Home The Nature and Objective of Aesthetics Art and the Artist The Art Work The Art Work in the Making The Creative Mind The Nature of Musical Talent The Mind of Genius The Personality of Genius Genius, Intelligence, and Temperament Artistic Genius and Temperament Genius, Disease, Drink and Drugs Genius, The Child and The Woman Art and the Artist Art and the Layman The Experience of Beauty Beauty in Music Painting Poetry	GENIUS, INTELLIGENCE, AND TEMPERAMENT We know intelligence only as behavior. There is no meaning to intelligence apart from action, from the manner in which a person adjusts himself to his environment. Man is the most intelligent of organisms because he can adjust himself most adequately to a most complex environment, that is, because he is capable of the most varied behavior. And the most intelligent person is he who can adjust himself most readily and most effectively to the widest variety of complex situations. It is on the basis of the nature of the adjustment that we classify the human family into normal, sub-normal, and super-normal. The normal person is one who can get along without attracting undue attention, whether favorable or unfavorable. He gets along fairly peacefully and harmoniously with others, can support himself and his dependents without calling for charity, belongs to the right party and the right church, observes conventional morality, at least in public, keeps out of jail, pays his bills, contributes to charity and right social causes, agrees with what is generally accepted and condemns what runs against accepted standards, can keep up with the trend of times fairly well, can meet new conditions if they are not too novel or sudden, is not too aggressive or too cowering, does not agree or disagree too quickly or too violently, but is "reasonable," believes in the greatest good of the greatest number, is tactful, willing to compromise for the good of the cause, talks of self-sacrifice and self-denial, is patriotic, loyal, trustworthy, open-minded, tolerant, does not question that the home is the foundation of civilization, capital the backbone of business and prosperity, the church the divinely ordained guardian of morality, the law just and safe, and that virtue is the price he pays for a reward in heaven. He is the good citizen, the backbone of the nation, on whom established institutions can rely for financial and moral support. In brief, the normal person is the average. He falls in readily with the established, customary, old, and slowly and gradually is reconciled to the new. Klee The sub-normals range from the moron, through the imbecile, to the idiot. These terms designate an increasing lack of mental power to meet those conditions in the environment on which bare physical existence depends. The idiot is so defective mentally as to be unable by himself to take care of his physical needs or to guard himself against ordinary physical dangers. It is unsafe to leave him unprotected, unguarded. The imbecile can look after his physical needs but is incapable of managing himself and his affairs. He can not earn his living by himself. The moron has sufficient mentality to earn a bare living provided conditions are favorable, but can not compete with any sort of success on equal terms with his fellows or manage his affairs with ordinary prudence. He requires care, supervision, constant directions for his own good and for the protection of others, while he is totally helpless in any sort of emergency situation. The super-normals range from the superior through the talented, to the genius. The mark of the superior person is that he readily adapts himself to new conditions in an adequate manner, and is able and eager to keep up with advanced knowledge in all lines of human interests and activities. He is liberal minded, but not gullible. He is free of prejudices, earnest in his desire for facts, modifies his opinions and actions in accordance with them, and recognizes the authority of those engaged upon a disinterested search for knowledge. He is moderate in his judgments and criticisms, accepts no final panaceas for human ills, recognizing that progress is a slow and gradual journey along the endless highway of dispassionate investigation. For him there is no virtue other than knowledge, and no sin but refusal to learn. He finds no particular virtue in the old and established just because it is old, nor in the new merely on the grounds of its novelty, but realizes that without the new the old would stagnate, whereas without the old for its foundation the new is but a wild, empty dream. The superior person is thus the intelligent layman. He may himself not be active in any field of creative endeavor, but he recognizes in the creative worker the greatest benefactor of mankind. The talented person is a grade above the level of intelligence of the superior man in that he not only appreciates the work of the creator but can understand the fruits of his labor. In the vast army of workers in scientific laboratories, art studios, and academic halls there are extremely few geniuses, but the rest are their co-workers, disciples, treading the pathway blazed by the leaders and charting it. Genius is the spark that sets off the powers of talent into a blaze. The genius of the Newtons, Keplers, and Einsteins of the ages has kindled the lesser lights of scientific talents that populate the laboratories of the world, testing the theoretical products of those supreme minds and applying the results for the conquest of organic and inorganic nature. The genius of the Bachs, the Beethovens, and Wagners is the inspiration of the talented performers who recreate their works for the populace of the civilized world. The genius of the Leonardos, the Raphaels, the Rembrandts, is the light that illumines the steps of the talented painter, sculptor, and architect whose works fill our art galleries and homes. In literature talent takes its model and follows in the footsteps of the Homers, the Dantes, the Shakespeares, and the Keatses supplying us with an endless stream of drama, novel, and poetry. Talent is the legitimate offspring of genius, owing to it not only its life but also whatever merits are found in its work. Genius thus stands at the peak of intelligence. It is the advance guard and beacon light of civilization. To the mind of genius we are indebted for all the permanently significant cultural accomplishments of mankind, whether in the arts, sciences, philosophies, or religions. And genius is alike in intellectual power in whatever realm it operates. Artistic genius is no less than scientific genius. There is as much creative energy in a Beethoven symphony, or a Shakespearean drama, as there is in Newton's Laws or Einstein's Theories. Whether artistic or scientific, philosophical or religious, the creative process is alike in nature, and its products equal in value.