Divine Fury (66 page)

50
. Terman, ed.,
Genetic Studies of Genius
, 1:vii, 1.

51
. Ibid., v.

52
. Kurt Danziger,
Naming the Mind: How Psychology Found Its Language
(London: Sage, 1997), 66–83. My account of the changing fortunes of intelligence draws heavily on Carson’s excellent discussion in
Measure of Merit
, esp. chap. 3.

53
. Gretchen Kreuter, “The Vanishing Genius: Lewis Terman and the Stanford Study,”
History of Education Quarterly
2, no. 1 (1962): 6–18 (citation on 15); Terman, ed.,
Genetic Studies of Genius
, 4:352.

54
. Fancher,
Intelligence Men
, 95.

55
. Terman, ed.,
Genetic Studies of Genius
, 1:111, 82, 54.

56
. Terman, “The Intelligence Quotient of Francis Galton in Childhood,”
American Journal of Psychology
28 (1917): 209–215.

57
. Terman, ed.,
Genetic Studies of Genius
, 2:47–87. The IQ estimates of the three hundred geniuses are summarized in Table 12A, “Individual IQ Ratings of Young Geniuses.”

58
. Hans Eysenck,
Genius: The Natural History of Creativity
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 53. On the laughable speculations of the Cox study, see the amusing account in Gould,
Mismeasure of Man
, 214–218. For Cox’s comments, see Terman, ed.,
Genetic Studies of Genius
, 2:3.

59
. All citations here and below from Blavatsky are taken from H. P. Blavatsky, “Genius,”
Lucifer
5, no. 28 (1889): 227–233.

60
. On the prevalence and centrality of spiritualism to modern culture and the endurance of beliefs in spiritual guardians, see Alex Owen,
British Occultism and the Culture of the Modern
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004); Corinna Treitel,
A Science for the Soul: Occultism and the Genesis of the German Modern
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004); Marco Pasi, “Anges gardiens et esprits familiers dans le spiritisme et dans l’occultisme,” in Jean-Patrice Boudet, Philippe Faure, and Christian Renoux, eds.,
De Socrate à Tintin: Anges gardiens et démons familiers de l’Antiquité à nos jours
(Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2011), 249–267. On Hugo, see John Warne Monroe,
Laboratories of Faith: Mesmerism, Spiritism, and Occultism in Modern France
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2008), 50–52. I am grateful to Professor Monroe for bringing this episode to my attention.

61
. On the question of the modernity of occult practices, see the insightful essay of Thomas Laqueur, “Why the Margins Matter: Occultism and the Making of Modernity,”
Modern Intellectual History
3 (2006): 111–135.

62
. Terman, ed.,
Genetic Studies of Genius
, 1:v. To point out the similarities between the mystifying effects of nineteenth-century science and those of theosophists and practitioners of the occult is by no means to equate the two, as if the assertions of a Blavatsky were of a kind with those of a Broca. Nor is it to deny that there are essential differences between the fantasies of a Lavater or Lombroso and that of a Terman or Galton. Those who would deny these differences altogether, dismissing the possibility of objective scientific truths, have only themselves to blame when politicians deny the existence of global warming or demand that our schoolchildren be taught that the earth was created in six days and nothing more. And yet it will not do to whitewash the science, as one reputable scientist has done, complaining of the subjectivity of philosophers and historians while writing a “natural history” of genius that leaves out all of the embarrassing bits (see Hans Eysenck,
Genius: The Natural History of Creativity
, 4). If I have dwelled on those embarrassments here, it is to emphasize how deeply the science of genius was implicated in the “mismeasure of men.”

63
. Friedrich Nietzsche,
The Twilight of the Idols
, section 44, in
The Portable Nietzsche
, ed. and trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Penguin, 1982), 547.

CHAPTER 6

1
. Søren Kierkegaard,
The Present Age and Of the Difference Between a Genius and an Apostle
, trans. Alexander Dru, intro. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Harper and Row, 1962), 89–90. “Of the Difference Between a Genius and an Apostle” was written in 1847. It was first published in 1849, along with “The Present Age,” in
Two Minor Ethical-Religious Essays
, under the pseudonym “H. H.”

2
. Bautain is cited in James C. Livingston and Francis Schüssler Fiorenza, eds.,
Modern Christian Thought
, vol. 1,
The Enlightenment and the Nineteenth Century
, 2nd ed. (New York: Prentice Hall, 2006), 156. For illustrative examples of the discussion of Jesus as a genius, see Charles Binet-Sanglé,
La folie de Jésus
, 4 vols. (Paris: Maloine, 1908–1915); Constantin Brunner,
Unser Christus: Oder das Wesen des Genies
(Berlin: Oesterheld, 1921); J. Middleton Murry,
Jesus: Man of Genius
(New York: Harper and Brothers, 1926). See also Friedrich Nietzsche,
The Anti-Christ
, section 29, in
The Portable Nietzsche
, ed. and trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Penguin, 1982), 600–601. For Renan’s account, see
La vie de Jésus
(1863), esp. chap. 28, “Caractère essential de l’oeuvre de Jésus.”

3
. Kierkegaard, “On the Difference Between a Genius and an Apostle,” in Kierkegaard,
The Present Age and Of the Difference Between a Genius and an Apostle
, 96–101.

4
. On the Kierkegaard renaissance in the early twentieth century, especially in Weimar Germany, see Dustin Feddon, “Apostles, Prophets, Geniuses: The Tragic Romantic Politics of the Extraordinary Individual in Søren Kierkegaard’s Production and Weimar Reception” (PhD diss., Florida State University, 2013). For an introduction to the now substantial literature on “political religions,” see Emilio Gentile,
Politics as Religion
, trans. George Staunton (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006). On the related subject of “political theology,” see Mark Lilla,
The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West
(New York: Knopf, 2007).

5
. Edgar Zilsel,
Die Geniereligion: Ein kritischer Versuch über das moderne Persönlichkeitsideal
, intro. Johann Dvorak (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1990), 51–53.

6
. Edgar Zilsel,
Die Entstehung des Geniebegriffes: Ein Beitrag zur Ideengeschichte der Antike und des Frühkapitalismus
, intro. Heinz Maus (Hildesheim, Germany: Georg Olms, 1972), first published in 1926; Robert Currie,
Genius: An Ideology in Literature
(New York: Schocken Books, 1974). On the theme of
Erlösungskraft
, see the comments of a contemporary critic, the Swiss scholar Jacob Cahan, in his published doctoral dissertation,
Zur Kritik des Genebegriffs
(Bern: Universität Bern, 1911), 32. See also Hermann Türck,
Der geniale Mensch
, 4th ed. (Berlin: Dümmlers Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1896/1899), 271, 275. The material comparing Napoleon and Jesus, in Chapter 9, “Das Weltliche Ubermenschentum Alexanders, Cäsars, Napoleons,” first appeared in the 3rd ed., published in 1898. The work went through at least fourteen German editions by 1931. In his depiction of Napoleon, Türck draws heavily on the influential writings of Karl Bleibtreu, author of numerous hagiographic accounts, including the revealingly entitled
Die Genie-Kaiser und die Welt
(1905).

7
. Thomas Carlyle,
On Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History
, ed. and intro. Carl Niemeyer (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1966), 155–157; Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The Over-Soul,” in
Essays and Lectures
, ed. Joel Port (New York: Library of America, 2009), 396; see also “The Method of Nature” and “Literary Ethics” in the same volume, esp. 123 and 109, respectively. On Emerson’s complicated understanding of genius, see Richard Poirier, “The Question of Genius,”
Raritan
4 (1986): 77–104.

8
. Zilsel,
Geniereligion
, 129–130, 214. On the use of the phrase “great geniuses reveal us to ourselves,” a truism since Shaftesbury, see Benedetto Croce, “Intuition in Art,” in
The Aesthetic as the Science of Expression and of the Linguistic in General
, trans. Colin Lyas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 15. See also Emerson’s reflections on genius in his essays “Self Reliance” and “Literary Ethics.” On the theme of the relationship between the genius and the people, see Kerry Charles Larson, “Betrayers and the Betrayed: The Cult of Genius in the Age of Emerson” (Phd diss., Johns Hopkins University, 1983); John Stuart Mill,
On Liberty
, eds. David Bromwich and George Kateb (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003), 129–130.

9
. Bob Perelman,
The Trouble with Genius: Reading Pound, Joyce, Stein, and Zukofsky
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994). See also Barbara Will,
Gertrude Stein and the Problem of ‘Genius’
(Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press, 2000).

10
. Zilsel,
Geniereligion
, 59–61, 77–78; Arthur Rimbaud, “Adieu,”
Un saison en enfer
(1873); Henry Maudsley,
Heredity, Variation, and Genius, with an Essay on Shakespeare
(London: John Bale, Sons, and Danielson, 1908), 75.

11
. Zilsel,
Geniereligion
, 89–99.

12
. For Nietzsche on religion, see John Hope Mason,
The Value of Creativity: The Origins and Emergence of a Modern Belief
(Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2003), 213; Michael Tanner, “Nietzsche on Genius,” in Penelope Murray, ed.,
Genius: The History of an Idea
(Oxford: Blackwell, 1989), 128–140. For Nietzsche on creativity, see Mason,
Value of Creativity
, 209–227; Nietzsche, “On Old and New Tablets,”
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
, trans. and intro. Walter Kauffman (New York: Penguin, 1978), 196.

13
. Nietzsche,
Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits
, trans. R. J. Hollingdale, intro. Richard Schacht (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 115 (section 241), and, more generally, sections 157–165; Nietzsche, “Why I Am a Destiny,”
Ecce Homo
, trans. R. J. Hollingdale, intro. Michael Tanner (London: Penguin, 1992), 96. On Nietzsche’s reception, see Steven E. Aschheim,
The Nietzsche Legacy in Germany, 1890–1990
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992).

14
. Robert Schumann,
On Music and Musicians
, trans. Paul Rosenfeld, ed. Konrad Wolff (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964), 64; Celia Applegate and Pamela Potters, eds.,
Music and National Identity
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002); Max Nordau, “The Richard Wagner Cult,” in
Degeneration
, trans. from the 2nd ed. of the German work (New York: D. Appleton, 1895), 171–214; Houston Stewart Chamberlain,
The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century
, trans. John Lees, intro. Lord Redesdale, 2 vols. (New York: John Lane, 1912), 1:167–168, 83, 234, xc. On the
Foundations
and Chamberlain’s thought and career more generally, see Geoffrey C. Field,
Evangelist of Race: The Germanic Vision of Houston Stewart Chamberlain
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1981).