ABSTRACT
Gifted individuals are so rare that it is impossible to submit them to serial statistic investigation, but, for that very reason, the class is more productive of well-defined, characteristic, individual personalities. In this chapter we intend, not to point out anything fundamentally new, but to apply the notions which we have obtained after investigating a great mass of material to a few great personalities, bringing out still more finely discriminated particular traits. We hope, later on, to be able to publish the individual analyses of certain geniuses, of which we have already made use in many respects in the last chapters, and therefore we only give here a compressed general account. Our method was first to investigate the individual psychology of such highly-gifted persons as later fell victims to circular or schizophrenic psychoses, or came from families which were disposed in that direction. After that, with the additional help of physical investigation, 1 a larger number of geniuses could be differentiated, or rather, the groups which had already been established by means of comparative psychology could be confirmed and completed by a glance at their physique.
