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20
Hereditary Genius
He obtained 9,422 marks, whilst the second in the same year—whose
merits were by no means inferior to those of second wranglers in general—
obtained only 5,642. The man at the bottom of the same honour list had only
309 marks, or one-thirtieth the number of the senior wrangler. I have some
particulars of a fourth very remarkable year, in which the senior wrangler
obtained no less than ten times as many marks as the second wrangler, in
the “problem paper.” Now, I have discussed with practised examiners the
question of how far the numbers of marks may be considered as
proportionate to the mathematical power of the candidate, and am assured
they are strictly proportionate as regards the lower places, but do not afford
full justice to the highest. In other words, the senior wranglers above
mentioned had more than thirty, or thirty-two times the ability of the lowest
men on the lists of honours. They would be able to grapple with problems
more than thirty-two times as difficult; or when dealing with subjects of the
same difficulty, but intelligible to all, would comprehend them more rapidly
in perhaps the square root of that proportion. It is reasonable to expect that
marks would do some injustice to the very best men, because a very large
part of the time of the examination is taken up by the mechanical labour of
writing. Whenever the thought of the candidate outruns his pen, he gains no
advantage from his excess of promptitude in conception. I should, however,
mention that some of the ablest men have shown their superiority by
comparatively little writing. They find their way at once to the root of the
difficulty in the problems that are set, and, with a few clean, apposite,
powerful strokes, succeed in proving they can overthrow it, and then they
go on to another question. Every word they write tells. Thus, the late Mr.
H. Leslie Ellis, who was a brilliant senior wrangler in 1840, and whose
name is familiar to many generations of Cambridge men as a
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