A Study Of British Genius
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

''A Study of British Genius'' is a 1904 book by
Havelock Ellis Henry Havelock Ellis (2 February 1859 – 8 July 1939) was an English physician, eugenicist, writer, Progressivism, progressive intellectual and social reformer who studied human sexuality. He co-wrote the first medical textbook in English on h ...
published by
Hurst and Blackett Hurst and Blackett was a publisher founded in 1852 by Henry Blackett (26 May 1825 – 7 March 1871), the grandson of a London shipbuilder, and Daniel William Stow Hurst (17 February 1802 – 6 July 1870). Shortly after the formation of their partn ...
.


Contents

After an introduction, the book delves into chapters on race and nationality,
social class A social class or social stratum is a grouping of people into a set of Dominance hierarchy, hierarchical social categories, the most common being the working class and the Bourgeoisie, capitalist class. Membership of a social class can for exam ...
,
heredity Heredity, also called inheritance or biological inheritance, is the passing on of traits from parents to their offspring; either through asexual reproduction or sexual reproduction, the offspring cells or organisms acquire the genetic infor ...
, childhood, marriage, life,
pathology Pathology is the study of disease. The word ''pathology'' also refers to the study of disease in general, incorporating a wide range of biology research fields and medical practices. However, when used in the context of modern medical treatme ...
, stature, pigments, other miscellaneous things, and a conclusion. Ellis began by saying people had not been able to have an efficient comprehensive study of men and women before him. The ''
Dictionary of National Biography The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') was published on 23 September ...
'' had a large collection of descriptions of people, but it had been too unwieldy and large to be useful. Ellis then analyzed people and their natural tendencies to contribute successfully to society, but people born into royalty were excluded. They couldn't be included with the rest of the population because they were given advantages at a young age that others were not. The term genius is used to describe intelligence every time the word is mentioned throughout the text. He examined the concept of tracking down the origin of intelligence to a specific region of the world. In order to do this, each person was asked about their birthplace to create an accurate record. The best way of asking was to ask each grandparent from where they came. In the chapter on social class, to determine the social class of people most precisely, the fathers were asked what was their occupation. The occupation had to be the one at the time of the child's birth. The upper class was separated from the other occupations as its own group, and then underneath this, Ellis put the following:
yeoman Yeoman is a noun originally referring either to one who owns and cultivates land or to the middle ranks of Serfdom, servants in an Peerage of England, English royal or noble household. The term was first documented in Kingdom of England, mid-1 ...
and farmers, church, law, army, navy, medicine, miscellaneous professions, officials, commercial, crafts, and then artisans and unskilled. So, based on the categories, Ellis did not consider any of these other professions in the upper class. He also suggested that the order of the professions may actually be considered a hierarchical relationship that others could use. When observing professions that are primarily in farms or in rural areas, Ellis decided that these places provided a much larger potential for intellectual development than urban cities. The predictions for the future were that he did not believe the cities would ever catch up to the rural growth. Dividing this further, he felt that individuals in rural areas of the lowest classes were able to achieve greater intellectual contributions than those in urban areas. In the section talking about heredity, it seems that Ellis supported the idea that it is a large part of people's natural intelligence. He also said that it was not the only concept that mattered. Ellis then considered childhood and youth. He pointed out that most of the people who grew up to be prominent people, such as
Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English novelist, journalist, short story writer and Social criticism, social critic. He created some of literature's best-known fictional characters, and is regarded by ...
, had very delicate childhoods. Some of them were not expected to live past infancy, and some almost died. Many of these people also had parents who had died before or after the birth of their children. Ellis argued that this also showed the inherited frailty of families. There was a comparison showing that people who were regarded as significantly intelligent were educated in the UK,
Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...
,
Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...
, and were at the most notable universities. Ellis pointed out that his studies were not the only ones to include these universities and regions in their results. He suggested that this wasn't a sweeping generalization that did not take exceptions into account; that it was instead more of a predisposition. Those who went to college or attained some sort of level of higher education were far more likely than others to be intelligent, prominent people of society. Marriage was not seen in most of the prominent men that he studied. However, he pressed the idea that men who did not marry, did not necessarily do so because of intellectual absorption. Many of the men had actually considered marriage, or did not live to the age where they would be likely to marry, or had certain problems that hindered it. He was very careful to show that this category was not quite so clear. For those who did marry, they married at much later ages than the rest of the men Ellis had studied, and they married even later than their fathers, who Ellis also thought married much later than other men. This later year was an average of 31.1 years of age.


Historical relevance

In examining how others viewed Ellis's work, some scholars suppose that Robert Knox, a professor at
Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...
, was influenced by many of the topics discussed in this book, such as the characterization of mental and
emotion Emotions are physical and mental states brought on by neurophysiology, neurophysiological changes, variously associated with thoughts, feelings, behavior, behavioral responses, and a degree of pleasure or suffering, displeasure. There is ...
al qualities in people all over Britain. The book has also been credited as one of a few influential works examining how creativity is inherited. It is trusted as a book that observes individuals who are related and unrelated and the differences between creativity amongst them. Since Ellis, many researchers in
psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feel ...
have looked at sibling studies, especially when considering order of childbirth. Many of these researchers still see Ellis as someone who found substantial support to back up findings from others, such as the statistician
Francis Galton Sir Francis Galton (; 16 February 1822 – 17 January 1911) was an English polymath and the originator of eugenics during the Victorian era; his ideas later became the basis of behavioural genetics. Galton produced over 340 papers and b ...
. The idea he specifically supported was that people who were first born were more likely to be gifted and represented more than people who were not first born. In modern times, this theory has been contested by other studies, but his ideas are still being considered and debated, with both support and criticism. Another idea he professed that has since been studied extensively by other researchers was the link between mental illness and intelligent people. Ellis himself found no link between the two when compared to the general population. He said that there were indeed people with mental illness who were intelligent as well, but it was not significant. Since then, multiple studies have shown links between
schizophrenia Schizophrenia () is a mental disorder characterized variously by hallucinations (typically, Auditory hallucination#Schizophrenia, hearing voices), delusions, thought disorder, disorganized thinking and behavior, and Reduced affect display, f ...
and manic-depressive disorder, directly combating Ellis' idea that the link does not exist. There is still room for debate as more research is created concerning mental illness. Ellis also made attempts in his work to show that people who were white with Nordic features were the ones who would be most likely to be geniuses, and those with darker features were highly unlikely to be as intelligent. This was shown through the data he collected, where most people he described that had contributed significantly to math and science had these characteristics. Another book, written by R. Ochse, titled ''Before the Gates of Excellence'' questioned these findings, claiming that these trends are quite different today. Ochse said that as of 1990 at least,
Jewish people Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, religion, and community are highly inte ...
are the ones who have been most successful in the field of science.


Reception


References


External links


''A Study of British Genius''
text scan at
Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Study Of British Genius 1904 non-fiction books British non-fiction books English non-fiction books Books about the United Kingdom Hurst and Blackett books