..

III

I spent the next afternoon in the Reading Room of the British Museum. I
was searching for a precedent, and at last I found one in the story of
Christian Heinrich Heinecken,[2] who was born at Lubeck on February 6,
1721. There were marked points of difference between the development of
Heinecken and that of Stott's child. Heinecken was physically feeble; at
the age of three he was still being fed at the breast. The Stott
precocity appeared to be physically strong; his body looked small and
undeveloped, it is true, but this was partly an illusion produced by the
abnormal size of the head. Again Heinecken learned to speak very early;
at ten months old he was asking intelligent questions, at eighteen
months he was studying history, geography, Latin and anatomy; whereas
the Stott child had only once been heard to speak at the age of two
years, and had not, apparently, begun any study at all.

From this comparison it might seem at first that the balance of
precocity lay in the Heinecken scale. I drew another inference. I argued
that the genius of the Stott child far outweighed the genius of
Christian Heinecken.

Little Heinecken in his four years of life suffered the mental
experience--with certain necessary limitations--of a developed brain. He
gathered knowledge as an ordinary child gathers knowledge, the only
difference being that his rate of assimilation was as ten to one.

But little Stott had gathered no knowledge from books. He had been born
of ignorant parents, he was being brought up among uneducated people.
Yet he had wonderful intellectual gifts; surely he must have one above
all others--the gift of reason. His brain must be constructive, logical;
he must have the power of deduction. He must even at an extraordinarily
early age, say six months, have developed some theory of life. He must
be withholding his energy, deliberately; declining to exhibit his
powers, holding his marvellous faculties in reserve. Here was surely a
case of genius which, comparable in some respects to the genius of
Heinecken, yet far exceeded it.

As I developed my theory, my eagerness grew. And then suddenly an
inspiration came to me. In my excitement I spoke aloud and smacked the
desk in front of me with my open hand. "Why, of course!" I said. "That
is the key."

An old man in the next seat scowled fiercely. The attendants in the
central circular desk all looked up. Other readers turned round and
stared at me. I had viol