Those Born in Winter Are Geniuses

Are you winter-born?
Then you are a genius, or... a madwoman

What is the relation between genius and the date on which a person is born? Can there be any relation between them?

Yes, say the men of science; and they say likewise that the hour science attains the knowledge of this secret, it will command the destiny of the human race, and will then be able to multiply geniuses.

They say: statistics have proved that the months of winter are the most fertile of months, for the number of brilliant minds born in them... Learned studies of the lives of the great men who have risen to eminence from five thousand years ago down to this day show that the greater part of them were winter-born... December — January — February, and the middle of March. After these come August, September, October... And statistics bear out this truth; this phenomenon is no matter of coincidence, nor is it astrology...

What holds true of geniuses holds true likewise of the mad, for most of them are born in the winter season. Between madness and genius there is a link that science has established: in both of them — in genius and in madness — the mind stands outside the bounds of nature, in revolt against the established orders.

As for those born in the summer season, they are for the most part possessed of settled mental powers, untroubled — unlike those born in winter...

Science explains this phenomenon by the effect of food upon the embryo. In the winter season vegetables and fruits grow scarce, and the cattle and sheep feed on certain substances that affect their meat and their milk... and the woman with child feeds, in the winter months, on much meat and few vegetables...

And we may put this question:

Will it lie within man's power to command the birth of geniuses and brilliant minds? Will the future be filled with geniuses, and will the future belong to this strong, violent season, in which arise those mental tempests that storm through society and turn it upside down?

Will man be able to raise up brilliant minds to order, by commanding the dates of their birth?

Happy tidings, then, from this day forward, to the winter-born.