Show 214 STUDENT LIFE Such is the nature of the counter comments that we hear when we begin to comment to the German students about the barbarous mediaeval practices which they keep up The Precocious Youth Genius has been defined by Color at least determined bv insane or as a mental a or half insane persons eridge The reason superiority distinguished intellectual power is that in these alone is to be found II’ Jones it is described as the re- coupled with originalitv (which is sult of unceasing toil the natural the special characteristic of genius and the lunatic and still more of consequence of earnest and effort By Taine it is those who artake of the character a of both) the exaltation capable of styled peculiar variety of insanity We speak of so many types of mangenerating a sufficient amount of kind as men of genius that a wide altruism to sacrifice their own inrange of definition is justifiable if terests and their lives for the sake not demanded When we think of of making known new truths” Galileo Voltaire Michaclangelo or Maudsley says in this connecDarwin we think of genius coupled tion : “Such persons are apt to with moderation and unity of charseize on and pursue the bypaths of acter Thev were well balanced inthought which have been overtellectual giants Superior mental looked by more stable intellects development and thought capacity and so by throwing aside light on made them capable of achieving things to discover unthought of reresults far beyond the grasp of the lations” mediocre It seems hardly just to associate But there is another type of inthe name of Alexis Clairaut with dividual to whom we properly refer the insane But to say the least his as the man of genius whose extramental development was abnormal ordinary powers are accompanied lie had mastered trigonometry and was successfully studying calculus by and dependent upon an unbalanced mind It has been observed and conic sections before he was bv Lomboroso “That many of the ten years old At sixteen he pubrreat progressive movements of lished a volume on his original renations espeeiallv in politics and searches in mathematics A little later he published a famous work religion have been brought about long-sustain- ed |