The removal of
these inhibitions, so scientists assure us, makes possible more rapid
and profound perceptions,--so rapid indeed that they seem to the
ordinary human being, practically instantaneous, or intuitive. The
qualities of genius are not, therefore, qualities lacking in the common
reservoir of humanity, but rather the unimpeded release and direction
of powers latent in all of us. This process of course is not necessarily
conscious.
This view is substantiated by the opposite problem of feeble-mindedness.
Recent researches throw a new light on this problem and the contrasting
one of human genius. Mental defect and feeble-mindedness are conceived
essentially as retardation, arrest of development, differing in degree
so that the victim is either an idiot, an imbecile, feeble-minded or
a moron, according to the relative period at which mental development
ceases.
Scientific research into the functioning of the ductless glands and
their secretions throws a new light on this problem. Not long ago these
glands were a complete enigma, owing to the fact that they are not
provided with excretory ducts. It has just recently been shown that
these organs, such as the thyroid, the pituitary, the suprarenal,
the parathyroid and the reproductive glands, exercise an all-powerful
influence upon the course of individual development or deficiency. Gley,
to whom we owe much of our knowledge of glandular action, has asserted
that "the genesis and exercise of the higher faculties of men are
conditioned by the purely chemical action of the product of these
secretions.
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