and philosophers...