{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_50539/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_50539","id":"gutenberg_50539","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/50539","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Psychiatry/Psychology","Genius and mental illness"],"text":"The Contemporary Science Series.\n\n                       Edited by Havelock Ellis.\n\n\n     I. THE EVOLUTION OF SEX. By Prof. PATRICK GEDDES and J. A. THOMSON.\n     With 90 Illustrations. Second Edition.\n\n     \u201cThe authors have brought to the task--as indeed their names\n     guarantee--a wealth of knowledge, a lucid and attractive method of\n     treatment, and a rich vein of picturesque language.\u201d--_Nature._\n\n     II. ELECTRICITY IN MODERN LIFE. By G. W. DE TUNZELMANN. With 88\n     Illustrations.\n\n     \u201cA clearly-written and connected sketch of what is known about\n     electricity and magnetism, the more prominent modern applications,\n     and the principles on which they are based.\u201d--_Saturday Review._\n\n     III. THE ORIGIN OF THE ARYANS. By Dr. ISAAC TAYLOR. Illustrated.\n     Second Edition.\n\n     \u201cCanon Taylor is probably the most encyclop\u00e6dic all-round scholar\n     now living. His new volume on the Origin of the Aryans is a\n     first-rate example of the excellent account to which he can turn\n     his exceptionally wide and varied information.... Masterly and\n     exhaustive.\u201d--_Pall Mall Gazette._\n\n     IV. PHYSIOGNOMY AND EXPRESSION. By P. MANTEGAZZA. Illustrated.\n\n     \u201cBrings this highly interesting subject even with the latest\n     researches.... Professor Mantegazza is a writer full of life and\n     spirit, and the natural attractiveness of his subject is not\n     destroyed by his scientific handling of it.\u201d--_Literary World_\n     (Boston).\n\n     V. EVOLUTION AND DISEASE. By J. B. SUTTON, F.R.C.S. With 135\n     Illustrations.\n\n     \u201cThe book is as interesting as a novel, without sacrifice of\n     accuracy or system, and is calculated to give an appreciation of\n     the fundamentals of pathology to the lay reader, while forming a\n     useful collection of illustrations of disease for medical\n     reference.\u201d--_Journal of Mental Science._\n\n     VI. THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY. By G. L. GOMME. Illustrated.\n\n     \u201cThe fruit of some years of investigation on a subject which has of\n     late attracted much attention, and is of much importance, inasmuch\n     as it lies at the basis of our society.\u201d--_Antiquary._\n\n     VII. THE CRIMINAL. By HAVELOCK ELLIS. Illustrated.\n\n     \u201cAn ably written, an instructive, and a most entertaining\n     book.\u201d--_Law Quarterly Review._\n\n     \u201cThe sociologist, the philosopher, the philanthropist, the\n     novelist--all, indeed, for whom the study of human nature has any\n     attraction--will find Mr. Ellis full of interest and\n     suggestiveness.\u201d--_Academy._\n\n     VIII. SANITY AND INSANITY. By Dr. CHARLES MERCIER. Illustrated.\n\n     \u201cHe has laid down the institutes of insanity.\u201d--_Mind._\n\n     \u201cTaken as a whole, it is the brightest book on the physical side of\n     mental science published in our time.\u201d--_Pall Mall Gazette._\n\n     IX. HYPNOTISM. By Dr. ALBERT MOLL. Second Edition.\n\n     \u201cMarks a step of some importance in the study of some difficult\n     physiological and psychological problems which have not yet\n     received much attention in the scientific world of\n     England.\u201d--_Nature._\n\n     X. MANUAL TRAINING. By Dr. C. M. WOODWARD, Director of the Manual\n     Training School, St. Louis. Illustrated.\n\n     \u201cThere is no greater authority on the subject than Professor\n     Woodward.\u201d--_Manchester Guardian._\n\n     XI. THE SCIENCE OF FAIRY TALES. By E. SIDNEY HARTLAND.\n\n     \u201cMr. Hartland\u2019s book will win the sympathy of all earnest students,\n     both by the knowledge it displays, and by a thorough love and\n     appreciation of his subject, which is evident\n     throughout.\u201d--_Spectator._\n\n     XII. PRIMITIVE FOLK. By ELIE RECLUS.\n\n     \u201cAn attractive and useful introduction to the study of some aspects\n     of ethnography.\u201d--_Nature._\n\n     \u201cFor an introduction to the study of the questions of property,\n     marriage, government, religion,--in a word, to the evolution of\n     society,--this little volume will be found most\n     convenient.\u201d--_Scottish Leader._\n\n     XIII. THE EVOLUTION OF MARRIAGE. By Professor LETOURNEAU.\n\n     \u201cAmong the distinguished French students of sociology, Professor\n     Letourneau has long stood in the first rank. He approaches the\n     great study of man free from bias and shy of generalisations. To\n     collect, scrutinise, and appraise facts is his chief business. In\n     the volume before us he shows these qualities in an admirable\n     degree.... At the close of his attractive pages he ventures to\n     forecast the future of the institution of marriage.\u201d--_Science._\n\n     XIV. BACTERIA AND THEIR PRODUCTS. By Dr. G. SIMS WOODHEAD.\n     Illustrated.\n\n     \u201cAn excellent summary of the present state of knowledge of the\n     subject.\u201d--_Lancet._\n\n     XV. EDUCATION AND HEREDITY. By J. M. GUYAU.\n\n     \u201cIt is at once a treatise on sociology, ethics, and p\u00e6dagogics. It\n     is doubtful whether among all the ardent evolutionists who have had\n     their say on the moral and the educational question any one has\n     carried forward the new doctrine so boldly to its extreme logical\n     consequence.\u201d--Professor SULLY in _Mind_.\n\n     XVI. THE MAN OF GENIUS. By Prof. LOMBROSO. Illustrated.\n\n     \u201cBy far the most comprehensive and fascinating collection of facts\n     and generalizations concerning genius which has yet been brought\n     together.\u201d--_Journal of Mental Science._\n\n     XVII. THE GRAMMAR OF SCIENCE. By Prof. KARL PEARSON. Illustrated.\n\n     \u201cThe problems discussed with great ability and lucidity, and often\n     in a most suggestive manner, by Prof. Pearson, are such as should\n     interest _all_ students of natural science.\u201d--_Natural Science._\n\n     XVIII. PROPERTY: ITS ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT. By CH. LETOURNEAU,\n     General Secretary to the Anthropological Society, Paris, and\n     Professor in the School of Anthropology, Paris.\n\n     \u201cM. Letourneau has read a great deal, and he seems to us to have\n     selected and interpreted his facts with considerable judgment and\n     learning.\u201d--_Westminster Review._\n\n     XIX. VOLCANOES, PAST AND PRESENT. By Prof. EDWARD HULL, LL.D.,\n     F.R.S.\n\n     \u201cA very readable account of the phenomena of volcanoes and\n     earthquakes.\u201d--_Nature._\n\n     XX. PUBLIC HEALTH. By Dr. J. F. J. SYKES. With numerous\n     Illustrations.\n\n     \u201cNot by any means a mere compilation or a dry record of details and\n     statistics, but it takes up essential points in evolution,\n     environment, prophylaxis, and sanitation bearing upon the\n     preservation of public health.\u201d--_Lancet._\n\n     XXI. MODERN METEOROLOGY. AN ACCOUNT OF THE GROWTH AND PRESENT\n     CONDITION OF SOME BRANCHES OF METEOROLOGICAL SCIENCE. By FRANK\n     WALDO, PH.D., Member of the German and Austrian Meteorological\n     Societies, etc.; late Junior Professor, Signal Service, U.S.A. With\n     112 Illustrations.\n\n     \u201cThe present volume is the best on the subject for general use that\n     we have seen.\u201d--_Daily Telegraph._\n\n\n     IMPORTANT ADDITION TO THE SERIES.\n\n     XXII. _THE GERM-PLASM: A THEORY OF HEREDITY. By August Weismann,\n     Professor in the University of Freiburg-in-Breisgau. With 24\n     Illustrations._\n\n     \u201cThere has been no work published since Darwin\u2019s own books which\n     has so thoroughly handled the matter treated by him, or has done so\n     much to place in order and clearness the immense complexity of the\n     factors of heredity, or, lastly, has brought to light so many new\n     facts and considerations bearing on the subject.\u201d--_British Medical\n     Journal._\n\n     XXIII. INDUSTRIES OF ANIMALS. By F. HOUSSAY. With numerous\n     Illustrations.\n\n     \u201cHis accuracy is undoubted, yet his facts out-marvel all romance.\n     These facts are here made use of as materials wherewith to form the\n     mighty fabric of evolution.\u201d--_Manchester Guardian._\n\n     XXIV. MAN AND WOMAN. By HAVELOCK ELLIS. Illustrated.\n\n     \u201cAltogether we must congratulate Mr. Ellis upon having produced a\n     book which, apart from its high scientific claims, will, by its\n     straightforward simplicity upon points of delicacy, appeal strongly\n     to all those readers outside purely scientific circles who may be\n     curious in these matters.\u201d--_Pall Mall Gazette._\n\n     \u201cThis striking and important volume ... should place Mr. Havelock\n     Ellis in the front rank of scientific thinkers of the\n     time.\u201d--_Westminster Review._\n\n     XXV. THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN CAPITALISM. By JOHN A. HOBSON, M.A.\n\n     \u201cEvery page affords evidence of wide and minute study, a weighing\n     of facts as conscientious as it is acute, a keen sense of the\n     importance of certain points as to which economists of all schools\n     have hitherto been confused and careless, and an impartiality\n     generally so great as to give no indication of his [Mr. Hobson\u2019s]\n     personal sympathies.\u201d--_Pall Mall Gazette._\n\n     XXVI. APPARITIONS AND THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE. By FRANK PODMORE, M.A.\n\n     \u201cA very sober and interesting little book.... That\n     thought-transference is a real thing, though not perhaps a very\n     common thing, he certainly shows.\u201d--_Spectator._\n\n     XXVII. AN INTRODUCTION TO COMPARATIVE PSYCHOLOGY. By Professor C.\n     LLOYD MORGAN. With Diagrams.\n\n     \u201cA strong and complete exposition of Psychology, as it takes shape\n     in a mind previously informed with biological science.... Well\n     written, extremely entertaining, and intrinsically\n     valuable.\u201d--_Saturday Review._\n\n     XXVIII. THE ORIGINS OF INVENTION: A STUDY OF INDUSTRY AMONG\n     PRIMITIVE PEOPLES. By OTIS T. MASON, Curator of the Department of\n     Ethnology in the United States National Museum.\n\n     \u201cA valuable history of the development of the inventive\n     faculty.\u201d--_Nature._\n\n     XXIX. THE GROWTH OF THE BRAIN: A STUDY OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM IN\n     RELATION TO EDUCATION. By HENRY HERBERT DONALDSON, Professor of\n     Neurology in the University of Chicago.\n\n     \u201cWe can say with confidence that Professor Donaldson has executed\n     his work with much care, judgment, and discrimination.\u201d--_The\n     Lancet._\n\n     XXX. EVOLUTION IN ART: AS ILLUSTRATED BY THE LIFE-HISTORIES OF\n     DESIGNS. By Professor ALFRED C. HADDON.\n\n\n\n\n                  _THE CONTEMPORARY SCIENCE SERIES._\n\n                       EDITED BY HAVELOCK ELLIS.\n\n\n                          THE MAN OF GENIUS.\n\n                       [Illustration: PAINTERS.\n\n                 Proportion to a million inhabitants.]\n\n\n\n\n                                  THE\n\n                            MAN OF GENIUS.\n\n                                  BY\n\n                           CESARE LOMBROSO,\n\n       _Professor of Legal Medicine at the University of Turin_.\n\n\n                          WITH ILLUSTRATIONS.\n\n\n                                LONDON:\n                             WALTER SCOTT,\n                  24, WARWICK LANE, PATERNOSTER ROW.\n                                 1891.\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\n\nIt has never before happened that in the latest edition of a book I have\nhad to disown so much in preceding editions; my first imperfect and\nspontaneous idea has never before been so modified and transformed, the\nfinal form being, perhaps, not even yet altogether attained.\n\nThe idea that genius was a special morbid condition had indeed often\noccurred to me, but I had always repelled it; and besides, without a\nsure experimental basis, ideas to-day do not count. Like still-born\nchildren, they appear but for a moment, to disappear at once. I had been\nenabled to discover in genius various characters of degeneration which\nare the foundation and the sign of nearly all forms of congenital mental\nabnormality, but the exaggerated extension which was at that time given\nto theories of degeneration, and still more the vague and inexact\ncharacter of that conception, had repelled me; so that I accepted the\nfacts, but not their ultimate consequences. How, in fact, can one\nsuppress a feeling of horror at the thought of associating with idiots\nand criminals those individuals who represent the highest manifestations\nof the human spirit?\n\nBut recent teratologic researches, especially those of Gegenbauer, have\nshown that the phenomena of atavistic retrogression do not always\nindicate true degradation, but that very often they are simply a\ncompensation for considerable development and progress accomplished in\nother directions. Reptiles have more ribs than we have; quadrupeds and\napes possess more muscles than we do, and an entire organ, the tail,\nwhich we lack. It has been in losing these advantages that we have\ngained our intellectual superiority. When this is seen, the repugnance\nto the theory of genius as degeneration at once disappears. Just as\ngiants pay a heavy ransom for their stature in sterility and relative\nmuscular and mental weakness, so the giants of thought expiate their\nintellectual force in degeneration and psychoses. It is thus that the\nsigns of degeneration are found more frequently in men of genius than\neven in the insane.\n\nAnd again, this theory has entered to-day on so certain a path, and\nagrees so entirely with my studies on genius, that it is impossible for\nme not to accept it, and not to see in it an indirect confirmation of my\nown ideas. I find this confirmation in the characters of degeneration\nrecently discovered;[1] and still more in the uncertainty of the\ntheories which were at first advanced to explain the problem of genius.\nThus Joly affirms in a too convenient formula that \u201cit is not even\nnecessary to refute the theory of insanity in genius;\u201d for, he says,\n\u201cstrength is not weakness, health is not disease, and for the rest the\ncases quoted in favour of these hypotheses are only particular\ncases.\u201d[2] But the physician knows that very often, in the delirious and\nepileptic, strength is precisely an index of disease. As to the second\nobjection, it falls to the ground as facts accumulate. It is certain\nthat there have been men of genius presenting a complete equilibrium of\nthe intellectual faculties; but they have presented defects of\naffectivity and feeling; though no one may have perceived it, or,\nrather, recorded it. Up to recent years, historians, being chroniclers\nrather than psychologists, very careful to transmit to us the adventures\nand pageantries of princes and peoples, and the wars which have so much\nimportance in the eyes of the multitude, have neglected everything which\nconcerns the psychology of thought. They have very seldom informed us\nconcerning the disorders and degenerative characters which exist in men\nof genius and their families; while vanity, which is extreme in men of\ngenius, has never allowed them, save in rare instances (such as Cardan,\nRousseau, J. S. Mill, Renan), to yield spontaneous revelations of\nthemselves. If Richelieu had not on one single occasion been caught in\nan epileptic fit, who could ever have guessed it? If it had not been for\nthe recent works of Berti and Mayor, who would have believed that Cavour\ntwice attempted to kill himself? If Taine had not been one of those rare\nwriters who understand what help psychiatry can give in the study of\nhistory, he would never have been able to surprise those characteristics\nwhich make Napoleon\u2019s moral insanity manifest to all. Carlyle\u2019s wife\nwrote the narration of her tortures; few wives do as much, and, to tell\nthe truth, few husbands are anxious to publish such narratives. Many\npersons still regard as an angelic being the celebrated painter\nAiwosowski, who succoured hundreds of poor persons and left his own wife\nand children to die of hunger.\n\nIt must be added that moral insanity and epilepsy which are so often\nfound in association with genius are among the forms of mental\nalienation which are most difficult to verify, so that they are often\ndenied, even during life, although quite evident to the alienist. There\nare still many estimable persons who doubt the insanity of King Ludwig\nof Bavaria, and even openly deny it.[3]\n\nThere are, also, no individual cases in nature; all particular cases are\nthe expression and effect of a law. And the fact, now unquestioned, that\ncertain great men of genius have been insane, permits us to presume the\nexistence of a lesser degree of psychosis in other men of genius.\n\nBut, adds Joly, genius is often precocious; as Raphael at fourteen years\nof age, Mozart at six, Michelangelo at sixteen; and sometimes it is\ntardy, with special characteristics, as in Alfieri. This is true;\nprecocious originality is one of the characteristics of genius; but\nprecisely because genius is a neurosis, an accidental circumstance may\nprovoke it even at a comparatively late age, and like every neurosis\nwhich depends on irritation of the cerebral cortex it may take on\ndifferent aspects, according to the spot attacked, while preserving the\nsame nature.\n\nHailes, in a much praised essay on genius in art, maintains that genius\nis a continuation of the conditions of ordinary life; thus, as we all\nwrite prose we must all have a little genius. But how then does it\nhappen, Bruneti\u00e8re rightly objects,[4] that one individual alone becomes\na great painter or a great poet? And how is it that so many philosophers\naffirm, and quite truly, that genius consists in an exaggerated\ndevelopment of one faculty at the expense of others?\n\nThe man of genius is a monster, say others. Very well, but even monsters\nfollow well-defined teratologic laws.\n\nBruneti\u00e8re remarks that there have been men of talent, like Addison and\nPope, who were lacking in genius; and men of genius, like Sterne, who\nwere lacking in talent. These two facts, however, are not contradictory;\nto be lacking in talent, or rather in good sense or common sense, is one\nof those characters of genius which witness to the presence of neurosis,\nand indicate that hypertrophy of certain psychic centres is compensated\nby the partial atrophy of other centres. As to the first assertion, it\nconfirms rather than destroys my conclusions. Certainly talent is not\ngenius, just as vice is not crime, but there is a transition from one to\nthe other in virtue of that law of continuity which may be observed in\nall natural phenomena. _Natura non facit saltus._\n\nI must confess here that very often in this book I have had to confound\ngenius with talent; not because they are not quite distinct, but because\nthe line that separates them, like that which separates vice from crime,\nis very difficult to define. A man of scientific genius, lacking in\neducation and opportunities--a Gorini, for example--will appear more\nsterile than a man of talent, who has been favoured by circumstances\nfrom the first.\n\nFor the rest--and this is the point which concerns us most--the morbid\neffects and analogies are the same in both, since the man of talent,\neven without genius, presents various slight but real abnormalities. A\nman of even ordinary talent may be so exhausted as to exhibit the\npathological central reactions of the most powerful genius, and to leave\ntraces of degeneration in his offspring; and, although it is rare, it is\nnot impossible for the man of talent to descend from the neurotic and\ninsane. This may easily be explained: talent, like genius, is\naccompanied by cortical excitation, only in a less degree and in a\nsmaller brain. The true normal man is not the man of letters or of\nlearning, but the man who works and eats--_fruges consumere natus_.\n\nBut our nature, it is customary to say, revolts against a conception\nwhich tends to lower the most sublime manifestation of humanity to the\nlevel of the sorrowfully degenerate, to idiocy and insanity. It is sad,\nI do not deny, but has not nature caused to grow from similar germs, and\non the same clod of earth, the nettle and the jasmine, the aconite and\nthe rose? The botanist cannot be blamed for these coincidences; and\nsince they exist it is not a crime that he should record them as he\nfinds them. Repugnance also is a sentiment, not a reason; and a\nsentiment, moreover, which has not been shared by the race generally,\nwho long ago reached conclusions--repugnant to the academic world, which\nsometimes closes its eyes in order not to see--entirely in harmony with\nthe results here presented. We may see this in the most ancient\netymologies; in Hebrew as well as in Sanscrit the lunatic is synonymous\nwith the prophet. We may see it, too, in proverbs: \u201c_I matti ed i\nfancialli indovinano_;\u201d \u201c_Kinder und Narren sprechen die Wahrheit_;\u201d\n\u201c_Un fol advise bien un sage_;\u201d \u201c_S\u00e6pe enim est morio valde opportune\nlocutus_.\u201d The lunatic, again, among barbarous people is feared and\nadored by the masses who often confide to him supreme authority.\n\nIn modern times the same conviction has been preserved, but in a form,\nit must be confessed, altogether disadvantageous to genius. Not only is\nfame (and until recent years even liberty), denied to men of genius\nduring their lives, but even the means of subsistence. After death they\nreceive monuments and rhetoric by way of compensation. And why is this?\nNeither the jealousy of rivals nor the envy of mediocre men is enough to\nexplain it. The reason is that if we leave out certain great statesmen\n(though there are exceptions--Bismarck, for example), men of genius are\nlacking in tact, in moderation, in the sense of practical life, in the\nvirtues which are alone recognized as real by the masses, and which\nalone are useful in social affairs. \u201c_Le bon sens vaut mieux que le\ng\u00e9nie_,\u201d says an old French adage. And as Mirabeau said, \u201cGood sense is\nthe absence of every strong passion, and only men of strong passions can\nbe great.\u201d Good sense travels on the well-worn paths; genius, never. And\nthat is why the crowd, not altogether without reason, is so ready to\ntreat great men as lunatics, while the lettered crowd cry out when--as I\nhave attempted to do here--this general opinion is attached to a theory.\n\nBy some of those persons who have too much good sense--and who do not\nknow that that destroys every great truth, because we reach truth more\nby remote paths than by smooth and ordinary roads--it has been objected:\n\u201cMany of these defects that you find in great men may be found also in\nthose who are not men of genius.\u201d This is very true, but it is by the\nquality and quantity that the abnormal character is marked; and, above\nall, by the contradiction with the whole of the other characters of\ntheir personality, that the abnormality appears. Cooks are vain, but in\nthose matters which refer to their occupation they are not so vain as to\nbelieve themselves gods. The nobleman will boast of descent from a\nmedi\u00e6val hero, but not of being a sculptor. We are all forgetful\nsometimes, but not so far forgetful that we cannot recall our own names\nwhile at the same time we have an extraordinary memory for our own\ndiscoveries. Many have said what Michelangelo said of monks, but they\nhave not afterwards spent large sums in fattening monasteries. In short,\nit is the doubling and contradiction of personality in genius which\nreveals the abnormality.\n\nIt has again been objected to me that these studies are deficient in\nutility. To this I might reply with Taine that it is not always\nnecessary that the true should be useful. Yet numerous practical\napplications arise out of these researches; they furnish us with\nexplanations of those strange religious insanities which become the\nnucleus of great historical events. The examination of the productions\nof the insane supply us with new sources of analysis and criticism for\nthe study of genius in art and literature; and, above all, these data\nbring an important element to the solution of penal questions, for they\noverthrow for ever that prejudice by virtue of which only those are\ndeclared insane, and therefore irresponsible, whose reason has entirely\ndeparted, a prejudice which has handed thousands of irresponsible\ncreatures to the executioner. They show us, lastly, that literary\nmadness is not only a curious psychiatric singularity, but a special\nform of insanity, which hides impulses the more dangerous, because not\neasy to perceive, a form of insanity, which, like religious insanity,\nmay be transformed into a historical event.\n\nC. LOMBROSO.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\nPART I.\n\n_THE CHARACTERISTICS OF GENIUS._\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\n.....PAGE\n\nHISTORY OF THE PROBLEM.....1-4\n\nAristotle--Plato--Democritus--Felix Plater--Pascal--Diderot--Modern\nwriters on genius.\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nGENIUS AND DEGENERATION.....5-37\n\nThe signs of degeneration--Height--Rickets--Pallor--Emaciation\n--Physiognomy--Cranium and Brain--Stammering--Lefthandedness\n--Sterility--Unlikeness to Parents--Precocity--Delayed\ndevelopment--Misoneism--Vagabondage--Unconsciousness--Instinctiveness\n--Somnambulism--The Inspiration of Genius--Contrast--Intermittence\n--Double Personality--Stupidity--Hyper\u00e6sthesia--Par\u00e6sthesia--Amnesia\n--Originality--Fondness for special words.\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nLATENT FORMS OF NEUROSIS AND INSANITY IN GENIUS.....38-65\n\nChorea and Epilepsy--Melancholy--Megalomania--_Folie du\ndoute_--Alcoholism--Hallucinations--Moral Insanity--Longevity.\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nGENIUS AND INSANITY.....66-99\n\nResemblance between genius and insanity--Men and women of genius who\nhave been insane--Montanus--Harrington--Haller--Schumann--G\u00e9rard de\nNerval--Baudelaire--Concato--Mainl\u00e4nder--Comte--Codazzi--Bolyai\n--Cardan--Tasso--Swift--Newton--Rousseau--Lenau--Sz\u00e9ch\u00e9nyi--Hoffmann\n--Foder\u00e0--Schopenhauer--Gogol.\n\n\nPART II.\n\n_THE CAUSES OF GENIUS._\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nMETEOROLOGICAL INFLUENCES ON GENIUS.....100-116\n\nThe influence of weather on the insane--Sensitiveness of men of genius\nto barometrical conditions--Sensitiveness to thermometrical conditions.\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nCLIMATIC INFLUENCES ON GENIUS.....117-132\n\nInfluence of great centres--Race and hot climate--The distribution of\ngreat masters--Orographic influences--Influence of healthy\nrace--Parallelism of high stature and genius--Explanations.\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nTHE INFLUENCE OF RACE AND HEREDITY ON GENIUS AND INSANITY.....133-150\n\nRace--Insanity--The influence of sex--The heredity of genius--Criminal\nand insane parentage and descent of genius--Age of parents--Conception.\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nTHE INFLUENCE OF DISEASE ON GENIUS.....151-152\n\nSpinal diseases--Fevers--Injuries to the head and their relation to\ngenius.\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nTHE INFLUENCE OF CIVILIZATION AND OF OPPORTUNITY.....153-160\n\nLarge Towns--Large Schools--Accidents--Misery--Power--Education.\n\n\nPART III.\n\n_GENIUS IN THE INSANE._\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nINSANE GENIUS IN LITERATURE.....161-178\n\nPeriodicals published in lunatic\nasylums--Synthesis--Passion--Atavism--Conclusion.\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nART IN THE INSANE.....179-208\n\nGeographical distribution--Profession--Influence of the special\nform of alienation--Originality--Eccentricity--Symbolism\n--Obscenity--Criminality and moral insanity--Uselessness--Insanity\nas a subject--Absurdity--Uniformity--Summary--Music among the insane.\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nLITERARY AND ARTISTIC MATTOIDS.....209-241\n\nDefinition--Physical and psychical characteristics--Their literary\nactivity--Examples--Lawsuit mania--Mattoids of genius--Bosisio--The\n_d\u00e9cadent_ poets--Verlaine--Mattoids in art.\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nPOLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS LUNATICS AND MATTOIDS.....242-313\n\nPart played by the insane in the progressive movements of\nhumanity--Examples--Probable causes--Religious epidemics of the Middle\nAges--Francis of Assisi--Luther--Savonarola--Cola da Rienzi\n--San Juan de Dios--Campanella--Prosper Enfantin--Lazzaretti\n--Passanante--Guiteau--South Americans.\n\n\nPART IV.\n\n_SYNTHESIS. THE DEGENERATIVE PSYCHOSIS OF GENIUS._\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nCHARACTERISTICS OF INSANE MEN OF GENIUS.....314-329\n\nCharacterlessness--Vanity--Precocity--Alcoholism--Vagabondage--\nVersatility--Originality--Style--Religious doubts--Sexual\nabnormalities--Egoism--Eccentricity--Inspiration.\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nANALOGY OF SANE TO INSANE GENIUS.....330-335\n\nWant of character--Pride--Precocity--Alcoholism--Degenerative\nsigns--Obsession--Men of genius in revolutions.\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nTHE EPILEPTOID NATURE OF GENIUS.....336-352\n\nEtiology--Symptoms--Confessions of men of genius--The life of a great\nepileptic--Napoleon--Saint Paul--The saints--Philanthropic hysteria.\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nSANE MEN OF GENIUS.....353-358\n\nTheir unperceived\ndefects--Richelieu--Sesostris--Foscolo--Michelangelo--Darwin.\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nCONCLUSIONS.....359-361\n\nAPPENDIX.....363-366\n\nINDEX.....367-370\n\n\n\n\nTHE MAN OF GENIUS.\n\n\n\n\nPART I.\n\n_THE CHARACTERISTICS OF GENIUS._\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nHISTORY OF THE PROBLEM.\n\n     Aristotle--Plato--Democritus--Felix Plater--Pascal--Diderot--Modern\n     writers on genius.\n\n\nIt is a sad mission to cut through and destroy with the scissors of\nanalysis the delicate and iridescent veils with which our proud\nmediocrity clothes itself. Very terrible is the religion of truth. The\nphysiologist is not afraid to reduce love to a play of stamens and\npistils, and thought to a molecular movement. Even genius, the one human\npower before which we may bow the knee without shame, has been classed\nby not a few alienists as on the confines of criminality, one of the\nteratologic forms of the human mind, a variety of insanity.\n\nThis impious profanation is not, however, altogether the work of\ndoctors, nor is it the fruit of modern scepticism. The great Aristotle,\nonce the father, and still the friend, of philosophers, observed that,\nunder the influence of congestion of the head, \u201cmany persons become\npoets, prophets, and sybils, and, like Marcus the Syracusan, are pretty\ngood poets while they are maniacal; but when cured can no longer write\nverse.\u201d[5] And again, \u201cMen illustrious in poetry, politics, and arts,\nhave often been melancholic and mad, like Ajax, or misanthropic, like\nBellerophon. Even in modern times such characters have been noted in\nSocrates, Empedocles, Plato, and in many others, especially poets.\u201d[6]\n\nIn the _Ph\u00e6do_, Plato affirms that \u201cdelirium is by no means an evil,\nbut, on the contrary, when it comes by the gift of the gods, a very\ngreat benefit. In delirium, the prophetesses of Delphi and Dodona\nperformed a thousand services for the citizens of Greece; while in cold\nblood they were of little use, or rather of none. It often happened\nthat, when the gods afflicted men with fatal epidemics, a sacred\ndelirium took possession of some mortal, and inspired him with a remedy\nfor those misfortunes. Another kind of delirium, that inspired by the\nMuses, when a simple and pure soul is excited to glorify with poetry the\ndeeds of heroes, serves for the instruction of future generations.\u201d\n\nDemocritus was more explicit, and would not believe that there could be\na good poet who was not out of his mind:--\n\n    \u201c_Excludit sanos Helicone poetas_\n     _Democritus._\u201d[7]\n\nIt was, evidently, the observation of these facts, wrongly interpreted\nand, according to a common habit, transformed into superstitions, which\ncaused ancient nations to venerate the insane as beings inspired from on\nhigh. We possess not only the witness of history to this effect, but\nalso that of the words _navi_ and _mesugan_ in Hebrew and _nigrata_ in\nSanscrit, in which the ideas of insanity and prophecy are confused and\nassimilated.\n\nFelix Plater affirmed that he had known persons who, although they\nexcelled in certain arts, were yet mad, and betrayed their infirmity by\na curious seeking for praise, and by strange and indecent acts. He had\nknown at Court an architect, a celebrated sculptor, and a distinguished\nmusician, who were mad.[8]\n\nPascal, later on, repeated that extreme intelligence was very near to\nextreme madness, and himself offered an example of it. Diderot wrote: \u201cI\nconjecture that these men of sombre and melancholy temperament only owed\nthat extraordinary and almost Divine penetration which they possessed at\nintervals, and which led them to ideas, sometimes so mad and sometimes\nso sublime, to a periodical derangement of the organism. They then\nbelieved themselves inspired, and were insane. Their attacks were\npreceded by a kind of brutish apathy, which they regarded as the natural\ncondition of fallen man. Lifted out of this lethargy by the tumult\nwithin them, they imagined that it was Divinity, which came down to\nvisit and exercise them.... Oh! how near are genius and madness! Those\nwhom heaven has branded for evil or for good are more or less subject to\nthese symptoms; they reveal them more or less frequently, more or less\nviolently. Men imprison them and chain them, or raise statues to\nthem.\u201d[9]\n\nMany examples of men who were at once mad and highly intelligent were\noffered by H\u00e9cart in his _Stultitiana, ou petite bibliographie des Fous\nde Valenciennes, par un homme en d\u00e9mence_; by Delepierre, an\nenthusiastic bibliophile, in his curious _Histoire litt\u00e9raire des Fous_\n(1860); by Forgues, in _Revue de Paris_ (1826); and by an anonymous\nwriter in _Sketches of Bedlam_ (London, 1873).\n\nOn the other hand, it was shown in L\u00e9lut\u2019s _D\u00e9mon de Socrate_ (1836) and\n_Amulette de Pascal_ (1846), in Verga\u2019s _Lipemania del Tasso_ (1850) and\nin my own _Pazzia di Cardano_ (1856), that there are men of genius who\nhave long been subject to hallucinations, and even to monomania. Other\nproofs, the more precious because impartial, were supplied by\nR\u00e9veill\u00e9-Parise, in his _Physiologie et Hygi\u00e8ne des hommes livr\u00e9s aux\ntravaux de l\u2019esprit_ (1856). Moreau (de Tours), who delighted in the\nleast verisimilar aspects of truth, in his solid monograph, _Psychologie\nMorbide_ (1859), and J. A. Schilling, in his _Psychiatrische Briefe_\n(1863), endeavoured to show, by researches that were very copious\nalthough not very strict in method, that genius is always a neurosis,\nand often a true insanity. Hagen has more recently sought to prove a\nthesis which is partly the same in his _Verwandtschaft des Genies mit\ndem Irrsinn_ (Berlin, 1877), and, indirectly, J\u00fcrgen-Meyer, in his\nadmirable monograph, _Genie und Talent_ (from the _Zeitschrift f\u00fcr\nV\u00f6lker-psychologie_, 1879). These two writers have tried to explain the\nphysiology of genius, and, singularly, they have reached conclusions\nwhich were reached, more by intuition than through close observation, by\nan Italian Jesuit, now quite forgotten--Bettinelli--in his book, _Dell\u2019\nentusiasmo nelle belle Arti_ (Milan, 1769).\n\nRadestock, in his _Genie und Wahnsinn_ (Breslau, 1884), added little to\nthe solution of the problem, as he merely copied, for the most part,\nfrom his predecessors, without profiting greatly by their work.\n\nAmong recent writers, I note Tarnowski and Tchukinova, who to the\nRussian translation of my book (St. Petersburg, 1885) have added many\nnew documents from the history of Russian literature; Maxime du Camp,\nwho in his curious _Souvenirs Litt\u00e9raires_ (1887), has shown how many\nmodern French writers have concealed within them the sorrowful seed of\ninsanity; Ramos Mejia, who, in his _Neurosis de los Hombres Celebres de\nla Historia Argentina_ (Buenos Ayres, 1885), shows how nearly all the\ngreat men of the South American Republics were inebriate, neurotic, or\ninsane; A. Tebaldi, who, in his book _Ragione e Pazzia_ (Milan, 1884),\nbrings fresh documents to the literature of insanity; and, finally, that\nacute thinker and brilliant writer, Pisani-Dossi, who has given us a\ncurious study,[10] which is a monograph on madness in art; as in my _Tre\nTribuni_ (1889) I have attempted to do with the insane and semi-insane\nin their relation to politics.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nGENIUS AND DEGENERATION.\n\n     The signs of\n     degeneration--Height--Rickets--Pallor--Emaciation--Physiognomy--Cranium\n     and Brain--Stammering--Lefthandedness--Sterility--Unlikeness to\n     Parents--Precocity--Delayed\n     development--Misoneism--Vagabondage--Unconsciousness--Instinctiveness--Somnambulism--The\n     Inspiration of Genius--Contrast--Intermittence--Double\n     Personality--Stupidity--Hyper\u00e6sthesia--Par\u00e6sthesia--Amnesia--Originality--Fondness\n     for special words.\n\n\nThe paradox that confounds genius with neurosis, however cruel and sad\nit may seem, is found to be not devoid of solid foundation when examined\nfrom various points of view which have escaped even recent observers.\n\nA theory, which has for some years flourished in the psychiatric world,\nadmits that a large proportion of mental and physical affections are the\nresult of degeneration, of the action, that is, of heredity in the\nchildren of the inebriate, the syphilitic, the insane, the consumptive,\n&c.; or of accidental causes, such as lesions of the head or the action\nof mercury, which profoundly change the tissues, perpetuate neuroses or\nother diseases in the patient, and, which is worse, aggravate them in\nhis descendants, until the march of degeneration, constantly growing\nmore rapid and fatal, is only stopped by complete idiocy or sterility.\n\nAlienists have noted certain characters which very frequently, though\nnot constantly, accompany these fatal degenerations. Such are, on the\nmoral side, apathy, loss of moral sense, frequent tendencies to\nimpulsiveness or doubt, psychical inequalities owing to the excess of\nsome faculty (memory, \u00e6sthetic taste, &c.) or defect of other qualities\n(calculation, for example), exaggerated mutism or verbosity, morbid\nvanity, excessive originality, and excessive pre-occupation with self,\nthe tendency to put mystical interpretations on the simplest facts, the\nabuse of symbolism and of special words which are used as an almost\nexclusive mode of expression. Such, on the physical side, are prominent\nears, deficiency of beard, irregularity of teeth, excessive asymmetry of\nface and head, which may be very large or very small, sexual precocity,\nsmallness or disproportion of the body, lefthandedness, stammering,\nrickets, phthisis, excessive fecundity, neutralized afterwards by\nabortions or complete sterility, with constant aggravation of\nabnormalities in the children.[11]\n\nWithout doubt many alienists have here fallen into exaggerations,\nespecially when they have sought to deduce degeneration from a single\nfact. But, taken on the whole, the theory is irrefutable; every day\nbrings fresh applications and confirmations. Among the most curious are\nthose supplied by recent studies on genius. The signs of degeneration in\nmen of genius they show are sometimes more numerous than in the insane.\nLet us examine them.\n\n_Height._--First of all it is necessary to remark the frequency of\nphysical signs of degeneration, only masqued by the vivacity of the\ncountenance and the prestige of reputation, which distracts us from\ngiving them due importance.\n\nThe simplest of these, which struck our ancestors and has passed into a\nproverb, is the smallness of the body.\n\nFamous for short stature as well as for genius were: Horace\n(_lepidissimum_ homunculum _dicebat Augustus_), Philop\u0153men, Narses,\nAlexander (_Magnus Alexander corpore parvus erat_), Aristotle, Plato,\nEpicurus, Chrysippus, Laertes, Archimedes, Diogenes, Attila, Epictetus,\nwho was accustomed to say, \u201cWho am I? A little man.\u201d Among moderns one\nmay name, Erasmus, Socinus, Linn\u00e6us, Lipsius, Gibbon, Spinoza, Ha\u00fcy,\nMontaigne, Mezeray, Lalande, Gray, John Hunter (5ft. 2in.), Mozart,\nBeethoven, Goldsmith, Hogarth, Thomas Moore, Thomas Campbell,\nWilberforce, Heine, Meissonnier, Charles Lamb, Beccaria, Maria\nEdgeworth, Balzac, De Quincey, William Blake (who was scarcely five\nfeet in height), Browning, Ibsen, George Eliot, Thiers, Mrs. Browning,\nLouis Blanc, Mendelssohn, Swinburne, Van Does (called the Drum, because\nhe was not any taller than a drum), Peter van Laer (called the Puppet).\nLulli, Pomponazzi, Baldini, were very short; so also were Nicholas\nPiccinini, the philosopher Dati, and Baldo, who replied to the sarcasm\nof Bartholo, \u201c_Minuit pr\u00e6sentia fama_,\u201d with the words, \u201c_Augebit c\u00e6tera\nvirtus_;\u201d and again, Marsilio Ficino, of whom it was said, \u201c_Vix ad\nlumbos viri stabat_.\u201d Albertus Magnus was of such small size that the\nPope, having allowed him to kiss his foot, commanded him to stand up,\nunder the impression that he was still kneeling. When the coffin of St.\nFrancis Xavier was opened at Goa in 1890, the body was found to be only\nfour and a half feet in length.\n\nAmong great men of tall stature I only know Volta, Goethe, Petrarch,\nSchiller, D\u2019Azeglio, Helmholtz, Foscolo, Charlemagne, Bismarck, Moltke,\nMonti, Mirabeau, Dumas _p\u00e8re_, Schopenhauer, Lamartine, Voltaire, Peter\nthe Great, Washington, Dr. Johnson, Sterne, Arago, Flaubert, Carlyle,\nTourgueneff, Tennyson, Whitman.\n\n_Rickets._--Agesilaus, Tyrt\u00e6us, \u00c6sop, Giotto, Aristomenes, Crates,\nGalba, Brunelleschi, Magliabecchi, Parini, Scarron, Pope, Leopardi,\nTalleyrand, Scott, Owen, Gibbon, Byron, Dati, Baldini, Moses\nMendelssohn, Flaxman, Hooke, were all either rachitic, lame,\nhunch-backed, or club-footed.\n\n_Pallor._--This has been called the colour of great men; \u201c_Pulchrum\nsublimium virorum florem_\u201d (S. Gregory, _Orationes XIV._). It was\nascertained by Marro[12] that this is one of the most frequent signs of\ndegeneration in the morally insane.\n\n_Emaciation._--The law of the conservation of energy which rules the\nwhole organic world, explains to us other frequent abnormalities, such\nas precocious greyness and baldness, leanness of the body, and weakness\nof sexual and muscular activity, which characterize the insane, and are\nalso frequently found among great thinkers. Lecamus[13] has said that\nthe greatest geniuses have the slenderest bodies. C\u00e6sar feared the lean\nface of Cassius. Demosthenes, Aristotle, Cicero, Giotto, St. Bernard,\nErasmus, Salmasius, Kepler, Sterne, Walter Scott, John Howard,\nD\u2019Alembert, F\u00e9nelon, Boileau, Milton, Pascal, Napoleon, were all\nextremely thin in the flower of their age.\n\nOthers were weak and sickly in childhood; such were Demosthenes, Bacon,\nDescartes, Newton, Locke, Adam Smith, Boyle, Pope, Flaxman, Nelson,\nHaller, K\u00f6rner, Pascal, Wren, Alfieri, Renan.\n\nS\u00e9gur wrote of Voltaire that his leanness recalled his labours, and that\nhis slight bent body was only a thin, transparent veil, through which\none seemed to see his soul and genius. Lamennais was \u201ca small, almost\nimperceptible man, or rather a flame chased from one point of the room\nto the other by the breath of his own restlessness.\u201d[14]\n\n_Physiognomy._--Mind, a celebrated painter of cats, had a cretin-like\nphysiognomy. So also had Socrates, Skoda, Rembrandt, Dostoieffsky,\nMagliabecchi, Pope, Carlyle, Darwin, and, among modern Italians,\nSchiaparelli, who holds so high a rank in mathematics.\n\n_Cranium and Brain._--Lesions of the head and brain are very frequent\namong men of genius. The celebrated Australian novelist, Marcus Clarke,\nwhen a child, received a blow from a horse\u2019s hoof which crushed his\nskull.[15] The same is told of Vico, Gratry, Clement VI., Malebranche,\nand Cornelius, hence called _a Lapide_. The last three are said to have\nacquired their genius as a result of the accident, having been\nunintelligent before. Mention should also be made of the parietal\nfracture in Fusinieri\u2019s skull;[16] of the cranial asymmetry of Pericles,\nwho was on this account surnamed Squill-head (\u03c3\u03ba\u03b9\u03bd\u03bf\u03ba\u1f11\u03c6\u03b1\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2) by\nthe Greek comic writers[17]; of Romagnosi, of Bichat, of Kant,[18] of\nChenevix,[19] of Dante, who presented an abnormal development of the\nleft parietal bone, and two osteomata on the frontal bone; the\nplagiocephaly of Brunacci and of Machiavelli; the\n\n[Illustration:\n\nFigs. 1-3. Kant\u2019s Skull.\n\n \u201c      4. Volta\u2019s Skull.\n\nFigs. 5-6. Fusinieri\u2019s Skull.\n\n \u201c    7-8. Foscolo\u2019s Skull.]\n\nextreme prognathism of Foscolo (68\u00b0) and his low cephalic-spinal and\ncephalic-orbital index;[20] the ultra-dolichocephaly of Fusinieri (index\n74), contrasting with the ultra-brachycephaly which is characteristic of\nthe Venetians (82 to 84); the Neanderthaloid skull of Robert Bruce;[21]\nof Kay Lye,[22] of San Marsay (index 69), and the ultra-dolichocephaly\nof O\u2019Connell (index 73), which contrasts with the mesocephaly of the\nIrish; the median occipital fossa of Scarpa;[23] the transverse\noccipital suture of Kant, his ultra-brachycephaly (88\u00b75), platycephaly\n(index of height 71\u00b71), the disproportion between the superior portion\nof his occipital bone, more developed by half, and the inferior or\ncerebellar portion. It is the same with the smallness of the frontal\narch compared to the parietal.\n\nIn Volta\u2019s skull[24] I have noted several characters which\nanthropologists consider to belong to the lower races, such as\nprominence of the styloid apophyses, simplicity of the coronal suture,\ntraces of the median frontal suture, obtuse facial angle (73\u00b0), but\nespecially the remarkable cranial sclerosis, which at places attains a\nthickness of 16 millemetres; hence the great weight of the skull (753\ngrammes).\n\nThe researches of other investigators have shown that Manzoni, Petrarch,\nand Fusinieri had receding foreheads; in Byron, Massacra (at the age of\n32), Humboldt, Meckel,[25] Foscolo, Ximenes, and Donizetti there was\nsolidification of the sutures; submicrocephaly in Rasori, Descartes,\nFoscolo, Tissot, Guido Reni, Hoffmann, and Schumann; sclerosis in\nDonizetti and Tiedemann who, moreover, presented a bony crest between\nthe sphenoid and the basilar apophysis; hydrocephalus in Milton,\nLinn\u00e6us, Cuvier, Gibbon, &c.\n\nThe capacity of the skull in men of genius, as is natural, is above the\naverage, by which it approaches what is found in insanity. (De\nQuatrefages noted that the greatest degree of macrocephaly was found in\na lunatic, the next in a man of genius.) There are numerous exceptions\nin which it descends below the ordinary average.\n\nIt is certain that in Italy, Volta (1,860 c.cm.), Petrarch (1,602\nc.cm.), Bordoni (1,681 c.cm.), Brunacci (1,701 c.cm.), St. Ambrose\n(1,792 c.cm.), and Fusinieri (1,604 c.cm.), all presented great cranial\ncapacity. The same character is found to a still greater degree in Kant\n(1,740 c.cm.), Thackeray (1,660 c.cm.), Cuvier (1,830 c.cm.), and\nTourgueneff (2,012 c.cm.).\n\nLe Bon studied twenty-six skulls of French men of genius, among whom\nwere Boileau, Descartes, and Jourdan.[26] He found that the most\ncelebrated had an average capacity of 1,732 cubic centimetres; while the\nancient Parisians offered only 1,559 c.cm. Among the Parisians of to-day\nscarcely 12 per cent. exceed 1,700 c.cm., a figure surpassed by 73 per\ncent. of the celebrated men.\n\nBut sub-microcephalic skulls may also be found in men of genius. Wagner\nand Bischoff,[27] examining twelve brains of celebrated Germans, found\nthe capacity very great in eight, very small in four. The latter was the\ncase with Liebig, D\u00f6llinger, Hausmann, in whose favour advanced age may\nbe advanced as an excuse; but this reason does not exist for Guido Reni,\nGambetta, Harless, Foscolo (1426), Dante (1493), Hermann (1358), Lasker\n(1300). Shelley\u2019s head was remarkably small.\n\nIn the face of all these facts I shall not be taxed with temerity if I\nconclude that, as genius is often expiated by inferiority in some\npsychic functions, it is often associated with anomalies in that organ\nwhich is the source of its glory.\n\nReference should here be made to the ventricular dropsy in Rousseau\u2019s\nbrain,[28] to the meningitis of Grossi, of Donizetti, and of Schumann,\nto the cerebral \u0153dema of Liebig and of Tiedemann. In the last-named,\nbesides remarkable thickness of the skull, especially at the forehead,\nBischoff noted adherence of the _dura mater_ to the bone, thickening of\nthe arachnoid and atrophy of the brain. In the physician Fuchs, Wagner\nfound the fissure of Rolando interrupted by a superficial convolution,\nan anomaly which Giacomini found only once in 356 cases, and Heschl once\nin 632.[29] Pascal\u2019s brain showed grave lesions of the cerebral\nhemispheres. It has recently been discovered that Cuvier\u2019s voluminous\nbrain was affected by dropsy; in Lasker\u2019s there was softening of the\ncorpora striata, pachymeningitis, h\u00e6morrhage, and endarteritis deformans\nof the artery of the fissure of Sylvius.[30]\n\nIn eighteen brains of German men of science Bischoff and R\u00fcdinger found\ncongenital anomalies of the cerebral convolutions, especially of the\nparietal.[31] In the brains of W\u00fclfert and Huber, the third left\nfrontal convolution was greatly developed with numerous meanderings. In\nGambetta this exaggeration became a real doubling; and the right\nquadrilateral lobule is divided into two parts by a furrow which starts\nfrom the occipital fissure; of these two parts the inferior is\nsubdivided by an incision with numerous branches, arranged in the form\nof stars, and the occipital lobe is small, especially on the right.[32]\n\n\u201cThe comparative study of these brains,\u201d writes Herv\u00e9,[33] \u201cshows that\nindividual variations of the cerebral convolutions are more numerous and\nmore marked in men of genius than in others. This is especially the case\nin regard to the third frontal convolution which is not only more\nvariable in men of genius, but also more complex, especially on one\nside, while in ordinary persons it is very simple both on the left and\non the right. Without doubt the individual arrangements which may be\npresented by the brains of men of remarkable intelligence may also be\nfound in ordinary brains, but only in rare exceptions.\u201d\n\nI refer those who wish to form an idea of the development reached by\nBroca\u2019s centre in some of the brains of the Munich collection to\nR\u00fcdinger\u2019s monograph, and to the beautiful plates which accompany it.\nOne remarks especially the enormous size and the numerous superficial\nfolds at the foot of the left convolution in the jurist W\u00fclfert, who was\nremarkable among other qualities for his great oratorical talent. On the\nother hand, the convolution is much reduced and very simple on the left,\nmuch developed in all its parts on the right, in the brain of the\npathologist Buhl, a professor whose speech was clear and facile, but who\nwas left-handed, or at all events ambidextrous. To these facts others\nmay be added, showing the morphological complexity of Broca\u2019s\nconvolution in distinguished men; in the brains, for instance, of\nvarious men of science, described and figured by R. Wagner.[34] Among\nthese was the illustrious geometrician, Gauss: compared with Gauss\u2019s\nbrain that of an artisan called\n\n[Illustration:\n\nFig. 1. Gauss\u2019s Brain.\n\n \u201c   2. Frontal Lobe of same.\n\n \u201c   3. Brain of a German Workman.\n\nFig. 4. Frontal Lobe of same.\n\n \u201c   5. Dirichlet\u2019s Brain.\n\n \u201c   6. Hermann\u2019s Brain.]\n\nKrebs was much less complicated, and notably narrower in the frontal\nregion. The frontal convolutions were also inferior in development to\nthose of Gauss; and the anterior lobes were voluminous in another\ncelebrated mathematician, Professor De Morgan, whose brain is in\nBastian\u2019s possession.[35]\n\n_Stammering._--Men of genius frequently stammer. I will mention:\nAristotle, \u00c6sop, Demosthenes, Alcibiades, Cato of Utica, Virgil,\nManzoni, Erasmus, Malherbe, C. Lamb, Turenne, Erasmus and Charles\nDarwin, Moses Mendelssohn, Charles V., Romiti, Cardan, Tartaglia.\n\n_Lefthandedness._--Many have been left-handed. Such were: Tiberius,\nSebastian del Piombo, Michelangelo, Fl\u00e9chier, Nigra, Buhl, Raphael of\nMontelupo, Bertillon. Leonardo da Vinci sketched rapidly with his left\nhand any figures which struck him, and only employed the right hand for\nthose which were the mature result of his contemplation; for this reason\nhis friends were persuaded that he only wrote with the left hand.[36]\nMancinism or leftsidedness is to-day regarded as a character of atavism\nand degeneration.[37]\n\n_Sterility._--Many great men have remained bachelors; others, although\nmarried, have had no children. \u201cThe noblest works and foundations,\u201d said\nBacon,[38] \u201chave proceeded from childless men, which have sought to\nexpress the images of their minds, where those of their bodies have\nfailed. So the care of posterity is most in them that have no\nposterity.\u201d And La Bruy\u00e8re said, \u201cThese men have neither ancestors nor\ndescendants; they themselves form their entire posterity.\u201d\n\nCroker, in his edition of _Boswell_, remarks that all the great English\npoets had no posterity. He names Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Milton, Otway,\nDryden, Rowe, Addison, Pope, Swift, Gay, Johnson, Goldsmith, Cowper.\nHobbes, Camden, and many others, avoided marriage in order to have more\ntime to devote to study. Michelangelo said, \u201cI have more than enough of\na wife in my art.\u201d Among celibates may be mentioned also: Kant, Newton,\nPitt, Fox, Fontenelle, Beethoven, Gassendi, Galileo, Descartes, Locke,\nSpinoza, Bayle, Leibnitz, Malebranche, Gray, Dalton, Hume, Gibbon,\nMacaulay, Lamb, Bentham, Leonardo da Vinci, Copernicus, Reynolds,\nHandel, Mendelssohn, Meyerbeer, Schopenhauer, Camo\u00ebns, Voltaire,\nChateaubriand, Flaubert, Foscolo, Alfieri, Cavour, Pellico, Mazzini,\nAleardi, Guerrazzi. And among women: Florence Nightingale, Catherine\nStanley, Gaetana Agnesi (the mathematician), and Luigia Laura Bassi. A\nvery large number of married men of genius have not been happy in\nmarriage: Shakespeare, Dante, Marzolo, Byron, Coleridge, Addison,\nLandor, Carlyle, Ary Scheffer, Rovani, A. Comte, Haydn, Milton, Sterne,\nDickens, &c. St. Paul boasted of his absolute continence; Cavendish\naltogether lacked the sexual instinct, and had a morbid antipathy to\nwomen. Flaubert wrote to George Sand: \u201cThe muse, however intractable,\ngives fewer sorrows than woman. I cannot reconcile one with the other.\nOne must choose.\u201d[39] Adam Smith said he reserved his gallantry for his\nbooks. Chamfort, the misanthrope, wrote: \u201cIf men followed the guidance\nof reason no one would marry; for my own part, I will have nothing to do\nwith it, lest I should have a son like myself.\u201d A French poet has said:\n\n    \u201c_Les grands esprits, d\u2019ailleurs tr\u00e8s-estimables,_\n     _Ont tr\u00e8s peu de talent pour former leurs semblables._\u201d[40]\n\n_Unlikeness to Parents._--Nearly all men of genius have differed as much\nfrom their fathers as from their mothers (Foscolo, Michelangelo, Giotto,\nHaydn, &c.). That is one of the marks of degeneration. For this reason\none notes physical resemblances between men of genius belonging to very\ndifferent races and epochs; for example, Julius C\u00e6sar, Napoleon, and\nGiovanni of the Black Bands; or Casti, Sterne, and Voltaire. They often\ndiffer from their national type. They differ by the possession of noble\nand almost superhuman characters (elevation of the forehead, notable\ndevelopment of the nose and of the head, great vivacity of the eyes);\nwhile the cretin, the criminal, and often the lunatic, differ by the\npossession of ignoble features: Humboldt, Virchow, Bismarck, Helmholtz,\nand Holtzendorf, do not show a German physiognomy. Byron was English\nneither in his face nor in his character; Manin did not show the\nVenetian type; Alfieri and d\u2019Azeglio had neither the Piedmontese\ncharacter nor face. Carducci\u2019s face is not Italian. Nevertheless, one\nfinds very notable and frequent exceptions. Michelangelo, Leonardo da\nVinci, Raphael, and Cellini, presented the Italian type.\n\n_Precocity._--Another character common to genius and to insanity,\nespecially moral insanity, is precocity. Dante, when nine years of age,\nwrote a sonnet to Beatrice; Tasso wrote verses at ten. Pascal and Comte\nwere great thinkers at the age of thirteen, Fornier at fifteen, Niebuhr\nat seven, Jonathan Edwards at twelve, Michelangelo at nineteen,\nGassendi, the Little Doctor, at four, Bossuet at twelve, and Voltaire at\nthirteen. Pico de la Mirandola knew Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Chaldee, and\nArabic, in his childhood; Goethe wrote a story in seven languages when\nhe was scarcely ten; Wieland knew Latin at seven, meditated an epic poem\nat thirteen, and at sixteen published his poem, _Die Vollkommenste\nWelt_. Lopez de la Vega composed his first verses at twelve, Calderon at\nthirteen. Kotzebue was trying to write comedies at seven, and at\neighteen his first tragedy was acted. Schiller was only nineteen when\nhis epoch-making _R\u00e4uber_ appeared. Victor Hugo composed _Irtam\u00e8ne_ at\nfifteen, and at twenty had already published _Han d\u2019Islande_,\n_Bug-Jargal_, and the first volume of _Odes et Ballades_; Lamennais at\nsixteen dictated the _Paroles d\u2019un Croyant_. Pope wrote his ode to\n_Solitude_ at twelve and his _Pastorals_ at sixteen. Byron wrote verses\nat twelve, and at eighteen published his _Hours of Idleness_. Moore\ntranslated _Anacreon_ at thirteen. Meyerbeer at five played excellently\non the piano. Claude Joseph Vernet drew very well at four, and at twenty\nwas already a celebrated painter. At thirteen Wren invented an\nastronomical instrument and offered it to his father with a Latin\ndedication. Ascoli at fifteen published a book on the relation of the\ndialects of Wallachia and Friuli. Metastasio improvised at ten; Ennius\nQuirinus Visconti excited the admiration of all at sixteen months, and\npreached when six years old. At fifteen F\u00e9nelon preached at Paris before\na select audience; Wetton at five could read and translate Latin, Greek,\nand Hebrew, and at ten knew Chaldee, Syriac, and Arabic. Mirabeau\npreached at three and published books at ten. Handel composed a mass at\nthirteen, at seventeen _Corinda_ and _Nero_, and at nineteen was\ndirector of the opera at Hamburg. Raphael was famous at fourteen. Restif\nde la Bretonne had already read much at four; at eleven he had seduced\nyoung girls, and at fourteen had composed a poem on his first twelve\nmistresses. Eichorn, Mozart, and Eybler gave concerts at six. At\nthirteen Beethoven composed three sonatas. Weber was only fourteen when\nhis first opera, _Das Waldm\u00e4dchen_, was represented. Cherubini at\nthirteen wrote a mass which filled his fellow-citizens with enthusiasm.\nBacon conceived the _Novum Organum_ at fifteen. Charles XII. manifested\nhis great designs at the age of eighteen.[41]\n\nThis precocity is morbid and atavistic; it may be observed among all\nsavages. The proverb, \u201cA man who has genius at five is mad at fifteen\u201d\nis often verified in asylums.[42] The children of the insane are often\nprecocious. Savage knew an insane woman whose children could play\nclassical music before the age of six, and other children who at a\ntender age displayed the passions of grown men. Among the children of\nthe insane are often revealed aptitudes and tastes--chiefly for music,\nthe arts, and mathematics--which are not usually found in other\nchildren.\n\n_Delayed Development._--Delay in the development of genius may be\nexplained, as Beard remarks, by the absence of circumstances favourable\nto its blossoming, and by the ignorance of teachers and parents who see\nmental obtusity, or even idiocy, where there is only the distraction or\namnesia of genius. Many children who become great men have been\nregarded at school as bad, wild, or silly; but their intelligence\nappeared as soon as the occasion offered, or when they found the true\npath of their genius. It was thus with Thiers, Pestalozzi, Wellington,\nDu Guesclin, Goldsmith, Burns, Balzac, Fresnel, Dumas _p\u00e8re_, Humboldt,\nSheridan, Boccaccio, Pierre Thomas, Linn\u00e6us, Volta, Alfieri. Thus\nNewton, meditating on the problems of Kepler, often forgot the orders\nand commissions given him by his mother; and while he was the last in\nhis class he was very clever in making mechanical playthings. Walter\nScott, who also showed badly at school, was a wonderful story-teller.\nKlaproth, the celebrated Orientalist, when following the courses at\nBerlin University, was considered a backward student. In examination\nonce a professor said to him: \u201cBut you know nothing, sir!\u201d \u201cExcuse me,\u201d\nhe replied, \u201cI know Chinese.\u201d It was found that he had learnt this\ndifficult language alone, almost in secret. Gustave Flaubert \u201cwas the\nvery opposite of a phenomenal child. It was only with extreme difficulty\nthat he succeeded in learning to read. His mind, however, was already\nworking, for he composed little plays which he could not write, but\nwhich he represented alone, playing the different personages, and\nimprovising long dialogues.\u201d[43] Domenichino, whom his comrades called\nthe great bullock, when accused of being slow and not learning so fast\nas the other pupils, replied: \u201cIt is because I work in myself.\u201d\n\nSometimes children have only made progress when abandoned to their own\nimpulses. Thus Cabanis, although intelligent, was regarded at school as\nobstinate and idle, and was sent home. His father then decided to risk\nan experiment. He allowed his son, at fourteen years of age, to study\naccording to his own taste. The experiment succeeded completely.\n\n_Misoneism._--The men who create new worlds are as much enemies of\nnovelty as ordinary persons and children. They display extraordinary\nenergy in rejecting the discoveries of others; whether it is that the\nsaturation, so to say, of their brains prevents any new absorption, or\nthat they have acquired a special sensibility, alert only to their own\nideas, and refractory to the ideas of others. Thus Schopenhauer, who was\na great rebel in philosophy, has nothing but words of pity and contempt\nfor political revolutionaries; and he bequeathed his fortune to men who\nhad contributed to repress by arms the noble political aspirations of\n1848. Frederick II., who inaugurated German politics, and wished to\nfoster a national art and literature, did not suspect the worth of\nHerder, of Klopstock, of Lessing, of Goethe;[44] he disliked changing\nhis coats so much that he had only two or three during his life. The\nsame may be said of Napoleon and his hats. Rossini could never travel by\nrail; when a friend attempted to accustom him to the train he fell down\nfainting, remarking afterwards: \u201cIf I was not like that I should never\nhave written the _Barbiere_.\u201d Napoleon rejected steam, and Richelieu\nsent Salomon de Caus, its first inventor, to the Bic\u00eatre. Bacon laughed\nat Gilbert and Copernicus; he did not believe in the application of\ninstruments, or even of mathematics, to the exact sciences. Baudelaire\nand Nodier detested freethinkers.[45] Laplace denied the fall of\nmeteorites, for, he said, with an argument much approved by the\nAcademicians, how can stones fall from the sky when there are none\nthere? Biot denied the undulatory theory. Voltaire denied fossils.\nDarwin did not believe in the stone age nor in hypnotism.[46] Robin\nlaughed at the Darwinian theory.\n\n_Vagabondage._--Love of wandering is frequent among men of genius. I\nwill mention only Heine, Alfieri, Byron, Giordano Bruno, Leopardi,\nTasso, Goldsmith, Sterne, Gautier, Musset, Lenau. \u201cMy father left me his\nwandering genius as a heritage,\u201d wrote Foscolo. H\u00f6lderlin, after his\nmuch loved wife had entered a convent, wandered for forty years without\nsettling down anywhere. Every one knows of the constant journeys of\nPetrarch, of Paisiello, of Lavoisier, of Cellini, of Cervantes, at a\ntime when travelling was beset by difficulties and dangers. Meyerbeer\ntravelled for thirty years, composing his operas in the train. Wagner\ntravelled on foot from Riga to Paris. One knows that sometimes, at the\nUniversities, professors are seized by the desire of change, and to\nsatisfy it forget all their personal interests.\n\n_Unconsciousness and Instinctiveness._--The coincidence of genius and\ninsanity enables us to understand the astonishing unconsciousness,\ninstantaneousness and intermittence of the creations of genius, whence\nits great resemblance to epilepsy, the importance of which we shall see\nlater, and whence also a distinction between genius and talent.\n\u201cTalent,\u201d says J\u00fcrgen-Meyer,[47] \u201cknows itself; it knows how and why it\nhas reached a given theory; it is not so with genius, which is ignorant\nof the how and the why. Nothing is so involuntary as the conception of\ngenius.\u201d \u201cOne of the characters of genius,\u201d writes Hagen, \u201cis\nirresistible impulsion. As instinct compels the animal to accomplish\ncertain acts, even at the risk of life, so genius, when it is dominated\nby an idea is incapable of abandoning itself to any other thought.\nNapoleon and Alexander conquered, not from love of glory, but in\nobedience to an all-powerful instinct; so scientific genius has no rest;\nits activity may appear to be the result of a voluntary effort, but it\nis not so. Genius creates, not because it wishes to, but because it must\ncreate.\u201d And Paul Richter writes: \u201cThe man of genius is in many respects\na real somnambulist. In his lucid dream he sees farther than when awake,\nand reaches the heights of truth; when the world of imagination is taken\naway from him he is suddenly precipitated into reality.\u201d[48]\n\nHaydn attributed the conception of the _Creation_ to a mysterious grace\nfrom on high: \u201cWhen my work does not advance,\u201d he said, \u201cI retire into\nthe oratory with my rosary and say an _Ave_; immediately ideas come to\nme.\u201d When our Milli produces, almost without knowing it, one of her\nmarvellous poems, she is agitated, cries, sings, takes long walks, and\nalmost becomes the victim of an epileptic attack.\n\nMany men of genius who have studied themselves, and who have spoken of\ntheir inspiration, have described it as a sweet and seductive fever,\nduring which their thought has become rapidly and involuntarily\nfruitful, and has burst forth like the flame of a lighted torch. Such is\nthe thought that Dante has engraved in three wonderful lines:--\n\n          \u201c_I\u2019 mi son un che, quando_\n    _Amore spira, noto ed in quel modo_\n    _Che detta dentro vo significando._\u201d[49]\n\nNapoleon said that the fate of battles was the result of an instant, of\na latent thought; the decisive moment appeared; the spark burst forth,\nand one was victorious. (Moreau.) Kuh\u2019s most beautiful poems, wrote\nBauer, were dictated in a state between insanity and reason; at the\nmoment when his sublime thoughts came to him he was incapable of simple\nreasoning. Foscolo tells us in his _Epistolario_, the finest monument of\nhis great soul, that writing depends on a certain amiable fever of the\nmind, and cannot be had at will: \u201cI write letters, not for my country,\nnor for fame, but for the secret joy which arises from the exercise of\nour faculties; they have need of movement, as our legs of walking.\u201d\nMozart confessed that musical ideas were aroused in him, even apart from\nhis will, like dreams. Hoffmann often said to his friends, \u201cWhen I\ncompose I sit down to the piano, shut my eyes, and play what I\nhear.\u201d[50] Lamartine often said, \u201cIt is not I who think; my ideas think\nfor me.\u201d[51] Alfieri, who compared himself to a barometer on account of\nthe continual changes in his poetic power, produced by change of season,\nhad not the strength in September to resist a new, or rather, renewed,\nimpulse which he had felt for several days; he declared himself\nvanquished, and wrote six comedies. In Alfieri, Goethe, and Ariosto\ncreation was instantaneous, often even being produced on awaking.[52]\n\nThis domination of genius by the unconscious has been remarked for many\ncenturies. Socrates said that poets create, not by virtue of inventive\nscience, but, thanks to a very certain natural instinct, just as\ndiviners predict, saying beautiful things, but not having consciousness\nof what they say.[53] \u201cAll the manifestations of genius,\u201d wrote Voltaire\nto Diderot, \u201care the effects of instinct. All the philosophers of the\nworld put together would not be able to produce Quinault\u2019s _Armide_, or\nthe _Animaux Malades de la peste_, which La Fontaine wrote without\nknowing what he did. Corneille composed _Horace_ as a bird composes its\nnest.\u201d[54]\n\nThus the greatest conceptions of thought, prepared, so to say, by former\nsensations, and by exquisite organic sensibility, suddenly burst forth\nand develop by unconscious cerebration. Thus also may be explained the\nprofound convictions of prophets, saints, and demoniacs, as well as the\nimpulsive acts of the insane.\n\n_Somnambulism._--Bettinelli wrote: \u201cPoetry may almost be called a dream\nwhich is accomplished in the presence of reason, which floats above it\nwith open eyes.\u201d This definition is the more exact since many poets have\ncomposed their poems in a dream or half-dream. Goethe often said that a\ncertain cerebral irritation is necessary to the poet; many of his poems\nwere, in fact, composed in a state bordering on somnambulism. Klopstock\ndeclared that he had received several inspirations for his poems in\ndreams. Voltaire conceived during sleep one of the books of his\n_Henriade_; Sardini, a theory on the flageolet; Seckendorf, his\nbeautiful ode to imagination, which in its harmony reflects its origin.\nNewton and Cardan resolved mathematical problems in dreams. Nodier\ncomposed _Lydia_, together with a complete theory of future destiny, as\nthe result of dreams which \u201csucceeded each other,\u201d he wrote, \u201cwith such\nredoubled energy, from night to night, that the idea transformed itself\ninto a conviction.\u201d Muratori, many years after he had ceased to write\nverse, improvised in a dream a Latin pentameter. It is said that La\nFontaine composed in a dream his _Deux Pigeons_, and that Condillac\ncompleted during sleep a lesson interrupted in his waking hours.[55]\nColeridge\u2019s _Kubla Khan_ was composed, in ill health, during a profound\nsleep produced by an opiate; he was only able to recall fifty-four\nlines. Holde\u2019s _Phantasie_ was composed under somewhat similar\nconditions.\n\n_Genius in Inspiration._--It is very true that nothing so much resembles\na person attacked by madness as a man of genius when meditating and\nmoulding his conceptions. _Aut insanit homo aut versus facit._ According\nto R\u00e9veill\u00e9-Parise, the man of genius exhibits a small contracted pulse,\npale, cold skin, a hot, feverish head, brilliant, wild, injected eyes.\nAfter the moment of composition it often happens that the author himself\nno longer understands what he wrote a short time before. Marini, when\nwriting his _Adone_, did not feel a serious burn of the foot. Tasso,\nduring composition, was like a man possessed. Lagrange felt his pulse\nbecome irregular while he wrote. Alfieri\u2019s sight was troubled. Some, in\norder to give themselves up to meditation, even put themselves\nartificially into a state of cerebral semi-congestion. Thus Schiller\nplunged his feet into ice. Pitt and Fox prepared their speeches after\nexcessive indulgence in porter. Paisiello composed beneath a mountain of\ncoverlets. Descartes buried his head in a sofa. Bonnet retired into a\ncold room with his head enveloped in hot cloths. Cujas worked lying\nprone on the carpet. It was said of Leibnitz that he \u201cmeditated\nhorizontally,\u201d such being the attitude necessary to enable him to give\nhimself up to the labour of thought. Milton composed with his head\nleaning over his easy-chair.[56] Thomas and Rossini composed in their\nbeds. Rousseau meditated with his head in the full glare of the sun.[57]\nShelley lay on the hearthrug with his head close to the fire. All these\nare instinctive methods for augmenting momentarily the cerebral\ncirculation at the expense of the general circulation.\n\nIt is known that very often the great conceptions of thinkers have been\norganized, or at all events have taken their start, in the shock of a\nspecial sensation which produced on the intelligence the effect of a\ndrop of salt water on a well-prepared voltaic pile. All great\ndiscoveries have been occasioned, according to Moleschott\u2019s remark, by a\nsimple sensation.[58] Some frogs which were to furnish a medicinal broth\nfor Galvani\u2019s wife were the origin of the discovery of galvanism; the\nmovement of a hanging lamp, the fall of an apple, inspired the great\nsystems of Galileo and Newton. Alfieri composed or conceived his\ntragedies while listening to music, or soon after. A celebrated cantata\nof Mozart\u2019s _Don Giovanni_ came to him on seeing an orange, which\nrecalled a popular Neapolitan air heard five years before. The sight of\na porter suggested to Leonardo da Vinci his celebrated _Giuda_. The\nmovements of his model suggested to Thorwaldsen the attitude of his\nSeated Angel. Salvator Rosa owed his first grandiose inspirations to the\nscenes of Posilipo. Hogarth conceived his grotesque scenes in a Highgate\ntavern, after his nose had been broken in a dispute with a drunkard.\nMilton, Bacon, Leonardo da Vinci, liked to hear music before beginning\nto work. Bourdaloue tried an air on the violin before writing one of his\nimmortal sermons. Reading one of Spenser\u2019s odes aroused the poetic\nvocation in Cowley. A boiling teakettle suggested to Watt the idea of\nthe steam-engine.\n\nIn the same way a sensation is the point of departure of the terrible\ndeeds produced by impulsive mania. Humboldt\u2019s nursemaid confessed that\nthe sight of the fresh and delicate flesh of his child irresistibly\nimpelled her to bite it. Many persons, at the sight of a hatchet, a\nflame, a corpse, have been drawn to murder, incendiarism, or the\nprofanation of cemeteries.\n\nIt must be added that inspiration is often transformed into a real\nhallucination; in fact, as Bettinelli well says, the man of genius sees\nthe objects which his imagination presents to him. Dickens and Kleist\ngrieved over the fates of their heroes. Kleist was found in tears just\nafter finishing one of his tragedies: \u201cShe is dead,\u201d he said. Schiller\nwas as much moved by the adventures of his personages as by real\nevents.[59] T. Grossi told Verga that in describing the apparition of\nPrina, he saw the figure come before him, and was obliged to relight his\nlamp to make it disappear.[60] Brierre de Boismont tells us that the\npainter Martina really saw the pictures he imagined. One day, some one\nhaving come between him and the hallucination, he asked this person to\nmove so that he might go on with his picture.[61]\n\n_Contrast, Intermittence, Double Personality._--When the moment of\ninspiration is over, the man of genius becomes an ordinary man, if he\ndoes not descend lower; in the same way personal inequality, or,\naccording to modern terminology, double, or even contrary, personality,\nis the one of the characters of genius. Our greatest poets, Isaac\nDisraeli remarked (in _Curiosities of Literature_), Shakespeare and\nDryden, are those who have produced the worst lines. It was said of\nTintoretto that sometimes he surpassed Tintoretto, and sometimes was\ninferior to Caracci. Great tragic actors are very cheerful in society,\nand of melancholy humour at home. The contrary is true of genuine\ncomedians. \u201cJohn Gilpin,\u201d that masterpiece of humour, was written by\nCowper between two attacks of melancholia. Gaiety was in him the\nreaction from sadness. It was singular, he remarked, that his most comic\nverses were written in his saddest moments, without which he would\nprobably never have written them. A patient one day presented himself to\nAbernethy; after careful examination the celebrated practitioner said,\n\u201cYou need amusement; go and hear Grimaldi; he will make you laugh, and\nthat will be better for you than any drugs.\u201d \u201cMy God,\u201d exclaimed the\ninvalid, \u201cbut I am Grimaldi!\u201d D\u00e9bureau in like manner went to consult an\nalienist about his melancholy; he was advised to go to D\u00e9bureau.\nKlopstock was questioned regarding the meaning of a passage in his poem.\nHe replied, \u201cGod and I both knew what it meant once; now God alone\nknows.\u201d Giordano Bruno said of himself: \u201c_In hilaritate tristis, in\ntristitia hilaris_.\u201d Ovidio justly remarked concerning the\ncontradictions in Tasso\u2019s style, that \u201cwhen the inspiration was over, he\nlost his way in his own creations, and could no longer appreciate their\nbeauty or be conscious of it.\u201d[62] Renan described himself as \u201ca tissue\nof contradictions, recalling the classic _hirocerf_ with two natures.\nOne of my halves is constantly occupied in demolishing the other, like\nthe fabulous animal of Ctesias, who ate his paws without knowing\nit.\u201d[63]\n\n\u201cIf there are two such different men in you,\u201d said his mistress to\nAlfred de Musset, \u201ccould you not, when the bad one rises, be content to\nforget the good one?\u201d[64] Musset himself confesses that, with respect to\nher, he gave way to attacks of brutal anger and contempt, alternating\nwith fits of extravagant affection; \u201can exaltation carried to excess\nmade me treat my mistress like an idol, like a divinity. A quarter of an\nhour after having insulted her I was at her knees; I left off accusing\nher to ask her pardon; and passed from jesting to tears.\u201d\n\n_Stupidity._--The doubling of personality, the amnesia and the misoneism\nso common among men of science, are the key to the innumerable\nstupidities which intrude into their writings: _quandoque bonus dormitat\nHomerus_. Flaubert made a very curious collection of these, and called\nit the \u201c_Dossier de la sottise humaine_.\u201d Here are some examples: \u201cThe\nwealth of a country depends on its general prosperity\u201d (Louis Napoleon).\n\u201cShe did not know Latin, but understood it very well\u201d (Victor Hugo, in\n_Les Mis\u00e9rables_). \u201cWherever they are, fleas throw themselves against\nwhite colours. This instinct has been given them in order that we may\ncatch them more easily.... The melon has been divided into slices by\nnature in order that it may be eaten _en famille_; the pumpkin, being\nlarger, may be eaten with neighbours\u201d (Bernardin de Saint Pierre in\n_Harmonie de la Nature_). \u201cIt is the business of bishops, nobles, and\nthe great officers of the State to be the depositaries and the guardians\nof the conservative virtues, to teach nations what is good and what is\nevil, what is true and what is false, in the moral and spiritual world.\nOthers have no right to reason on these matters. They may amuse\nthemselves with the natural sciences. What have they to complain of?\u201d\n(De Maistre in _Soir\u00e9es de St. Petersbourg, 8e Entretien_, p. 131).\n\u201cWhen one has crossed the bounds there are no limits left\u201d (Ponsard). \u201cI\nhave often heard the blindness of the council of Francis I. deplored in\nrepelling Christopher Columbus, when he proposed his expedition to the\nIndies\u201d (Montesquieu, in _Esprit des Lois_, liv., xxi., chap. xxii.\nFrancis I. ascended the throne in 1515; Columbus died in 1506).\n\u201cBonaparte was a great gainer of battles, but beyond that the least\ngeneral is more skilful than he.... It has been believed that he\nperfected the art of war, and it is certain that he made it retrograde\ntowards the childhood of art\u201d (Chateaubriand, _Les Buonaparte et les\nBourbons_). \u201cVoltaire is nowhere as a philosopher, without authority as\na critic and historian, out of date as a man of science\u201d (Dupanloup,\n_Haute \u00c9ducation intellectuelle_). \u201cGrocery is respectable. It is a\nbranch of commerce. The army is more respectable still, because it is an\ninstitution, the aim of which is order. Grocery is useful, the army is\nnecessary\u201d (Jules Noriac in _Les Nouvelles_). Let us recall Pascal, at\none time more incredulous than Pyrrho, at another, writing like a Father\nof the Church; or Voltaire, believing sometimes in destiny, which\n\u201ccauses the growth and the ruin of States\u201d;[65] sometimes in fatality\nwhich \u201cgoverns the affairs of the world\u201d;[66] sometimes in\nProvidence.[67]\n\n_Hyper\u00e6sthesia._--If we seek, with the aid of autobiographies, the\ndifferences which separate a man of genius from an ordinary man, we find\nthat they consist in very great part in an exquisite, and sometimes\nperverted, sensibility.\n\nThe savage and the idiot feel physical pain very feebly; they have few\npassions, and they only attend to the sensations which concern more\ndirectly the necessities of existence. The higher we rise in the moral\nscale, the more sensibility increases; it is highest in great minds, and\nis the source of their misfortunes as well as of their triumphs. They\nfeel and notice more things, and with greater vivacity and tenacity than\nother men; their recollections are richer and their mental combinations\nmore fruitful. Little things, accidents that ordinary people do not see\nor notice, are observed by them, brought together in a thousand ways,\nwhich we call _creations_, and which are only binary and quaternary\ncombinations of sensations.\n\nHaller wrote: \u201cWhat remains to me except sensibility, that powerful\nsentiment which results from a temperament vividly moved by the\nimpressions of love and the marvels of science? Even to-day to read of a\ngenerous action calls tears from my eyes. This sensibility has certainly\ngiven to my poems a passion which is not found elsewhere.\u201d[68] Diderot\nsaid: \u201cIf nature has ever made a sensitive soul it is mine. Multiply\nsensitive souls, and you will augment good and evil actions.\u201d[69]\n\nThe first time that Alfieri heard music he experienced as it were a\ndazzling in his eyes and ears. He passed several days in a strange but\nagreeable melancholy; there was an efflorescence of fantastic ideas; at\nthat moment he could have written poetry if he had known how, and\nexpressed sentiments if he had had any to express. He concludes, with\nSterne, Rousseau, and George Sand, that \u201cthere is nothing which agitates\nthe soul with such unconquerable force as musical sounds.\u201d Berlioz has\ndescribed his emotions on hearing beautiful music: first, a sensation of\nvoluptuous ecstasy, immediately followed by general agitation with\npalpitation, oppression, sobbing, trembling, sometimes terminating with\na kind of fainting fit. Malibran, on first hearing Beethoven\u2019s symphony\nin C minor, had a convulsive attack and had to be taken out of the hall.\nMusset, Goncourt, Flaubert, Carlyle had so delicate a perception of\nsounds that the noises of the streets and bells were insupportable to\nthem; they were constantly changing their abodes to avoid these sounds,\nand at last fled in despair to the country.[70] Schopenhauer also hated\nnoise.\n\nUrquiza fainted on breathing the odour of a rose. Baudelaire had a very\ndelicate sense of smell; he perceived the odour of women in dresses; he\ncould not live in Belgium, he said, because the trees had no fragrance.\n\nGuy de Maupassant says of Gustave Flaubert: \u201cFrom his early childhood\nthe distinctive features of his nature were a great _na\u00efvet\u00e9_ and a\nhorror of physical action. All his life he remained _na\u00eff_ and\nsedentary. It exasperated him to see people walking or moving about him,\nand he declared in his mordant, sonorous, always rather theatrical\nvoice, that it was not philosophic. \u2018One can only think and write\nseated,\u2019 he said.\u201d[71] Sterne wrote that intuition and sensibility are\nthe only instruments of genius, the source of the delicious impressions\nwhich give a more brilliant colour to joy, and which make us weep with\nhappiness. It is known that Alfieri and Foscolo often fell at the feet\nof women who were very unworthy of them. Alfieri could not eat on the\nday when his horse did not neigh. Every one knows that the beauty and\nlove of the Fornarina inspired Raphael\u2019s palette, but very few know\nthat he also composed one hundred sonnets in her honour.[72]\n\nDante and Alfieri fell in love at nine years of age, Scarron at eight,\nRousseau at eleven, Byron at eight. At sixteen Byron, hearing that his\nbeloved was about to marry, almost fell into convulsions; he was almost\nsuffocated and, although he had no idea of sex, he doubted if he ever\nloved so truly in later years. He had a convulsive attack, Moore tells\nus, on seeing Kean act. The painter Francia died of joy on seeing one of\nRaphael\u2019s pictures. Amp\u00e8re was so sensitive to the beauties of nature\nthat he thought he would die of happiness on seeing the magnificent\nshores of Genoa. In one of his manuscripts he had left the journal of an\nunfortunate passion. Newton was so affected on discovering the solution\nof a problem that he was unable to continue his work. Gay-Lussac and\nDavy, after making a discovery, danced about in their slippers.\n\nIt is this exaggerated sensibility of men of genius, found in less\ndegree in men of talent also, which causes great part of their real or\nimaginary misfortunes. \u201cThis precious gift,\u201d writes Mantegazza, \u201cthis\nrare privilege of genius, brings in its train a morbid reaction to the\nsmallest troubles from without; the slightest breeze, the faintest\nbreath of the dog-days, becomes for these sensitive persons the rumpled\nrose-petal which will not let the unfortunate sybarite sleep.\u201d[73] La\nFontaine perhaps thought of himself when he wrote:--\n\n     \u201c_Un souffle, une ombre, un rien leur donne la fi\u00e8vre._\u201d\n\nOffences which for others are but pin-pricks for them are sharpened\ndaggers. When Foscolo heard a mocking word from one of his friends he\nbecame indignant, and said to her: \u201cYou wish to see me dead; I will\nbreak my skull at your feet\u201d; so saying, he threw himself with great\nviolence and lowered head against the edge of the marble mantlepiece; a\ncharitable bystander promptly seized him by the collar of his coat, and\nsaved his life by throwing him on the ground. Boileau and Chateaubriand\ncould not hear any one praised, even their shoemakers, without a certain\nannoyance. Hence the manifestations of morbid vanity which often\napproximate men of genius to ambitious monomaniacs. Schopenhauer was\nfurious and refused to pay his debts to any one who spelled his name\nwith a double \u201cp.\u201d Barthez could not sleep with grief because in the\nprinting of his _G\u00e9nie_ the accent on the _\u0113_ was divided into two.\nWhiston said he ought not to have published his refutation of Newton\u2019s\nchronology, as Newton was capable of killing him. Poushkin was seen one\nday in the crowded theatre, in a fit of jealousy, to bite the shoulder\nof the wife of the Governor-General, Countess Z., to whom he was then\npaying attention.\n\nAny one who has had the rare fortune to live with men of genius is soon\nstruck by the facility with which they misinterpret the acts of others,\nbelieve themselves persecuted, and find everywhere profound and infinite\nreasons for grief and melancholy. Their intellectual superiority\ncontributes to this end, being equally adapted to discover new aspects\nof truth and to create imaginary ones, confirming their own painful\nillusions. It is true, also, that their intellectual superiority permits\nthem to acquire and to express, regarding the nature of things,\nconvictions different from those adopted by the majority, and to\nmanifest them with an unshakeable firmness which increases the\nopposition and contrast.\n\nBut the principal cause of their melancholy and their misfortunes is the\nlaw of dynamism which rules in the nervous system. To an excessive\nexpenditure and development of nervous force succeeds reaction or\nenfeeblement. It is permitted to no one to expend more than a certain\nquantity of force without being severely punished on the other side;\nthat is why men of genius are so unequal in their productions.\nMelancholy, depression, timidity, egoism, are the prices of the sublime\ngifts of intellect, just as uterine catarrhs, impotence, and tabes\ndorsalis are the prices of sexual abuse, and gastritis of abuse of\nappetite.\n\nMilli, after one of her eloquent improvisations which are worth the\nwhole existence of a minor poet, falls into a state of paralysis which\nlasts several days. Mahomet after prophesying fell into a state of\nimbecility. \u201cThree _suras_ of the _Koran_,\u201d he said one day to\nAbou-Bekr, \u201chave been enough to whiten my hair.\u201d[74] In short, I do not\nbelieve there has ever been a great man who, even at the height of his\nhappiness, has not believed and proclaimed, even without cause, that he\nwas unfortunate and persecuted, and who has not at some moment\nexperienced the painful modifications of sensibility which are the\nfoundation of melancholia.\n\nSometimes this sensibility undergoes perversion; it consumes itself, and\nis agitated around a single point, remaining indifferent to all others.\nCertain series of ideas or sensations acquire, little by little, the\nforce of a special stimulant on the brain, and sometimes on the entire\norganism, so that they seem to survive life itself. Heine, who in his\nletters declared himself incapable of understanding the simplest things,\nHeine, blind and paralytic, when advised to turn towards God, replied in\nhis dying agony: \u201c_Dieu me pardonnera; c\u2019est son m\u00e9tier_;\u201d thus crowning\nwith a stroke of supreme irony the most \u00e6sthetically cynical life of our\ntime. The last words of Aretino after extreme unction were, it is said,\n\u201cKeep me from the rats now I am anointed.\u201d The dying Rabelais enveloped\nhis head in his _domino_, and said, \u201c_Beati qui in Domino moriuntur_.\u201d\nMalherbe, in his last illness, reproached his nurse with the solecisms\nshe committed, and rejected the counsel of his confessor on account of\nits bad style. The last words of Bouhours the grammarian, were, \u201c_Je\nvais ou je va mourir: l\u2019un et l\u2019autre se disent_.\u201d\n\nFoscolo confesses that \u201cvery active in some directions, he was in others\ninferior to a man, to a woman, to a child.\u201d[75] It is known that\nCorneille, Descartes, Virgil, Addison, La Fontaine, Dryden, Manzoni,\nNewton, were almost incapable of expressing themselves in public.\nD\u2019Alembert and M\u00e9nage, insensible to the sufferings of a surgical\noperation, wept at a slight critical censure. Luce de Lancival smiled\nwhen his legs were amputated, but could not endure Geoffrey\u2019s\ncriticisms. Linn\u00e6us, at the age of sixty, rendered paralytic and\ninsensible by an apoplectic stroke, was aroused when carried near to his\nbeloved herbarium.[76] Lagny was stretched out comatose, insensible to\nthe strongest stimulants, when it occurred to some one to ask him the\nsquare of twelve, he replied immediately, \u201cOne hundred and forty-four.\u201d\nSebouyah, the Arab grammarian, died of grief because the Khalif\nHaroun-al-Raschid did not agree with him on some grammatical point.\n\nIt should be observed here that men of genius, at all events, if men of\nscience, often present that species of mania which Wechniakoff[77] and\nLetourneau[78] have called _monotypic_. Such men occupy themselves\nthroughout their whole lives with one single problem, the first which\ntakes possession of their brains, and which henceforth rules them. Otto\nBeckmann was occupied during the whole of his life with the pathology of\nthe kidneys; Fresnel with light; Meyer with ants. Here is a new and\nstriking point of resemblance with monomaniacs.\n\nOn account of this exaggerated and concentrated sensibility, it becomes\nvery difficult to persuade or dissuade either men of genius or the\ninsane. In them the roots of error, as well as those of truth, fix\nthemselves more deeply and multiplexly than in other men, for whom\nopinion is a habit, an affair of fashion, or of circumstance. Hence the\nslight utility of moral treatment as applied to the insane; hence also\nthe frequent fallibility of genius.\n\nIn the same way we can explain why it is that great minds do not seize\nideas that the most vulgar intelligence can grasp, while at the same\ntime they discover ideas which would have seemed absurd to others: their\ngreater sensibility is associated with a greater originality of\nconception. In exalted meditation thought deserts the more simple and\neasy paths which no longer suit its robust energy. Thus Monge resolved\nthe most difficult problems of a differential calculus, and was\nembarrassed in seeking an algebraic root of the second degree which a\nschoolboy might have found. One of Lulli\u2019s friends used to say\nhabitually on his behalf: \u201cPay no attention to him; he has no common\nsense: he is all genius.\u201d\n\n_Par\u00e6sthesia._--To the exhaustion and excessive concentration of\nsensibility must be attributed all those strange acts showing apparent\nor intermittent an\u00e6sthesia, and analgesia, which are to be found among\nmen of genius as well as among the insane. Socrates presented a\nphoto-par\u00e6sthesia which enabled him to gaze at the sun for a\nconsiderable time without experiencing any discomfort. The Goncourts,\nFlaubert, Darwin had a kind of musical daltonism.\n\n_Amnesia._--Forgetfulness is another of the characters of genius. It is\nsaid that Newton once rammed his niece\u2019s finger into his pipe; when he\nleft his room to seek for anything he usually returned without bringing\nit.[79] Rouelle generally explained his ideas at great length, and when\nhe had finished, he added: \u201cBut this is one of my arcana which I tell to\nno one.\u201d Sometimes one of his pupils rose and repeated in his ear what\nhe had just said aloud; then Rouelle believed that the pupil had\ndiscovered the arcanum by his own sagacity, and begged him not to\ndivulge what he had himself just told to two hundred persons. One day,\nwhen performing an experiment during a lecture, he said to his hearers:\n\u201cYou see, gentlemen, this cauldron over the flame? Well, if I were to\nleave off stirring it an explosion would at once occur which would make\nus all jump.\u201d While saying these words, he did not fail to forget to\nstir, and the prediction was accomplished; the explosion took place with\na fearful noise: the laboratory windows were all smashed, and the\naudience fled to the garden.[80] Sir Everard Home relates that he once\nsuddenly lost his memory for half an hour, and was unable to recognise\nthe house and the street in which he lived; he could not recall the\nname of the street, and seemed to hear it for the first time. It is\ntold of Amp\u00e8re that when travelling on horseback in the country he\nbecame absorbed in a problem; then, dismounting, began to lead his\nhorse, and finally lost it; but he did not discover his misadventure\nuntil, on arrival, it attracted the attention of his friends. Babinet\nhired a country house, and after making the payments returned to town;\nthen he found that he had entirely forgotten both the name of the place\nand from what station he had started.[81]\n\nOne day Buffon, lost in thought, ascended a tower and slid down by the\nropes, unconscious of what he was doing, like a somnambulist. Mozart, in\ncarving meat, so often cut his fingers, accustomed only to the piano,\nthat he had to give up this duty to other persons. Of Bishop M\u00fcnster, it\nis said that, seeing at the door of his own ante-chamber the\nannouncement: \u201cThe master of the house is out,\u201d he remained there\nawaiting his own return.[82] Of Toucherel, it is told by Arago, that he\nonce even forgot his own name. Beethoven, on returning from an excursion\nin the forest, often left his coat on the grass, and often went out\nhatless. Once, at Neustadt, he was arrested in this condition, and taken\nto prison as a vagabond; here he might have remained, as no one would\nbelieve that he was Beethoven, if Herzog, the conductor of the\norchestra, had not arrived to deliver him. Gioia, in the excitement of\ncomposition, wrote a chapter on the table of his bureau instead of on\npaper. The Abb\u00e9 Beccaria, absorbed in his experiments, said during mass:\n\u201c_Ite! experientia facta est_.\u201d Saint Dominic, in the midst of a\nprincely repast, suddenly struck the table and exclaimed: \u201c_Conclusum\nest contra Manicheos_.\u201d It is told of Amp\u00e8re that having written a\nformula, with which he was pre-occupied, on the back of a cab, he\nstarted in pursuit as soon as the cab went off.[83] Diderot hired\nvehicles which he then left at the door and forgot, thus needlessly\npaying coachmen for whole days. He often forgot the hour, the day, the\nmonth, and even the person to whom he was speaking; he would then speak\nlong monologues like a somnambulist.[84] Rossini, conducting the\norchestra at the rehearsal of his _Barbiere_, which was a fiasco, did\nnot perceive that the public and even the performers had left him alone\nin the theatre until he reached the end of an act.\n\n_Originality_.--Hagen notes that originality is the quality that\ndistinguishes genius from talent.[85] And J\u00fcrgen-Meyer: \u201cThe imagination\nof talent reproduces the stated fact; the inspiration of genius makes it\nanew. The first disengages or repeats; the second invents or creates.\nTalent aims at a point which appears difficult to reach; genius aims at\na point which no one perceives. The novelty, it must be understood,\nresides not in the elements, but in their shock.\u201d Novelty and grandeur\nare the two chief characters which Bettinelli attributes to genius; \u201cfor\nthis reason,\u201d he says, \u201cpoets call themselves _troubadours_ or\n_trouv\u00e8res_.\u201d Cardan conceived the idea of the education of deaf mutes\nbefore Harriot; he caught a glimpse of the application of algebra to\ngeometry and geometric constructions before Descartes.[86] Giordano\nBruno divined the modern theories of cosmology and of the origin of\nideas. Cola di Rienzi conceived Italian unity, with Rome as capital,\nfour hundred years before Cavour and Mazzini. Stoppani admits that the\ngeological theory of Dante, with regard to the formation of seas, is at\nall points in accordance with the accepted ideas of to-day.\n\nGenius divines facts before completely knowing them; thus Goethe\ndescribed Italy very well before knowing it; and Schiller, the land and\npeople of Switzerland without having been there. And it is on account of\nthose divinations which all precede common observation, and because\ngenius, occupied with lofty researches, does not possess the habits of\nthe many, and because, like the lunatic and unlike the man of talent, he\nis often disordered, the man of genius is scorned and misunderstood.\nOrdinary persons do not perceive the steps which have led the man of\ngenius to his creation, but they see the difference between his\nconclusions and those of others, and the strangeness of his conduct.\nRossini\u2019s _Barbiere_, and Beethoven\u2019s _Fidelio_ were received with\nhisses; Boito\u2019s _Mefistofele_ and Wagner\u2019s _Lohengrin_ have been hissed\nat Milan. How many academicians have smiled compassionately at Marzolo,\nwho has discovered a new philosophic world! Bolyai, for his invention of\nthe fourth dimension in anti-Euclidian geometry, has been called the\ngeometrician of the insane, and compared to a miller who wishes to make\nflour of sand. Every one knows the treatment accorded to Fulton and\nColumbus and Papin, and, in our own days, to Piatti and Praga and Abel,\nand to Schliemann, who found Ilium, where no one else had dreamed of\nlooking for it, while learned academicians laughed. \u201cThere never was a\nliberal idea,\u201d wrote Flaubert, \u201cwhich has not been unpopular; never an\nact of justice which has not caused scandal; never a great man who has\nnot been pelted with potatoes or struck by knives. The history of human\nintellect is the history of human stupidity, as M. de Voltaire\nsaid.\u201d[87]\n\nIn this persecution, men of genius have no fiercer or more terrible\nenemies than the men of academies, who possess the weapons of talent,\nthe stimulus of vanity, and the _prestige_ by preference accorded to\nthem by the vulgar, and by governments which, in large part, consist of\nthe vulgar. There are, indeed, countries in which the ordinary level of\nintelligence sinks so low that the inhabitants come to hate not only\ngenius, but even talent.\n\nOriginality, though usually of an aimless kind, is observed with some\nfrequency among the insane--as we shall see later on--and especially\namong those inclined to literature. They sometimes reach the divinations\nof genius: thus Bernardi, at the Florence Asylum in 1529, wished to show\nthe existence of language among apes.[88]\n\nIn exchange for this fatal gift, both the one and the other have the\nsame ignorance of the necessities of practical life which always seems\nto them less important than their own dreams, and at the same time they\npossess the disordered habits which renders this ignorance dangerous.\n\n_Fondness for Special Words._--This originality causes men of genius, as\nwell as the insane, to create special words, marked with their own\nimprint, unintelligible to others, but to which they attach\nextraordinary significance and importance. Such are the _dignit\u00e0_ of\nVico, the _individuit\u00e0_ of Carrara, the _odio serrato_ of Alfieri, the\n_albero epogonico_ of Marzolo, and the _immiarsi_, the _intuarsi_, and\nthe _entomata_ of Dante.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nLATENT FORMS OF NEUROSIS AND INSANITY IN GENIUS.\n\n     Chorea and Epilepsy--Melancholy--Megalomania--_Folie du\n     doute_--Alcoholism--Hallucinations--Moral Insanity--Longevity.\n\n\nIt is now possible to explain the frequency among men of genius, even\nwhen not insane, of those forms of neurosis or mental alienation which\nmay be called latent, and which contain the germs and as it were the\noutlines of these disorders.\n\n_Chorea and Epilepsy._--Many men of genius, like the insane, are subject\nto curious spasmodic and choreic movements. Lenau and Montesquieu left\nupon the floor of their rooms the signs of the movements by which their\nfeet were convulsively agitated during composition; Buffon, Dr. Johnson,\nSanteuil, Cr\u00e9billon, Lombardini, exhibited the most remarkable facial\ncontortions.[89] There was a constant quiver on Thomas Campbell\u2019s thin\nlips. Chateaubriand was long subject to convulsive movements of the arm.\nNapoleon suffered from habitual spasm of the right shoulder and of the\nlips; \u201cMy anger,\u201d he said, one day after an altercation with Lowe, \u201cmust\nhave been fearful, for I felt the vibration of my calves, which has not\nhappened to me for a long time.\u201d Peter the Great suffered from\nconvulsive movements which horribly distorted his face. Carducci\u2019s face\nat certain moments, writes Mantegazza, is a veritable hurricane;\nlightnings dart from his eyes and his muscles tremble.[90] Amp\u00e8re could\nonly express his thoughts while walking, and when his body was in a\nstate of constant movement.[91] Socrates often danced and jumped in the\nstreet without reason, as if by a freak.\n\nJulius C\u00e6sar, Dostoieffsky, Petrarch, Moli\u00e8re, Flaubert, Charles V.,\nSaint Paul, and Handel, appear to have been all subject to attacks of\nepilepsy. Twice upon the field of battle the epileptic vertigo nearly\nhad a serious influence on C\u00e6sar\u2019s fate. On another occasion, when the\nSenate had decreed him extraordinary honours, and had gone out to meet\nhim with the consuls and pr\u00e6tors, C\u00e6sar, who at that moment was seated\nat the tribune, failed to rise, and received the Senators as though they\nwere ordinary citizens. They retired showing signs of discontent, and\nC\u00e6sar, suddenly returning to himself, immediately went home, took off\nhis clothes and uncovering his neck, exclaimed that he was ready to\ndeliver his throat to any one who wished to cut it. He explained his\nbehaviour to the Senate as due to the malady to which he was subject; he\nsaid that those who were affected by it were unable to speak standing,\nin public, that they soon felt shocks in their limbs, giddiness, and at\nlast completely lost consciousness.[92]\n\nConvulsions sometimes hindered Moli\u00e8re from doing any work for a\nfortnight at a time. Mahomet had visions after an epileptic fit: \u201cAn\nangel appears to me in human form; he speaks to me. Often I hear as it\nwere the sound of cats, of rabbits, of bells: then I suffer much.\u201d After\nthese apparitions he was overcome with sadness and howled like a young\ncamel. Peter the Great and his son by Catherine were both epileptics.\n\nIt may be noted here that artistic creation presents the intermittence,\nthe instantaneousness, and very often the sudden absences of mind which\ncharacterize epilepsy. Paganini, Mozart, Schiller, and Alfieri, suffered\nfrom convulsions. Paganini was even subject to catalepsy.[93] Pascal\nfrom the age of twenty-four had fits which lasted for whole days. Handel\nhad attacks of furious and epileptic rage. Newton and Swift were subject\nto vertigo, which is related to epilepsy. Richelieu, in a fit, believed\nhe was a horse, and neighed and jumped; afterwards he knew nothing of\nwhat had taken place.[94] Maudsley remarks that epileptics often believe\nthemselves patriarchs and prophets. He thinks that by mistaking their\nhallucinations for divine revelations they have largely contributed to\nthe foundation of religious beliefs. Anne Lee, who founded the sect of\nShakers, was an epileptic: she saw Christ come to her physically and\nspiritually. The vision which transformed Saint Paul from a persecutor\ninto an apostle seems to have been of the same order. The Siberian\nShamans, who profess to have intercourse with spirits, operate in a\nstate of convulsive exaltation, and choose their pupils by preference\nfrom among epileptic children.\n\n_Melancholy._--The tendency to melancholy is common to the majority of\nthinkers, and depends on their hyper\u00e6sthesia. It is proverbially said\nthat to feel sorrow more than other men constitutes the crown of thorns\nof genius. Aristotle had remarked that men of genius are of melancholic\ntemperament, and after him J\u00fcrgen-Meyer has affirmed the same. \u201c_Tristes\nphilosophi et severi_,\u201d said Varro.\n\nGoethe, the impassible Goethe, confesses that \u201cmy character passes from\nextreme joy to extreme melancholy;\u201d and elsewhere that \u201cevery increase\nof knowledge is an increase of sorrow;\u201d he could not recall that in all\nhis life he had passed more than four pleasant weeks. \u201cI am not made for\nenjoyment,\u201d wrote Flaubert.[95] Giusti was affected by hypochondria,\nwhich reached to delirium; sometimes he thought he had hydrophobia.\nCorradi has shown[96] that all the misfortunes of Leopardi, as well as\nhis philosophy, owe their origin to an exaggerated sensibility, and a\nhopeless love which he experienced at the age of eighteen. In fact, his\nphilosophy was more or less sombre according as his health was better or\nworse, until the tendency was transformed into a habit. \u201cThought,\u201d he\nwrote, \u201chas long inflicted on me, and still inflicts, such martyrdom as\nto produce injurious effects, and it will kill me if I do not change my\nmanner of existence.\u201d[97] In his poems Leopardi appears the most\nromantic and philanthropic of men. In his letters, on the other hand, he\nappears cold, indifferent to his parents, and still more to his native\ncountry. From the publications of his host and protector Ranieri[98] may\nbe seen how little grateful he was to his friends, and that he was\neccentric to the verge of insanity. Desiring death every moment in\nverse, he took exaggerated pains to cling to life, exposing himself to\nthe sun for hours together, sometimes eating only peaches, at other\ntimes only flesh, always in extremes. No one hated the country more than\nhe, who so often sang its praises. He hardly reached it before he wished\nto return, and stayed with difficulty an entire day. He made day night,\nand night day. He suspected every one; one day he even suspected that he\nhad been robbed of a box in which he preserved old combs.\n\nThe list of great men who have committed suicide is almost endless. It\nopens with the names of Zeno Aristotle(?), Hegesippus, Cleanthes,\nStilpo, Dionysus of Heraclea, Lucretius, Lucan, and reaches to\nChatterton, Clive, Creech, Blount, Haydon, David. Domenichino was led to\ncommit suicide by the contempt of a rival; Spagnoletto by the abduction\nof his daughter; Nourrit by the success of Dupr\u00e9; Gros could not survive\nthe decadence of his genius. Robert, Chateaubriand, Cowper, Rousseau,\nLamartine on several occasions nearly put an end to their lives. Burns\nwrote in a letter: \u201cMy constitution and frame were _ab origine_ blasted\nwith a deep incurable taint of melancholia which poisons my existence.\u201d\nSchiller passed through a period of melancholy which caused him to be\nsuspected of insanity. In B. Constant\u2019s letters we read: \u201cIf I had had\nmy dear opium, it would have been the moment, in honour of _ennui_, to\nput an end to an excessive movement of love.\u201d[99] Dupuytren thought of\nsuicide even when he had reached the climax of fame. Pariset and Cavour\nwere only saved from suicide by devoted friends. The latter twice\nattempted to kill himself. Lessmann, the humorous writer, who wrote the\n_Journal of a Melancholiac_, hanged himself in 1835 during an attack of\nmelancholia. So died, also, the composer of _Masaniello_, Fischer,\nRomilly, Eult von Burg, Hugh Miller, G\u00f6hring, Kuh (the friend of\nMendelssohn), Jules Uberti, Tannahill, Pr\u00e9vost-Paradol, Kleist, who died\nwith his mistress, and Majl\u00e1th, who drowned himself with his daughter.\n\nGeorge Sand, who seems, however, free from all neurosis, declared that\nwhether it was that bile made her melancholy, or that melancholy made\nher bilious, she had been seized at moments of her life by a desire for\neternal repose--for suicide. She attributed this to an affection of the\nliver. \u201cIt was an old chronic disorder, experienced and fought with from\nearly youth, forgotten like an old travelling companion whom one\nbelieves one has left behind, but who suddenly presents himself. This\ntemptation,\u201d she continues, \u201cwas sometimes so strange that I regarded it\nas a kind of madness. It took the form of a fixed idea and bordered on\nmonomania. The idea was aroused chiefly by the sight of water, of a\nprecipice, of phials.\u201d\n\nGeorge Sand tells us that Gustave Planche was of strangely melancholy\ncharacter. Edgar Quinet suffered at times from unreasonable melancholy,\nin this taking after his mother. Rossini experienced, about 1848, keen\ngrief because he had bought a house at a slight loss. He became really\ninsane, and took it into his head that he was reduced to extreme misery,\nso that he must beg. He believed that he had become an idiot. He could,\nindeed, neither compose nor even hear music spoken of. The care of\nSansone, of Ancona, gradually restored him to fame and to his friends.\nThe great painter Van Leyden believed himself poisoned, and during his\nlatter years never rose from his bed. Mozart was convinced that the\nItalians wished to poison him. Moli\u00e8re had numerous attacks of\nmelancholia.[100] Voltaire was hypochondriacal.[101] \u201cWith respect to my\nbody,\u201d he wrote, \u201cit is moribund.... I anticipate dropsy. There is no\nappearance of it, but you know that there is nothing so dry as a\ndropsical person.... Diseases, more cruel even than kings, are\npersecuting me. Doctors only are needed to finish me.\u201d \u201cAll this\u201d\n(travels, pleasures, &c.), said Grimm, \u201cdid not prevent him from saying\nthat he was dead or dying; he was even very angry when one dared to\nassure him that he was still full of strength and life.\u201d Zimmermann was\nafraid sometimes of dying of hunger, sometimes of being arrested; he\nactually died of voluntary starvation, the result of a fixed idea that\nhe had no money to pay for food. The poet Gray, the \u201cmelancholy Gray,\u201d\nwas of a gloomy and extremely reserved character. Abraham Lincoln was a\nvictim of constitutional melancholy, which assumed a most dangerous form\non one or two occasions in his earlier years.\n\nChopin during the last years of his life was possessed by a melancholy\nwhich went as far as insanity. An abandoned convent in Spain filled his\nimagination with phantoms and terrors. One day G. Sand and her son were\nlate in returning from a walk. Chopin began to imagine, and finally\nbelieved, that they were dead; then he saw himself dead, drowned in a\nlake, and drops of frozen water fell upon his breast. They were real\ndrops of rain falling upon him from the roof of the ruin, but he did not\nperceive this, even when George Sand pointed it out. Some trifling\nannoyance affected him more than a great and real misfortune. A crumpled\npetal, a fly, made him weep.[102]\n\nCavour from youth believed himself deprived of domestic affections. He\nsaw no friends around; he saw above him no ideal to realise; he found\nhimself alone.[103] His condition reached such a point that, to avoid\ngreater evils and to leave an insipid life, he wished to kill himself.\nHe hesitated only because he was doubtful about the morality of suicide.\n\u201cBut, while this doubt exists, it is best for me to imitate Hamlet. I\nwill not kill myself: no, but I will put up earnest prayers to heaven to\nsend me a rapid consumption which may carry me off to the other world.\u201d\nAt a very youthful age he sometimes gave himself up to strange attacks\nof bad temper. One day, at the Castle of Diluzers, at Balangero, he\nthrew himself into so violent a rage on being asked to study that he\nwished to kill himself with a knife and throw himself from the window.\nThese attacks were very frequent but of brief duration.[104] When the\nhopes of war raised by the words of Napoleon III. to Baron H\u00fcbner seemed\nsuddenly to give place in the Emperor\u2019s mind to thoughts of peace,\nCavour was carried away by such agitation that some extreme resolution\nwas apprehended. This is confirmed by Castelli, who went to his house\nand found him alone in his room. He had burnt various papers, and given\norders that no one should be admitted. The danger was plain. He looked\nfixedly at Castelli, who spoke a few calm words calculated to affect\nhim, and then burst into tears. Cavour rose, embraced him convulsively,\ntook a few steps distractedly about the room, and then said slowly: \u201cBe\nat rest; we will brave everything, and always together.\u201d Castelli ran to\nreassure his friends, but the danger had been very grave.[105]\n\nChateaubriand relates, in his _M\u00e9moires d\u2019outre Tombe_, that one day as\na youth he charged an old musket, which sometimes went off by itself,\nwith three balls, inserted the barrel in his mouth and struck the stock\nagainst the ground. The appearance of a passer-by suspended his\nresolution.\n\nG\u00e9rard de Nerval was never so much inspired as in those movements when,\naccording to the saying of Alexandre Dumas, his melancholy became his\nmuse. \u201cWerther, Ren\u00e9, Antony,\u201d says Dumas, \u201cnever uttered more poignant\ncomplaints, more sorrowful sighs, tenderer words, or more poetic cries.\u201d\n\nJ. S. Mill[106] was seized during the autumn of 1826, at the age of\ntwenty, by an attack of insanity which he himself could only describe in\nthese words of Coleridge\u2019s:\n\n    \u201cA grief without a pang, void, dark, and drear,\n     A drowsy, stifled, unimpassioned grief,\n     Which finds no natural outlet or relief\n     In word, or sigh, or tear.\u201d\n\nI quote these lines the more willingly as they show in their extreme\nenergy that Coleridge himself was affected by the same malady. To this\nstate of mind succeeded another in which Mill sought to cultivate the\nfeelings; among other preoccupations he feared the exhaustion of musical\ncombinations: \u201cThe octave consists only of five tones and two\nsemi-tones, which can be put together in only a limited number of ways,\nof which but a small proportion are beautiful: most of them, it seemed\nto me, must have been already discovered, and there could not be room\nfor a long succession of Mozarts and Webers to strike out, as these had\ndone, entirely new and surpassingly rich veins of musical beauty. This\nsource of anxiety may, perhaps, be thought to resemble that of the\nphilosophers of Laputa, who feared lest the sun should be burnt\nout.\u201d[107]\n\n_Megalomania_ (_Delusions of grandeur_).--The delirium of melancholia\nalternates with that of grandiose monomania.\n\n\u201cThe title \u2018Son of David,\u2019\u201d writes Renan, \u201cwas the first which Jesus\nChrist accepted, probably without taking part in the innocent frauds by\nwhich it was sought to make it certain. The family of David had, in\nfact, long been extinct.\u201d Later on he declared himself the son of God.\n\u201cHis Father had given him all power; nature obeyed him; he could forgive\nsins; he was superior to David, to Abraham, to Solomon, to the prophets.\nIt is evident,\u201d Renan continues, \u201cthat the title of Rabbi, with which he\nwas at first contented, no longer satisfied him; even the title of\nProphet or Messenger from God no longer corresponded to his conception.\nThe position which he attributed to himself was that of a superhuman\nbeing.\u201d He declared that he was come to give sight to the blind, and to\nblind those who think they see. One day his ill humour with the Temple\ncalled forth an imprudent expression: \u201cThis Temple, made by human\nhands,\u201d he said, \u201cI could, if I liked, destroy, and in its place build\nanother, not made by human hands. The Queen of Sheba,\u201d he added, \u201cwill\nrise up at the Judgment against the men of to-day and condemn them,\nbecause they came from the ends of the earth to hear Solomon\u2019s wisdom;\nyet a greater than Solomon is here. The men of Nineveh will rise up at\nthe Judgment against the men of to-day and condemn them, because they\nrepented at the preaching of Jonah; yet a greater than Jonah is here.\u201d\n\nDante\u2019s pride, legitimate as it may have been, is proverbial. It is well\nknown that he placed himself \u201c_sesto fra cotanto senno_,\u201d and declared\nhimself superior to his contemporaries in style and the favourite of\nGod:--\n\n                \u201c_ ... e forse e nato_\n    _Chi l\u2019uno e l\u2019altro caccier\u00e0 di nido...._\n                _ ... perch\u00e8 tanta_\n    _Grazia in te luce prima che sei morto...._\u201d\n\nAt the Institute Dumas said with truth of Hugo: \u201cVictor Hugo was\ndominated by a fixed idea: to become the greatest poet and the greatest\nman of all countries and all ages.\u201d It is this, according to Dumas,\nwhich explains the entire life and all the changes in Victor Hugo, who\nbegan by being a Catholic and monarchist. \u201cHe could not submit to be\nshut up within a government and a religion where he had not the right to\nsay anything and the chance to be first. The glory of Napoleon long\nhaunted Victor Hugo. But the day came when he could no longer tolerate\nthat any one should have glory equal to his own. The great captain must\ngive way to the great poet; the giant of action must efface himself\nbefore the giant of thought. Is not Homer greater than Achilles? Victor\nHugo came to believe himself superior to all human beings. He did not\nsay, \u2018I am Genius,\u2019 but he began to believe firmly that the world would\nsay so. His personages do not possess the characters of reality nor the\nproportions of man; they are always above and beyond humanity, sometimes\nreversed, not to say upside down; that was because Nature had for him\naspects that were seen by no other. His eye enlarged everything; he saw\nherbs as tall as trees; he saw insects as large as eagles.\u201d\n\nHegel believed in his own divinity. He began a lecture with these words:\n\u201cI may say with Christ, that not only do I teach truth, but that I am\nmyself truth.\u201d[108]\n\n\u201cMan is the vainest of animals, and the poet is the vainest of men,\u201d\nwrote Heine, who knew.[109] And in another letter: \u201cDo not forget that I\nam a poet, and, as such, convinced that men must forsake all and read my\nverses.\u201d\n\n\u201cEvery one knows,\u201d wrote George Sand of her friend Balzac,[110] \u201chow the\nconsciousness of greatness overflowed in him, how he loved to speak of\nhis works and to narrate them. Genial and ingenuous, he asked advice\nfrom children, but never waited for the answer, or else opposed it with\nall the obstinacy of his superiority. He never instructed, but always\ntalked very well indeed of himself, of himself alone. One evening,\nhaving on a beautiful new dressing-gown, he wished to go out, thus\nclothed, with a lamp in his hand, to excite the admiration of the\npublic.\u201d\n\nChopin directed in his will that he should be buried in a white tie,\nsmall shoes, and short breeches. He abandoned the woman whom he tenderly\nloved because she offered a chair to some one else before giving the\nsame invitation to himself.[111]\n\nGiordano Bruno declared himself illumined by superior light, a messenger\nfrom God, who knew the essence of things, a Titan who would destroy\nJupiter: \u201cAnd what others see far ahead I leave behind.\u201d[112] And\nagain:--\n\n                                  \u201c_Nam me Deus alter_\n    _Vertentis s\u00e6cli melioris non mediocrem_\n    _Destinat, haud veluti, media de plebe, magistrum._\u201d\n\nThe poet Lucilius did not rise when Julius C\u00e6sar entered the college of\npoets because he believed himself his superior in the art of verse.\nAriosto, after receiving the laurel from Charles V., ran like a madman\nthrough the streets.[113] The celebrated surgeon Porta would not suffer\nany medical paper to be read at the Lombard Institute without murmuring\nand showing his contempt; as soon as a mathematical or philological\npaper was brought forward he became quiet and attentive. Comte gave out\nthat he was the High Priest of Humanity. Wetzel intitled his works,\n_Opera Dei Wetzelii_. Rouelle, the founder of chemistry in France,\nquarrelled with all his disciples who wrote on chemistry. They were, he\nsaid, ignorant bunglers, plagiaries; this latter term assumed so odious\na significance in his mind that he applied it to the worst criminals;\nfor instance, to express his horror of Damiens he said he was a\nplagiary.\n\nMany men of genius, while avoiding these excesses, nevertheless believe\nthat they embody in themselves absolute truth; they modify scientific\nconclusions in their own interests, and in accordance with the part they\nare themselves able to take. Delacroix, become incapable of drawing\nbeautiful lines, declared, \u201cColour is everything.\u201d Ingres said, \u201cDrawing\nis honesty, drawing is honour.\u201d Chopin charged Schubert and Shakespeare\nwith temerity because in these great men he always sought a\ncorrespondence with his own temperament.[114] The Princess Conti having\nsaid to Malherbe, \u201cI wish to show you some of the most beautiful verses\nin the world, which you have not yet seen,\u201d he replied immediately with\nemotion, \u201cPardon me, madame, I have seen them; for, since they are the\nmost beautiful in the world, I must have written them myself.\u201d\n\n_Folie du doute._--Among men of genius we often find the phenomena which\ncharacterizes that disorder termed by alienists _folie du doute_, one of\nthe varieties of melancholia. In this form of insanity the subject has\nevery appearance of mental health; he reasons, writes, and speaks like\nother people; everything goes well until he has to execute a definite\naction, and in this he finds all sorts of imaginary dangers. Thus I have\ntreated a woman who when she had to get up in the morning, would\nhesitate for hours beside her bed, with one arm in the sleeve of her\nchemise, and the other sleeve hanging down, until her husband came to\nher help. Sometimes the husband was obliged to give her a few slight\nblows to induce her to take action. If she went for a walk and knocked\nagainst a stone, or came across a puddle, she would remain motionless;\nher husband had then to carry her for a few instants. In conversation\nshe seemed the best and most sensible of mothers, but woe to the\nunfortunate person who dropped any word she regarded with suspicion,\nsuch as \u201cdevil,\u201d \u201cdeath,\u201d \u201cGod\u201d; she immediately seized him and cried\nout, until he repeated a certain formula, declaring a dozen times that\nthe word had not been uttered to injure her. A peasant, affected by the\nsame disorder, was incapable of attending to his work, unless some one\nwas there to watch over him; for, said he, \u201cI cannot make up my mind\nwhether I ought to dig or to hoe, to go to the field or to the hill, and\nmy uncertainty is so great that I end by doing nothing.\u201d\n\nWhen Johnson walked along the streets of London he was compelled to\ntouch every post he passed; if he omitted one he had to return. He\nalways went in or out of a door or passage in such a way that either his\nright or his left foot (Boswell was not certain which) should be the\nfirst to cross the threshold; when he made any mistake in the movement,\nhe would return, and, having satisfactorily performed the feat, rejoin\nhis companions with the air of a man who had got something off his mind.\nNapoleon I. could not pass through a street, even at the head of his\narmy, without counting and adding up the rows of windows. Manzoni, in a\nletter (addressed to Giorgio Briano) which has become famous, declared\nthat he was incapable of giving himself up to politics because he did\nnot know how to decide on anything; he was always in a state of\nuncertainty before every resolution, even the most trifling. He was\nafraid of drowning in the smallest puddle, and could never resolve to go\nout alone; he confessed on various occasions that, from his youth up, he\nhad suffered from melancholy.[115] He passed whole days without being\nable to apply himself to anything,[116] so that in a month there were\nfive or six useful days during which he worked five hours, and then he\nbecame incapable of thinking.[117] Ugo Foscolo said that \u201cvery active in\nregard to some things, he was in regard to others less than a man, less\nthan a woman, less than a child.\u201d[118] Tolstoi confesses that\nphilosophic scepticism had led him into a condition approximating to\nmadness; let us add, to _folie du doute_. \u201cI imagined,\u201d he said, \u201cthat\nthere existed nothing outside me, either living or dead; that the\nobjects were not objects, but vain appearances; this state reached such\na point that sometimes I turned suddenly round, and looked behind me in\nthe hope of seeing _nothing_ where I was not.\u201d \u201cThe deplorable mania of\ndoubt exhausts me,\u201d cried Flaubert, \u201cI doubt about everything, even\nabout my doubts.\u201d[119] \u201cI am embarrassed and frightened at my own\nideas,\u201d wrote Maine de Biran, \u201cevery expression stops me and gives me\nscruples. I have no confidence in anything that I publish, and am always\ntempted to withdraw my works when they have scarcely appeared, to\nsubstitute others which would certainly be worthless. I always call\nthose happy who are tied down to fixed labour, who are not submitted to\nthe torment of uncertainty, to the indecision which poisons men who are\nmasters of their time. I am always trying my strength; I commence, and\nrecommence again and again. It is my fortune to be useless, to be\nwanting in measure, never to feel my existence, never to have confidence\nin my capacity. I am never happy wherever I am, because I carry within\nmy own organism a source of affliction and unrest. I have only\nsufficient feeling of my own personality to feel my impotence, which is\na great torture. I am always ready to do a number of things ... and I do\nnothing.\u201d[120] The little miseries of existence were tortures for\nCarlyle; to have to pack his portmanteau was a grave affair of state;\nthe idea of ordering coats or buying gloves crushed him. \u201cI have long\nrenounced the omnibus,\u201d wrote Renan in his _Souvenirs de Jeunesse_, \u201cthe\nconductors refuse to regard me as a serious traveller. At the railway\nstation, unless I have the protection of an inspector, I always obtain\nthe worst place.... I see too well that to do a good turn to one, is\nusually to do a bad one to another. The vision of the unknown person I\nam injuring stops short my zeal.\u201d\n\nRenan, indeed, is a most singular instance of these characteristics in\nconnection with genius, from his earliest years. At mass his childish\neye wandered over the roof of the chapel, and he thought of the great\nmen told of in books. It was his dream to write books. \u201cMy gentleness,\u201d\nhe writes, \u201cwhich often arises from indifference, my indulgence, which\nis very sincere and which depends on a clear perception of the injustice\nof men to each other, the conscientious habits which are a pleasure to\nme, the indefinite endurance of _ennui_ which I possess--having,\nperhaps, been inoculated in my youth--may be explained by my\nsurroundings, and the deep impressions I have received. The paradoxical\nvow to preserve the clerical virtues without the faith which serves as\nbasis for them, and in a world for which they are not made, produced, so\nfar as I am concerned, the most amusing incidents. If ever a comic\nwriter wishes to amuse the public at my expense, he needs but my\ncollaboration; I could tell him things far more amusing than he could\ninvent.\u201d A layman and a sceptic he preserved, involuntarily, the vow of\npoverty. \u201cMy dream would be to be housed, fed, clothed, and warmed,\nwithout having to think about it, by someone who would take charge of me\nand leave me free. The competence which I possess came late, and in\nspite of myself.... I always thought about writing; it did not occur to\nme it could bring me any money. What was my astonishment when I saw a\ngentleman of agreeable and intelligent appearance enter my garret,\ncompliment me on some articles I had published, and offer to collect\nthem in a volume. He brought a stamped paper stipulating conditions I\nthought astonishingly generous, so that when he asked me to include all\nmy future writings in the same contract, I consented. The idea came to\nme to make some observations, but I paused at sight of the document; the\nthought that that beautiful sheet of paper would be lost stopped me. I\ndid well to stop.\u201d The politeness which he wrongly believes he learnt at\nthe seminary is not the raw and cold politeness of the priest, but the\nspecial and excessive timidity of genius. He could not, he says, treat\neven a dog with an air of authority. But authority is the chief\ncharacteristic of priests. To imagine as he does that men are always\ngood and deserving could only be, as he himself justly notes, a\ncontinual danger. \u201cNotwithstanding all my efforts to the contrary, I was\npredestined to be what I am, a romantic protesting against romanticism,\nan utopian preaching materialistic politics, an idealist uselessly\ngiving himself much trouble to appear _bourgeois_, a tissue of\ncontradictions.... It is as a great observer Challemel-Lacour has\nexcellently said, \u2018He thinks like a man, feels like a woman, and acts\nlike a child.\u2019 I do not complain, since this moral constitution has\nprocured me the most vivid intellectual joys that may be tasted.\u201d[121]\n\nBut the most striking example of this permanent state of doubt is\nsupplied by another philosopher, the author of a journal of his own\nlife, Amiel. He was so tormented by doubt that the strength of his\ngenius was only shown after his death, when in his journal he revealed\nwith absolute exactness the wound which gnawed him. Let us read a few of\nthe most remarkable passages:--\n\n     \u201cAs life flees,\u201d he says, \u201cI mourn the loss of reality: thought is\n     sad without action, and action is sad without thought: the real is\n     spoilt when the ideal has not added its perfume; but the ideal,\n     when not made one with the real, becomes a poison. I have never\n     learnt the art of writing; it would have been useful to me, but I\n     was ashamed of the useful: on the other hand, I have acquired two\n     opposed intellectual habits: to note immediately passing\n     impressions and to analyse them scientifically.... This journal\n     will be useful to no one, and even for me it will serve rather to\n     plan out life than to practice it; it is a pillow of idleness....\n     And even in style I am unequal. Always energetic and correct: that\n     results from my existence: I see before me several expressions and\n     I do not know which I ought to choose. The unique expression is an\n     act of courage which implies confidence in oneself.... I\n     discovered very early that it is easier to give up a wish than to\n     gratify it.... The idea may be modified, but not the action, so I\n     abhor it, for I fear useless remorse: I thrust aside the idea of a\n     family, because every lost joy is the stab of a knife, because\n     every hope is an egg from which may proceed a serpent as well as a\n     dove.... Action is my cross because it would be my dream; but to be\n     false to the ideal would soil the conscience and be an unpardonable\n     error.... It is my passion to injure my interests. When a thing\n     attracts me I flee from it.\u201d[122]\n\nEvery one may see the glorious kinship to genius of all these forms of\ndisease. And every one will think of the great poet-alienist who divined\ninsanity in genius, and left of it a monumental portrait in Hamlet, the\nman afflicted by _folie du doute_.\n\nIt is scarcely necessary to add that these great disordered minds must\nnot be confused with the poor inmates, without genius, of our asylums.\nAlthough, as diseased persons, they belong to the same category, and\nhave some of the same characters, they must not be identified with them.\nWhile ordinary lunatics are reduced to inaction, or the agitation of\nsterile delirium, these disordered men of genius are the more active in\nthe ideal life because the less apt for practical life. Further, when we\nanalyse more delicately this form of insanity, or rather of impotence\nfor practical action, so common among men of genius, we see that it is\ndistinct from the other forms. In scientific work these men do not lack\nprecision, or decision, or audacity. But by expending their strength on\ntheoretical problems, they end by failing with reference to practical\nthings. By carrying their glance above and beyond, these sublimely\nfar-sighted persons become, like astronomers, unable to perceive\nneighbouring objects. The effects seem partly identical, but the nature\nof the phenomena and their causes are absolutely different.\n\nIn his \u201cDialogue of Nature,\u201d Leopardi, after having shown how the\nexcellence of genius involves a greater intensity of life, and\nconsequently a more vivid sense of individual misfortune, makes Nature\naddress him thus: \u201cBesides, the delicacy of your own intelligence and\nthe vivacity of your imagination will shut you out, for a great part,\nfrom your empire of yourself. The brutes follow easily the ends that\nthey propose to themselves, with all their faculties and all their\nstrength. But men very rarely utilize all their power; they are usually\nstopped by reason and imagination, which create for them a thousand\nuncertainties in deliberation, a thousand obstacles in execution. Those\nwho are less apt or less accustomed to consider and balance motions are\nthe most prompt in taking a resolution, the most powerful in action. But\nthose who are like you, the elect souls, continually folded on\nthemselves and outrun, as it were, by the greatness of their own\nfaculties, consequently powerless to govern themselves, are most often\nsubjected, either in deliberation or execution, to irresolution, which\nis one of the greatest penalties which afflict human life. Add to this\nthat the excellence of your aptitudes will enable you to surpass, easily\nand briefly, all other souls in the most profound sciences and the most\ndifficult researches; but, nevertheless, it will always be impossible or\nextremely difficult for you to learn or to put in practice a great many\nthings, insignificant in themselves, but absolutely necessary in your\nrelations with other men. And at the same time you will find these\nthings learnt and easily applied by minds, not only inferior to yours,\nbut altogether contemptible.\u201d\n\n_Alcoholism._--Many men of genius have abused alcoholic drinks.\nAlexander died, it is said, after having emptied ten times the goblet of\nHercules, and it was without doubt in an alcoholic attack, while\npursuing naked the infamous Thais, that he killed his dearest friend.\nC\u00e6sar was often carried home on the shoulders of his soldiers. Neither\nSocrates, nor Seneca, nor Alcibiades, nor Cato, nor Peter the Great (nor\nhis wife, Catherine, nor his daughter, Elizabeth), were remarkable for\ntheir abstinence. One recalls Horace\u2019s line:\n\n    \u201c_Narratur et prisci Catonis s\u00e6pe mero caluisse virtus._\u201d\n\nTiberius Nero was called by the Romans Biberius Mero. Septimius Severus\nand Mahomet II. succumbed to drunkenness or _delirium tremens_. Among\nconfirmed drunkards must be counted the Constable de Bourbon and\nAvicenna, who, it was said, devoted the second half of his life to\nshowing the uselessness of the studies to which he had devoted the first\nhalf; so also have been many famous painters, such as the Caracci, Jan\nSteen, Barbatelli (on this account nicknamed Pocetta), G. Morland,\nTurner; and many poets and novelists, such as Murger, G\u00e9rard de Nerval,\nAlfred de Musset, Kleist, Poe, Hoffmann, Addison, Steele, Carew,\nSheridan, Burns, Charles Lamb, James Thomson, Majl\u00e1th, Hartley\nColeridge. Tasso wrote in a letter: \u201cI do not deny that I am mad, but I\nbelieve that my madness is caused by intoxication and love; for I know\nthat I drink too much.\u201d Coleridge, on account of his lack of will, and\nhis abuse of alcoholic drinks and opium, never succeeded in executing\nany of his gigantic projects; in youth he was offered thirty guineas for\na poem he had improvised, but he never succeeded in getting it on to\npaper. His son, Hartley, a distinguished writer, gave himself up to\ndrink so entirely that he died of it. It was said of him that he \u201cwrote\nlike an angel and drank like a fish.\u201d Savage, during the last days of\nhis life almost lived on wine and died in a Bristol prison. Helius, a\nGerman poet of the sixteenth century, affirmed that it was the greatest\nof shames to be beaten in drinking. Shenstone said of his comrade in\npoetry, Somerville, that he was \u201cforced to drink himself into pains of\nthe body, in order to get rid of the pains of the mind.\u201d Madame de Sta\u00ebl\nand De Quincey abused opium; the latter has left a vivid picture of his\nexcesses in the _Confessions of an Opium Eater_. Many musical composers\nwere great drinkers; such were Dussek, Handel, and Gl\u00fcck, who used to\nsay that he loved money, wine, and fame for an excellent reason: the\nfirst enabled him to obtain the second, and the second, by inspiring\nhim, procured him fame. But besides wine he liked brandy, and one day he\ndrank so much that he died of it.[123] One may say the same of Rovani\nand of Praga.\n\n_Hallucinations._--We have already seen that hallucinations are so\nclosely connected with artistic and genial creations that Brierre de\nBoismont associated them with the physiology of great men. Every one\nknows the celebrated hallucination of Cellini in his cell, those of\nBrutus, of C\u00e6sar, of Napoleon, of Swedenborg, who believed that he had\nvisited Heaven, conversed with the spirits of the great dead, and seen\nthe Eternal Father in person; Van Helmont declared that he had seen his\nown soul in the form of a brilliant crystal; Kerner was visited by a\nspectre. Shelley thought he saw a child rise from the sea and clap its\nhands. Clare, after having read some historical episode, imagined that\nhe was himself spectator and actor. Blake thought he really perceived\nthe fantastic images reproduced by his pencil. A celebrated professor\nwas often subject to a similar illusion, and he believed himself changed\ninto Confucius, Papirius, and Tamerlane. Hobbes confessed that he could\nnot go in the dark without thinking that he saw visions of the\ndead.[124] Bunyan heard voices.\n\nWhen Columbus was cast on the shores of Jamaica he had an hallucination\nof hearing. He heard a voice reproaching him for giving himself up to\ngrief and for having but a weak faith in God: \u201cWhat happens to you\nto-day is a deserved punishment for having served the masters of the\nworld and not God. All these tribulations are engraved on marble, and\nare not brought about without reason.\u201d Later, Columbus declared that in\nhim was accomplished an ancient prophecy announcing the end of the world\non the day on which the universal diffusion of Christianity would be\nrealized. According to the same prophecy, only 156 years of existence\nremained for humanity.[125]\n\nMalebranche declared that he had distinctly heard within himself the\nvoice of God. Descartes, after a long seclusion, believed himself\nhaunted by an invisible person who charged him to follow up the search\nfor truth.[126] Byron sometimes imagined he was haunted by a spectre;\nhe afterwards explained this himself by the extreme excitability of his\nbrain.[127] Dr. Johnson distinctly heard his mother call him \u201cSamuel!\u201d\nalthough she was living in a distant town. Pope, who suffered much from\nthe bowels, one day asked his doctor about an arm which seemed to\nprotrude from the wall. Goethe assures us that he one day saw his own\nimage coming to meet him.[128] When Oliver Cromwell was lying on his\nbed, kept awake by extreme fatigue, the curtain opened and a woman of\ngigantic proportions appeared and announced that he would be the\ngreatest man in England.[129]\n\n_Moral Insanity._--Complete absence of moral sense and of sympathy is\nfrequently found among men of genius, as well as among the morally\ninsane. It is an old proverb that \u201c_Quo quisque est doctior eo est\nnequior_.\u201d Aristotle, in reply to the question, \u201cWhy the most learned\nman is of all living beings the most unjust?\u201d replies: \u201cBecause he aims\nalways at pleasures which can only be attained by injustice. And,\nbesides, knowledge resembles the stone which is good to sharpen\ninstruments on, but may also serve the murderer\u2019s turn.\u201d And Philip of\nComines says: \u201c_Doctrina vel meliores reddit homines vel pejores pro\ncujusque natura_.\u201d And Cardan: \u201c_Sapientes cum calidissimi natura sint,\nac humidissimi, nisi philosophia proficiant, pessimi omnium sunt.\nAdiuvant ad scelera perpetranda industria quam ex studiis acquisuerunt,\net melancolia qu\u00e6 resoluto humore pinguiore gignitur ex superfluis\nstudiis, atque, vigiliis_,\u201d _&c._\n\n\u201cThe older I grow,\u201d wrote George Sand, \u201cthe more I reverence goodness\nbecause I see that this is the gift of which God is most avaricious.\nWhere there is no intelligence, that which is called goodness is merely\nstupidity. Where there is no strength the pretended goodness is apathy.\nWhere there is strength and intelligence, goodness can scarcely be\nfound, because experience and observation have given birth to suspicion\nand hate. The souls devoted to the noblest principles are often the most\nrough and bitter, because they have become diseased through deceptions.\nOne esteems them, one admires them still, but one cannot love them. To\nhave been unhappy without ceasing to be intelligent and good implies a\nvery powerful organization, and it is such that I seek and love.... I am\nsick of great men (forgive the expression); I should like to see them\nall in Plutarch. There they do not make one suffer on the human side.\nLet them be cut in marble or cast in bronze, and let them be silent. So\nlong as they live they are wicked, persecuting, fantastic, despotic,\nbitter, suspicious. They confuse in the same proud contempt the goats\nand the sheep. They are worse to their friends than to their enemies.\nGod protect us from them; be good--stupid if you will.\u201d[130]\n\n\u201cI regret,\u201d said Valerius Maximus,[131] \u201cto speak of the youth of\nThemistocles, when I see, on the one hand, his father disinheriting him\nwith ignominy, and, on the other, his mother, from shame of such a son,\nhanging herself with grief.\u201d Sallust, who wrote such beautiful tirades\non virtue, passed his life in debauchery. Speusippus, the disciple of\nPlato, was killed in the act of adultery.[132] Democritus is said to\nhave blinded himself because he could not look at a woman without\ndesiring her. Aristippus, under the mask of austerity, abandoned himself\nto debauchery. Anaxagoras denied a deposit confided to him by strangers;\nAristotle basely flattered Alexander. Theognis wrote moral maxims,\nparticularly on a happy death, and bequeathed his patrimony to a\nprostitute (?), leaving his own family destitute. Euripides, Juvenal,\nand Aretino remarked that women of letters were nearly always\nlicentious. Thus Sappho, Philena, and Elephantina were prostitutes, as\nwas Leontion, philosopher and priestess, who gave herself to all the\nphilosophers; and Demophila who told little love stories, and put them\nin practice. At the Renaissance, Veronica Franco, Tullia of Aragon, and\nother prostitutes, were as well known for their licentiousness as for\ntheir poetry. Voigt considers that immorality was a characteristic\nfeature of the Renaissance period.[133]\n\nIn my _Uomo Delinquente_ I have considered criminal genius. Sallust,\nSeneca, and Bacon were accused of peculation; Cremani was a forger,\nDemme a poisoner. One may also refer to Casanova, who was declared to\nhave forfeited his nobility for a crime the nature of which is not\nknown, and Avicenna, an epileptic, who in old age plunged into\ndebauchery, and took opium in excess, so that it was said of him that\nphilosophy had not enabled him to live honestly, nor medicine to live\nhealthily.[134]\n\nAmong poets and artists criminality is, unfortunately, well marked. Many\namong them are dominated by passion which becomes the most powerful spur\nof their activity; they are not protected by the logical criticism and\njudgment with which men of science are armed. This is why we must count\namong criminals Bonfadio, Rousseau, Aretino, Ceresa, Brunetto Latini,\nFranco, Foscolo, possibly Byron. Observe that I leave out of the\nquestion ancient times and barbarous countries among which brigandage\nand poetry went hand in hand.\n\nMore criminal still seem to have been Albergati, a comic writer\nbelonging to the highest aristocracy, who killed his wife through\njealousy;[135] Muret, the humanist, condemned in France for sodomy; and\nCasanova, so highly gifted for mathematical science and finance, who\nstained his fine genius by a life of swindling and turpitude, giving us\nin his _M\u00e9moires_ a complete and cynical picture of it. Villon belonged\nto an honourable family; he received the name by which he is known\n(_villon_, rascal, robber), when he became famous in scoundrelism, to\nwhich he was led, by his own confession, by gaming and women. He began\nby stealing objects of little value to give a good dinner to his\nmistresses and companions in idleness; it was their wine that he stole.\nHis chief robbery was inspired by hunger when the woman, at whose\nexpense he lived, turned him out of doors at night in winter. It is to\nthis woman whom, in his _Petit Testament_ he bequeaths his heart. He is\nsupposed to have joined a band of armed robbers, who attacked travellers\non the Rueil road, and being arrested a second time he with difficulty\nescaped the halter.\n\nIt has been said of the man of genius, as of the madman, that he is born\nand dies in isolation, cold and insensible to family affection and\nsocial conventions. Men of letters, it is true, make much of the\npowerful cries of pain in artists and writers who have lost, or been\nabandoned by, a loved person. But often, as in Petrarch\u2019s case, this is\nonly a pretext, an opportunity for literary labours.[136] Very often\nsuch cries were sincere (or could they have been so powerful and\neffective?) but they were then intermittent explosions, in opposition to\nthe habitual state of these men, or else temporary reactions against\ntheir ordinary apathy, from which they were only drawn by personal\nvanity, and the passion of \u00e6sthetic and scientific researches.\n\nBulwer Lytton, from the first days of his marriage ill-treated his wife\nby biting and insulting her, so that the courier who accompanied them on\nthe honeymoon refused to proceed to the end. Later he confessed to the\nwrong he had done her, but wrote to her that a common life was\ninsupportable, and that he must live in liberty.\n\nIt is curious to observe that the writers who have been most chaste in\ntheir lives are least so in their writings, and _vice versa_. Flaubert\nwrote in one of his letters, \u201cPoor Bouilhet used to say to me, \u2018There\nnever was so moral a man who loved immorality so much as you.\u2019 There is\ntruth in that. Is it a result of my pride, or of a certain\nperversity?\u201d[137] George Sand and Sallust offer the opposite phenomenon.\n\nIt is not known whether Comte ever forgave an injury. He certainly\nalways preserved the rancour and the recollection of injuries, and\npursued, even to the grave, the memory of his unfaithful wife. The\namorous worship which he dedicated to Clotilde de Vaux was so little\nsincere that he determined beforehand the month, day, and hour when he\nshould shed tears over her memory.[138]\n\nBacon employed all his eloquence for the condemnation of the greatest of\nhis benefactors, Essex; by cowardly complaisance to the king, he\nintroduced for the first time into the court of justice an odious abuse,\nand submitted Peacham to torture so as to be able to condemn him; he\nsold justice at a price, and, as Macaulay concludes, he was one of those\nof whom we may say, _scientiis tanquam angeli, cupiditatibus tanquam\nserpentes_.\n\n\u201cBridget,\u201d confesses A. de Musset, \u201ccalumniated, exposed (by her love)\nto the insults of the world, had to endure all the disdain and injury\nwhich an angry and cruel libertine can heap on the girl whom he pays....\nThe days passed on and my fits of ill-humour and sarcasm took on a\nsombre and obstinate character.\u201d[139]\n\nByron\u2019s intimate friend, Hobhouse, wrote of him that he was possessed by\na diseased egoism. Even when he loved his wife he refused to dine with\nher, so as not to give up his old habits. He afterwards treated her so\nbadly that, in good faith, and perhaps with reason, she consulted\nspecialists as to his mental condition.\n\nNapoleon\u2019s conduct towards his wife, his brothers, and towards those who\ntrusted in him was that of a man without moral sense. Taine sums up the\ndiagnosis in one word: he was a _condottiere_.\n\n\u201cA man\u2019s genius is no sinecure,\u201d said Carlyle\u2019s wife, a most intelligent\nand cultivated woman, who, though capable of becoming (as she had hoped\nand been assured) her husband\u2019s fellow-worker, was compelled to be his\nservant. The idea of travelling in a carriage with his wife seemed to\nhim out of the question; he must have his brother with him; he neglected\nher for other women, and pretended that she was indifferent. Her chief\nduty was to preserve him from the most remote noises; the second was to\nmake his bread, for he detested that of the bakers; he obliged her to\ntravel for miles on horseback as his messenger, only saw her at\nmeal-time, and for weeks together never addressed a word to her,\nalthough his prolonged silence caused her agony. It was only after her\ndeath, accelerated by his conduct, that, in a literary form, he showed\nhis repentance, and narrated her history in affecting language, but, as\nhis biographer adds, if she had been still alive he would have tormented\nher afresh.\n\nFrederick II. said, like Lacenaire, that vengeance is the pleasure of\nthe gods, and that he would die happy if he could inflict on his enemies\nmore evils than he had suffered from them. He experienced real delight\nin morally tormenting his friends, sometimes beating them; if a courtier\nliked to pomade himself, he soaked his clothes in oil; he bargained with\nVoltaire over sugar and chocolate, and deprived him of his money.\n\nDonizetti treated his family brutally; it was after a fit of savage\nanger, in which he had beaten his wife, that he composed, sobbing, the\ncelebrated air, _Tu che a Dio spiegasti l\u2019ali_;[140] a remarkable\ninstance of the double nature of personality in men of genius, and at\nthe same time of their moral insensibility.\n\nHoussaye narrates a similar scene, in which A. Dumas was so carried away\nduring a quarrel, as to tear out his wife\u2019s hair. She, in despair,\nwished to retire to a convent; yet after some minutes he gaily wrote a\ncomic scene, and said to his friends: \u201cIf tears were pearls, I would\nmake myself a necklace of them.\u201d\n\nByron used to beat the Guiccioli, and also his Venetian mistress, the\ngondolier\u2019s wife, who, however, gave him as good.\n\nFontenelle, seeing his companion at table struck by apoplexy, was not\ndisconcerted; he simply took advantage of the incident to change the\nsauce for the asparagus to vinegar; out of deference to his friend\u2019s\ntaste he had previously ordered butter.\n\nIt is sufficient to be present at any academy, university, faculty, or\ngathering of men who, without genius, possess at least erudition, to\nperceive at once that their dominant thought is always disdain and hate\nof the man who possesses, almost or entirely, the quality of genius. The\nman of genius, in his turn, has nothing but contempt for others. He\nbelieves he has all the more right to laugh at others, from being\nhimself sensitive to the slightest criticism; he is even offended at\npraise given to another as blame directed to himself. That is why at\nacademical gatherings the greatest men only agree in praising the most\nignorant person. We have seen that Chateaubriand was offended when his\nshoemaker was praised. Lisfranc called his colleague, Dupuytren, a\nbrigand, and Roux and Velpeau forgers.\n\nI have been able to observe men of genius when they had scarcely reached\nthe age of puberty: they did not manifest the deep aversions of moral\ninsanity, but I have noted among all a strange apathy for everything\nwhich does not concern them; as though plunged in the hypnotic\ncondition, they did not perceive the troubles of others, or even the\nmost pressing needs of those who were dearest to them; if they observed\nthem, they grew tender, and even at once hastened to attend to them; but\nit was a fire of straw, soon extinguished, and it gave place to\nindifference and weariness.\n\nGenius, said Schopenhauer, is solitary. Genius, wrote Goethe, is only\nrelated to its time by its defects.\n\nThis emotional an\u00e6sthesia may be found even in philanthropists, who\npossess the genius of sentiment, and have made goodness and pity for the\npoor the pivot of their actions. It is difficult to explain otherwise\nsome pages in the Gospel. \u201cYou think, perhaps,\u201d said Jesus, \u201cthat I have\ncome to bring peace to the earth? No, I have come to throw down a sword\nthere.... In a household of five persons, three will be against two, and\ntwo against three. I have come to bring division between father and son,\nbetween mother and daughter, between daughter-in-law and mother-in-law.\nFrom this time a man\u2019s enemies will be of his own household.\u201d[141] \u201cI\nhave come to bring fire on to the earth: if it burns already, so much\nthe better!\u201d[142] \u201cI declare to you,\u201d he added, \u201cwhoever leaves house,\nwife, brothers, and parents, will receive a hundredfold in this world,\nand in the world to come everlasting life.\u201d[143] \u201cIf any one comes to me\nand does not hate his father, mother, wife, children, brothers,\nsisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.\u201d[144] \u201cHe who\nloves his father and his mother more than me is not worthy of me; he who\nloves his son or his daughter more than me, is not worthy of me.\u201d[145]\nJesus said to a man, \u201cFollow me.\u201d \u201cLord;\u201d this man replied, \u201clet me\nfirst go and bury my father.\u201d Jesus answered: \u201cThe dead may bury their\ndead: go, you, and preach the kingdom of God.\u201d[146]\n\nDante, Goethe, Leopardi, Byron, and Heine were reproached with hating\ntheir country. Tolstoi disapproves of patriotism. Schopenhauer said, \u201cIn\nthe face of death I confess that I despise the Germans for their\nunspeakable bestiality, and am ashamed to belong to them.\u201d\n\n_Longevity._--This diseased apathy, this diminution of affection, which\nfurnishes genius with a breastplate against so many assaults, and which\nrapidly destroys fibres at once so delicate and so strong, explains the\nremarkable longevity of men of genius, in spite of their hyper\u00e6sthesia\nin other directions. I have noted this character in 134 cases out of\n143.\n\nSophocles, Humboldt, Fontenelle, Brougham, Xenophon, Cato the Elder,\nMichelangelo, Petrarch, Bettinelli, died at 90; Passeroni, Auber,\nManzoni, Xavier de Maistre at 89; Hobbes at 92; Dandolo at 97; Titian at\n99; Cassiodorus and Mlle. Scud\u00e9ry at 94; Viennet and Diogenes at 91;\nVoltaire, Franklin, Watt, John of Bologna, Vincent de Paul, Baroccio,\nYoung, Talleyrand, Raspail, Grimm, Herschel, Metastasio at 84; Victor\nHugo, Donatello, Goethe, Wellington at 83; Zingarelli, Metternich,\nTheodore de Beza, Lamarck, Halley at 86; Bentham, Newton, St. Bernard de\nMenthon, Bodmer, Luini, Scarpa, Bonpland, Chiabrera, Carafa, Goldoni at\n85; Thiers, Kant, Maffei, Amyot, Villemain, Wieland, Littr\u00e9 at 80;\nAnacreon, Mercatori, Viviani, Buffon, Palmerston, Casti, J. Bernouilli,\nPinel at 81; Galileo, Euler, Schlegel, B\u00e9ranger, Louis XIV., Corneille,\nCesarotti at 78; Herodotus, Rossini, Cardan, Michelet, Boileau,\nGaribaldi, Archimedes, Paisiello, Saint Augustine at 75; Tacitus and B.\nDisraeli at 76; Pericles at 70; Thucydides at 69; Hippocrates at 103;\nand Saint Anthony at 105.\n\nAccording to Beard the average life of 500 men of genius is 54, and that\nof 100 modern men of genius is 70. The average duration of life of 35\nmen of musical genius was 63 years, and 8 months.[147] But this fact\ndoes not exclude degeneration when, as among persons with moral\ninsanity, it is united with an apathy which renders temperaments\notherwise mobile, insensible to the strongest griefs, and I have shown\nin another book[148] that instinctive criminals, living out of prison,\nenjoy great longevity. It should be added that longevity is not always\nfound in genius; many great men of genius, such as Raphael, Pascal,\nBurns, Keats, Byron, Mozart, Felix Mendelssohn, Bellini, Bichat, Pico de\nla Mirandola died before the age of forty.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nGENIUS AND INSANITY.\n\n     Resemblance between genius and insanity--Men and women of genius\n     who have been\n     insane--Montanus--Harrington--Haller--Schumann--G\u00e9rard de\n     Nerval--Baudelaire--Concato--Mainl\u00e4nder--Comte--Codazzi--Bolyai--Cardan--Tasso--Swift--Newton--Rousseau--Lenau--Sz\u00e9ch\u00e9nyi--Hoffmann--Foder\u00e0--Schopenhauer--Gogol.\n\n\nThe resemblance between insanity and genius, although it does not show\nthat these two should be confounded, proves at all events that one does\nnot exclude the other in the same subject.\n\nIn fact, without speaking of the numerous men of genius who at some\nperiod of their lives were subject to hallucinations or insanity, or of\nthose who, like Vico, terminated a great career in dementia, how many\ngreat thinkers have shown themselves all their lives subject to\nmonomania or hallucinations!\n\nIn recent times insanity has shown itself in Farini, Brougham, Southey,\nGovone, Gounod, Gutzkow, Monge, Fourcroy, Cowper, Rocchia, Ricci,\nFenicia,[149] Engel, Pergolese, Batjusckoff, M\u00fcrger, William Collins,\nTechner, H\u00f6lderlen, Von der West, Gallo, Spedalieri, Bellingeri,\nSalieri, Johannes M\u00fcller, Lenz, Barbara, Fuseli, Petermann, the\ncaricaturist Cham, Hamilton, Poe, Uhlrich.\n\nIn France, remarks Martini, many young and original poets have died\ninsane.[150] Such also seems to have been the fate of Briffault, and of\nLaurent attacked by a veritable mania of calumny.[151] Among women\nG\u00fcnderode, Stieglitz (who both committed suicide with great\ndeliberation), Brachmann, L. E. Landon lived and died insane.[152]\n\nMontanus, a victim to solitude and a disordered imagination, was\nconvinced that he had become a grain of wheat. He refused to move for\nfear of being swallowed by birds.[153] Harrington is said to have\nimagined that diseases took the form of bees and flies, and for this\nreason he retired to a cabin armed with a broom to disperse them. Haller\nbelieved that he was persecuted by men and damned by God on account of\nthe vileness of his soul and his heretical works. He could only soothe\nhis excessive terror by enormous doses of opium and by converse with\npriests.[154] Amp\u00e8re burnt a treatise on the future of chemistry\nbelieving he had written it by Satanic suggestion. The great Dutch\nartist, Van Goes, thought he was possessed. Carlo Dolce, a prey to\nreligious monomania, vowed only to paint religious pictures. He devoted\nhis pencil to Madonnas, though his Madonna, indeed, is the portrait of\nBalduini. On his wedding-day he alone was missing; after some hours he\nwas found prostrated before the altar of the Annunciation. Nathaniel\nLee, the dramatist, composed thirteen tragedies during the course of his\ndisease; one day a feeble dramatic colleague told him that it was easy\nto write like a madman. \u201cIt is not easy to write like a madman,\u201d he\nreplied, \u201cbut it is very easy to write like a fool.\u201d Thomas Lloyd, who\nwrote excellent verse, was a strange mixture of malice, pride, genius,\nand insanity.[155] If he was not satisfied with his verses he put them\nin his glass to polish them, as he said. Everything that he came across,\neven coal, paper, and tobacco, he was accustomed to mix with his food\nfor hygienic reasons; the carbon purified it, stone imparted mineral\nvirtues, &c. Charles Lamb in early life had an attack of insanity which\nwas hereditary in his family; writing of this to Coleridge, he said: \u201cAt\nsome future time I will amuse you with an account, as full as my memory\nwill permit, of the strange turns my frenzy took. I look back upon it at\ntimes with a gloomy kind of envy, for, while it lasted, I had many,\nmany hours of pure happiness. Dream not, Coleridge, of having tasted all\nthe grandeur and wildness of fancy till you have gone mad. All now seems\nto me vapid, or comparatively so.\u201d\n\nRobert Schumann (1810-1856), the precursor of the music of the future,\nwas the youngest son of a well-to-do bookseller in Zwickau, and met with\nno obstacles in the pursuit of his cherished art. When a law student he\nmet Clara Wieck, the celebrated pianist, and in her found an excellent\nand lovable companion; but at the age of twenty-three he became subject\nto melancholia; at forty-six he was pursued by turning-tables which knew\neverything; he heard sounds which developed into concords and even whole\ncompositions. For several years he was afraid of being sent to a lunatic\nasylum; Beethoven and Mendelssohn dictated musical combinations to him\nfrom their tombs. In 1854 he threw himself into the Rhine; he was saved,\nand died two years later in a private asylum at Bonn. The autopsy\nrevealed osteophytes, thickening of the cranial membranes and atrophy of\nthe brain.[156]\n\nG\u00e9rard de Nerval was subject to _folie circulaire_, with alternate\nperiods of exaltation and depression, each of which lasted six months.\nIn his moments of calm he was a spiritualist; he heard the spirits of\nAdam, Moses, and Joshua in a piece of furniture; and practised\ncabalistic exorcisms, executing the dance of the Babylonians. During his\nstay at an asylum he imagined that it was the superintendent who was a\nvictim to insanity. \u201cHe believes,\u201d he said, \u201cthat he is superintending\nan asylum, but he is himself the madman and we feign madness in order to\nhumour him.\u201d With the honey of flowers he traced on paper symbols which\nradiated round a fantastic giantess who united the characters of Diana,\nSaint Rosalie, and of an actress named Colon with whom he believed he\nwas in love. In reality he adored her from a great distance, sending her\nlarge bouquets, and buying enormous opera-glasses in order to see her,\nand superb canes with which to applaud her; so that it was said of him\nthat he ruined himself in orgies of opera-glasses and debaucheries of\ncanes. He had discovered a medi\u00e6val bed which was to serve for his\n_amours_, and in order to set it in suitable surroundings he obtained an\napartment and luxurious furniture. In days of poverty the furniture was\nsold, leaving the bed alone in the room, then in a barn, and at last it\nalso disappeared, and its proprietor passed his nights in taverns and\nlow lodging-houses, or writing beneath trees and porches. Later, when he\nhad ceased to see Colon, she became for him a kind of idol with which he\nlived and who in his mystic ideas became confounded partly with the\nsaints and partly with the stars; one day he declared that she was an\nincarnation of Saint Theresa. When he heard that she had declared she\nhad never loved him and only seen him once, which was true, he said:\n\u201cWhat good if she had loved me?\u201d and he added, quoting a verse of Heine,\n\u201cHe who loves for the second time without hope is a madman. I am that\nmadman. The sky, the sun, the stars laugh at it; I also laugh at it,\nlaugh at it and die of it.\u201d\n\nOne day, at sunset, he was on the balcony of a house. He suddenly saw a\nphantom and heard a voice calling him. He ran forward, fell, and was\nnearly killed. That was his first attack, characterised by\nhallucinations of sight and hearing.\n\nTowards the end of his life, at the age of forty-six, _folie des\ngrandeurs_ developed in him; he spoke of his _ch\u00e2teaux_ at Ermenonville,\nof his physical beauty which was astonishing, he said, to his\nattendants; he bought up coins of Nerva, not wishing that the name of\nhis ancestors should circulate as money, yet Nerval was only a\npseudonym. Sometimes he gave out that he was a descendant of Folobello\nde Nerva whose history he wished to write, and all whose male\ndescendants presented, according to him, a supernatural sign, the\ntetragramma of Solomon, on their breasts. Timid and cautious in his days\nof calm, he became bold and noisy when the attack came on, and even\nthreatened his friends with weapons. In spite of the low temperature he\nrefused to leave off his summer clothes. \u201cCold,\u201d he declared, \u201cis a\ntonic and the Lapps are never ill.\u201d A few days after, he hanged\nhimself.[157]\n\nBaudelaire appears before us, in the portrait placed at\n\n[Illustration: BAUDELAIRE.]\n\nthe beginning of his posthumous works, as the type of the lunatic\npossessed by the _D\u00e9lire des grandeurs_.[158] He was descended from a\nfamily of insane and eccentric persons. It was not necessary to be an\nalienist to detect his insanity. In childhood he was subject to\nhallucinations; and from that period, as he himself confessed, he\nexperienced opposing sentiments; the horror and the ecstasy of life; he\nwas hyper\u00e6sthetic and at the same time apathetic; he felt the necessity\nof freeing himself from \u201can oasis of horror in a desert of _ennui_.\u201d\nBefore falling into dementia he committed impulsive acts; for instance,\nhe threw pots from his house against shop windows for the pleasure of\nhearing them break. He changed his lodgings every month; asked the\nhospitality of a friend in order to complete work he was engaged on, and\nwasted his time in reading which had no relation to it whatever. Having\nlost his father, he quarrelled with his mother\u2019s second husband, and one\nday, in the presence of friends, attempted to strangle him. Sent out to\nIndia, in order, it is said, to be put to business, he lost everything\nand only brought back from his voyage a negress to whom he dedicated\nexotic poems. He desired to be original at all costs; gave himself to\nexcess in wine before high personages, dyed his hair green, wore winter\ngarments in summer, and _vice versa_. He experienced morbid passions in\nlove. He loved ugly and horrible women, negresses, dwarfs, giantesses;\nto a very beautiful woman he expressed a desire that he might see her\nsuspended by the hands to the ceiling that he might kiss her feet; and\nkissing the naked foot appears in one of his poems as the equivalent of\nthe sexual act.\n\nHe was constantly dreaming of work, calculating the hours and the lines\nnecessary to pay his debts: two months or more. But that was all, and\nthe work was never begun.[159]\n\nProud, misanthropic, and apathetic, he said of himself: \u201cDiscontented\nwith others and discontented with myself, I desire to redeem myself, to\nregard myself with a little pride in the silence and solitude of the\nnight. Souls of those I have loved, souls of those I have sung,\nstrengthen me, sustain me, remove from me the lies and the corrupting\nvapours of the world; and thou, O Lord my God, grant me grace to produce\nsome fine lines which will prove to myself that I am not the last of\nmen, that I am not inferior to those whom I contemn.\u201d[160]\n\nAnd he had need of it, for he called Gustave Planche imbecile, Dumas a\n_farceur_, Sue stupid, F\u00e9val an idiot, George Sand a Veuillot without\ndelicacy. What he attacked in all these writers was the fame he wished\nto possess; that is why he made fun of Moli\u00e8re and Voltaire.\n\nWith the progress of insanity he used to invert words, saying \u201cshut\u201d\nwhen he meant to say \u201copen,\u201d &c. He died of progressive general\nparalysis of the insane, of which his excessive ambition was already a\nfore-running symptom.\n\nConcato was the son of a poor tailor, the victim of grave cerebral\naffections. He himself presented certain characters of degeneration,\nsuch as pallor and large cheek bones; during many years he was subject\nto various forms of insanity. At the age of seventeen he was seized by\nthe terror of sudden death, and provided himself with nitre to prevent\nfuture cerebral crises. At twenty he resolved to become a monk, although\nin childhood he had been so little devout that he had fabricated false\nnotes of confession. Afterwards he quarrelled with an Austrian officer,\nand then became afraid of all sentinels and soldiers. He would never\nallow an officer to enter his house with his sword by his side; and even\nin old age trembled at the sight of one of the city guards. One night he\ndreamt he had committed a homicide, and for many days he was a prey to\nstrange terrors. He suffered from claustrophobia: woe to whomsoever\ntried to lock him up in a carriage or a room! There were some days\nduring which he considered himself the lowest of men. He was so\nirascible that he used to say that, to be in good health, one must be\nangry at least once a day. Yet he was one of the greatest of European\nphysicians.[161]\n\nMainl\u00e4nder had a grandfather who, after the death of a son, carried\nreligious mysticism to the extent of insanity, and died of inflammation\nof the brain at the age of thirty-three. A brother, also insane, wished\nto embrace Buddhism. As a youth, looking at the sea at Sorrento, he felt\nimpelled to throw himself in, merely attracted by the purity of the\nwater. He educated himself and wrote his celebrated book, _Die\nPhilosophie der Erl\u00f6sung_, but to realize his theories entirely, he\nadopted a rule of absolute chastity, and on the day on which his book\nwas published hanged himself, the better to confirm a passage which\nsaid: \u201cIn order that man may be redeemed it is necessary that he should\nrecognize the value of not-being, and desire intensely not to be.\u201d[162]\n\nThe great Auguste Comte, the initiator of the positivist philosophy, was\nfor ten years under the care of Esquirol, the famous alienist; he\nrecovered, but only to repudiate, without any cause, the wife who had\nsaved him; later, he--who had wished to abolish all priest-craft--believed\nhimself the priest and apostle of a materialistic religion. In his\nworks, amidst stupendous elucubrations, genuinely maniacal ideas may be\nfound, as, for example, the prophecy that one day women will be\nfecundated without the help of the male.[163]\n\nIt is said that mathematicians are exempt from psychical derangements,\nbut this is not true; it is sufficient to recall not only Newton and\nEnfantin, of whom I will speak at length, but the two famous\ndistractions of Archimedes, the hallucination of Pascal, and the\nvagaries of the mathematician Codazzi (not to be confounded with\nCodazza). Codazzi was sub-microcephalic, oxycephalic, alcoholic,\nsordidly avaricious; to affective insensibility he added vanity so great\nthat while still young he set apart a sum for his own funeral monument,\nand refused the least help to his starving parents; he admitted no\ndiscussion of his judgment even if it only concerned the cut of a coat;\nand he had taken it into his head that he could compose melodic music\nwith the help of the calculus.\n\nAll mathematicians admire the great geometer Bolyai, whose\neccentricities were of an insane character; thus he provoked thirteen\nofficials to duels and fought with them, and between each duel he played\nthe violin, the only piece of furniture in his house; when pensioned he\nprinted his own funeral card with a blank date, and constructed his own\ncoffin--a vagary which I have found in two other mathematicians who died\nin recent years. Six years later he had a similar funeral card printed,\nto substitute for the other which he had not been able to use. He\nimposed on his heir the obligation to plant on his grave an apple-tree,\nin remembrance of Eve, of Paris, and of Newton.[164] Such was the great\nreformer of Euclid.\n\nCardan, called by his contemporaries the greatest of men and the most\nfoolish of children--Cardan, who first dared to criticise Galen, to\nexclude fire from the number of the elements, and to call witches and\nsaints insane--this great Cardan was the son, cousin, and father of\nlunatics, and himself a lunatic all his life. \u201cA stammerer, impotent,\nwith little memory or knowledge,\u201d he himself wrote, \u201cI have suffered\nsince childhood from hypno-fantastic hallucinations.\u201d Sometimes it was a\ncock which spoke to him in a human voice; sometimes Tartarus, full of\nbones, which displayed itself before him. Whatever he imagined, he could\nsee before him as a real object. From the age of nineteen to that of\ntwenty-six, a genius, similar to one which already protected his father,\ngave him advice and revealed the future. When he had reached the age of\ntwenty-six he was not altogether deprived of supernatural aid; a recipe\nwhich was not quite right forgot one day the laws of gravity, and rose\nto his table to warn him of the error he was about to commit.[165]\n\nHe was hypochondriacal, and imagined he had contracted all the diseases\nthat he read of: palpitation, sitophobia, diarrh\u0153a, enuresis, podagra,\nhernia--all these diseases vanished without treatment, or with a prayer\nto the Virgin. Sometimes his flesh smelled of sulphur, of extinguished\nwax; sometimes he saw flames and phantoms appear in the midst of violent\nearthquakes, while his friends perceived nothing. Persecuted by every\ngovernment, surrounded by a forest of enemies, whom he knew neither by\nname nor by sight, but who, as he believed, in order to afflict and\ndishonour him, had condemned his much-loved son, he ended by believing\nhimself poisoned by the professors of the University of Pavia, who had\ninvited him for this purpose. If he escapes from their hands, he owes it\nto the help of St. Martin and of the Virgin. Yet such a man in theology\nhad audaciously anticipated Dupuis and Renan!\n\nHe declares himself inclined to all vices--wine, gaming, lying,\nlicentiousness, envy, cunning, deception, calumny, inconstancy; he\nobserves that four times during the full moon he found himself in a\nstate of real mental alienation. His sensibility was so perverted, that\nhe never felt comfortable except under the stimulus of some physical\npain; and in the absence of natural pain, he procured it by artificial\nmeans, biting his lips or arms until he fetched blood. \u201cI sought causes\nof pain to enjoy the pleasure of the cessation of pain, and because I\nperceived that when I did not suffer I fell into so grave and\ntroublesome a condition, that it was worse than any pain.\u201d This fact\nhelps us to understand many strange tortures which madmen have\nvoluptuously imposed on themselves.[166] He had so blind a faith in the\nrevelations of dreams, that he printed a strange work _De Somniis_,\nconducted his medical consultations, concluded his marriage, and began\nhis works (for example, that on the _Variet\u00e0 delle Cose_ and _Sulle\nFebbri_) in accordance with dreams.[167]\n\nHe was impotent up to the age of thirty-four. Virility was given to him\nin a dream, and to this gift was added, not altogether happily, the\ncause of his troubles--his future wife, a brigand\u2019s daughter, whom,\nbefore this dream, as he asserts, he had never even seen. His unhappy\nmania even led him to regulate his medical consultations according to\nhis dreams, as he himself boasts of doing in the case of Borromeo\u2019s son.\nIt is possible to cite other examples, sometimes comic, sometimes\nstrange or terrible. I will quote one which unites all these characters:\nhis dream of the jewel.\n\nIt was in May, 1560, when Cardan was fifty-two years of age. His son had\njust been publicly condemned for poisoning. No misfortune could wound\nmore deeply Cardan\u2019s already sensitive soul. He loved his son with all\na father\u2019s tenderness, as is witnessed by his fine verses, _De Morte\nFilii_, in which there is the imprint of real passion. He hoped also for\na grandson who should resemble himself. Drawn more and more into insane\nideas by grief, he saw in this condemnation the hands of persecutors.\n\u201cThus overwhelmed, I sought distraction in vain in study or in play. In\nvain I bit myself and struck my arms and legs. It was my third night of\nsleeplessness, about two hours before dawn. I saw that there was nothing\nelse for me but to die or go mad. Therefore I prayed God to snatch me\nentirely away from life. And then, against my expectation, sleep took\npossession of me, and at the same time I heard a person approaching me,\nwhose form I could not see, but who said, \u2018Why grieve about your son?\nPut into your mouth the precious stone which you bear suspended from\nyour neck, and as long as you carry it there you will not think of your\nson.\u2019 On waking up, I asked myself what connection there could be\nbetween forgetfulness and an emerald; but as I had no other resource, I\nrecalled the sacred words, \u2018_Credidit et reputatum ei est ad\njustitiam_\u2019; I put the emerald into my mouth, and then, against all\nexpectation, everything that recalled my son vanished from my memory. It\nwas so for a year and a half. It was only during my meals, and at my\npublic lectures, when I was unable to keep the precious stone in my\nmouth, that I fell back into my old grief.\u201d This singular cure had its\npretext in the double sense of the Italian word _gioia_, which means at\nonce \u201cjoy\u201d and \u201cjewel.\u201d Cardan had, however, no need of the revelation\nof a genius, for in his own works he had already recognized a consoling\nvirtue in precious stones, due to the bond of this absurd\netymology.[168]\n\nA megalomaniac, he called himself \u201cthe seventh physician since the\ncreation of the world;\u201d he claimed to know the things which are before\nand above us, and those which shall come after.[169]\n\nLike Rousseau and like Haller, Cardan, during the last days of his\ntormented existence, wrote his own life; he also foretold the exact date\nof his death, which he looked for, and perhaps himself brought about, in\norder that his horoscope should not be made to lie.[170]\n\nWhat shall we say of Tasso? For those who do not know Verga\u2019s monograph\n(_Lipemania del Tasso_), it will be enough to quote the following\nletter: \u201cSo great is my grief, that I am considered by others and by\nmyself as mad, when, powerless to keep my sorrowful thoughts hidden, I\ngive myself up to long conversations with myself. My troubles are at\nonce human and diabolical; the human are cries of men, and especially of\nwomen, and also the laughter of beasts; the diabolical are songs, &c.\nWhen I take into my hands a book to give myself up to study, I hear\nvoices sounding in my ear, and distinguish the name of Paul Fulvius.\u201d In\nhis _Messaggiero_, which became with him, later on, a real\nhallucination, he had already made the often-repeated confession of his\nmadness, which he attributed to wine and to women. I am thus inclined to\nbelieve that he described himself in the character of Thyrsis, in that\nadmirable stanza of the _Aminta_, which another monomaniac, Rousseau,\nloved so much:--\n\n    \u201c_Vivr\u00f2 fra i miei tormenti e fra le cure,_\n     _Mie giuste furie, forsennato, errante;_\n     _Paventer\u00f2 l\u2019ombre solinghe e scure_\n     _Che il primo error mi recheranno avante;_\n     _E del sol che scopr\u00ec le mie sventure_\n     _A schivo ed in orror avr\u00f2 it sembiante:_\n     _Temer\u00f2 me medesmo, e da me stesso_\n     _Sempre fuggendo, avr\u00f2 me sempre appresso._\u201d[171]\n\nOne day, certainly under the influence of some hallucination, or in a\nmaniacal attack, he drew a knife, and was about to attack a serving-man\nwho entered the ducal chamber; he was imprisoned, says the Tuscan\nAmbassador, more to cure him than to punish him.\n\nThe unfortunate poet went from one country to another, but sorrowful\nvisions everywhere threatened him; and with them came ceaseless remorse,\nsuspicions of poison, and the terrors of hell for the heresies of which\nhe accused himself in three letters to the \u201ctoo-indulgent\u201d inquisitor.\n\n\u201cI am always troubled by sad and wearisome thoughts,\u201d he confesses to\nthe physician Cavallaro, \u201cby figures and phantoms; also by a great\nweakness of memory, therefore I beg of your lordship to think to\nstrengthen my memory in the pills that you order for me.\u201d \u201cI am\nfrenzied,\u201d he wrote to Gonzaga, \u201cand I am surprised that they have not\nwritten to you of all the things that I say in talking to myself:\nhonours, the good graces of emperors and kings which I dream of, forming\nand re-forming them according to my fancy.\u201d This curious letter shows us\nhow sombre and sorrowful images alternated in him with others that were\njoyous, like subjective colours in the retina.\n\nSome days later he wrote to Cattaneo: \u201cI have here much more need of the\nexorcist than of the physician, for my trouble is caused by magic art. I\nwill tell you about my goblin. The little thief has robbed me of many\ncrowns; he puts all my books upside down, opens my chests, hides my\nkeys, so that I do not know how to protect myself against him. I am\nalways unhappy, but especially at night, and I do not know if my trouble\nshould be attributed to frenzy.\u201d In another letter: \u201cWhen I am awake I\nseem to see lights sparkling in the air; sometimes my eyes are inflamed\nso that I fear I may lose my sight. At other times I hear horrible\nnoises, hissings, and tinklings, the sound of bells, and, as it were,\nclocks all striking the hour at the same time. When I am asleep I seem\nto see a horseman throwing himself on me and casting me to the earth, or\nelse I imagine that I am covered by filthy beasts. All my joints feel\nit; my head becomes heavy, and in the midst of so many pains and terrors\nsometimes there appears to me the image of the Virgin, beautiful and\nyoung, with her Son, and crowned with a rainbow.\u201d Later he told\nCattaneo how a goblin carried away letters in which he was mentioned,\n\u201cand that is one of the miracles which I saw myself at the hospital.\nThus I possess the certainty that these wonders must be attributed to a\nmagician. I have numerous proofs of it. One day a loaf was taken from\nme, beneath my eyes, towards three o\u2019clock.\u201d\n\nWhen ill with acute fever he was cured, thanks to an apparition of the\nVirgin, to whom he testified his gratitude in a sonnet. He wrote and\nspoke to, almost touched, his genius, who often resembled his former\n_Messaggiero_, and suggested to him ideas which he had not conceived\nbefore.\n\nSwift, the inventor of irony and humour, predicted even in youth that he\nwould die insane, as had been the case with a paternal uncle. He was\nwalking one day in a garden when he saw an elm almost completely\ndeprived of foliage at the top. \u201cLike that tree,\u201d he said, \u201cI shall die\nat the top.\u201d Proud almost to monomania with the great, he yet led a wild\nand vicious life, and was known as the \u201cMad Parson.\u201d Though a clergyman,\nhe wrote irreligious books, and it was said that before making him a\nbishop it would be desirable to baptise him. His giddiness began, as he\nhimself tells us, at the age of twenty-three, so that his brain disease\nlasted for over fifty years. _Vertiginosus_, _inops_, _surdus_, _male\ngratus amicis_, as he defined himself, he almost succumbed to the grief\ncaused by the death of his beloved Stella, and at the same time he wrote\nhis burlesque _Directions to Servants_. Some months later he lost his\nmemory and only preserved his mordant loquacity; he remained for a whole\nyear without speaking or reading or recognising any one; he would walk\nfor ten hours a day, eating his meals standing, or refusing food, and\ngiving way to attacks of rage when any one entered his room. With the\ndevelopment of some boils his condition seemed to improve; he was heard\nto say several times: \u201cI am a fool;\u201d but the interval of lucidity was\nshort. He fell back into the stupor of dementia, although his irony\nseemed to survive reason, and even, as it were, life itself. He died in\n1745 in a state of complete dementia, leaving by a will made some years\npreviously a sum of nearly \u00a311,000 to a lunatic asylum. A _post-mortem_\nexamination showed softening of the brain and extreme effusion; his\nskull (examined in 1855) showed great irregularities from thickening and\nroughening, signs of enlarged and diseased arteries, and an extremely\nsmall cerebellar region. In an epitaph which he had written for himself\nhe summed up the cruel tortures of his soul now at rest, \u201c_ubi s\u00e6va\nindignatio ulterius cor lacerare nequit_.\u201d\n\nNewton, of whom it was truly said that his mind conquered the human\nrace, was in old age afflicted by mental disorder, though of a less\nserious character than that of which we have just read. It was probably\nduring this illness that he wrote his _Chronology_, his _Apocalypse_,\nand the _Letters to Bentley_, so inferior in value to the work of his\nearlier years. In 1693, after his house had been burnt a second time,\nand after excess in study, he is reported to have talked so strangely\nand incoherently to the archbishop that his friends were seriously\nalarmed. At this time he wrote two letters which, in their confused and\nobscure form, seem to show that he had been suffering from delusions of\npersecution. He wrote to Locke (1693): \u201cBeing of opinion that you\nendeavoured to embroil me with women, and by other means, I was so much\naffected with it, as that when one told me you were sickly and would not\nlive, I answered, \u2019twere better if you were dead. I desire you to\nforgive me this uncharitableness; for I am now satisfied that what you\nhave done is just, and I beg your pardon for my having hard thoughts of\nyou for it, and for representing that you struck at the root of\nmorality, in a principle you laid in your book of ideas, and designed to\npursue in another book, and that I took you for a Hobbist. I beg your\npardon also for saying or thinking that there was a design to sell me an\noffice or to embroil me. I am your most humble and unfortunate servant,\nIs. Newton.\u201d[172] Locke replied kindly, and a month later Newton again\nwrote to him: \u201cThe last winter, by sleeping too often by my fire, I got\nan ill habit of sleeping; and a distemper, which this summer has been\nepidemical, put me further out of order, so that when I wrote to you I\nhad not slept an hour a night for a fortnight together, and for five\ndays together not a wink. I remember I wrote to you, but what I said of\nyour book I remember not.\u201d And in a letter to Pepys he says that he has\n\u201cneither ate nor slept this twelvemonth, nor have my former consistency\nof mind.\u201d[173]\n\nThose who, without frequenting a lunatic asylum, wish to form a fairly\ncomplete idea of the mental tortures of a monomaniac, have only to look\nthrough Rousseau\u2019s works, especially his later writings, such as the\n_Confessions_, the _Dialogues_, and the _R\u00eaveries_. \u201cI have very ardent\npassions,\u201d he writes in his _Confessions_, \u201cand while under their\ninfluence, my impetuosity knows no bounds; I think only of the object\nwhich occupies me; the entire universe besides is nothing to me; but\nthis only lasts a moment, and the moment which follows throws me into a\nstate of prostration. A single sheet of fine paper tempts me more than\nthe money to buy a ream of it. I see the thing and am tempted; if I only\nsee the means of acquiring it I am not tempted. Even now, if I see\nanything that tempts me, I prefer taking it to asking for it.\u201d\n\nThis is the distinction between the kleptomaniac and the thief: the\nformer steals by instinct, to steal; the latter steals by interest, to\nacquire: the first is led away by anything that strikes him; the second\nis attracted by the value of the object.\n\nDominated by his senses, Rousseau never knew how to resist them. The\nmost insignificant pleasure, he says, so long as it was present,\nfascinated him more than all the joys of Paradise. In fact, a monk\u2019s\ndinner (Father Pontierre) led him to apostasy, and a feeling of\nrepulsion caused him to abandon cruelly an epileptic friend on the road.\n\nIt was not only his passions that were morbid and violent; his\nintelligence also was affected from his earliest days, as he shows in\nhis _Confessions_: \u201cMy imagination has never been so cheerful as when I\nhave been suffering. My mind cannot beautify the really pleasant things\nthat happen to me, only the imaginary ones. If I wish to describe spring\nwell, it must be in winter.\u201d Real evils had little hold on Rousseau, he\ntells us; imaginary evils touched him more nearly. \u201cI can adapt myself\nto what I experience, but not to what I fear.\u201d It is thus that people\nkill themselves through fear of death.\n\nOn first reading medical books Rousseau imagined that he had the\ndiseases which he found described, and was astonished, not to find\nhimself healthy, but to find himself alive. He came to the conclusion\nthat he had a polypus at the heart. It was, as he himself confesses, a\nstrange notion, the overflow of an idle and exaggerated sensibility\nwhich had no better channel. \u201cThere are times,\u201d he says, \u201cin which I am\nso little like myself that I might be taken for a man of quite different\ncharacter. In repose I am indolence and timidity itself, and do not know\nhow to express myself; but if I become excited I immediately know what\nto say.\u201d\n\nThis unfortunate man went through a long series of occupations from the\nnoblest to the most degrading; he was an apostate for money, a\nwatchmaker, a charlatan, a music-master, an engraver, a painter, a\nservant, an embryo diplomatic secretary; in literature and science he\ntook up medicine, music, botany, theology, teaching.\n\nThe abuse of intellectual work, especially dangerous in a thinker whose\nideas were developed slowly and with difficulty, joined to the\never-increasing stimulus of ambition, gradually transformed the\nhypochondriac into a melancholiac, and finally into a maniac. \u201cMy\nagitations and anger,\u201d he wrote, \u201caffected me so much that I passed ten\nyears in delirium, and am only calm to-day.\u201d Calm! When disease, now\nbecome chronic, no longer permitted him to distinguish what was real,\nwhat was imaginary in his troubles. In fact, he bade farewell to the\nworld of society, in which he had never felt at home, and retired into\nsolitude; but even in the country, people from the town zealously\npursued him, and the tumult of the world and notions of _amour-propre_\nveiled the freshness of nature. It is in vain for him to hide himself in\nthe woods, he writes in his _R\u00eaveries_; the crowd attaches itself to\nhim and follows him. We think once more of Tasso\u2019s lines:--\n\n                        \u201c_e da me stesso_\n    _Sempre fuggendo, avr\u00f2 me sempre appresso._\u201d\n\nRousseau doubtless alluded to these lines when he wrote to Corancez that\nTasso had been his prophet. He wrote later that he believed that\nPrussia, England, France, the King, women, priests, men, irritated by\nsome passages in his works, were waging a terrible war against him, with\neffects by which he explained the internal troubles from which he\nsuffered.\n\nIn the refinement of their cruelty, he says in the _R\u00eaveries_, his\nenemies only forgot one thing--to graduate their torments, so that they\ncould always renew them. But the chief artifice of his enemies was to\ntorture him by overwhelming him with benefits and with praise. \u201cThey\neven went so far as to corrupt the greengrocers, so that they sold him\nbetter and cheaper vegetables. Without doubt his enemies thus wished to\nprove his baseness and their generosity.\u201d[174] During his stay in London\nhis melancholia was changed into a real attack of mania. He imagined\nthat Choiseul was seeking to arrest him, abandoned his luggage and his\nmoney at his hotel, and fled to the coast, paying the innkeepers with\npieces of silver spoons. He found the winds contrary, and in this saw\nanother indication of the plot against him. In his exasperation he\nharangued the crowd in bad English from the top of a hill; they listened\nstupefied, and he believed he had affected them. But on returning to\nFrance his invisible enemies were not appeased. They spied and\nmisinterpreted all his acts; if he read a newspaper, they said he was\nconspiring; if he smelled the perfume of a rose, they suspected he was\nconcocting a poison. Everything was a crime: they stationed a\npicture-dealer at his door; they prevented the door from shutting; no\nvisitor came whom they had not prejudiced against him. They corrupted\nhis coffee-merchant, his hairdresser, his landlord; the shoeblack had no\nmore blacking when Rousseau needed him; the boatman had no boats when\nthis unfortunate man wished to cross the Seine. He demanded to be put in\nprison--and even that was refused him.\n\nIn order to take from him the one weapon which he possessed, the press,\na publisher, _whom he did not know_, was arrested and thrown into the\nBastille. The custom of burning a cardboard figure at the _mi-car\u00eame_\nhad been abolished. It is re-established, certainly to make fun of him\nand to burn him in effigy; in fact, the clothes placed on it resembled\nhis.[175] In the country he meets a child who smiles at him; he turns to\nrespond, and suddenly sees a man whom, by his mournful face (note the\nmethod of recognition), he sees to be a spy placed by his enemies.\n\nUnder the constant impression of this monomania of persecution he wrote\nhis _Dialogues sur Rousseau jug\u00e9 par Rousseau_, in which, in order to\nappease his innumerable enemies he presented a faithful and minute\nportrait of his hallucinations. He began to distribute his defence, in a\ntruly insane manner, by presenting a copy to any passer-by whose face\ndid not appear prejudiced against him by his enemies. It was dedicated:\n\u201c_A tous les Fran\u00e7ais aimant encore la justice et la v\u00e9rit\u00e9_.\u201d In spite\nof this title, or, perhaps, because of it, he found no one who accepted\nit with pleasure; several even refused it.\n\nNo longer able to put trust in any mortal he turned, like Pascal, to\nGod, to whom he addressed a very tender and familiar letter; then in\norder to ensure the arrival of his letter at its destination, he placed\nit together with the manuscript of the _Dialogues_ on the altar of\nN\u00f4tre-Dame at Paris. Then, having found the railing closed, he suspected\na conspiracy of Heaven against him.\n\nDussaulx, who saw him often in the last years of his life, writes that\nhe even distrusted his dog, finding a mystery in his frequent\ncaresses.[176] The _d\u00e9lire des grandeurs_ was never absent; it may be\nseen continually in the _Confessions_, in which he defies the human race\nto show a better being than himself.\n\nAfter all this testimony, it does not seem to me that Voltaire and\nCorancez were altogether wrong in affirming that Rousseau had been mad,\nand that he confessed it himself. Numerous passages in the _Confessions_\nand in Grimm\u2019s letters allude to other affections such as paralysis of\nthe bladder and spermatorrh\u0153a, which probably originated in the spinal\ncord, and which certainly aggravated his melancholia. It must also be\nremembered that from childhood, Rousseau, like so many other subjects of\ndegeneration, showed sexual precocity and perversion; it appears that he\nhad no pleasure in his relations with women unless they beat him naked,\nlike a child, or threatened to do so.[177]\n\nNicolaus Lenau, one of the greatest lyric poets of modern times, ended,\nforty years ago, in the asylum of D\u00f6bling at Vienna, a life which from\nchildhood shows a mingling of genius and insanity.\n\nHe was born in 1802 in Hungary, the son of a proud and vicious\naristocrat, and of a melancholy, sensitive, and ascetic mother. At an\nearly age he manifested tendencies to sadness, to music, and to\nmysticism. He studied medicine, law, agriculture, and especially music.\nIn 1831 Kerner remarked in him strange fits of sadness and melancholy,\nand noted that at other times he would spend whole nights in the garden\nplaying his favourite violin. \u201cI feel myself,\u201d he wrote to his sister,\n\u201cgravitating towards misfortune; the demon of insanity riots in my\nheart; I am _mad_. To you, sister, I say it, for you will love me all\nthe same.\u201d This demon induced him to go, almost aimlessly to America. He\nreturned to find himself f\u00eated and received with gladness by all; but\nhypochondria, in his own words, had planted its teeth deep in his heart,\nand everything was useless.[178] And, in fact, this unhappy heart had an\nattack of pericarditis, from which it recovered only imperfectly. From\nthat time sleep, once the only medicine for his troubles, ceased to\nvisit him; every night he is surrounded by terrible visions. \u201cOne would\nsay,\u201d he wrote, in a truly insane fashion, \u201cthat the devil is hunting in\nmy belly. I hear there a perpetual barking of dogs and a funereal echo\nof hell. Without joking, it is enough to make one despair.\u201d\n\nThat misanthropy which we have already noted in Haller and Swift and\nCardan and Rousseau took possession of Lenau in 1840 with all the\naccompaniments of mania. He is afraid and ashamed of men, disgusted with\nthem. Germany was preparing bouquets and triumphal arches in his honour,\nbut he fled, and without any cause went to and fro from one country to\nanother; he was causelessly angry and impatient, and felt himself\nincapable of work; _non est firmum sinciput_, it seemed, as he himself\nsaid; at the same time his appetite became as insane as his brain. He\nreturned with a strange taste to the mysticism of his childhood, wished\nto study the Gnostics, and read over again the stories of sorcerers\nwhich he had found so attractive in his youth, while he drank coffee\nenormously and smoked excessively. It was incredible, he observed, how\nin moving his body, in lighting or changing a cigar, new ideas arose\nwithin him. He wrote during entire nights, wandered, journeyed,\nmeditated a marriage, projected great works, and executed none.\n\nIt was the last flickering of a great spirit; in 1844 Lenau complained\nmore and more of headache, of constant perspiration, of extreme\nweakness. His left hand and the muscles of the eyes and cheeks were\nparalysed, and he began to write with orthographic errors and quibbles,\nas _Wie gut es mir gut_ for _mir geht_; or \u201cI am not delirious, but\nlyrical.\u201d Suddenly, on the 12th of October, he had a violent attack of\nsuicidal mania. He was restrained, and furiously struck and broke\neverything, burning his manuscripts. Gradually he became composed and\nintelligent again, and even analyzed his attack minutely in that\nterrible, chaotic poem the _Traumgewalien_. It was a ray of sunlight in\nthe dark night; it was, as Schilling well said, genius for the last time\ndominating insanity. In fact, his condition was constantly getting\nworse; another suicidal attack was followed by that fatal comfort, that\npleasant excitement which marks the commencement of general paralysis.\n\u201cI enjoy life,\u201d he said; \u201cI am glad that the terrible visions of old\nhave been succeeded by pleasant and delightful visions.\u201d He imagined\nthat he was in Walhalla with Goethe, and that he had become King of\nHungary and was victorious in battle; he made puns on his family name,\nNiembsch. In 1845 he lost his sense of smell, which had previously been\nvery delicate, and ceased to care for violets, his favourite flowers. He\nno longer recognised his old friends. Notwithstanding this sad\ncondition, he was still able to write a lyric marked by extravagant\nmysticism, but not without the old beauty. One day when conducted to\nPlato\u2019s bust, he said: \u201cThere is the man who invented stupid love.\u201d\nAnother time, hearing some one say, \u201cHere lives the great Lenau,\u201d the\nunfortunate man replied: \u201cNow Lenau has become very, very small,\u201d and he\nwept for a long time. \u201cLenau is unhappy\u201d were his last words. He died on\nthe 21st of August, 1850. The autopsy only revealed a little serum in\nthe ventricles and traces of progressive pericarditis.\n\nIn this same asylum at D\u00f6bling died some years later another great man,\nSz\u00e9ch\u00e9nyi,[179] the creator of Danubian navigation, the founder of the\nMagyar Academy, the promoter of the revolution of 1848. At the very\napogee of the revolution, when Sz\u00e9ch\u00e9nyi was a minister, he was heard\none day begging Kossuth, one of his colleagues in the Ministry, not to\nlet him be hanged. It was looked upon as a joke, but it was not so. He\nforesaw the misfortunes which would fall on his country, and wrongly\njudged himself responsible. The monomania of persecution took possession\nof him, and threatened to lead him to suicide. He gradually became calm,\nbut exhibited a morbid loquacity, strange in a diplomatist and\nconspirator, and all day long he would stop the lunatics and idiots,\nand, what was worse, the enemies of his country whom he met in prison,\nand narrate to them the long confession of his imaginary sins. In 1850\nan old passion for chess awoke in him, and took an insane character. It\nbecame necessary to pay a poor student to play with him for ten or\ntwelve hours at a time. The unfortunate student went mad, but Sz\u00e9ch\u00e9nyi\nslowly became sane. At the same time he began to lose an aversion for\ncontact with human beings which had taken possession of him, and which\nmade it impossible for him even to see his relations. There only\nremained of his morbid habits a certain repugnance to the bright country\nlight, and a great objection to leave his room. On certain days of the\nmonth he consented to receive his much-loved children; with a gesture he\nled them tenderly to his table, and read what he had written; but it\nrequired much diplomacy to bring him out into the park. His intelligence\nremained clear; it was even more robust than ever. He kept himself\nacquainted with the whole German and Magyar literary movement, and he\nwatched for the smallest sign of better fortune to come to his country.\nWhen he saw an Austrian intrigue hindering the completion of the eastern\nrailway to which he had devoted himself so vigorously he wrote a letter\nto Zichy, in which he shows all his old power, as may be seen from the\nfollowing passages: \u201cWhat has existed once often reappears in the world\nunder another form and different conditions. A broken bottle cannot be\nput together, yet those poor fragments of glass are not lost; they may\nbe thrown into the furnace and become a vessel for Tokay, the king of\nwines, to sparkle in, while the broken bottle may have held but a very\ninferior wine.... The greatest praise that can be given to a Hungarian\nis to tell him that he has stood firm. You know, my friend, our old\nproverb: \u2018Stand firm, even in the mire.\u2019 Let us apply that motto;\ndistrust the reproaches even of our brothers to serve the common cause.\nTo remain at one\u2019s post, in spite of the mud that fanatical or frivolous\npatriots throw in the faces of their brothers and companions in arms, to\nremain obstinately there, even when insult strikes one in the face--that\nshould be the _mot d\u2019ordre_ of the present time.\u201d\n\nIn 1858, when the Austrian Ministry exerted pressure on the Hungarian\nAcademy to abolish the articles of its statutes which constituted the\nculture of the Magyar language, its fundamental task, Sz\u00e9ch\u00e9nyi wrote\nanother letter, which describes his mental condition: \u201cCan I be silent\nwhen I see that noble seed crushed? Can I forget the services which\nthat powerful benefactor has rendered us? I ask--I, whose misfortune\nlies, not in a vague confusion of ideas, but, on the contrary, in the\nfatal gift of seeing too clearly, too distinctly, to make any illusion\npossible. Ought I not to raise a cry of alarm, seeing our dynasty\npossessed by I know not what evil influence, fighting against the most\nenergetic of its peoples, against that for whom the future reserves the\nhighest destiny, and not only contemning it but stifling it, depriving\nit of its proper character, shaking to its roots the secular tree of the\nempire. Founder of this Academy, it is my duty to-day to speak. So long\nas my head is on my shoulders, so long as my brain is not entirely\nobscured, so long as the light of my eyes remains unveiled by eternal\nnight, I shall retain my right to decide concerning the rules. Our\nEmperor will sooner or later understand that the assimilation of the\nraces of the empire is merely the Utopia of his ministers; the day will\ncome when all will detach themselves. Hungary alone, which has no racial\naffinity with the other European nations, will seek to accomplish its\nown destiny beneath the \u00e6gis of the royal dynasty.\u201d\n\nThat was in 1858. In 1859, even before the outbreak of war, he\nprophesied defeat, and showed its results: \u201cThere are crises,\u201d he said,\n\u201cwhich lead to cure when the sick person is not incurable.\u201d He published\nat London a book in which, in a strange and humorous, but at the same\ntime terrible way, he traced the history of Hungary\u2019s sufferings under\nBach\u2019s iron rule, sketched the future of his country, and counselled a\npolicy of concord, parallel but not servile to that of Austria. \u201cIn\ntruth,\u201d he wrote himself, \u201cthis book is miserable; but do you know how\nthe Margaret Island was formed? According to an old legend, the Danube\nonce occupied its site; some carrion once, no one knows how, settled on\nto a sand-bank and became attached there. Whatever the river swept down,\nfroth, leaves, branches, trees, all were piled up there, and at last a\nmagnificent island arose. My work is something like that carrion. Who\nknows what may arise out of it at last?\u201d\n\nA few months later H\u00fcbner succeeded Bach, and the Liberal system was\ninaugurated. Sz\u00e9ch\u00e9nyi was wild with joy; from his humble room he\nencouraged the minister, sent him plans of reform, inspired or wrote\npapers on the renewal of Austria, not forgetting Hungary. The dream was\nsoon dissipated; H\u00fcbner was succeeded by Thierry, a bad disciple of\nBach, armed with the old and superannuated systems of Austria; all\nreform was abandoned. The unfortunate Sz\u00e9ch\u00e9nyi resisted sorrowfully; he\ncalled Rechberg, begged him to inform the Emperor of his mistake while\nthere was still time, and submitted programmes for an Austrian\nconstitution and a Hungarian constitution, internal affairs to be\ntreated separately, and external affairs conjointly. Rechberg, far less\nforeseeing than this inspired madman, said, shaking his head: \u201cOne can\neasily see that this project comes from a lunatic asylum.\u201d Worse still,\nThierry, suspecting a vulgar conspirator in the great Magyar, sent a\ntroop of police to visit the asylum, threatened to imprison him, and\ndeprived him of his papers.\n\nThe unhappy man, whose madness was merely an irresistible need to serve\nhis country at all costs, had only one remorse; he feared he had not\nsufficiently served his country, and henceforth all hopes were closed.\nHe sought in vain to stifle his poignant grief by playing desperately at\nchess. At last he shot himself with a revolver. That was on the 8th of\nApril, 1860. In 1867, Francis Joseph was crowned King of Hungary, thus\nrealizing the dreams of the D\u00f6bling lunatic; and Rechberg, who had\nlaughed at them, was called upon to put them in practice.\n\nE. T. A. Hoffmann, that strange poet, artist, and musician, whose\ndrawings ended in caricature, his tales in extravagance, and his music\nin a mere medley of sound, but who was, nevertheless, the real creator\nof fantastic poetry, was a drunkard. Many years before his death he\nwrote in his journal: \u201cHow is it that, awake or asleep, my thoughts are\nalways running, in spite of myself, on this miserable theme of madness?\nDisorderly ideas seem to rise out of my mind like blood from opened\nveins.\u201d He was so sensitive to atmospheric variations that he\nconstructed a meteorological scale out of his subjective emotions. For\nmany years he was subject to a real monomania of persecution, with\nhallucinations in which the fantasies of his stories were converted into\nrealities.\n\nThe famous Sicilian physiologist Foder\u00e0 often declared that he could\nfurnish bread for 200,000 men with a single oven of very simple\nconstruction, and that, with forty soldiers he could overcome any army,\neven 1,000,000 strong. When about fifty years of age he fell violently\nin love with a young girl who lived opposite him. One fine day, being in\nthe street, he gazed up rapturously at the charming maiden, who, to free\nherself from her wearisome adorer, emptied a vessel of dirty water on\nhis head. Foder\u00e0, however, regarded this act as a manifestation of love,\nand returned home full of joy. In the courtyard he saw a fowl, which, as\nhe declared, had an extraordinary resemblance to the beloved maiden; he\nimmediately bought it, covered it with kisses, allowed the precious\ncreature to do anything, to soil his books, and his clothes, and even to\nperch on his bed.[180]\n\nThe most complete type of madness in genius is presented to us by\nSchopenhauer.[181] He himself considered that he inherited his\nintelligence from his mother, a literary woman full of vivacity, but\nheartless; while his character came from his father, a banker, who was\nmisanthropic and eccentric to monomania. From childhood his hearing was\ndefective, and he believed--and it is probably true--that he inherited\nhis deafness, his very large head, and his brilliant eyes, from his\nfather. He lived for some time in England under the care of a clergyman.\nHe learnt to know the English language and literature, and also learnt\nto despise the bigotry of his hosts. Notwithstanding constant change of\nscene involved in his travels, he was never cheerful, and gave free\ncourse to his discontent with himself and his surroundings. \u201cFrom my\nyouth,\u201d he says, \u201cI have always been melancholy. Once, when I was\nperhaps eighteen, I\n\n[Illustration: SCHOPENHAUER.]\n\nthought to myself, in spite of my youth, that the world could not be the\nwork of a God, but rather of a devil. During my education I certainly\nhad to suffer too much from my father\u2019s temperament.\u201d He was frightened\nby imaginary diseases. In Switzerland the Alps aroused in him sadness\nrather than admiration. His mother, like all those who came in contact\nwith him, experienced the unhappy effects of his character, for when, in\n1807, he wished, at the age of nineteen, to come and see her at Weimar,\nshe wrote to him, \u201cI have always told you that it would be very\ndifficult for me to live with you; the more nearly I observe you, the\nmore this difficulty increases, so far at least as I am concerned. I do\nnot hide from you that, so long as you remain what you are now, I would\nsupport any sacrifice rather than submit to it. I do not misunderstand\nthe foundation of goodness in you; what separates me from you is not\nyour heart, not your inner, but your outer, self, your views, your\njudgments, your manner of behaving; in short, I cannot harmonize with\nyou in anything that concerns your external self. Even your ill-humour,\nyour lamentations over the inevitable, your sombre face, your\nextravagant opinions, which you give forth like oracles, and tolerate no\nopposition to, oppress me, shock my serenity, and are no use to\nyourself. Your disagreeable discussions, your lamentations over the\nstupidity of the world and human misery, give me wretched nights and bad\ndreams.\u201d[182]\n\nHe became more and more estranged from his mother, alleging that she had\nnot respected his father\u2019s memory, that she had dissipated the common\nfortune by her extravagance, and had thus reduced him to the necessity\nof working for his living. This effort was entirely repugnant to his\nnature. In this he yielded to a feeling of anguish, which, by his own\nconfession, bordered on madness. \u201cIf there is nothing to cause me\nmisery, I am tormented by the thought that there must be something\nhidden from me. _Misera conditio nostra._\u201d[183]\n\nIn 1814 Schopenhauer left Weimar to complete his great work. He was\nconvinced that he could and must open a new and only way to lead men of\nmind and heart to truth; he felt in himself something more than mere\nscience, something demoniacal (_d\u00e4monisches_).\n\nIn 1813 he had already said: \u201cBeneath my hand, and still more in my\nhead, a work, a philosophy, is ripening, which will be at once an ethic\nand a metaphysic, hitherto so unreasonably separated, just as man has\nbeen divided into body and soul. The work grows, and gradually becomes\nconcrete, like the f\u0153tus in its mother\u2019s womb. I do not know what will\nappear at last. I recognize a member, an organ, one part after another.\nI write without seeking for results, for I know that it all stands on\nthe same foundation, and will thus compose a vital and organic whole. I\ndo not understand the system of the work, just as a mother does not\nunderstand the f\u0153tus that develops in her bowels, but she feels it\ntremble within her. My mind draws its food from the world by the medium\nof intelligence and thought; this nourishment gives body to my work; and\nyet I do not know why it should happen in me and not in others who\nreceive the same food. O Chance! sovereign of this world, let me live in\npeace for a few years yet, for I love my work as a mother loves her\nchild. When it is ripe and brought to the light, then exercise your\nrights, and claim interest for the delay. But if, in this iron century,\nI succumb before that hour, may these unripened principles and studies\nbe received by the world as they are, until perhaps some related mind\nappears who will collect and unite the members.\u201d\n\nAll the characteristic symptoms of the various steps that lead up to\ninsanity, the rapid passage from profound grief to excessive joy, may be\nfound in Schopenhauer. In a moment of tranquil reflection on himself, in\n1814, after having found that men were \u201ca soup of bread dipped in water\nwith a little arsenic,\u201d and after having declared that \u201ctheir egoism is\nlike that which binds the dog to his master,\u201d he wrote: \u201cAnd now do not\nexcept yourself; examine your loves and your friendships; observe if\nyour objective judgments are not in great part subjective and impure.\u201d\nAnd in another page: \u201cJust as the most beautiful body contains within it\nf\u00e6cal and mephitic gases, so the noblest character offers traits of\nbadness, and the greatest genius presents traces of pettiness and\nexcessive pride.\u201d\n\nThe same alternations may be found throughout his life; sometimes, a\nkeen and contemptuous critic, he shows haughty presumption; at other\ntimes he descends to the lowest literary platitudes; sometimes he\nwandered about the delightful suburbs of Dresden lost in the\ncontemplation of nature; at other times he wallowed in prosaic love\nadventures, from which distinguished friends were obliged to save him,\nand this while he was elaborating his great work, _Die Welt als Wille\nund Vorstellung_, which was to astonish the world. \u201cHe thus,\u201d remarks\nVon Sedlitz, \u201cgave the example of a _mania puerperii spiritualis_, such\nas sometimes takes possession of pregnant women.\u201d Schopenhauer himself\ntold Frauenstedt that at the time when he was writing his great work he\nmust have been very strange in his person and behaviour, as people took\nhim for a madman. One day when he was walking in a conservatory at\nDresden, and, while contemplating the plants, talked aloud to himself\nand gesticulated, an attendant came up and asked him who he was. \u201cIf you\ncan tell me who I am,\u201d replied Schopenhauer, \u201cI shall be very much\nobliged to you.\u201d And he walked away leaving the astonished attendant\nfully persuaded that he was a lunatic. With such a disposition it is not\nsurprising that Schopenhauer, like many prophets, believed that he was\nimpelled by a demon or spirit. \u201cWhen my intelligence had touched its\napogee, and was, under favourable conditions, at its point of greatest\ntension, it was capable of embracing anything; it could suddenly bring\nforth revelations and give birth to chains of thought well worthy of\npreservation.\u201d[184] In 1816 he wrote: \u201cIt happens to me among men as to\nJesus of Nazareth when he had to awake his disciples always asleep.\u201d\nEven in old age he spoke of his great work in such a way as to exclude\nall doubt as to the inspiration which had produced it, such a work only\nbeing possible under the influence of inspiration. At that age he gazed\nwith astonishment at his work, especially at the fourth book, as at a\nwork written by some other person. It is worth while recalling here the\ndoubling of personality so common in men of genius.\n\nAfter he had handed his book over to the publisher he set out for Italy,\nwithout awaiting its publication, with the proud faith that he had given\na revelation to the world. His _d\u00e9lire des grandeurs_ at this period\nincreased, and the mental disturbance he underwent revealed itself\nlater. He wrote: \u201cIn enchanting Venice, Love\u2019s arms held me long\nenfettered, until an inner voice bade me break free and lead my steps\nelsewhere.\u201d And again: \u201cIf I could only satisfy my desire to look upon\nthis race of toads and vipers as my equals, it would be a consolation to\nme.\u201d While oscillating between mental exaltation and depression he heard\nof the collapse of his banking-house. It is easy to understand the\ngrief which this news caused him; he was reduced to the necessity of\nliving by philosophy, instead of for philosophy, as he had desired to\ndo. He twice sought to become a _Privatdozent_ in Berlin, but he was\nunsuccessful in these attempts. His violent attacks on his\ncontemporaries displeased his hearers, and his passionate disputations,\nand his tenacity in holding strange opinions, which he gave forth as\noracles, rendered precarious his relations with friends and men of\nlearning.\n\nThe invasion of cholera, at the beginning of 1831, completed his\ntroubles. On the last night of 1830 he had already had a dream, which he\nlooked upon as a prophecy, foretelling his death in the new year. \u201cThis\ndream,\u201d he wrote in his _Cogitata_, \u201cinfluenced me in my departure from\nBerlin immediately the cholera began in 1831. I had scarcely reached\nFrankfort-on-the-Main, when I had a very distinct vision of spirits.\nThey were, as I think, my ancestors, and they announced to me that I\nshould survive my mother, at that time still living. My father, who was\ndead, carried a light in his hand.\u201d That this hallucination was\naccompanied by real brain affection is proved by the fact that at that\ntime he \u201cfell into deep melancholy, not speaking to any one for weeks\ntogether.\u201d The doctors were alarmed, and induced him to go to Mannheim\nfor change of scene. More than a year later he returned to Frankfort,\nwhen the acute period of his illness had apparently passed. Signs of it\nremained, however, in his peculiar bearing, his habit of gesticulating\nand talking aloud to himself as he walked through the streets of the\ncity, or sat at table in the restaurant, and in his fury against \u201csuch\nphilosophasters as Hegel, Schleiermacher, and similar charlatans, who\nshine like so many stars in the firmament of philosophy, and rule the\nphilosophic market.\u201d He accused them of depriving him of the praise and\nfame he deserved, by deliberately keeping silence concerning his work.\nThis was a fixed idea with him, like the idea of his own infallibility,\neven after he seemed to return to a relatively normal condition, thanks\nto the fame which, after a delay of thirty years, at length crowned his\nname and his works.\n\nHis _d\u00e9lire des grandeurs_, his melancholy accompanied by morbid rage,\nborn of the idea of persecution, had really shown themselves in him from\nchildhood. At six years of age he believed that his parents wished to\nabandon him. As a student he was always morose. One of the things which\ncaused him most trouble was noise, especially when produced by the whips\nof drivers. \u201cTo be sensitive to noise,\u201d he wrote, \u201cis one of the\nnumerous misfortunes which discount the privilege of genius.\u201d \u201c_Qui non\nhabet indignationem_,\u201d he wrote, \u201c_non habet ingenium_.\u201d But his\nindignation was excessive, a morbid rage. One day when his landlady was\nchattering in the anteroom he came out and shook her so violently that\nhe broke her arm, and was fined for damages. He was genuinely\nhypochondriacal. He was driven from Naples by the fear of small-pox,\nfrom Verona by the idea that he had been poisoned by snuff, from Berlin\nby the dread of cholera, and previously by the conscription. In 1831, he\nhad a fresh attack of restlessness; at the least sound in the street he\nput his hand to his sword; his fear became real suffering; he could not\nopen a letter without suspecting some great misfortune; he would not\nshave his beard, but burnt it; he hated women and Jews and philosophers,\nespecially philosophers, and loved dogs, remembering them in his will.\nHe reasoned about everything, however unimportant; about his great\nappetite, about the moonlight, which suggested quite illogical ideas to\nhim, &c. He believed in table-turning, and that magnetism could heal his\ndog\u2019s paws and restore his own hearing. One night the servant dreamt\nthat she had to wipe some ink stains; in the morning he spilt some, and\nthe great philosopher deduced that \u201ceverything happens necessarily.\u201d\n\nHe was contradiction personified. He placed annihilation, _nirvana_, as\nthe final aim of life, and predicted (which means that he desired), one\nhundred years of life. He preached sexual abstinence as a duty, but did\nnot himself practise it. He who had suffered so much from the\nintolerance of others, insulted Moleschott and B\u00fcchner, and rejoiced\nwhen the Government deprived them of their professorial chairs.\n\nHe lived on the first storey, in case of fire; would not trust himself\nto his hairdresser; hid gold in the ink-pot, and letters of change\nbeneath the bed-clothes. \u201cWhen I have no troubles,\u201d he said (like\nRousseau), \u201cit is then that I am most afraid.\u201d He feared to touch a\nrazor; a glass that was not his own might communicate some disease; he\nwrote business documents in Greek or Latin or Sanskrit, and disseminated\nthem in books to prevent unforeseen and impossible curiosity, which\nwould have been much easier avoided by a simple lock and key. Though he\nregarded himself as the victim of a vast conspiracy of professors of\nphilosophy, concerted at Gotha, to preserve silence concerning his\nbooks, he yet dreaded lest they should speak of them; \u201cI would rather\nthat worms should gnaw my body than that professors should gnaw my\nphilosophy.\u201d Lacking all affection, he even insulted his mother, and\ndrew from her example conclusions against the whole female sex, \u201clong of\nhair and short of sense.\u201d Yet, while despising monogamy, he recommended\ntetragamy, to which he saw but one objection--the four mothers-in-law.\nThe same lack of affection made him despise patriotism, \u201cthe passion of\nfools, and the most foolish of passions;\u201d he took part with the soldiers\nagainst the people, and to the former and to his dog he left his\nproperty. He was always preoccupied with himself, not only with the self\nthat was the creator of a new system, but in hundreds of his letters he\nspeaks with strange complaisance of his photograph, of his portrait in\noils and of a person who had bought it \u201cin order to place it in a kind\nof chapel, like the image of a saint.\u201d\n\nNo one has, for the rest, maintained more openly than Schopenhauer, the\nrelationship of genius to insanity. \u201cPeople of genius,\u201d he wrote, \u201care\nnot only unpleasant in practical life, but weak in moral sense and\nwicked.\u201d And elsewhere: \u201cSuch men can have but few friends; solitude\nreigns on the summits.... Genius is closer to madness than to ordinary\nintelligence.... The lives of men of genius show how often, like\nlunatics, they are in a state of continual agitation.\u201d\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nNicola\u00ef Vasilyevitch Gogol (born 1809), after suffering from an unhappy\nlove affair, gave himself up for many years to unrestrained onanism, and\nbecame eventually a great novelist. Having known Poushkin he was\nattracted to the short story, then he fell under the influence of the\nMoscow school, and became a humourist of the highest order. In his _Dead\nSouls_ he satirises the Russian bureaucracy with so much _vis comica_ as\nto show the need of putting an end to a form of government which is a\nmartyrdom both for the victims and the executioners.\n\nOn the publication of his historical Cossack romance, _Taras Bulba_, he\nreached the summit of his fame. His admirers compared him to Homer; even\nthe Government patronized him. Then a new idea began to dominate him; he\nthought that he painted his country with so much crudity and realism\nthat the picture might incite to a revolution which would not be kept\nwithin reasonable limits, and might overturn society, religion, and the\nfamily, leaving him the remorse of having provoked it. This idea took\npossession of his mind and dominated it, as it had formerly been\ndominated by love, by the drama, and by the novel. He then sought by his\nwritings to combat western liberalism, but the antidote attracted fewer\nreaders than the poison. Then he abandoned work, shut himself up in his\nhouse, giving himself up to prayer to the saints, and supplicating them\nto obtain God\u2019s pardon for his revolutionary sins. He accomplished a\npilgrimage to Jerusalem, from which he returned somewhat consoled, when\nthe revolution of 1848 broke out, and his remorse was again aroused. He\nwas constantly pursued by visions of the triumph of Nihilism, and in his\nalarm he called on Holy Russia to overthrow the pagan West, and to found\non its ruins the orthodox Panslavist empire. In 1852, the great novelist\nwas found dead at Moscow of exhaustion, or rather of tabes dorsalis, in\nfront of the shrine before which he was accustomed to lie for days in\nsilent prayer.\n\n\n\n\nPART II.\n\n_THE CAUSES OF GENIUS._\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nMETEOROLOGICAL INFLUENCES ON GENIUS.\n\n     The influence of weather on the insane--Sensitiveness of men of\n     genius to barometrical conditions--Sensitiveness to thermometrical\n     conditions.\n\n\n_The Influence of Weather on the Insane._--A series of clinical\nresearches, which I carried on for six consecutive years, has shown me\nwith certainty that the mental condition of the insane is modified in a\nconstant manner by barometrical and thermometrical influences.[185] When\nthe temperature rose above 25\u00b0, 30\u00b0, and 32\u00b0 C., especially if the rise\nwas sudden, the number of maniacal attacks increased from 29 to 50. On\nthe days on which the barometer showed sudden variations, especially of\nelevation--and more particularly two or three days before and after the\nvariation--the number of maniacal attacks rapidly increased from 34 to\n46. This meteoric sensibility, as I term it, increased in an inverse\nratio to the integrity of the nervous tissues, being very great in\nidiots and slightest in monomaniacs. The study of 23,602 lunatics has\nshown me that the development of insanity generally coincides with the\nincrease of monthly temperature and with the great barometrical\nperturbations in September and March; the onset of heat, acts more\nefficaciously, however, than the intense heat which follows; and the\nheat which has become habitual in August acts much less harmfully. The\nminimum number of outbreaks of insanity is found in the coldest months.\n(_See_ Plate.)\n\nThis coincidence is seen best in the French lunatics studied by\nEsquirol.[186] The French figures present with most clearness the effect\nof thermometrical influences, because in France the entry of lunatics\ninto asylums, being little impeded by red-tapeism, follows closely on\nthe outbreak.\n\n  --------+----------------+---------++--------+----------------+----------\n          |    INSANE.     |         ||        |    INSANE.     |\n   Month. +-------+--------+ Tempera-|| Month. +-------+--------+ Tempera-\n          | Italy.| France.|  ture.  ||        | Italy.| France.|  ture.\n  --------+-------+--------+---------++--------+-------+--------+---------\n   June   | 2,704 |   55   | 21\u00b0 29C.|| October|1,637  |  44    | 12\u00b0 77C.\n   May    | 2,642 |   58   | 16\u00b0 75C.|| Sept.  |1,604  |  48    | 19\u00b0 00C.\n   July   | 2,614 |   52   | 23\u00b0 75C.|| Dec.   |1,529  |  35    |  1\u00b0 01C.\n   August | 2,261 |   45   | 21\u00b0 92C.|| Feb.   |1,420  |  40    |  5\u00b0 73C.\n   April  | 2,237 |   50   | 16\u00b0 12C.|| Jan.   |1,476  |  42    |  1\u00b0 63C.\n   March  | 1,829 |   49   |  6\u00b0 60C.|| Nov.   |1,452  |  47    |  7\u00b0 17C.\n  --------+-------+--------+---------++--------+-------+--------+--------\n\nNow, a similar influence may be noted in those to whom nature,\nbenevolently or malevolently, has conceded the power of intellect more\ngenerously than to others. There are few among these who do not confess\nthat their inspiration is strangely subject to the influence of weather.\nThose who associate with them, or who read their correspondence, know\nthat they suffer so greatly from this cause that they often complain to\nevery one, and struggle, with the help of various artifices, against the\nmalignant influences which impede the free flight of their thought.\n\n_Sensitiveness to Barometrical Conditions._--Montaigne wrote: \u201c_Si la\nsant\u00e9 me sied et la clart\u00e9 d\u2019un beau jour, me voil\u00e0 honn\u00eate homme_.\u201d\nDiderot wrote, \u201c_Il me semble que j\u2019ai l\u2019esprit fou dans les grands\nvents_.\u201d Giordani foretold storms two days beforehand.[187] Maine de\nBiran, a very spiritualistic philosopher, wrote, in his _Journal de ma\nVie Intime_, \u201cI do not know how it is that in bad weather I feel my\nintelligence and will so unlike what they are in fine weather;\u201d and\nagain, \u201cThere are days in which my thought seems to break through the\nveils which surround it. In some conditions of the weather I feel\ndelight in good, and adore virtue; at other times I am indifferent to\neverything, even to my duties. Are our sentiments, our affections, our\nprinciples, related to the physical condition of our organs?\u201d[188] The\nstudy of his _Journal_ shows us the justice of his doubts. Let us take\n1818. In April we find two periods of good inspiration and four of bad,\nalthough the weather was fine; in May he was constantly sad, and in\nNovember only cheerful during ten days.\n\n\u201c_1815, May._--I am suffering from the nervous disposition which I\nexperience in spring; and though wishing to do too much, I do\nnothing....\n\n\u201c_23 May._--I am happy because of the air that I breathe and the birds\nthat are singing; but inspiration passes away through the senses. Each\nseason has not merely special forms of sensation, but a certain way of\nunderstanding life which is peculiar to it....\n\n\u201c_17 May._--Irresistible pleasure of thought: inspiration....\n\n\u201c_4, 16, 17 October._--Empty of ideas; sad....\n\n\u201c_1816, 25 January._--Sad and idle. My life is useless....\n\n\u201c_24 April._--I am another man. Every day seems a feast day. At this\ntime of the year something seems to lift the soul to another region, and\nto give it strength to surmount all impediments....\n\n\u201c_1817, 13 April._--Excited....\n\n\u201c_7 May._--Working on Condillac....\n\n\u201c_10, 18 July._--Marvellous activity....\n\n\u201c_12 October._--Am transformed; thought turns to commonplace\ntriviality....\n\n\u201c_22, 23, 28 November._--Sterile agitation. Alteration of all my mental\nfaculties....\n\n\u201c_1818, 1 April._--Northerly wind. Am weary, sad, suffering, stolid....\n\n\u201c_1820, 31 March._--At this time of the year it always happens to me\nthat body and mind are alike heavy; I have the consciousness of my\ndegradation....\n\n\u201c_1821, May._--All this month I am sad, and yield to external causes\nlike a marionette....\n\n\u201c_21 October._--I feel myself newborn. I was returning to work, but the\nweather has changed; the wind has turned to the south; it is strong, and\nI am another man. I feel inert, with a distaste for work, and inclined\nto those sad and melancholy fantasies which are always so fatal to\nme....\u201d\n\nAlfieri wrote, \u201cI compare myself to a barometer. I have always\nexperienced more or less facility in writing, according to the weight of\nthe air; absolute stupidity in the great solstitial and equinoxial\nwinds, infinitely less perspicacity in the evening than in the morning,\nand a much greater aptness for creation in the middle of the winter or\nof summer than in the intermediate seasons. This has made me humble, as\nI am convinced that at these times I have had no power to do otherwise.\u201d\nMonod says that the phases of Michelet\u2019s intellectual life followed the\ncourse of the seasons.[189] Poushkin\u2019s poetic inspiration was greatest\nduring dark and stormy nights.\n\nWe catch a glimpse in these facts of an appreciable influence of\nbarometrical conditions upon men of genius as upon the insane.\n\n_Heat._--Thermometrical influence is much clearer and more evident.\nNapoleon, who defined man as \u201ca product of the physical atmosphere and\nthe moral atmosphere,\u201d and who suffered from the faintest wind, loved\nheat so much that he would have fires even in July. Voltaire and Buffon\nhad their studies warmed throughout the year. Rousseau said that the\naction of the sun in the dog-days aided him to compose, and he allowed\nthe rays of the mid-day sun to fall on his head. Byron said that he\nfeared cold as much as a gazelle. Heine wrote in one of his letters, \u201cIt\nsnows; I have little fire in the room, and my letter is cold.\u201d\nSpallanzani, in the Ionian Islands, found himself able to study for\nthree times as many hours as in misty Pavia.[190] Leopardi confesses in\nhis letters, \u201cMy temperament is inimical to cold. I wait and invoke the\nreign of Ormuzd.\u201d Giusti wrote in the spring, \u201cInspiration is becoming\nfavourable.... If spring aids me as in all other things....\u201d[191]\nPaisiello could only compose beneath six quilts in the summer and nine\nin the winter. Similar facts are told of Varillas, M\u00e9ry, and Arnaud.\nSylvester tells how, when on board the _Invicta_, beneath the vivifying\nrays of a powerful sun, the method of resolving a multiple equation\noccurred to him, and he succeeded, without pen or pencil.[192] Lesage,\nin his old age, became animated as the sun advanced in the meridian,\ngradually gaining his imaginative power, together with his cheerfulness;\nas the day declined, his mental activity gradually diminished, until he\nfell into a lethargy, which lasted to the following day.[193]\n\nGiordani could only compose in the sun, or in the presence of abundant\nlight and great heat.[194] Foscolo wrote in November: \u201cI keep near the\nfire; my friends laugh at me, but I am seeking to give my members heat\nwhich my heart will concentrate and sublime within.\u201d[195] And in\nDecember he writes: \u201cMy natural infirmity, the fear of cold, has\nconstrained me to live near the fire, and the fire has inflamed my\neyelids.\u201d Milton confessed in his Latin elegies that in winter his muse\nwas sterile; he could only write from the spring equinox to that of\nautumn. In a letter he complains of the cold of 1678, and fears that, if\nit lasts, it will hinder the free development of his imagination. Dr.\nJohnson, who tells us this in his _Life of Milton_, may be believed on\nthis point, for imagination never smiled upon him, only the cold and\ntranquil intelligence of criticism, and he adds the commentary that all\nthis must be the result of eccentricity of character, he, Johnson, never\nhaving experienced any effects from the variations of the weather.\nPoushkin often said that he found himself most disposed to composition\nin autumn; the brilliant spring sunshine produced on him an impression\nof melancholy. Salvator Rosa laughed in youth, as Lady Morgan tells us\nin her _Life_, at the pretended influence of the weather on works of\ngenius; but in old age he became incapable of painting or thinking,\nalmost of living, except in the heat of spring. In reading Schiller\u2019s\ncorrespondence with Goethe one is struck by the singular influence which\nthe gentle and imaginative poet attributed to the weather. In November,\n1817, he wrote: \u201cIn these sad days, beneath this leaden sky, I have need\nof all my elasticity to feel alive, and do not yet feel capable of\nserious work.\u201d And in December: \u201cI am going back to work, but the\nweather is so dull that it is impossible to preserve the lucidity of the\nsoul.\u201d In July, 1818: \u201cThanks to the fine weather I am better; the lyric\ninspiration, which obeys the will less than any other, does not delay.\u201d\nIn December he complains that the necessity of completing _Wallenstein_\nunfortunately coincides with an unfavourable period of the year, \u201cso\nthat,\u201d he writes, \u201cI am obliged to use all my strength to preserve\nmental clearness.\u201d And in May, 1799: \u201cI hope to make progress in my work\nif the weather continues fine.\u201d\n\nAll these examples allow us to suspect, with some probability, that\nheat, with rare exceptions, aids in the productions of genius, as it\naids in vegetation, and also aids, unfortunately, in the stimulation of\nmania.\n\nIf historians, who have squandered so much time and so many volumes in\ndetailing minutely to us the most shameless exploits of kings, had\nsought with as much care the memorable epoch in which a great discovery\nor a masterpiece of art was conceived, they would no doubt have found\nthat the hottest months and days have always been most fruitful for\ngenius, as for nature generally.\n\nLet us endeavour to find more precise proofs of this little-suspected\ninfluence.\n\nDante wrote his first sonnet on the 15th of June, 1282; in the spring of\n1300 he wrote the _Vita Nuova_; on the 3rd of April he began his great\npoem.[196] Darwin had the earliest ideas of his great work first in\nMarch, then in June.[197] Petrarch conceived the _Africa_ in March,\n1338. Michelangelo\u2019s great cartoon, the work which so competent a judge\nas Cellini considered his most wonderful masterpiece, was imagined and\nexecuted between April and July, 1506. Manzoni wrote his _5 Maggio_ in\nsummer. Milton\u2019s great poem was conceived in the spring. Galileo\ndiscovered Saturn\u2019s ring in April, 1611. Balzac wrote _La Cousine Bette_\nin August and September, _P\u00e8re Goriot_ in September, _La Recherche de\nl\u2019Absolu_ in June to September. Sterne began _Tristram Shandy_ in\nJanuary, the first of his sermons in April, the famous one on errors of\nconscience in May.[198] Giordano Bruno composed his _Candelajo_ in July;\nand in his witty dedication he attributed it to the heat of the\ndog-days. Voltaire wrote _Tancred_ in August. Byron wrote the fourth\ncanto of _Childe Harold_ in September, his _Prophecy of Dante_ in June,\nhis _Prisoner of Chillon_ during the summer in Switzerland. Giusti wrote\nof _Gingillino_ and _Pero_: \u201cHere are the only leaves that April has\ndrawn out of my head after fourteen months of idleness.\u201d Schiller, it\nappears from his letters to Goethe, conceived _Don Carlos_ and\n_Wallenstein_ in the autumn, as well as _Fiesco_ and _Wilhelm Tell_;\n_Wallensteins Lager_ and _Letters on \u00c6sthetics_ in September; _Kabale\nund Liebe_ in winter; the _Magician_, the _Glove_, the _Ring of\nPolycrates_, the _Cranes of Ibycus_, and _Nadowessir\u2019s Song_ in June;\nthe _Jungfrau von Orleans_ in July. Goethe wrote _Werther_ in autumn;\n_Mignon_ and other lyric poems in May; _Cellini_, _Alexis_,\n_Euphrosyne_, _Metamorphosis of Plants_, and _Parnass_ in June and July;\nthe _Xenien_, _Hermann und Dorothea_, _West\u00f6stlichen Divan_, and\n_Nat\u00fcrliche Tochter_ in winter. In the first days of March, 1788, which,\nhe wrote, were worth more to him than a whole month, he dictated,\nbesides other poems, the beginning of _Faust_.[199] Salorno\u2019s hymn to\nLiberty was written in May. Rossini composed the _Semiramide_ almost\nentirely in February, and in November the last part of the _Stabat\nMater_.[200] Mozart composed the _Mitridate_ in October; Beethoven his\nninth symphony in February.[201] Donizetti composed _Lucia di\nLammermoor_, perhaps entirely, in September; in any case, the famous _Tu\nche a Dio spiegasti l\u2019ale_ belongs to that date; the _Figlia del\nReggimento_ was also composed in autumn; _Linda de Chamounix_ in spring;\n_Rita_ in summer; _Don Pasquale_ and the _Miserere_ in winter.[202]\nWagner composed _Der Fliegende Holl\u00e4nder_ in the spring of 1841. Canova\nmodelled his first work, Orpheus and Eurydice, in October.[203]\nMichelangelo conceived his _Piet\u00e0_ between September and October,\n1498,[204] the design of the Libreria in December, the model in wood of\nthe tomb of Pope Julius in August.[205] Leonardo da Vinci conceived the\nequestrian statue of the Sforza and began his book _Della luce e delle\nOmbre_ in April; for we find in his autograph manuscript these words:\n\u201cOn April the 23rd, 1492, I commenced this book and recommenced the\nhorse.\u201d On the 2nd of July, 1491, he designed the pavilion of the\nDuchess\u2019s Bath; on the 3rd of March, 1509, St. Christopher\u2019s Canal.[206]\nThe first idea of the discovery of America came to Columbus between May\nand June, in 1474, in the form of a search for the western passage to\nIndia.[207] Galileo discovered the sun\u2019s spots contemporaneously with,\nor before, Scheiner in April, 1611;[208] in December, 1610, and even in\nSeptember (since he speaks of his observation having been made three\nmonths previously), he discovered the analogy between the phases of\nVenus and those of the moon; in May, 1609, he invented the\ntelescope;[209] in July, 1610, he discovered two stars, afterwards found\nto be the most luminous points of Saturn\u2019s ring, a discovery which,\naccording to his custom, he expressed in verse:--\n\n    \u201c_Altissimum planetam tergeminum observavi._\u201d\n\nIn January he found Jupiter\u2019s satellites; in November, 1602, the\nisochronism of the oscillations of the pendulum.[210]\n\nKepler discovered the law which bears his name in May, 1618; the\ndiscovery of Zucchi regarding Jupiter took place in May; that of Tycho\nBrahe in November. Fabricius discovered the first changing star in\nAugust, 1546. Cassini discovered the spots which indicate the rotation\nof Venus in October and April (1666-67), and in October, December, and\nMarch (1671, 1672, 1684) four satellites of Saturn. Herschel discovered\ntwo in March, 1789. In June, 1631, Hevelius conceived the first ideas of\nselenography.[211] A satellite of Saturn was discovered by Huygens on\nthe 25th of March, 1665; another by Dawes and Bond on the night of the\n19th of September, 1848. Two satellites of Uranus were discovered by\nHerschel in 1787; one of them, considered as doubtful by Herschel, was\nagain discovered by Struve and Lassel in October, 1847; the last, Ariel,\nwas discovered by Lassel on the 14th of September, 1847; on the 8th of\nJuly in the same year he had also seen Neptune\u2019s satellite for the first\ntime.[212] Uranus was discovered by Herschel in March, 1781. The same\nastronomer observed the moon\u2019s volcanoes in April. Bradley discovered in\nSeptember (1728) the aberration of light, Enke\u2019s and Vico\u2019s fine\nobservations on Saturn took place in March and April (1735-38). Of the\ncomets discovered by Gambart, three were in July, two in March and in\nMay, one in January, April, June, August, October, December.[213] The\nlast three comets discovered in 1877 were perceived in October,\nFebruary, and September; in August Hall observed the satellites of Mars.\nSchiaparelli\u2019s discovery on falling stars dates from August, 1866.\n\nWe read in Malpighi\u2019s journal that in July he made his great\ndiscoveries in the suprarenal glands. It is curious to observe how some\none month predominates in certain years: for example, January in 1788\nand 1790, and June in 1771, during which he made thirteen\ndiscoveries.[214]\n\nThe first idea of the barometer came to Torricelli in May, 1645, as may\nbe seen by his letters to Ricci; in March, 1644, he had made the\ndiscovery, of great moment at that time, of the best way of making\nglasses for spectacles. The first experiments of Pascal on the\nequilibrium of fluids were made in September, 1645.[215] In March, 1752,\nFranklin began his experiments with lightning conductors, and concluded\nthem in September.\n\nGoethe declared that it was in May that his original ideas on the theory\nof colours arose, and in June that he made his fine observations on the\nmetamorphoses of plants.[216] Hamilton discovered the calculus of\nQuaternions on the 16th of October, 1843.\n\nVolta invented the electric pile in the beginning of winter, 1799-1800.\nIn the spring of 1775 he invented the electrophore. In the first days of\nNovember, 1784, he discovered the production of hydrogen in organic\nfermentations. His invention of the eudiometer took place in the spring,\nabout May. In April of the same year (1777) Volta wrote to Barletta the\nfamous letter in which he divined the electric telegraph. In the spring\nof 1788 he constructed his great conductor.\n\nLuigi Brugnatelli found out galvanoplasty in November, 1806, as is shown\nby a letter which the advocate Zanino Volta found in the correspondence\nof his grandfather. Nicholson discovered the oxydation of metals by\nmeans of the Voltaic pile, in the summer of 1800.\n\nFrom the examination of Galvani\u2019s manuscripts it appears that his\nstudies on intestinal gases began in December, 1713. His first studies\non the action of atmospheric electricity on the nerves of cold-blooded\nanimals were undertaken, as he himself writes, \u201cat the 20th hour of the\n26th of April, 1776.\u201d In September, 1786, he began his experiments on\nthe contractions of frogs, whence the origin of galvanism. In November,\n1780, he stated his experiments on the contractions of frogs by\nartificial electricity.[217]\n\nWe see by Lagrange\u2019s manuscripts, published by Boncompagni, that he had\nthe first idea of the Calculus of Variations on the 12th of June, 1755;\non the 19th of May (1756) he conceived the idea of the _M\u00e9canique\nAnalitique_; in November, 1759, he found a solution of the problem of\nvibrating cords.[218]\n\nFrom the manuscripts of Spallanzani, which I have been able to examine\nin the Communal Library at Reggio, it appears that his observations on\nmoulds began on the 26th of September, 1770. On the 8th of May, 1780,\nSpallanzani started, to use his own words, \u201cthe study of animals which\nare torpid through the action of cold;\u201d in April and May, 1776, he\ndiscovered the parthenogenesis of certain animals. The 2nd of April,\n1780, was the richest day in experiments, or rather deductions, on the\nsubject of ovulation. \u201cIt becomes clear,\u201d he wrote on this same day,\nafter having made forty-three observations, \u201cthat the ova are not\nfecundated in the womb; that the sperm cells after emission remain apt\nfor fecundation for a certain time, that the vesicular fluid fecundates\nas well as the seminal, that wine and vinegar are opposed to\nfecundation.\u201d \u201cImpatience,\u201d adds this curious manuscript, which enables\nus to assist at the incubation of these wonderful experiments, \u201cwill not\nallow me to draw any more corollaries.\u201d On the 7th of May, 1780, he\ndiscovered that an infinitely small amount of semen sufficed for\nfecundation. A letter to Bonnet shows that Spallanzani had, during the\nspring of 1771, the idea of studying the action of the heart on the\ncirculation. In March, 1773, he undertook his studies on rotifera, and\nin his manuscripts for May, 1781, may be found a plan of 161 new\nexperiments on the artificial fecundation of frogs.\n\nG\u00e9offroy Saint-Hilaire had his first ideas on the homologies of\norganisms in February. Davy discovered iodine in December. Humboldt made\nhis first observations on the magnetic needle in November, 1796; in\nMarch, 1793, he observed the irritability of organic fibres.[219] The\nprolegomena of the _Cosmos_ was dictated in October.[220] In July, 1801,\nGay-Lussac discovered fluoric acid in fish-bones; he completed the\nanalysis of alum in July.[221] In September, 1846, Morton used sulphuric\nether as an an\u00e6sthetic in surgery. In October, 1840, Armstrong invented\nthe first hydro-electric machine.[222]\n\nMatteucci made his experiments with the galvanoscope in July, 1830; on\ntorpedoes in the spring of 1836; on electro-motor muscles in July, 1837;\non the decomposition of acids in May, 1835, he determined in May, 1837,\nthe influence of electricity on the weather; in June, 1833, he concluded\nhis experiments on heat and magnetism.[223]\n\nThe reader who has had the patience to follow this wearisome catalogue\nto the end, may convince himself that many men of genius have, as it\nwere, a specific chronology; that is to say, a tendency to make their\nmost numerous observations, to accomplish their finest discoveries, or\ntheir best \u00e6sthetic productions, at a special season or in one month\nrather than another: Spallanzani in the spring, Giusti and Arcangeli in\nMarch, Lamartine in August, Carcano, Byron, and Alfieri in September,\nMalpighi and Schiller in June and July, Hugo in May, B\u00e9ranger in\nJanuary, Belli in November, Melli in April, Volta in November and\nDecember, Galvani in April, Gambart in July, Peters in August, Luther in\nMarch and April, Watson in September.\n\nA more general kind of specific chronology, a sort of intellectual\ncalendar, is presented when we sum up various intellectual\ncreations--poetry, music, sculpture, natural discoveries--of which the\ndate of conception can be precisely fixed. This may be seen from the\nfollowing table:--\n\n  ----------+----------+-----------------+--------------+--------\n            |          |                 |   Physical,  |\n            | Literary |                 |   Chemical,  |\n    Month.  |   and    |  Astronomical   |     and      | Total.\n            | Artistic |Discoveries.[224]| Mathematical |\n            |  Works.  |                 | Discoveries. |\n  ----------+----------+-----------------+--------------+--------\n  January   |   101    |       37        |      --      |  138\n  February  |    82    |       21        |       1      |  104\n  March     |   104    |       45        |       5      |  154\n  April     |   135    |       52        |       5      |  192\n  May       |   149    |       35        |       9      |  193\n  June      |   125    |       24        |       5      |  154\n  July      |   105    |       52        |       5      |  162\n  August    |   113    |       42        |      --      |  155\n  September |   138    |       47        |       5      |  190\n  October   |    83    |       45        |       4      |  132\n  November  |   103    |       42        |       5      |  150\n  December  |    86    |       27        |       2      |  115\n  ----------+----------+-----------------+--------------+--------\n\nOne observes at once that the most favourable month for \u00e6sthetic\ncreations is May; then come September and April; the minimum is\npresented by the months of February, October, and December. The same may\nbe observed partially with astronomical discoveries; but here April and\nJuly predominate, while for physical discoveries as well as for \u00e6sthetic\ncreations, the months of May, April, and September stand first. Thus the\nadvantage belongs to the months of early heat more than to the months\nof\n\n[Illustration: RELATION to average monthly temperature to admission of\nlunatics to asylum, and to production of works of genius.]\n\ngreat heat, as with insanity also; in the same way the months of\ngreatest barometric variation have an advantage over very hot and very\ncold months.\n\nIf we now group these data according to seasons, which will allow us to\ninclude other data in which the exact month cannot be stated, we shall\nfind that the maximum of artistic and literary creation falls in spring,\n388; then comes summer, with 347; then autumn, 335; and lastly, winter,\nwith 280.\n\nThe majority of great physical, chemical, and mathematical discoveries\ntook place in spring, 22; then autumn, 15; very few in summer, 10; and\nonly five in winter. I have separated astronomical discoveries from\nphysical, and other discoveries, because their precise dates are less\ndoubtful and therefore more important. We find 135 in autumn; 131 in\nspring; 120 in summer; and only 83 in winter. Taking these 1,871 great\ndiscoveries altogether, we find spring coming first, with 541; then\nautumn, with 485; with 477 in summer; and 368 in winter.\n\nIt is evident, then, that the first warm months distinctly predominate\nin the creations of genius, as well as in organic nature generally,\nalthough the question cannot be absolutely resolved on account of the\nscarcity of data, as regards both quantity and quality. It was, however,\nin the spring that the discovery of America was conceived, as well as\ngalvanism, the barometer, the telescope, and the lightning conductor; in\nthe spring, Michelangelo had the idea of his great cartoon, Dante of his\n_Divina Commedia_, Leonardo of his book on light, Goethe of his _Faust_;\nit was in the spring that Kepler discovered his law, that Milton\nconceived his great poem, Darwin his great theory, and Wagner the\n_Fliegende Holl\u00e4nder_, the first of his great music dramas.\n\nIt may be added that in the few cases in which we may follow, day by\nday, the traces of the works of great men, we usually find that their\nactivity increases in the warm months and decreases in the cold months.\nThus in Spallanzani\u2019s journals, and especially during the years 1777-78\nand 1780-81, in which he was undertaking his investigations into moulds,\ndigestion, and fecundation, I found 50 days of observation in March, 65\nin April, 143 in May, 41 in June, 33 in August, 24 in September; while\nthere were only 17 in December, 10 in November, 18 in January, 17 in\nJuly, and 2 in February.\n\nIf we examine the curious journal of his own observations, which\nMalpighi kept day by day for thirty-four years, we find, grouping the\nobservations according to months, July coming first with 71 days,\nfollowed by June with 66, May 42, October 40, January 36, September 34,\nApril 33, March 31, August 28, November 20, December 13.[225] Out of\nover four hundred observations less than a fifth took place in the\nwinter months.\n\nIt appears from Galvani\u2019s manuscripts, as examined by Gherardi, that\nbetween the years 1772 and 1781 his investigations on irritability,\nmuscular movement, the structure of the ear, the tympanic bone, and the\norgan of hearing, all belong to the month of April, while his work on\ncataract belongs to March, and that on the hygiene of sight to January.\nThere seems, therefore, to be here a remarkable predominance for April,\nthough there is less certainty than in the preceding cases.\n\nI imagine the objections that may be made against these conclusions; the\nscarcity of data, their doubtfulness, the boldness of bringing within\nthe narrow circle of statistics those sublime phenomena of intellectual\ncreation which seem the least susceptible of calculation. Such\nobjections may have weight with those who believe that statistics can\nonly deal with large numbers--perhaps more remarkable for quantity than\nfor quality--and who thrust aside _a priori_ all reasoning on the data,\nas though figures were not facts, subject like all other facts to\nsynthesis, and had not their true value as materials for the thinker.\nThe facts I have brought forward, though not large, are at all events to\nbe preferred to mere hypotheses, or to the isolated statements of\nauthors, the more so as they are in harmony with these latter, and may\nat least serve as an encouragement to a new series of fruitful\npsychometeoric researches.\n\nIt may be said also that the creations of genius cannot furnish great\ncolumns of figures.\n\nIt is very true, however, that in regard to many of them the\nchronological coincidence is connected with accidental circumstances\nentirely, independent of the psychic condition. Thus naturalists have\ngreater facilities for observation and experiment in warm months; thus,\nalso, the length and equability of equinoctial nights, the difficulty of\nmaking examinations on foggy days, the weariness and discomfort\nexperienced on days that are very hot or very cold, largely account for\nthe predominance of discoveries in spring and autumn.\n\nYet these are not the only determining circumstances. In the case of\nanatomists, for example, bodies may be had at all seasons, and\nprincipally in winter; and, again, the long and clear winter nights, in\nwhich the influence of refraction is less, ought to be as favourable to\nthe astronomers of temperate climates as the warm summer nights of\nnorthern climates which give us, however, a greater number of\nastronomical discoveries.\n\nIt is well known, also, that accidental circumstances influence even the\nphenomena of death, birth, murder, when closely considered\nstatistically. If, however, all these phenomena conduce to the same\nresult, we are led to infer a similar cause common to all, and this can\nonly be found in meteorological influences.\n\nI have grouped together \u00e6sthetic creations and scientific discoveries\nbecause they are associated by that moment of psychic excitation and\nextreme sensibility which brings together the most remote facts, the\nfecundating moment which has rightly been called generative, a moment at\nwhich poets and men of science are nearer than is generally supposed.\nWas there not an audacious imagination in Spallanzani\u2019s experiments, in\nHerschel\u2019s first attempts, in the great discoveries of Leverrier and\nSchiaparelli, born of hypothesis, which calculation and observation\ntransformed into axioms? Littrow, speaking of the discovery of Vesta,\nobserves that it was not the result of chance nor of genius alone, but\nof genius favoured by chance. The star discovered by Piazzi had\nglimmered in Zach\u2019s eyes, but he, with less genius than Piazzi, or in a\nmoment of less perspicacity, attached no importance to it. The discovery\nof the solar spots only needed time, patience, and good fortune,\nremarked Secchi; but it needed genius to discover their true theory.\nHow many learned natural philosophers, observes Arago, in going down a\nriver must have observed the fluttering of the vane at the mast-head,\nwithout discovering, like Bradley, the law of aberration. And how many\nartists, one might add, must have seen hideous heads of porters, without\nconceiving Leonardo\u2019s Judas, or oranges without creating the cavatina of\nMozart\u2019s _Don Giovanni_.\n\nThere is, however, one last objection which seems more serious. Nearly\nall great intellectual creations, and all discoveries of modern physics,\nare the results of the slow and continuous meditations of men of science\nand their predecessors; so that they form a kind of compilation, the\nchronology of which is not easy to define, because the date at which we\nare arrested indicates the moment of birth rather than of conception.\nThis objection, however, may be applied to nearly all human phenomena,\neven the most sudden. Thus, fecundation is a phenomenon which depends on\nthe good nutrition of the organism, and on heredity; insanity, death\nitself, though apparently produced by sudden, even casual,\ncircumstances, are yet related on one side to the weather and on the\nother to organic conditions; so that often, one may say, the precise\ndate is fixed at birth.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nCLIMATIC INFLUENCES ON GENIUS.\n\n     Influence of great centres--Race and hot climates--The distribution\n     of great masters--Orographic influences--- Influence of healthy\n     race--Parallelism of high stature and genius--Explanations.\n\n\nBuckle thought that most artists, unlike men of science, were produced\nin volcanic countries.[226] Jacoby, in an excellent monograph,[227]\nfinds the greatest number of superior intelligences where the urban\npopulation is densest. It seems impossible to deny that race (the Latin\nand Greek races, for example, abound in great men), political and\nscientific struggles, wealth, literary centres have a great influence on\nthe appearance of men of genius. Who would maintain that the political\nstruggles and great liberty of Athens, Siena, and Florence have not\ncontributed to produce in ancient times a more powerful display of\ngenius than at other epochs and in other countries?\n\nBut when we recall the preponderating influence of meteorological\nphenomena on works of genius it becomes clear that a still more\nimportant place must be reserved for atmospheric and climatic\nconditions.\n\n_The Influence of Great Centres, of Race, and of Hot Climates._--It is\nworth while to study the distribution of great artists in Europe, and\nespecially in Italy.\n\nFor musicians I have used the works of F\u00e9tis[228] and Cl\u00e9ment[229]; for\npainters and sculptors I have referred to Ticozzi\u2019s two\ndictionaries.[230] Here are the results:--\n\n\nMUSICIANS IN EUROPE.\n\n   _Country._    _Number._   _To one million inhabitants._\n\n  Italy             1210                40.7\n  Belgium             98                16.7\n  Germany            650                13.8\n  France             405                10.7\n  Holland             31                 7.7\n  Greece              15                 7.5\n  Switzerland         20                 7.0\n  Denmark             14                 6.6\n  Austria            239                 6.5\n  England            149                 4.6\n  Portugal            17                 3.6\n  Spain               62                 3.5\n  Ireland              7                 1.4\n  Russia              34                 0.4\n  Sweden               9                 0.2\n\nThe countries which have furnished the greatest number of musicians\nafter Italy are Belgium, Germany, and France, the countries which have\nthe greatest density of population; the poorest in musicians are\nIreland, Russia, and Sweden, with a very slight density, especially the\ntwo last. The influence of volcanic soil and of Latin race does not\nclearly appear, when one notes the feeble proportions given by Spain and\nGreece compared to Germany.\n\nIf, however, we study the distribution of musicians in the various\nregions of Italy, we see immediately that the hot and non-insular\ndistricts stand first; then Emilia and Venetia; Piedmont, the Marches\nand Umbria stand low, and Sardinia is completely absent. We do not,\nhowever, obtain a sufficiently clear view of the orographic influences\nuntil we take the provinces separately.[231]\n\nWe then see in a remarkable manner how the most populous centres come to\nthe front, including nearly all the provinces containing large towns,\nexcept Piedmont, Sardinia, and Sicily. It is sufficient to mention\nNaples, Rome, Venice, Milan, Bologna, Florence, Lucca, Parma, and Genoa.\nHere, evidently, we see the influence of healthy, warm, maritime, and,\nabove all, elevated regions; often this influence even struggles against\nthat of civilization and of great centres. Large cities prevail in the\nproportion of 7 out of 9. In the second line we see other important\ntowns emerge, or great maritime centres, especially if volcanic:\nPalermo, Bari, Catania, and especially mountainous countries, Bergamo,\nBrescia, Verona, Vicenza, Perugia, Siena. The racial influence is not\nclear here; the Berber and Semitic races do not, however, seem to favour\nart, especially in hot regions, and we may thus explain the paucity of\nmusicians among the Sardinians, Calabrians, and Sicilians. The\nGreco-Roman and Etruscan races seem better endowed on the other hand,\nwhence the predominance of Naples, Rome, Lucca, and Bologna. The action\nof earthquakes, which, according to Buckle, has a large part in artistic\ncreation, is not very apparent. If Naples and Aversa are placed in the\nfirst rank (which could be explained by race and climate), it is not so\nwith Calabria, where earthquakes are so numerous.\n\n_The Distribution of Great Masters._--It must be remarked that quantity\ndoes not always correspond to quality; it is sufficient to see that the\nregions that produced a Bellini and a Rossini appear to be the most\nsterile centres. Yet the appearance of a single great genius is more\nthan equivalent to the birth of a hundred mediocrities.\n\nIf we take account of the proportion of great composers, we see that the\nmost favoured regions are hot and maritime, especially Naples, closely\nfollowed by Rome, Parma, Milan, and Cremona. Here the influences of\ndensity and of the school come in the third line, after that of climate.\n\nThus, in searching Cl\u00e9ment\u2019s book, and Florimo\u2019s,[232] we find that out\nof 118 great composers, 44, or more than a third, belong to Italy; and\nthat among these last, 27, or more than half, are supplied by Sicily\n(Scarlatti, Pacini, Bellini), and by Naples and neighbouring places,\nespecially Aversa (Jomelli, Stradella, Piccinni, Leo, Feo, Vinci,\nFenaroli, the inventor of _op\u00e9ra-bouffe_, Speranza, Contumaci, Sala,\nCaffaro, Duni, Sacchini, Carafa, Paisiello, Cimarosa, Zingarelli,\nMercadante, Durante, the two Ricci and Petrella), no doubt owing to the\ninfluence of Greek race and warm climate. Of the other 17, a few belong\nto Upper Italy: Donizetti, Verdi, Allegri, Frescobaldi, the two\nMonteverdi, Salieri, Marcello, Paganini (these last three to the\nsea-coast); and all the others to Central Italy; Palestrina and Clementi\nto Rome, and Spontini, Lulli, and Pergolese, to Perugia and\nFlorence.[233]\n\nIf we compare the regions which have produced the greatest composers and\nrelatively few minor masters, we find that Pesaro, Catania, Arezzo, and\nAlessandria come first. The coincidence of musical geniuses and\nmediocrities, both in large numbers, is found at Naples, Rome, Parma,\nFlorence, Milan, Cremona, and Venice, with an evident influence here\nalso of warm maritime climate, of the Greco-Etruscan race and of great\ncentres (5 out of 7).\n\nIn painting we find that the large towns predominate both for number and\ncelebrity, with the exception of Sardinia and Sicily. Bologna, Florence,\nVenice, and Milan come first as regards number; Florence, and in the\nsecond line Verona, Naples, Rome, and Venice, both for number and\ncelebrity; and we still find that, after large towns, mountainous\ncountries give the highest figures as regards number. It is sufficient\nto name Perugia, Arezzo, Siena, Udine, Verona, Vicenza, Parma,\nBrescia.[234]\n\nAlmost the same relations are observed in regard to sculptors and\narchitects. We see the great centres of civilization and hilly regions\nin the first rank; Florence especially, then Milan, Venice, Naples,\nComo, Siena, Verona, Massa, and in the third line Arezzo, Perugia,\nVicenza, Bergamo, Macerata, Catania, and Palermo.[235]\n\nTo summarize: We see that the chief part is played by warm climate,\ngreat centres of civilization, mountainous and maritime regions; some\ninfluence must also be attributed to the influence of the Greek and\nEtruscan races. There is no constant relation between the regions which\nhave produced great geniuses and those which have yielded second-rate\ngeniuses, with the exception of Naples and Florence. For the last city\nwe must bear in mind the influence of its commune, which excited and\nnourished individual energies, and to this chief cause we must add\nartistic disposition, race, and beauty of climate, as with Athens.\nCertainly, Florence enjoyed unquestioned supremacy in painting and\nsculpture; it is enough to recall the names of Donatello, Michelangelo,\nVerrochio, Baldinelli, Coccini, Cellini, Giotto, Masaccio, Andrea del\nSarto, Salviati, Allori, Bronzino, Pollaiolo, Fra Angelico.\n\n_Orographic influence._--After the influence of heat and of great\ncentres, comes that of the slighter pressure of the air in hilly but not\ntoo mountainous regions.\n\nThis climatic influence alone can explain why we find so many poets, and\nespecially _improvvisatori_, even women, among the shepherds and\npeasants of the Tuscan hills, especially about Pistoja, Buti,\nValdontani. It is enough to recall the shepherdess mentioned by Giuliani\nin his book _Sulla Lingua parlata in Toscana_, and that singular\nFrediani family with a father, grandfathers, and sons, who were poets;\none of them is still alive and composes verses worthy of the poets of\nancient Tuscany. Yet peasants of the same race, inhabiting the plain, so\nfar as I know, offer nothing similar.\n\nAll flat countries--Belgium, Holland, Egypt--are deficient in men of\ngenius; so also with those, like Switzerland and Savoy, which, being\nenclosed between very high mountains, are endemically afflicted with\ncretinism and _go\u00eetre_; marshy countries are still poorer in genius. The\nfew men of genius possessed by Switzerland were born when the race had\nconquered the goitrous influence through admixture of French and Italian\nimmigrants--Bonnet, Rousseau, Tronchin, Tissot, De Candolle, Burlamagni,\nPestalozzi, Sismondi. Urbino Pesaro, Forl\u00ec, Como, Parma, have produced\nmen of genius in greater number and of greater fame than Pisa, Padua,\nand Pavia, three of the most ancient and important university towns of\nItaly; it is enough to name Raphael, Bramante, Rossini, Morgagni,\nSpallanzani, Muratori, Falloppio, Volta.\n\nBut, to come to more definite examples, we find that Florence, enjoying\na mild temperature and in special degree a city of the hills, has\nfurnished Italy with her most splendid cohort of great men: Dante,\nGiotto, Machiavelli, Lulli, Leonardo, Brunellesco, Guicciardini,\nCellini, Fra Angelico, Andrea del Sarto, Nicolini, Capponi, Vespucci,\nViviani, Lippi, Boccaccio, Alberti, Dati, Alamanni, Rucellai,\nGhirlandajo, Donati; Pisa, on the other hand, with scientific conditions\nat least as favourable as Florence, being the seat of a flourishing\nuniversity, only offers us--if we except a few soldiers and statesmen of\nno great number and worth who were unable, even with powerful allies, to\nprevent her fall--Pisa only offers us Nicola Pisano, Giunta, and Galileo\nwho, although born there, was of Florentine parentage. Now Pisa only\ndiffers from Florence by being situated on a plain.\n\nIn Lombardy, the regions of mountain and lake, like Bergamo, Brescia,\nand Como, have produced more great men than the flat regions. I will\nmention Bernardo Tasso, Mascheroni, Donizetti, Tartaglia, Ugoni, Volta,\nParini, Appiani, Mai, Cagnola; while Lower Lombardy can only bring\nforward Alciato, Beccaria, Oriani, Cavalleri, Aselli, and Bocaccini.\nVerona, a town of the hills, has produced Maffei, Paolo Veronese,\nCatullus, Pliny, Fracastoro, Bianchini, Sammicheli, Cagnola, Tiraboschi,\nBrusasorsi, Lorgna, Pindemonte; and not to speak of artists, economists,\nand thinkers of the first order (it is enough to name Trezza), I note\nthat, in a very accurate document,[236] it appears that in 1881, there\nwere 160 poets at Verona, many rising considerably above mediocrity. On\nthe other hand, the wealthy and learned Padua has only given to Italy\nLivy, Cesarotti, Pietro d\u2019Abano, and a few others.\n\nGenoa and Naples, which unite the advantages of a climate at once warm,\nmaritime, and hilly, have produced men of genius at least as remarkable\nas those yielded by Florence, if not in such great number; such are\nColumbus, Doria, Mazzini, Paganini, Vico, Caracciolo, Pergolese,\nGenovesi, Cirillo, Filangeri.\n\nIn Spain, the influence of a warm climate is evident. The whole of\nCatalonia, including Barcelona, though inhabited by a serious race, has\nnot produced artists, having yielded only a single poet, an imitator of\nPetrarch. Seville, on the contrary, has produced Cervantes, Velasquez\nand Murillo; Cordova has yielded many men of genius, such as Seneca,\nLucan, Morales, Mina, Gongora and C\u00e9spedes, at once painter, sculptor,\nand poet.\n\nIn the United States, Beard remarks,[237] the influence of a dry and\nchangeable climate favours in the North a remarkable spirit of progress,\nthe love of knowledge, the agitation of public life and a great desire\nfor novelty; while in the South, the moist and but slightly varying\nclimate develops eminently conservative tendencies, so that\nmanufacturers in Georgia have great difficulty in finding a market there\nfor new stuffs or machines; these are refused, not because they are not\ngood or useful, but because they are new.\n\nIn Germany it has been observed that regions enjoying a mild and healthy\nclimate, by reason of protecting mountains, have produced the greatest\npoets and in greatest number. The regions of the Main and the Neckar are\nrenowned for their mild climate, luxuriant vegetation, and fertility,\nand the greatest German poets come from these regions. The Main gave us\nthe greatest of German poets, Goethe, and many other _dii minorum\ngentium_, genial and noteworthy poets, although beneath that giant, men\nsuch as Klinger, B\u00f6rne, R\u00fcckert, Bettina von Arnim (_n\u00e9e_ Brentano), &c.\nIn the favoured region of the Neckar were born Schiller and Victor von\nScheffel, and throughout the Swabian land, we meet with many other great\npoets and thinkers, such as Wieland, Uhland, Justinus Kerner, Hauff,\nSchubart, M\u00f6rike, G. Schwab,\n\n[Illustration: DIAGRAM OF THE RELATION OF GENIUS TO STATURE IN FRANCE.\n\nB = predominately Belgic Departments; C = Celtic; I = Iberian; A =\nArabic.]\n\nSchelling, M\u00fcller, H\u00f6lderlin, and others. That hilly regions are richer\nthan others in poets is shown in Germany by Hanover (Klopstock,\nStolberg, Iffland, B\u00fcrger, Leisewitz, Bodenstedt, Hoffmann von\nFallersleben, the two Schlegels, &c.); by the Rhine province (Heine,\nJacobi, J. M\u00fcller, Brentano); Saxony, one of the districts possessing a\nmild climate, which has yielded the largest number of poets (K\u00f6rner,\nGellert, K\u00e4stner, Rabener, and, above all, Lessing); and Thuringia\n(Kotzebue, R\u00fcckert, G. Freytag, Heinse, Mus\u00e4us, Gotter). On the other\nhand, the flat regions of Germany or those with a severe climate, have\nproduced few poets.[238] As exceptions must be mentioned, Herder\n(Mohrungen in East Prussia), M. von Schenkendorf (Tilsit), E. M. Arndt\n(R\u00fcgen), Luther (Eisleben), Paul Gerhardt (Gr\u00e4fenhainichen), the two\nHumboldts, Paul Heyse, Tieck, Gutzkow (Berlin), Immermann (Magdeburg),\nWilhelm M\u00fcller, Max M\u00fcller, Moses Mendelssohn (Dessau). Westphalia,\nagain, is mountainous, but poor in poets.\n\n_The Influence of Healthy Race and High Stature._--The regions which\nhave furnished few artists, or none, are those which suffer from malaria\nor _go\u00eetre_: Calabria, Sassari, Grosseto, Aosta, Sondrio, Avellino,\nCaltanisetta, Chieti, Syracuse, Lecce. If we compare the distribution of\ngreat artists in Italy with the distribution of high stature, we find a\nsingular coincidence of maximum and minimum points. The stature is very\nlow in the regions I have just mentioned, and very tall at Florence,\nLucca, Rome, Venice, Naples, Siena, and Arezzo, not because there is any\ndirect correspondence of intelligence to stature, but because, as I have\nelsewhere shown,[239] although stature reveals ethnic influences, it is\nalso the surest index of public health, while mortality statistics have\nno exact relation to health, because they do not sufficiently show the\nresults of morbid influences, such as _go\u00eetre_ and cretinism, which,\nalthough they arrest the physical and mental growth, do not increase the\nmortality.\n\nIf we examine the results furnished by the conscription in Italy, we\nfind that those regions which, from the excellence of their climate, and\napart from ethnic influences, yield the greatest number of individuals\nof high stature, and the smallest number of rejected individuals, are\nthe most fruitful in men of genius; such are Tuscany, Liguria, and\nRomagna. On the other hand, the regions which are poorest in men of high\nstature and men fit for military service--Sardinia, Basilicata, and the\nvalley of Aosta--yield a smaller number of men of genius. It is\nnecessary to except Calabria and Valtellina where many are found,\nnotwithstanding shortness of stature, but they appear in parts of the\ncountry which, from their exposed or elevated position, escape miasmatic\ninfluences and are proofs of the rule rather than exceptions to it.\n\nThis influence can be very well shown in France if we compare the list\nof men of genius produced in the eighteenth century (as brought together\nby Jacoby) with the statistics of stature given by Broca and\nTopinard,[240] and with the mortality of each province as furnished by\nBertillon.[241]\n\nWe observe at once an evident parallelism between genius and height,\nwith only 11 exceptions out of 85, and some of these 11 may be explained\nby the agglomerated population of great capitals (Seine, Rh\u00f4ne,\nBouches-du-Rh\u00f4ne) which favour the development, or rather the\nmanifestation, of genius, as we have already seen to be the case in\nItaly; thus the exceptions in Var, H\u00e9rault, Bouches-du-Rh\u00f4ne may be\nexplained by relatively great density of population, and by the southern\nclimate, which favours genius in spite of miasmatic influences. At the\nsame time, if we may agree with Jacoby concerning the favourable\ninfluence of great urban agglomerations, such as Paris, Lyons,\nMarseilles, it must be added that it does not appear so clearly in other\ncentres; thus Nord, Haut-Rhin, Pas-de-Calais, Loire, although possessing\na dense population, do not yield a corresponding number of men of\ngenius, standing only in the third rank, the Loire, indeed, only in the\nfourth.[242]\n\nIf we compare the geographical distribution of men of genius with that\nof mortality, we note more numerous failures of correspondence (27) with\nthe height; this is because the statistics of mortality do not indicate\nthe influence of cretinism which exists in Ari\u00e8ge, the Basses and\nHautes-Alpes, Puy-de-D\u00f4me, the Pyr\u00e9n\u00e9es, and the Ardennes, clearly\nshowing itself in short stature and military exemption for _go\u00eetre_,\nand, as in Valtellina in Italy, accompanied by a scarcity of intellect.\nAt the same time, all the regions showing high mortality, especially\nsuch as are malarious--the Landes, Sologne, Morbihan, Corr\u00e8ze--offer a\nfeebler proportion of men of genius, with the exception of the great\ncentres; the contrary is found in more healthy districts.\n\nOrographic conditions appear to have great influence. The sunny and\nfertile land of Languedoc, all mountainous regions not too much affected\nby _go\u00eetre_--Doubs, C\u00f4te-d\u2019Or, Ardennes--or those in which it has not\nsucceeded in depressing the stature, that is to say, has been unable to\nproduce endemic cretinism (Jura) give us, when we have put aside all\ninfluence of density, race, and temperature, a most notable proportion\nof men of genius. This may be clearly seen in the table on the following\npage in which the high figures of _go\u00eetre_, stammering, and deaf-mutism,\ncorrespond with low stature in Corr\u00e8ze, Puy-de-D\u00f4me, Ard\u00e8che, Ari\u00e8ge,\nthe Basses-Alpes, and the Pyr\u00e9n\u00e9es.\n\nWe have seen in Var, Vaucluse, and H\u00e9rault that a southern climate,\nperhaps on account of its greater fertility, produces a great number of\nmen of genius; but countries that are cold, but at the same time healthy\nand mountainous--Jura, Doubs, Meurthe--give still\n\n  -------------------+---------------+------------------+-->\n                     |Stature 1831-60|Progressive degree|\n     Mountainous     |  Progressive  | of great talent  |\n     Departments.    |   degree of   |   among 1,000    |\n                     |  exemptions.  |   inhabitants.   |\n  -------------------+---------------+------------------+-->\n  Haute-Vienne       |      86       |        54        |\n  Hautes-Alpes       |      81       |        49        |\n  Corr\u00e8ze            |      85       |        50        |\n  Puy-de D\u00f4me        |      84       |        51        |\n  Ard\u00e8che            |      80       |        58        |\n  Ari\u00e8ge             |      60       |        79        |\n  Loz\u00e8re             |      74       |        76        |\n  Basses-Alpes       |      71       |        22        |\n  Aveyron            |      65       |        44        |\n  Basses-Pyr\u00e9n\u00e9es    |      51       |        61        |\n  Pyr\u00e9n\u00e9es-Orientales|      50       |        57        |\n  Hautes-Pyr\u00e9n\u00e9es    |      37       |        72        |\n  Vosges             |      25       |        46        |\n  Ardennes           |       8       |        30        |\n  Jura               |       3       |        10        |\n  C\u00f4te-d\u2019Or          |       2       |         5        |\n  Doubs              |       1       |         2        |\n  -------------------+---------------+------------------+-->\n\n  <------------------+------------+------------+------------+------------\n                     |  Go\u00eetrous  |  Cretins   | Deaf-mutes | Stammerers\n     Mountainous     |among 1,000 |among 1,000 |among 1,000 |among 1,000\n     Departments.    |inhabitants.|inhabitants.|inhabitants.|inhabitants.\n                     |            |            |            |\n <-------------------+------------+------------+------------+------------\n  Haute-Vienne       |      17    |    2.0     |     0.61   |    2.23\n  Hautes-Alpes       |     111    |    2.2     |     2.2    |     2.8\n  Corr\u00e8ze            |      17    |    4.3     |     1.5    |     2.4\n  Puy-de D\u00f4me        |      44    |    3.6     |     1.2    |     1.9\n  Ard\u00e8che            |      29    |    6.8     |     1.3    |     3.9\n  Ari\u00e8ge             |      82    |    4.5     |     0.7    |     4.1\n  Loz\u00e8re             |      29    |    6.8     |     2.10   |     3.4\n  Basses-Alpes       |      76    |    6.3     |     0.6    |     7.5\n  Aveyron            |      17    |    4.9     |     1.5    |     2.0\n  Basses-Pyr\u00e9n\u00e9es    |      21    |    3.2     |     0.6    |     2.9\n  Pyr\u00e9n\u00e9es-Orientales|      24    |    3.5     |     1.8    |     2.0\n  Hautes-Pyr\u00e9n\u00e9es    |      62    |    6.2     |     0.7    |     4.0\n  Vosges             |      56    |    3.9     |     1.1    |     2.5\n  Ardennes           |      17    |    0.5     |     0.8    |     5.2\n  Jura               |      58    |    2.0     |     0.6    |     3.0\n  C\u00f4te-d\u2019Or          |      11    |    3.1     |     0.8    |     1.7\n  Doubs              |      22    |    2.9     |     0.6    |     1.0\n  <------------------+------------+------------+------------+------------\n\n\nhigher figures, and the same isothermal line passes through the\nSeine-Inf\u00e9rieure and the Seine-et-Oise, both rich in men of genius; and\nthe Vosges, in which they are almost entirely absent, the same line,\nagain, passes through Calvados and Ain, which are very rich in genius,\nand Sa\u00f4ne-et-Loire and Cher, which are deficient in genius.\n\nThe nature of the soil has no influence whatever in the production of\ngenius, for we find the highest figures in the C\u00f4te-d\u2019Or, the Meuse, and\nthe Moselle, where the soil is calcareous, and the lowest figures in the\nNord and Deux-S\u00e8vres, where the soil is of the same character; other\nhigh figures are the Doubs, the Jura, and the Meurthe, where the soil is\njurassic, while the same soil offers very low figures in the\nHautes-Alpes, the Charente, and the Sa\u00f4ne-et-Loire.\n\nThe influence of race is also very slight; the descendants of the\nBurgundians produced numerous men of genius in the Jura and the Doubs,\nvery few in the Sa\u00f4ne-et-Loire. The Haute-Garonne, with the same race,\nproduces ten times as many men of genius as Ari\u00e8ge, twice as many as\nGers, five times as many as the Landes. In Guienne, the Gironde gives\ntwice as many as Lot, and in Languedoc, H\u00e9rault gives seven times more\nthan Loz\u00e8re.\n\n_Explanation._--The relation that we have found between genius and\nclimate has been caught sight of long since by the people and the\nlearned, who agree in admitting a frequency of genius in regions which,\nbeing hilly, offer mild temperature. The Tuscan proverb says,\n\u201cMountaineers, great boots, and keen heads.\u201d Vegetius wrote that climate\ninfluences not only the strength of the body, but also that of the mind.\n\u201c_Plaga c\u0153li non solum ad robur corporum sed etiam animorum facit_\u201d\n(lib. i. cap. 2). Athens, the same author remarks, was chosen by Minerva\nfor its subtle air which produces men of sagacity. Cicero said\nrepeatedly that the keen air of Athens gave birth to wise men; the thick\nair of Thebes only to torpid natures; and Petrarch, in his\n_Epistolarium_, which is a kind of summary of his life, remarks with\ngreat emphasis that all his chief works were composed, or at all events\nmeditated, among the mild hills of Vaucluse. Michelangelo said to\nVasari: \u201cGiorgio, if anything good has come out of my brain, I owe it to\nthe subtle air of your Arezzo.\u201d Zingarelli, when asked how he had\ncomposed the melody of _Giulietta e Romeo_, replied: \u201cLook at that sky,\nand tell me if you do not feel capable of doing as much.\u201d Muratori, in a\nletter to an inhabitant of Siena, wrote: \u201cYour _air_ is admirable,\nreally producing fruitful minds.\u201d Macaulay remarks that Scotland, though\none of the poorest countries in Europe, stands in the first rank for\nrichness in men of genius; it is sufficient to name Michael Scot,\nNapier, the inventor of logarithms, Buchanan, Ben Jonson, and, one may\nperhaps add, Newton. On plains, on the other hand, men of genius are\nrare. Of ancient Egypt, a country of plains, Renan writes: \u201cNo\nrevolutionary, no reformer, no great poet, no artist, no man of science,\nno philosopher, not even a great minister, can be met in the history of\nEgypt.... In this sad valley of eternal slavery, for thousands of years\nthey cultivated the fields, carried stones on their backs, and were good\nofficials, living well without glory. There was the same level of moral\nand intellectual mediocrity everywhere.\u201d[243] And the same may be said\nin our days.\n\nAt first it seems surprising to see a condition of degeneration, such as\ngenius may be called, developing at spots of maximum salubrity. But if\nthere are an\u00e6robic microbes, some are \u00e6robic; many forms of\ndegeneration, such as go\u00eetre, malaria, and leprosy, have a special\nhabitat. It is evident that we have to reckon with the dynamogenic\ninfluence of light, with the stimulating action of the ozonized air of\nthe hills, and of a warm temperature. We may understand this the better\nsince we have already seen that heat augments the creative power of men\nof genius, and the need of the brain for oxydated blood in order to work\nis well known. This is confirmed by the fact that in mountains above an\nelevation of three thousand metres, no man of genius has ever been\nproduced. The great Mexican and Peruvian civilizations flourished on the\nhigh tablelands, but, as Nibbi has well shown, they were not born\nthere;[244] in fact, the Mexican civilization is owing to the Toltecas,\nwho came from the east, and the pretended great men of Mexico, including\nits sixty presidents, were not born on the tableland. The same may be\nsaid of many men who were not quite justly termed illustrious, such as\nEcheveria in painting, Moizzos and Cervantes in botany, and\nIxtlihcochitl.[245] Some men of true genius, as Garcilasso dela Vega and\nAlvares de Vera, were born something below three thousand metres at\nQuito and Bogota.[246]\n\nThere is here again a parallelism between genius and insanity. Those who\nlive in mountainous regions are more liable to insanity than the\ninhabitants of the plains, a fact which has long been embodied in\nproverbs concerning the air of Monte Baldo, and the madmen of Collio and\nTellio. We may recall also the epidemics of Monte Amiata (Lazzaretti),\nof Busca and Montenero, of Verzegnis; and we may remember, too, that the\nhills of Judea and of Scotland have produced prophets and half-insane\npersons gifted with second sight.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nTHE INFLUENCE OF RACE AND HEREDITY ON GENIUS AND INSANITY.\n\n     Race--Insanity--The influence of sex--The heredity of\n     genius--Criminal and insane parentage and descent of genius--Age of\n     parents--Conception.\n\n\n_Race._--We have seen that in Italy the Greek and the Etruscan racial\nelements combine with the temperate and mountainous climate to produce\nmen of genius; the influence of race calling forth genius even where the\nclimate is not happy. We cannot otherwise explain the genius produced at\nModena, Mantua, and Lucca, which possess the Etruscan origin, although\nnot the delicious climate, of Florence. The Jews, again, offer us an\neloquent example.\n\nI have elsewhere shown (_Uomo Bianco e l\u2019Uomo di Colore_ and _Pensiero e\nMeteore_) how, owing to the bloody selection of medi\u00e6val persecutions,\nand owing also to the influence of temperate climate, the Jews of Europe\nhave risen above those of Africa and the East, and have often surpassed\nthe Aryans. It is not only a difference in general culture, but we find\nmore precocious and extended mental work applied to different sciences.\nIt is certainly thus in music, the drama, satirical and humorous\nliterature, journalism, and in various branches of science. This has\nbeen statistically proved by various writers, as by Jacobs in a very\ncareful study on the ability of the Jews in Western Europe and of Jews\nin general.[247]\n\n    In 100,000 celebrities--\n  -------------------+------------+-----------\n                     | Europeans. |   Jews.\n  -------------------+------------+-----------\n  Actors             |     21     |     34\n  Agriculture        |      2     |     --\n  Antiquaries        |     23     |     26\n  Architects         |      6     |      6\n  Artists            |     40     |     34\n  Authors            |    316     |    223\n  Divines            |    130     |    105\n  Engineers          |     13     |      9\n  Engravers          |      3     |     --\n  Lawyers            |     44     |     40\n  Medicals           |     31     |     49\n  Merchants          |     12     |     43\n  Military           |     56     |      6\n  Miscellaneous      |      4     |      3\n  Metaphysics        |      2     |     18\n  Musicians          |     11     |     71\n  Natural Science    |     22     |     25\n  Naval              |     12     |     --\n  Philologists       |     13     |    123\n  Poets              |     20     |     36\n  Political Economy  |     20     |     26\n  Science            |     51     |     52\n  Sculptors          |     10     |     12\n  Sovereigns         |     21     |     --\n  Statesmen          |    125     |     83\n  Travellers         |     25     |     12\n  -------------------+------------+-----------\n\n\u201cThe two lists are approximately equal in antiquaries, architects,\nartists, lawyers, natural science, political economy, science,\nsculptors. Jews seem to have superiority as actors, chess-players,\ndoctors, merchants (chiefly financiers), in metaphysics, music, poetry,\nand philology.... Of course, Jews have no Darwin. It took England 180\nyears after Newton before she could produce a Darwin, and as Britishers\nare five times the number of Jews, even including those of Russia, it\nwould take, on the same showing, 900 years before they produce another\nSpinoza, or, even supposing the double superiority to be true, 450 years\nwould be needed.\u201d\n\nJews have given to the world musicians like Meyerbeer, Hal\u00e8vy, Gutzkow,\nMendelssohn, Offenbach, Rubinstein, Joachim, Benedict, Moscheles, Cowen,\nSullivan, Goldmark, Strauss; poets, novelists, humourists, &c., like\nHeine, Saphir, Camerini, Revere, Jung, Weill, Fortis, Gozlan, Moritz\nHartmann, Auerbach, B\u00f6rne, Ratisbonne, Kompert, Grace Aguilar, Franzos,\nMassarani, Lindau, Catulle Mendes; linguists like Ascoli, Benfey, Munk,\nFiorentino, Luzzato, Oppert, Bernhardi, Friedland, Weil, Lazarus,\nSteinthal; physicians like Valentin, Hermann, Haidenhain, Schiff,\nCasper, Stilling, Gluge, Traube, Fraenkel, Kuhn, Cohnheim, Hirsch,\nLiebreich, Bernstein, Remak, Weigert, Meynert, Hitzig, Westphal, Mendel,\nLeidesdorf, Benedikt; philosophers like Spinoza, Maimon, Sommerhausen,\nMoses Mendelssohn; naturalists like Cohn; economists like Ricardo,\nLassalle, Karl Marx; jurists and statesmen like Stahl, Gans,\nBeaconsfield, Cr\u00e9mieux. Even in sciences in which the Semite formerly\nshowed no ability, such as mathematics and astronomy, we find such men\nas Goldschmidt, Beer, Sylvester, Kronecker, and Jacobi.\n\nIt must be observed that a very large proportion of these men of genius\nhave been radically creative; revolutionary in politics, and in\nreligion, and in science. Jews, indeed, initiated Nihilism and Socialism\non the one hand, Mosaism and Christianity on the other. Commerce owes to\nthem the bill of exchange, philosophy owes to them Positivism,\nliterature the Neo-humourism.\n\nJacobs shows that this abundance of Jewish men of genius of the first\norder is allied with a deficiency in men of the second order of\nintellect. He explains the superiority by the higher level of education\namong the Jews, their devotion to family life, the almost complete\nabsence of priests and dogmas, the facilities which the study of Hebrew\noffers for investigations in philosophy and for that kind of music which\nforms part of their religious ceremonies. It is difficult, however, to\nfind a relationship between this rhythmical caterwauling and the sublime\nnotes of Meyerbeer and Mendelssohn; and Jews possess more than enough of\npriests and dogmas. I would add that if the Jews have not yet produced\nmen like Newton, Darwin, and Michelangelo, it is because they have not\nyet accomplished their ethnic evolution, as they show by the obstinacy\nwith which they cling to their ancient beliefs.\n\nIt is strange that among the factors of Jewish superiority in genius\nJacobs does not mention the neurotic tendency, the existence of which,\nas we shall see, he has himself shown. This would also well explain the\ndeficiency of Jews in intellect of medium quality in which the morbid\nelement is always less marked.\n\n_Insanity._--It is curious to note that the Jewish elements in the\npopulation furnish four and even six times as many lunatics as the rest\nof the population. Jacobs, who, as we have seen, does not suspect the\ncorrelation between genius and insanity, gives a remarkable proof of it\nby pointing out that while Englishmen have 3,050 per million afflicted\nwith mental disease, Scotchmen have 3,400, and Jews 3,900, the\nproportion of insanity in the three races being related to the\nproportion of genius. And while, according to Galton, there are 256,000\nof the mediocre class among a million Englishmen, Jacobs reckons that\nthere are only 239,000 among Scotchmen, and 222,000 among Jews.\n\nServi found 1 lunatic to 391 Jews in Italy, nearly four times as many as\namong Catholics.[248] This fact has been made still clearer by\nVerga[249] who in 1870 found the proportions of lunatics among Catholics\nto be 1 in 1775, as against 1 in 384 among Jews. Mayr[250] (in 1871)\ngives the proportion of lunatics in Germany as follows:--\n\n               Per 10,000 Christians.   Per 10,000 Jews.\n  Prussia              8.7                    14.1\n  Bavaria              9.8                    25.2\n  All Germany          8.6                    16.1\n\nThis is a singular proportion or disproportion in a population among\nwhich the aged who supply so large a number of cases of senile dementia\nare numerous, but where alcoholism is rare. This fatal privilege has not\nattracted the attention of the leaders of that anti-Semitic movement\nwhich is one of the shames of contemporary Germany.[251] They would be\nless irritated at the success of this race if they had thought of all\nthe sorrows that are the price of it, even at our epoch; for if the\ntragedies of the past were more bloody, the victims are not now less\nunhappy, struck at the source of their glory, and because of it,\ndeprived even of the consolation of being able, as formerly, to\ncontribute to the most noble among the selections of species.\n\nThis is not true of the Jews alone. Beard, in his _American\nNervousness_, remarks that the neurotic tendency which dominates North\nAmerica makes of that country a land of great orators.\n\nThe influence of race is as visible in genius as in insanity. Education\ncounts for little, heredity for much. \u201cBy education,\u201d said Helvetius,\n\u201cyou can make bears dance, but never create a man of genius.\u201d[252]\n\n_Influence of Sex._--In the history of genius women have but a small\nplace. Women of genius are rare exceptions in the world. It is an old\nobservation that while thousands of women apply themselves to music for\nevery hundred men, there has not been a single great woman composer. Yet\nthe sexual difference here offers no obstacle. Out of six hundred women\ndoctors in North America not one has made any discovery of importance;\nand with few exceptions the same may be said of the Russians. In\nphysical science, it is true, Mary Somerville emerges; and in literature\nwe have George Eliot, George Sand, Daniel Sterne, and Madame de Sta\u00ebl;\nin the fine arts, Rosa Bonheur, Lebrun, Maraini; Sappho and Mrs.\nBrowning opened new paths for poetry; Eleonora d\u2019Arborea, it is said\n(but the assertion is contested), initiated at the beginning of the\nfifteenth century legal reforms of almost modern character; Catherine of\nSiena influenced the politics and religion of her time; Sarah Martin, a\npoor dressmaker, influenced prison reform; Mrs. Beecher Stowe played a\nlarge part in the abolition of slavery in the United States. But of all\nthese, none touch the summits reached by Michelangelo, or Newton, or\nBalzac. Even J. S. Mill, who was very partial to the cause of women,\nconfessed that they lacked originality. They are, above all,\nconservators. Even the few who emerge have, on near examination,\nsomething virile about them. As Goncourt said, there are no women of\ngenius; the women of genius are men.\n\nPulcheria, Marie dei Medici, Louise, mother of Francis I., Maria\nChristina, Maria Th\u00e9resa, Catherine II., Elizabeth, displayed eminent\npolitical ability as rulers; as in the field of democracy Madame Roland,\nFonseca, G. Sand, Madame Adam; Mill affirms that when an Indian state is\nruled with vigour and vigilance, three times out of four the ruler is a\nwoman. At the same time it is noted that when women rule, men command,\njust as when men rule, women command. In any case their number is too\nlimited to compare them with masculine rulers. As in politics, so\nadmirable examples of valour were given by Caterina Sforza and Joan of\nArc, Annita Garibaldi, Enrichetta Castiglioni, and many others.\n\nThese facts become more notable because unexpected and exceptional. It\nmay be said that the disparity would be much less if the predominance of\nmen, depriving women of the vote in politics and of action in war, had\nnot taken away from women the opportunity of manifesting their\ncapacities. But if there had been in women a really great ability in\npolitics, science, &c., it would have shown itself in overcoming the\ndifficulties opposed to it; nor would arms have been lacking, nor allies\nin the enemy\u2019s camp. In revolutions (except in religion) women have\nalways been in a small minority, not being found, for example, in the\nEnglish Revolution, or in that of the Low Countries, or of the United\nStates. They never created a new religion, nor were they ever at the\nhead of great political, artistic, or scientific movements.\n\nOn the contrary, women have often stood in the way of progressive\nmovements. Like children, they are notoriously misoneistic; they\npreserve ancient habits and customs and religions. In America there are\ntribes in which women keep alive ancient languages which the men have\nlost; in Sardinia, Sicily, and some remote valleys of Umbria, many\nancient prejudices and pagan rites, perhaps of a prehistoric\ncharacter--superstitious cures, for instance--are preserved by women. As\nGoncourt remarks, they only see persons in everything; they are, as\nSpencer observes, more merciful than just.\n\n_The Heredity of Genius._--According to Galton[253] and Ribot,[254]\ngenius is often hereditary, especially in the musical art which\nfurnishes so large a contingent to insanity. Thus Palestrina, Benda,\nDussek, Hiller, Eichhorn, had sons who were very distinguished in music.\nAndrea Amati was the most illustrious of a family of violinists at\nCremona; Beethoven\u2019s father was a tenor at the Elector of Cologne\u2019s\nchapel, and his grandfather had been a singer and then _maestro_ at the\nsame chapel; Bellini was the son and nephew of musicians; Haydn had a\nbrother who was an excellent organist and composer of religious music;\nin Mendelssohn\u2019s family there were several musical amateurs; Mozart was\nthe son of a _maestro_ of the chapel of the Prince Archbishop of\nSalzburg; Palestrina had sons who died young but who left praiseworthy\ncompositions preserved among their father\u2019s works.\n\nThe Bach family perhaps presents the finest example of mental heredity.\nIt began in 1550, and passed through eight generations, the last known\nmember being Wilhelm Friedrich Ernst, Kapellmeister to the Queen of\nPrussia, who died in 1845. During two centuries this family produced a\ncrowd of musicians of high rank. The founder of the family was Veit\nBach, a Presburg baker, who amused himself with singing and playing. He\nhad two sons who were followed by an uninterrupted succession of\nmusicians who inundated Thuringia, Saxony, and Franconia during two\ncenturies. They were all organists or church singers. When they became\ntoo numerous to live together and had to disperse, they agreed to\nreunite on a fixed day once a year. This custom was preserved up to the\nmiddle of the eighteenth century, and sometimes one hundred and twenty\npersons of the name of Bach met at the same spot. F\u00e9tis counts among\nthem twenty-nine musicians of eminence.[255]\n\nAmong musicians may be named the Adams, the Coustons, the Sangallos;\namong painters, the Van der Weldes, the Coypels, the Van Eycks, the\nMurillos, the Veroneses, the Bellinis, the Caraccis, the Correggios, the\nMieris, the Bassanos, the Tintorettos, the Caliaris, the Vanloos, the\nTeniers, the Vernets, and especially the Titians who produced a race of\npainters, as shown in the following genealogy taken from Ribot\u2019s\nexcellent book:--\n\n                         Tiziano Vecellio.\n                                X\n            ------------------------------------------\n            X                                        X\n            |                                        |\n     +------------+                                  |\n     |            |                                  |\n     |            X                                  |\n     |            |                                  |\n     |     -----------------+                        X\n     |     Francesco        |                        |\n     |                   TIZIANO           -+---------------+---\n   --+---------        -----------          |               |\n   Mario      X             |               Fabricio      Cesare\n     |        |             |\n     |        |       +-----------+\n     |        |       |           |\n     |        |    Pomponio     Orazio\n     |        |\n  Tizianello Tomaso.\n\nAmong poets may be noted Bacchylides, the nephew of Simonides and uncle\nof \u00c6schylus who again had sons and nephews who were poets; Manzoni, the\nnephew of Beccaria; Lucan, the nephew of Seneca; Tasso, the son of\nBernardo; Ariosto, with a brother and nephew poets; Aristophanes, with\ntwo sons who wrote comedies; Corneille, Racine, Sophocles, Coleridge,\nwho had sons and nephews who were poets; the Dumas, father and son; the\nbrothers Joseph and Andr\u00e9 Chenier, Alphonse and Ernest Daudet.\n\nIn the natural sciences we find the two Plinies, uncle and nephew, the\nfamilies of Darwin, Euler, De Candolle, Hooker, Herschel, Jussieu,\nSaussure, Geoffroy St. Hilaire. Among philosophers we find the\nScaligers, the Vossius, the Fichtes, and the brothers Humboldt, Schlegel\nand Grimm; among statesmen the Pitts, Foxes, Cannings, Walpoles, Peels,\nand Disraelis; among arch\u00e6ologists, the Viscontis. Aristotle, himself\nthe son of a scientific physician, had sons and nephews who were men of\nscience. Cassini, an astronomer, had a son, who was a celebrated\nastronomer, a grandson who was a member of the Academy of Sciences at\nthe age of twenty-two, and a more remote relation who was a\ndistinguished naturalist and philologist.\n\nHere is the genealogical tree of the Bernouilli family:--\n\n             Jacques Bernouilli\n                     |\n     +---------------+---------------+\n     |               |               |\n  Jacques           Jean          Nicolas\n                     |\n        +------------+------------+\n        |            |            |\n     Nicolas       Daniel       Jean\n                                  |\n                           +------+------+\n                           |             |\n                         Jean         Jacques\n\nAll the members of this family were distinguished in some science; at\nthe beginning of this century there was a Bernouilli who was a chemist\nof some distinction; and in 1863 there still lived at B\u00e2le Christophe\nBernouilli, a professor of the natural sciences.\n\nGalton, in a work of great value, but in which he often commits the\nmistake (from which I also cannot free myself) of confusing talent with\ngenius, calculates a proportion of 425 men of ability to a million among\nthe male population over fifty years of age, and the more select part of\nthem as 250 to a million. Dealing with 300 families, containing 1000\neminent men, he concludes that the percentage of eminent kinsmen in\nthese families would be as follows:--\n\n  48 sons\n  41 brothers\n  31 fathers\n  14 grandsons\n  22 nephews\n  18 uncles\n  13 cousins\n  17 grandfathers\n  3 great-grandfathers\n  5 great-uncles\n\nThe probabilities of kinsmen of illustrious men rising to eminence\nare--15\u00bd to 100 in the case of fathers; 13\u00bd to 100 in the case of\nbrothers; 24 to 100 in the case of sons.\n\nGalton remarks that these figures vary, according as we are concerned\nwith artists, diplomatists, soldiers, &c.\n\nI am not, however, inclined to believe that this immense accumulation of\nfact authorizes us to accept a hereditary influence in genius as\ncomplete as in insanity. In the first place, in insanity the hereditary\ninfluence is exercised in a more intense and decisive manner, as 48 to\n80; and then if Galton\u2019s law applies to judges and statesmen, among whom\nadulation and the fetishistic adoration of a party or a caste can raise\nthe son or grandson of a great man far above his merits, it is quite\notherwise with artists and poets, who present an exaggerated hereditary\naction in brothers and sons and especially nephews, but very little in\ngrandparents and uncles. And while in the heredity of genius the\nmasculine sex prevails over the feminine in the proportion of 70 to 30,\nin the heredity of insanity there is scarcely any difference between the\ntwo sexes.[256]\n\nMany men of genius have been thought to inherit from their mothers: such\nare Cicero, Condorcet, Cuvier, Buffon, Goethe, Sydney Smith, Cowper,\nNapoleon, Cromwell, Chateaubriand, Scott, Byron, Lamartine, Saint\nAugustine, Gray, Swift, Fontenelle, Ballanche, Manzoni, Kant,\nWellington, Foscolo. On the other hand, Bacon, Raphael, Weber, Schiller,\nMilton, Alberti, Tasso, are said to inherit from their fathers. Yet, it\nmay be asked, what was the celebrity of these fathers and mothers that\none can feel assured they transmitted any genius to their children?\nAmong most men of genius, also, there can be no heredity because of the\npredominance of sterility and of degeneration, of which the aristocracy\nfurnishes us with a remarkable proof.[257]\n\nWith a few exceptions, then, such as the Darwins, the Cassinis, the\nBernouillis, the Saint Hilaires, the Herschels, men of genius only\ntransmit to their descendants a slight tendency magnified in our eyes by\nthe _prestige_ of a great name:--\n\n    \u201c_Rare volte risurge per li rami_\n     _L\u2019umana probitate._\u201d[258]\n\nWho thinks of Tizianello beside Titian, of Nicomachus beside Aristotle,\nof Orazio Ariosto beside his great uncle; or of the worthy professor\nChristophe beside his great ancestor Jacques Bernouilli?\n\nInsanity, on the other hand, is often completely transmitted, or even\nwith greater intensity, to succeeding generations. Cases of hereditary\ninsanity in children and grandchildren, the form of insanity often being\nthe same as in the ancestor, are very numerous. All the descendants of a\nHamburg noble, whom history registers as a great soldier, were struck by\ninsanity at the age of forty.[259] At Connecticut Asylum eleven members\nof the same family have arrived in succession.[260]\n\nA watchmaker, having recovered from an attack of insanity caused by the\nrevolution of 1789, finally poisoned himself: later on his daughter\nbecame insane, and fell into a state of dementia; one of his brothers\nstruck a knife into his own abdomen; another became a drunkard and died\non the roadside; a third refused food and perished from starvation; his\nsister, who was of good health, had a son who was an epileptic lunatic,\na daughter who became insane after her confinement and rejected food, an\ninfant who refused to be suckled, and two others who died of cerebral\ndiseases.\n\nIn a family studied by Berti, in four generations of about eighty\nindividuals descended from an insane melancholiac we find ten subject to\ninsanity, nearly always melancholia, nineteen who were neurotic, three\nwho had special ability and three with criminal tendencies. The disorder\nwas aggravated in the later generations and developed at an earlier age.\nIn the third and fourth branches, the insane and neurotic appeared in\nevery generation; in the others, the hereditary influence passed over\none generation in the men and two in the women.\n\nThe history of the so-called \u201cJukes\u201d family[261] shows that such an\ninfluence may be still more powerfully developed, especially in\nassociation with alcoholism. From the head of the family, Max Jukes, a\ngreat drunkard, descended, in 75 years, 200 thieves and murderers, 280\ninvalids attacked by blindness, idiocy, or consumption, 90 prostitutes\nand 300 children who died prematurely. The various members of this\nfamily cost the state more than a million dollars.\n\nThese are not isolated facts. But in what families can we find genius so\nfatally and progressively fruitful?\n\nFlemming and Demaux, again, have shown that not only do drunkards\ntransmit to their descendants, tendencies to insanity and crime, but\nthat even habitually sober parents, who at the moment of conception are\nin a temporary state of drunkenness, beget children who are epileptic or\nparalytic, idiotic or insane, very often microcephalic, or with\nremarkable weakness of mind which at the first favourable occasion is\ntransformed into insanity.[262] Thus a single embrace, given in a moment\nof drunkenness, may be fatal to an entire generation.\n\nWhat analogy can we find here with the rare and nearly always incomplete\nheredity of genius?\n\n_The Criminal and Insane Parentage and Descent of Genius._--The\nparallelism of genius to insanity is, however, still present. We find\nthat many lunatics have parents of genius, and that many men of genius\nhave parents or sons who were epileptic, mad, or, above all, criminal.\nIt is sufficient to study the history of the C\u00e6sars, of Charles V., of\nPeter the Great. We see a progressive degeneration in crime and insanity\nin relations or children, rather than any conservation or increase of\ngenius. This fact confirms _a posteriori_ the degenerative character of\ngenius; and at the same time reveals the relationship which it generally\nhas with moral insanity. Commodus, son of the virtuous Marcus Aurelius,\nwas a monster of cruelty. The son of Scipio Africanus was an imbecile,\nthe son of Cicero a drunkard. Luther\u2019s son was insubordinate and\nviolent; William Penn\u2019s was a debauched scoundrel. Themistocles,\nAristides, Pericles, Thucydides were unhappy in their children.\n\nCardan had two sons who were criminals; one, of great ability, was\ncondemned to death for poisoning; the other, given up to gaming,\ndrinking, and thieving, was successively imprisoned at Pavia, Milan,\nCremona, Bologna, Piacenza, Naples. When arrested he would promise\nreformation, but as soon as he was free he at once returned to his old\nhabits, and even calumniated his father and attempted to get him\nimprisoned.[263] Cardan\u2019s father was eccentric and stammered; he did not\ndress like other people, and pursued various strange studies; he had\nlost some part of his skull in consequence of a wound received in youth,\nand he believed that he was guided by a spirit. His mother was\nirascible; when pregnant with him she attempted to abort.[264]\n\nIt appears that Aretino\u2019s mother was a prostitute. Petrarch had a lazy\nand vicious son, \u201cthe most refractory to letters that man of letters\never had;\u201d he died at the age of twenty-four.[265] Rembrandt brought up\nhis son Titus, with great care, to be an artist; but in spite of all\nefforts he could make nothing of him. Walter Scott\u2019s son, a cavalry\nofficer, was ashamed of his father\u2019s literary celebrity, and boasted\nthat he had never read one of his novels. Mozart\u2019s son, when asked by\nBianchini if he liked music, replied by throwing a handful of gold on\nthe table: \u201cThat is the only music I like!\u201d Sophocles\u2019 son tried to\nrepresent his old father as imbecile. Frederick the Great\u2019s father was\nmorally insane and a drunkard; Peter the Great had a son who was a\ndrunkard and maniacal; Richelieu\u2019s sister imagined that her back was\nmade of crystal; his brother thought he was God the Father; Niccolini\u2019s\nsister thought she was damned because of her brother\u2019s heresy, and\nattempted to kill him; Hegel\u2019s sister was insane, as also was Diderot\u2019s;\nLamb\u2019s sister killed her mother during a maniacal attack. Gray\u2019s father\nwas a worthless scoundrel, who used to beat his wife, by whose exertions\nthe children were supported. Thomas Campbell\u2019s only son was hopelessly\nimbecile.\n\nCharles V.\u2019s mother suffered from melancholia; his grandchildren and\ngreat-grandchildren were also insane: Don Carlos, brutal, cruel, and\nturbulent; Philip III., subject to convulsions; Charles II., an imbecile\nepileptic, with whom the race was extinguished; and Alexander Farnese, a\nbastard grandson of eccentric genius.[266]\n\nThe drunkenness of Beethoven\u2019s father was notorious. Byron\u2019s mother was\nhalf-mad; his father, known as \u201cmad Jack Byron,\u201d was dissolute and\neccentric, and is said to have committed suicide. It has been said of\nByron that if ever there was a case in which hereditary influence could\njustify eccentricity of character it was his, for he was descended from\nindividuals in whom everything seemed calculated to destroy harmony of\ncharacter and domestic peace. Alexander had a dissolute and perverse\nmother, a drunken father. Plutarch\u2019s grandfather was much given to wine,\nof which he delighted to celebrate the virtues; and Cimon\u2019s was a\ndrunkard and debauched. Kerner had a maternal uncle who was mad; his\nsister was melancholic and had two children, of whom one was insane, the\nother a somnambulist.[267] The sons of Tacitus, Carlini, Bernardin de\nSaint-Pierre, Mercadante, Donizetti, Volta, Manzoni, a daughter of\nVictor Hugo, the father and brothers of Villemain, the sister of Kant,\nthe brothers of Zimmermann, Perticari, and Puccinotti were all insane.\nD\u2019Azeglio, who had a grandfather and a brother more than eccentric,\nrecords a saying current at Turin: \u201c_I Taparei a l\u2019an nen le grumele a\nport_.\u201d[268]\n\nThe origins of Renan\u2019s neurosis, of which I have already spoken, he has\nhimself indicated in speaking of his religious and prematurely\nsacerdotal education, that education of the seminary which when it once\ntakes hold of a man never more leaves him, and which is so productive of\ninsanity. The alienist will find other sources of neurosis and atavism\nin the little town of Tr\u00e9guier in which Renan was born. On account of\nthe frequency of consanguineous marriages and of the preponderance of\nthe ecclesiastical element, the place swarmed with the insane and\nsemi-insane. \u201cThese inoffensive lunatics,\u201d he writes, \u201cwere a sort of\ninstitution, a municipal affair. We said, \u2018our lunatics,\u2019 as at Venice\nthey say \u2018_nostre carampane_.\u2019 One met them nearly everywhere; they\nsaluted you, greeted you with some nauseous pleasantry, which yet raised\na smile. They were liked, and they were useful. I shall always remember\nthe good lunatic Brian, who imagined that he was a priest, and passed\npart of the day in church, imitating the ceremonies of the mass; all the\nafternoon the cathedral was filled with a nasal murmur; it was the poor\nlunatic\u2019s prayer, well worth any other.\u201d[269] A still greater influence\non Renan\u2019s psychosis must be attributed to the insanity in his own\nfamily. His paternal uncle, semi-insane, passed his days and nights at\ninns telling stories and legends to the peasants with whom he was a\ngreat favourite; one night he was found dead on the roadside. His\ngrandfather, an ardent and honest patriot, lost his reason in 1815,\nthrough grief, and used to walk about with an enormous tricoloured\ncockade, exclaiming: \u201cI should like to know who would dare to snatch\nfrom me this cockade!\u201d He himself, a seven-months\u2019 child, remained for a\nlong time small and weak, and for this reason was the more easily\ndisturbed by a sacerdotal education, which inflames, like a hot iron,\neven the most tranquil spirits.\n\nIn Schopenhauer, also, the insane and neurotic hereditary tendency was\nwell marked. On his father\u2019s side he was descended from an old family of\nDantzig merchants; his great-grandfather was a man of very strong and\nenergetic character; his grandfather, a man of quiet business habits,\nseems to have brought the property into the family, but the grandmother\nhad an aunt and a grandmother who were insane. Schopenhauer\u2019s father\nseems to have been a skilled man of business; a republican, he possessed\nthe native arrogance of a democratic patrician; inclined to deafness\nfrom childhood, he had attacks of rage from which even the domestic dog\nand cat fled terrified. With the increase of his deafness he became more\nirritable, and suffered, if not from actual insanity, at least from\nmorbid fears. It was suspected that he committed suicide. He presented\nvarious characters of degeneration: large ears, very prominent eyes,\nthick lips, a short, up-turned nose; he was, however, of considerable\nheight. Schopenhauer\u2019s mother, married at the age of nineteen, was witty\nand ambitious, and, as he himself said, very frivolous. His brother was\nimbecile from childhood.\n\nThis influence of insane heredity can to-day be controlled by\nstatistics. The Prussian statistics for 1877 show that among 10,676\nlunatics, morbid heredity may be traced in 6,369.[270] They are divided\nas follows:--\n\n                         Father or   Grandparents   Sisters or\n                          mother       or uncles     brothers\n                         per cent.     per cent.     per cent.\n  Insanity                 89\u00b70          86\u00b70          76\u00b71\n  Serious Neurosis         12\u00b74           6\u00b77          13\u00b71\n  Crime                     1\u00b70           0\u00b71           0\u00b71\n  Alcoholism               18\u00b70           3\u00b71           3\u00b73\n  Suicide                   1\u00b77           2\u00b77           2\u00b73\n  Extraordinary talent      6\u00b73           1\u00b73           3\u00b76\n\nThis seems to show that a considerable number of lunatics are descended\nfrom men of ability. The number of brothers and sisters of lunatics\nendowed with ability, surpassing that of suicidal, alcoholistic, or\ncriminal brothers confirms the influence. In twenty-two cases of\nhereditary insanity Aubonel and Thor\u00e9 observed two cases of sons of\nability.[271]\n\nThese facts were not unknown to old observers. Tassoni, a very original\nwriter, in his _Pensieri Diversi_ (1621) discusses the question: \u201cHow it\nhappens to wise fathers to have very foolish children, and to very\nfoolish fathers to have very wise children.\u201d Among the former he\nmentions the sons of Scipio Africanus, Anthony, Cicero, Agrippa\nPosthumus, Claudius the son of Drusus, Caligula, of Germanicus,\nCommodus, of Marcus Aurelius, Lamprocles, of Socrates, Arrhidaeus, of\nPhilip. Among many opinions, more or less extravagant, of learned men of\nhis time, he reports one to the effect that \u201cin great men the vital\nspirits assemble at the brain to fortify and give vigour to the powers\nof the intelligence; it happens in consequence that the blood and sperm\nremain cold and languid, and the children of such men, especially the\nmales, are inclined to stupidity.\u201d\n\n_Age of Parents._--This is one of the hereditary influences which often\nescape from view, and are at present not clearly seen. Marro has shown\nthe great influence of the advanced age of the parents on the\nintelligence or the insanity of the children. Very great is the number\nof men of genius, and even of talent, issued from aged fathers:\nFrederick II., Napoleon I., Sciacci, Bizzozzero, Rochefort, Dumas\n_p\u00e8re_, A. Jussieu, Balzac, J. Cassini, C. Vernet, Beaconsfield, Horace\nWalpole, William Pitt, Racine, Adler, Auriac, B\u00e9clard, Schopenhauer.\nFrom young fathers I have, on the other hand, only found Victor Hugo, De\nGirardin, Arneth, Barral, Bertillon, S\u00e9gur. This influence may explain\nthe longevity of men of genius.\n\n_Conception._--De Candolle speaks of the influence which strong passion\non the part of the parents at conception may have on the offspring, and\nrecalls the considerable number of bastards of genius. Erasmus boasted\nthat he was not the fruit of wearisome conjugal duty. Isaac Disraeli\nwrote in his \u201cMemoirs of Toland\u201d that birth outside marriage creates\nstrong and resolute characters. Among illegitimate sons were:\nThemistocles, Charles Martel, William the Conqueror, the Duke of\nBerwick whom Montesquieu called the perfect man, Leonardo da Vinci,\nBoccaccio, A. Dumas, Cardan, D\u2019Alembert, Savage, Prior, De Girardin, La\nHarpe, Alexander Farnese, Dupanloup.[272] Newton was conceived after his\nparents had spent two years of forced continence. It will be seen from\nthese and other facts how far we are yet from having exhausted the\nnumerous sources of hereditary genius.\n\nThose who recall how many men of genius have been born of consumptive\nand drunken parents, and who know how these two forms of degeneration\nare often transformed in the children into moral insanity, will perceive\nthat there can be other hereditary causes of genius which escape\nordinary observers, and are, therefore, little known.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nTHE INFLUENCE OF DISEASE ON GENIUS.\n\nSpinal diseases--Fevers--Injuries to the head and their relation to\ngenius.\n\n\nG\u00e9rard de Nerval in his book, _Le R\u00eave et la Vie_, after having\nconfessed that he often wrote in a state of morbid exaltation, adds that\nthe old saying _Mens sana in corpore sano_ is false, for many powerful\nminds have been allied to weak and diseased bodies.\n\nConolly treated a man whose intelligence was aroused by the use of\nblisters, and another whose ability was called forth during the initial\nperiod of phthisis and gout. Cabanis, Tissot, and Pomme observe that\ncertain febrile conditions provoke extraordinary mental activity.\nSylvester remarks that during the nocturnal fever of what he describes\nas a fortunate attack of bronchitis he was enabled to reach the solution\nof a mathematical problem.[273]\n\nA man of genius, Maine de Biran, who was always ill, well expresses the\ninfluence of infirmities on genius, \u201cThe feeling of existence,\u201d he\nwrites, \u201cis not found among the majority of men because with them it is\ncontinuous; when a man does not suffer he does not think of himself;\ndisease alone and the habit of reflection enable us to distinguish\nourselves.\u201d\n\nIt has frequently happened that injuries to the head and acute diseases,\nthose frequent causes of insanity, have changed a very ordinary\nindividual into a man of genius. Vico, when a child, fell from a high\nstaircase and fractured his right parietal bone. Gratry, a mediocre\nsinger, became a great master, after a beam had fractured his skull.\nMabillon, almost an idiot from childhood, fell down a stone staircase\nat the age of twenty-six, and so badly injured his skull that it had to\nbe trepanned; from that time he displayed the characteristics of genius.\nGall, who narrates this fact, knew a Dane who had been half idiotic, and\nwho became intelligent at the age of thirteen, after having rolled head\nforemost down a staircase.[274] Wallenstein was looked upon as a fool\nuntil one day he fell out of a window, and henceforward began to show\nremarkable ability. Some years ago, a cretin of Savoy, having being\nbitten by a mad dog, became very intelligent during the last days of his\nlife. Cases have been recorded in which ordinary persons have displayed\nextraordinary intelligence after diseases of the spinal cord.[275] \u201cIt\nis possible that my disease [of the spinal cord] may have given a morbid\ncharacter to my later compositions,\u201d wrote with true divination the\nunfortunate Heine. And the remark does not apply to his later writings\nonly. \u201cMy mental excitement,\u201d he wrote, some months before his condition\nhad become aggravated, \u201cis the effect of disease rather than of genius.\nI have written verses to appease my suffering a little.... In this\nhorrible night of senseless pain my poor head is flung backwards and\nforwards, shaking with pitiless gaiety the bells on my jester\u2019s\ncap.\u201d[276] B\u00e9clard turned from mere theories to experiment, after a\nstroke of apoplexy.[277] Pasteur\u2019s greatest discoveries were made after\na stroke of apoplexy. Bichat and Schroeder van der Kolk have observed\nthat men with anchylosis of the neck possess remarkably bright\nintelligence. It is a common saying that the hump-backed are keen and\nmalicious. Rokitansky sought to explain this by the resulting curve of\nthe aorta, after giving origin to the vessels which supply the brain,\nthe volume of the heart and the arterial pressure in the head being thus\naugmented.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nTHE INFLUENCE OF CIVILIZATION AND OF OPPORTUNITY.\n\nLarge Towns--Large Schools--Accidents--Misery--Power--Education.\n\n\nHowever clearly such laws as we have examined may seem to be\nascertained, the conclusions deduced from them must be accepted with a\ncertain reserve; since there exists a series of factors, almost\nimpossible to seize, which intercept and confound all these influences,\nnot excepting even the orographic.\n\nWe have already seen how great agglomerations of individuals, whatever\nthe climate and race, are sufficient to increase the number of artists\nand of talents. But might not this be a purely factitious effect, as,\nfor instance, when individuals who have left their birthplace for some\ngreat capital (as often happens in the case of infants and invalids),\nare looked upon as natives of the latter? This becomes certain, if we\nremember the pernicious influence of great towns, and consider with\nSmiles, that the life of large towns is not favourable to intellectual\nwork, that men who have had a great influence on their age have been\nbrought up in solitude, and that all the great men of England, and even\nof London, were born in the country, though this fact is often ignored\non account of their having fixed their residence in the capital. Carlyle\nsays that a man born in London seems but the fraction of a man. We read,\nin the _Lives of the Engineers_, that all great English engineers have\nbeen country-bred.\n\nThe establishment of a school of painting, even when it is the result of\nan importation, makes an artistic centre of a place which was not so\npreviously, and, if the establishment goes back to a very distant time,\nthe number of artists becomes very large. Let us look, for example, at\nPiedmont, where, assuredly, a military education reinforced by climate\nand race, and, to a still greater degree, by clerical influence,\nretarded for a long time the development of the fine arts, and\nespecially of music. Up to 1460, celebrated painters were not numerous\nin Piedmont, and the only ones to be found there were of foreign origin,\nsuch as Bono and Bondiforte. But Bondiforte, who had been sent for from\nMilan, was immediately followed by Sodoma, Martini, Giovannone,\nVercellese. Ferro di Valduggia was followed by Lanini, and Tansi by\nValduggia, in the same way as Viotti\u2019s example attracted thither, within\na short time, five celebrated violinists.\n\nScarcely had a few distinguished painters--such as Macrino and Gaudenzio\nFerrari, shown themselves at Novara, at Alba, and at Vercelli, than\nothers were immediately seen to appear; and, in our own day, wherever\nmilitary influence has been entirely superseded by social, this province\nhas furnished, in proportion to its size, as many artists as the rest,\nor even more, and those of quite equal standing--_e.g._, Gastaldi,\nMosso, Pittara, &c.\n\nHad any one undertaken, 300 years ago, to draw up the statistics of\nScotch thought, he would scarcely have found a single name to include in\nhis list. Yet Scotland, delivered from the leaden mantle of religious\nintolerance, has become, as we have seen, one of the richest centres in\nEurope for bold and original thinkers.\n\nOn the other hand, Greece, placed in ancient times by race and nature in\nthe first rank, as regards intellectual creation, no longer shows any\ntrace of her superiority. Nature and the race have not changed, but\nslavery, political struggles, and hard living have exhausted all her\nstrength; for a nation does not afford itself the luxury of art and high\nthinking till its existence is assured and easy.\n\nThus the influences of agglomeration might often have been disguised by\nthe influence of national well-being.\n\nNot that the action of race and climate disappears, but its\nmanifestations remain latent. The mighty intellect due to the Tuscan\nrace and climate, reveals itself at the present day--after the\nenervating influence of the Medici, the priests, and the linguistic\npedants, has done its work--in the improvisations of Pistoian peasant\nwomen, and the subtle epigrams of the Florentine populace. Genius (such\nas that of Pacini, Carrara, Betti, Giusti, Guerrazzi, Carducci) is no\nlonger endemic, but occurs sporadically.\n\nIt appears to me that, in many cases, social influences are more\napparent than real--analogous rather to the peck of the chicken which\ncracks the egg-shell than to the spermatozoid which generates the\nembryo.\n\nWe see that Florence, like Athens, supplied at the epoch of republican\nagitations the _maximum_ of Italian genius. But similar agitations in\nSouth America and in France (1789) did not yield as many great men; but\nsimply a number of men who, being useful in the emergency of the time,\npassed for great.[278] One might even be inclined to suspect that the\nnumerous great men who appeared at Florence were themselves the cause of\nher revolutions.[279]\n\nThe same assertion holds good of opportunity. Opportunity appears,\nsometimes, to have assisted the development of genius. Thus Mutius\nScaevola, having been reproached by Servius Sulpicius with ignorance of\nhis country\u2019s laws, became a great jurisconsult.\n\nIt has often happened that stonecutters in the quarries of Florence, in\nthe old Republican times, have become celebrated sculptors, like Mino da\nFiesole, Desiderio da Settignano, and Cronaca. Canova and Vincenzo Vela\nwere also quarrymen, and Hugh Miller, from working as a mason, became a\nhighly-esteemed geologist.\n\nAndrea del Castagno, a shepherd of Mugello, one day, when overtaken by a\nstorm, took refuge in an oratory, where a house-painter was daubing a\npicture of the Virgin. From thenceforth he felt an irresistible desire\nto imitate him, and practised drawing figures in charcoal whenever he\ncould; so much so, that his fame soon spread among the peasants, and,\nafterwards, by the assistance of Bernadino de\u2019 Medici, who enabled him\nto study, he became a celebrated painter.\n\nVespasiano de\u2019 Bisticci, a Florentine paper-maker, whose profession\ninvolved the handling of many books, and contact with a great number of\nliterary and learned men, took to literature himself.\n\nMore frequently, however, opportunity is only the last drop which makes\nthe vessel run over. This is so true that the cases in which genius has\nmanifested itself in spite of adverse circumstances and even violent\nopposition, are innumerable. It is sufficient to recall Boccaccio,\nGoldoni, Muratori, Leopardi, Ascoli, Cellini, Cavour, Petrarch,\nMetastasio, and, finally, Socrates, who was obliged to cut and carve\nstones. All our recent great musicians--Wagner, Rossini, Verdi--were\nmisunderstood in their youth.\n\nLong ago, it was said, \u201cHe to whom Nature would not tell it, would not\nbe told by a thousand Athens and a thousand Romes.\u201d[280]\n\nCircumstances, then, and a certain degree of civilization gain\nacceptance and toleration for genius and its discoveries which, under\nother conditions, would have either passed unnoticed, or met with\nridicule, and even persecution.\n\nHistory shows that great discoveries are rarely absolute novelties, and\nthat they have long existed as toys or curiosities. \u201cSteam,\u201d says\nFournier, \u201cwas a plaything for children in the time of Hero of\nAlexandria, and Anthemius of Tralles. The human mind and the needs of\nour race have to work by experience, a million times over, before\ndeducing all the consequences of a fact.[281]\n\nIn 1765, Spedding offered _portable gas_, prepared and ready for use, to\nthe corporation of Whitehaven, and was refused. At a later date came\nChaussier, Minkelers, Lebon, and Windsor, who had no other merit than\nthat of appropriating his discovery.\n\nCoal had been known ever since the fifteenth century; in 1543 Blasco de\nGaray appears to have propelled a vessel by steam and paddles in the\nport of Barcelona; the screw-steamer was invented before 1790. When\nPapin experimented with steam navigation, he met with nothing but\nderision, and was treated as a charlatan. When the screw was at last\napplied, Sauvage, who had invented it, never saw it in action, except\nfrom the prison where he was confined for debt.\n\nDaguerreotypy was guessed at in Russia during the sixteenth century, and\nagain, in Italy, by Fabricius, in 1566. It was afterwards discovered\nanew by Thiphaigne de la Roche. Galvanism was also discovered by Cotugno\nand by Duverney.\n\nThe theory of Natural Selection itself does not belong exclusively to\nDarwin. Existing species, it was already said by Lucretius, have only\nbeen able to maintain themselves by their cunning, strength, or\nswiftness; others have succumbed. And Plutarch, remarking that horses\nwhich have been pursued by wolves are swifter than others, gives this\nreason--that, the slower ones of the band having been overtaken and\ndevoured, only the more agile survived.\n\nNewton\u2019s law of attraction was already foreshadowed in works of the\nsixteenth century--more particularly in those of Copernicus and\nKepler--and was nearly completed by Hooke.\n\nIt has been the same with magnetism, chemistry, and even criminal\nanthropology. Civilization, therefore, does not _produce_ men of genius,\nand discoveries; but it assists their development, or, more correctly\nspeaking, determines their acceptance.\n\nIt may therefore be admitted that genius can exist in any age and any\ncountry; but, as in the struggle for existence the greater number of\nbeings are only born to become the prey of others, so many men of\ngenius, if they do not meet with the favourable moment, either remain\nunknown or are misunderstood.\n\nWhile there are some civilizations which assist the development of\ngenius, others are injurious to it. In those parts of Italy, for\ninstance, where civilization is most ancient, and where it has been\nfrequently renewed, becoming stronger at each renewal, though the\ntemper of the people is more open, the formation of genius is of rare\noccurrence. In general, when the average culture of a nation is of\nearlier date, novelties are less eagerly received. On the contrary, in\ncountries where civilization is recent, as in Russia, new ideas are\naccepted with the greatest favour.\n\nWhen the repetition of the same observation renders a new truth less\ndifficult to accept, then genius is not only recognized as useful and\neven necessary, but received with acclamations. The public, perceiving\nthe coincidence between a given civilization and the manifestation of\ngenius, thinks that the two are connected, confusing the slight\ninfluence which determines the hatching of the chicks with the act of\nfecundation--which, on the contrary, depends on race, atmospheric\ninfluences, nutrition, &c.\n\nThis, too, is what takes place in our own day. Hypnotism exists to prove\nhow many times, even under our very eyes, a scientific notion may be\nrenewed, and each time taken for a new discovery. Every age is not\nequally ripe for inventions without precedents, or with too few; and\nthose which are not ripe, are incapable of perceiving their inaptitude\nfor adopting them. In Italy, for twenty years, the man who had\ndiscovered pellagrozeine was looked upon by the authorities as a madman.\nAt the present day the academic world, always composed of intelligent\nmediocrities, laughs at criminal anthropology, is mildly sarcastic\ntowards hypnotism, and looks on hom\u0153opathy as a joke. Perhaps even my\nfriends and myself, in laughing at spiritualism, are misled by the\nmisoneism latent in us all, and, like hypnotised persons, are utterly\nunable even to perceive that such is the case.\n\nMisery is often the stimulus of genius. It was necessity rather than\nnatural inclination which drove Dryden to become an author. Goldsmith,\nwhen he had knocked at every door in vain, took to writing. And so again\nand again.\n\nIt is true also that extreme misery frequently ruins genius. It placed\nimmense difficulties in the way of Columbus. George Stephenson\u2019s steam\nengine would have been an abortion, if he had not been enabled at great\nsacrifice to educate his son. Meyerbeer, who produced so laboriously,\nand whose genius cannot be explained apart from his Italian journeys and\nlife, would have been in a deplorable condition without wealth.\n\nMany men of genius, on the other hand, have been spoilt by wealth and\npower. Jacoby has shown that unlimited power hastens degeneration, and\ntends to produce megalomania and dementia in those who possess it.\n\nThe influence of education has been investigated less than it deserves.\nWithout the school, many believe there would be no genius. What, it is\nsaid, would have become of Metastasio, if he had not been picked up and\neducated? Giotto would merely have amazed the shepherds of his native\nvalleys by daubing the walls of some chapel. Paganini would have been\nunheard of. Pitr\u00e9, in his admirable book, _Usi e costumi della Sicilia_,\nwrites at length of certain wonderful poetasters, who narrate fantastic\nlays of knighthood to the people of Palermo, yet they can neither read\nnor write. Who knows what they would do if they were educated?\n\nThose who have been among the mountains know the works produced by\ncertain shepherds. They are made with coarse instruments, yet they\nreveal marvellous taste and delicacy. Such men give us the impression of\nso many aborted Michelangelos; they are men of genius who have lacked\nthe opportunity of manifesting themselves.\n\nBut these facts do not neutralize others which show the pernicious\ninfluence of the school on genius. Hazlitt well said that whoever has\npassed through all the grades of classical instruction without having\nbecome a fool, may consider himself to have escaped by miracle. Darwin\nfeared to send his sons to school. Who can describe the martyrdom of the\nchild of genius compelled to spend his brains over a quagmire of things\nin which he will succeed the less the more he is attracted in other\ndirections? He rebels, and then begins a fierce struggle between the\npupil of genius and the professor of mediocrity, who cannot understand\nhis fury and his instincts, and who represses and punishes them. Balzac,\nwho proved this, and was driven away from school after school, has\nminutely analyzed this bitterness of the college in his wonderful study,\n_Louis Lambert_. One shudders on thinking of the youth of such lofty and\nserene intelligence, treated with contempt as stupid and idle, and his\ndiscourse on will which had cost him so much labour destroyed unread by\nan ignorant master. And so, also, it was with Vall\u00e8s. Verdi was\nunanimously rejected at the Conservatorio of Milan in 1832, even as a\npaying pupil. Rossini was regarded as an idiot by his fellow-pupils, and\nby his teacher, as also was Wagner. Coleridge has written with\nbitterness of his schooldays, when, he says, his nature was always\nrepressed. Howard was considered so stupid at school that he was sent to\na druggist\u2019s. Pestalozzi was looked upon as a silly and incapable boy,\nwhose spelling and writing were incorrigibly bad. Cr\u00e9billon as a youth\nwas regarded as roguish and lazy, and when he left the university he was\nlabelled: _Puer ingeniosus, sed insignis nebulo_. Cabanis as a boy\nshowed very early signs of uncommon intelligence, but the severe\ndiscipline of school only served to make him a dissembler, and he was\nfinally expelled. Diderot was regarded as the shame of his house. Verdi,\nRossini, Howard, Cabanis, would not allow themselves to be defeated, but\nhow many, discouraged, have lost faith in themselves! It is useless to\nsay that this struggle for existence results in the survival of the\nfittest; for even the weakest men of genius are worth more than\nmediocrities, and it is a sin to lose a single one. We are not here\ndealing with a phenomenon like that presented by the struggle of lower\norganisms. The case is even opposed, since their great sensibility\nrenders men of genius more fragile. The persecutions of the school,\ntormenting these beings when they are in their first youth and most\nsensitive, cause us to lose those who, being more fragile, are better.\nHere, therefore, the struggle for existence suppresses the strongest, or\nat all events the greatest. The worst of this is that there is no\nremedy. Teachers are not men of genius, and in any case they cannot, and\nshould not, look to anything but the manufacture of mediocrity. At all\nevents, let no obstacles be put in the way of genius.\n\n\n\n\nPART III.\n\n_GENIUS IN THE INSANE._\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nINSANE GENIUS IN LITERATURE.\n\nPeriodicals published in lunatic\nasylums--Synthesis--Passion--Atavism--Conclusion.\n\n\nThe connection which, as we have seen, exists between genius and\ninsanity is confirmed by the over-excitement of the intelligence, and\nthe temporary appearance of real genius frequently observed among the\ninsane.\n\n\u201cIt seems,\u201d writes Charles Nodier, \u201cas if the divergent and scattered\nrays of the diseased intellect were suddenly concentrated, like those of\nthe sun in a lens, and then lent to the speech of the poor madman so\nmuch brilliancy that one may be permitted to doubt whether he had ever\nbeen more learned, clear, or persuasive while in full possession of his\nreason.\u201d[282]\n\n\u201cMadness,\u201d writes Th\u00e9ophile Gautier,[283] \u201cwhich creates such enormous\ngaps, does not always suspend all the faculties. Poems written during\ncomplete dementia often observe the rules of quantity extremely well.\nDomenico Theotocopuli, the Greek painter, whose master-pieces are\nadmired in the Spanish churches, was insane. We have seen in England,\nscenes of lions and stallions fighting, the work of an insane patient,\ndone on a board with a red-hot iron, which looked like some of\nG\u00e9ricault\u2019s sketches rubbed in with bitumen.\u201d\n\nUnder the influence of insanity, \u201can ignorant peasant will make Latin\nverses; another will suddenly speak in an idiom which he has never\nlearnt, and of which he will not know a word after his recovery. A woman\nwill sing Latin hymns and poems entirely unknown to her; a child,\nwounded in the head, constructs syllogisms in German, and is unable,\nwhen no longer ill, to utter a single expression in that language.\u201d[284]\n\nWinslow knew a gentleman, incapable in his normal condition of doing a\nsimple addition sum, who became an excellent mathematician during his\nattacks of mania. In the same way, a woman who wrote poetry while in the\nasylum, after her cure became once more a peaceable and prosaic\nhousekeeper.\n\nA monomaniac at the Bic\u00eatre lamented his detention in the following\nstriking verse:--\n\n    \u201c_Ah! le po\u00e8te de Florence_\n     _N\u2019avait pas, dans son chant sacr\u00e9_\n     _R\u00eav\u00e9 l\u2019ab\u00eeme de souffrance_\n     _De tes murs, Bic\u00eatre ex\u00e9cr\u00e9._\u201d[285]\n\nEsquirol gives an account of a maniac who invented, during the acute\nperiod of his malady, a new kind of cannon which was afterwards adopted.\n\nMorel had under his care a madman, subject to intermittent states in\nwhich all his faculties were more or less blunted, if not actually lost,\nwho, during his lucid intervals, composed fine comedies.\n\nJohn Clare, who wrote nonsense as soon as he began to express himself in\nprose, in some of his tender and melancholy elegies rose to a rare\nperfection of style and the choicest ideas.[286]\n\nLeuret says, in speaking of mania, \u201cIt has happened to me more than once\nto form too favourable an idea of the intellectual capacity of some\npersons, when I could only judge of it by what they said or did during\nan attack of mania. A patient whose conversation and flashes of wit had\nstruck me, sometimes turned out, after his recovery, to be a very\nordinary man, far inferior to the opinion I had conceived of him.\u201d[287]\n\nMarc\u00e9 has recorded the case of a young married woman of cultivated mind,\nbut merely ordinary intelligence, who, during the course of an attack of\nmania, in which ideas of jealousy predominated, \u201cwrote to her husband\nletters which, for their eloquence and the passionate energy of their\nstyle, might easily be placed beside the most fervent passages of the\n_Nouvelle H\u00e9loise_. When the attack was over her letters became simple\nand modest, and no one, on comparing them with the others, would have\nbelieved that the two sets came from the same pen.\u201d[288]\n\nExcessive activity of the intellect, writes Dagonet, is also sometimes\nobserved in the depressive forms of mental aberration, but much less\nfrequently than in the expansive forms. As a proof of this, it is\nsufficient to cite the following letter, written by a patient affected\nwith melancholic delusion, to her husband, a country schoolmaster. The\nletter was full of mistakes in spelling; the woman who wrote it had no\neducation, and in her normal condition, no eloquence; but disease had\ntransformed her by developing her intellectual faculties:--\n\n\u201cWhy did not the Master of the universe open the tomb to me in my\nbrilliant youth? Why, at the same time, did He not remove me from you,\nsince you do not love me, and I am making you unhappy?\n\n\u201cWhy did I become a mother? To be unhappy--more than unhappy--to leave\nthe children who are so dear to me.... Why do you hate me? Though I\nstood with my feet in boiling oil, I should still say, I love you!...\n\n\u201cWhy did you not let me die? You would be happy,--and I--my troubles\nwould be over.... My dear children would come and play by my grave. I\nshould still be near them--I should still, in the darkness of the grave,\nhear them say, \u2018There is our mother!\u2019\u201d[289]\n\nIf this woman had fed her mind on the works of Chateaubriand she could\nnot have expressed herself with more poetry or imagination.\n\n\u201cIt has been known,\u201d says Tissot, \u201cthat a young man, whose tutor had\nnever been able to teach him anything, and who, as the saying is, could\nnot put a noun and an adjective together, spoke Latin fluently, after\nsome days of malignant fever, and developed ideas which till then had\nnot struck him.\u201d[290]\n\nAmong other examples of what Lecamus calls learned frenzies, he cites\nMademoiselle Antheman who, during her delirium, was of \u201csmiling\ncountenance and agreeable humour. Having lost the use of her right hand\nthrough paralysis, she painted and embroidered with her left, with\nincredible dexterity; and the productions of her mind were no less\nsurprising than those of her hands. She recited verses which showed the\ngreatest possible vivacity and delicacy, though they were the first she\nhad ever composed.\u201d[291]\n\n\u201cI am going to try,\u201d says G\u00e9rard de Nerval, in his book entitled _Le\nR\u00eave et la Vie_, \u201cto transcribe the impressions of a long illness which\nran its course entirely in the mysteries of my mind. I do not know why I\nmake use of the term illness, for never--as far as I am concerned--did I\nfeel better. Sometimes I thought my strength and activity were doubled;\nit seemed that I knew and understood everything, imagination gave me\ninfinite delight. In recovering what men called reason, shall I have to\nregret the loss of this?\u201d\n\nWhat mental practitioner has not heard similar words over and over again\nfrom the mouth of unhappy patients who, after recovering their reason,\nregretted their past state, that new life, that _vita nuova_, which\nG\u00e9rard defines as \u201c_L\u2019\u00e9panchement du songe dans la vie r\u00e9elle!_\u201d\n\nIncrease of intellectual activity, says Dr. Parchappe, is frequently met\nwith in insanity; it is even one of the most salient characteristics of\nthis disease in its acute period. The annals of science--adds the same\nauthor--contain a certain number of well-authenticated facts, which have\ncontributed to confirm the superstition of a supernatural heightening\nof the intellectual faculties, and which explain, up to a certain point,\nhow the love of the marvellous, in credulous observers, by exaggerating\nand distorting analogous facts, has been able to gain credit for the\nwonderful tales which abound in the history of religious sects at all\nepochs, and more especially in the history of diabolical possessions in\nthe Middle Ages.[292]\n\nVan Swieten (Comment., 1121) relates that he had seen a woman who,\nduring her attacks of mania, only spoke in verse, which she composed\nwith admirable facility, although in health she had never shown the\nleast poetic talent.\n\nLorry cites the case of a lady of rank, of very ordinary intellect, who\nwas subject to attacks of melancholy, during which her intelligence was\nso far developed as to enable her to discuss the most difficult\nquestions with eloquence.\n\nA young girl of the people, aged fourteen, attacked with insanity in\nconsequence of a religious revival, talked on theological subjects as if\nshe had devoted herself to this study; she spoke like a preacher, of God\nand of Christian duties, and gave sagacious answers to the objections\nwhich were made.[293]\n\n\u201cI have had occasion,\u201d writes Morel,[294] \u201cto remark, in some\nhypochondriac, hysteric, and epileptic patients, an extraordinary\nintellectual activity at the critical periods of the disease. It is not\nrarely observed that the attacks of exacerbation to which they are\nsubject are preceded by an abnormal manifestation of the intellectual\nforces. A young hypochondriacal patient, confided to my care, often\nastonished those who saw him by the facility of his elocution, and the\nbrilliancy with which he expressed his ideas. At certain times he would\ncompose, in the course of a single night, a piece of music or a play\nwhich possessed remarkable traits, and some beauties of the first order.\nBut, knowing the patient, I was never mistaken in my prognostications\nfrom this state of things. I knew that, after three or four days of\nexcitement, this young man would fall into a dull stupor and become a\nprey to a torpid apathy which prevented him from feeling the instinct\nof his greatest natural necessities. The case ended in complete\ndementia.\u201d\n\n\u201cIn the case of a hysterical patient, with a predominance of exalted\nreligious ideas, I have also observed remarkable phenomena of\nintellectual reminiscence. She had heard a great number of sermons, and\nread still more. I have heard her repeat word for word what she had read\nor what had been delivered in her presence. We were able to follow her,\nbook in hand, when, under the influence of a nervous excitement which\nquickened her memory, she recited sermons by well-known Christian\norators. She was quite unable to repeat this phenomenon in her ordinary\ncondition; but, as in the preceding case, we knew what view to take of a\nfact of this nature--not to mention that it resembled a large number of\nother cases, by means of which, at different times, the public credulity\nhas been exploited. In this woman the phenomenon always preceded a\ncrisis of exacerbation followed by stupor.\n\n\u201cLet us now pass to the extreme concentration of the attention in a\nhypochondriacal patient relating her own sensations. The following\nextracts are from a diary left to me by the patient in question. It\nsummarizes all that is experienced by this class of patients.\n\n\u201c_September 6, 1852_, 9 p.m. This evening, on going to bed, sharp pain\nin the sacral regions and in the thighs. Tearing pains in the left ear\nand eye while falling asleep. I was overpowered by the feeling of fear.\nI seemed to be rolling into bottomless abysses, and to have, as it were,\nan iron hook fixed in my skull and heart, and dragging them out.\n\n\u201c_September 7, 1852_, 7 a.m. Lancinating pain in the eyes, acute\nsuffering in the eyelids. Pressure on the temples, principally on the\nleft, eyes constantly watering, larynx contracted; a horrible,\nnever-ceasing devouring hunger, which seems to make me start. I am\nseized by an anger which makes me seem mad in the eyes of others. If I\ncould still cry out, that would relieve me; I am boiling over with\nanger, and I look wild. It is as though I had a little saw inside my\nhead. Always this motion of sawing--of a wheel which keeps turning and\ncarries me with it. My bones feel to me like dead wood which burns like\nlogwood.\n\n\u201c_September 8, 1852._ The whole day without having been able to do\nanything. My forehead seemed encircled with a tight iron band. I went to\nbed with a feeling of deep depression. Fear overpowers me--sometimes a\nfeeling of hatred--a very little excusable jealousy of those who can act\nfreely and work. I have in my back something like little strings pulling\nin all directions, making music like an accordion. It is torturing. The\nstrongest man would fall dead with terror, if he could see the reality\nof a person in my state of health.... And they laugh at me.... The\ndoctors refuse to believe in my sufferings. There are moments when all\nthat I have ever seen in my life is before my eyes at once. I feel\nmyself lifted into the air or up to the roofs; I feel a horror of\nmyself. It is like an old painting by Rembrandt etched in _aqua fortis_.\n\n\u201c_Dreams._--Dead horses, headless, dismembered--horrors of all kinds....\nThen there are members of my family who appear to me; but everything I\nsee is distorted and reduced in size; there is, as it were, a _camera\nobscura_ in me, and the reflector shows me everything in miniature. I\nadmit that I may be insane--but you, too, must admit at least that I am\nvery ill,\u201d &c.\n\nIt is known, says Paulhan,[295] that with some dementia patients,\ncertain faculties remain intact; they can, for instance, play at cards\nor draughts, though their mind in general may be quite disorganized. The\nsame is found to be the case with idiots. Griesinger saw, in the\nEarlswood Asylum, a young man who had made, all by himself, a remarkable\nmodel of a man-of-war. This individual\u2019s intelligence was very limited;\nhe had no idea whatever of numbers. \u201cIt more frequently happens,\u201d adds\nthe author, \u201cthat complete idiots execute fairly good work in drawing or\npainting. In such cases, it is, of course, only a mechanical talent.\u201d\n\nEsquirol reports the case of a general suffering from mania, whose\n\u201cdelusions persist throughout the summer, with some lucid intervals,\nduring which the patient writes comedies and vaudevilles which betray\nthe incoherence of his ideas.... In spite of the confusion of his mind,\nthe general conceives an idea for the perfecting of a certain weapon,\ndraws designs, and manifests the desire of getting a model constructed.\u201d\nOne day, he went to the foundry, and, on his return, was seized with\nagitation and delirium. A while later, he paid a second visit to the\nfoundry, and \u201cthe model having been executed, gave an order for fifty\nthousand. This order was the only act which gave the founder reason to\nsuspect the general\u2019s malady. His invention was afterwards officially\nadopted.\u201d Thus, in the midst of general incoherence, an important series\nof ideas was maintained and carried out to the end.\n\nA writer not practised in mental disease, Esquiros whom we have already\nhad occasion to quote, mentions the following facts, which are very\nsignificant:--\n\n\u201cDr. Leuret,\u201d he says, \u201crelated to us the history of a patient in the\nBic\u00eatre who, during his malady, had shown a remarkable talent for\nwriting, though when in good health he would have been quite incapable\nof doing as much. \u2018I am not quite cured,\u2019 he said to the physician, who\nthought him convalescent. \u2018I am still too clever for that. When I am\nwell, I take a week to write a letter. In my natural condition I am\nstupid; wait till I become so again.\u2019 The same observer also cites the\ncase of a merchant whose affairs were in danger. During his illness,\nthis man found means to re-establish them; the result of each of his\nattacks was the perfecting of some mechanism, or the invention of some\nmeans for facilitating his industry; and at the end of this invaluable\ninsanity, he was found to have recovered both his reason and his\nfortune.\n\n\u201cWe have been shown at Montmartre, in Dr. Blanche\u2019s establishment,\ntraces of charcoal-drawings on a wall. These half-effaced figures, one\nof which represented the Queen of Sheba, and the other some king, were\nthe work of a distinguished young author, who has since recovered his\nreason. This illness had developed a new talent, which was non-existent,\nor at least played a most insignificant part, while he was in health.\n\n\u201cIt is said that Marion Delorme met, in a madhouse, with the first man\nwho conceived the idea of applying the forces of steam to the needs of\nindustry, Salomon de Caus. Talents created by disease forsake the\nindividual, for the most part, at the same time as the disease\nitself.\u201d[296]\n\nI had under treatment at Pavia, a peasant lad, aged twelve, who composed\nextremely original musical melodies, and bestowed on his companions in\nmisfortune nicknames which fitted so well that they always kept them.\nWith him was a little old man afflicted with rickets and _pellagra_ who,\nwhen asked whether he was happy, replied, like a philosopher of ancient\nGreece, \u201cAll _men_ are happy, even the rich, if they are only willing.\u201d\n\nMany of my pupils still remember B----, by turns musician, servant,\nporter, keeper of a cookshop, tinman, soldier, public letter-writer, but\nalways unfortunate. He left us an autobiography, which, apart from a few\northographical mistakes in spelling, would be quite worth printing; and\nhe asked me for his discharge in terms which, for an uneducated working\nman, were wanting neither in beauty nor in originality.\n\nNot long ago I heard a poor hawker of sponges, when insane, thus\nconjecture and sum up the cardinal idea of the circulation of life: \u201cWe\ndo not die. When the soul is worn out it melts, and is turned into\nanother shape. In fact, when my father had buried a dead mule, we\nafterwards saw mushrooms growing in great numbers on the same spot, and\nthe potatoes in the same place, which were formerly very small, grew to\ntwice their usual size.\u201d\n\nThus a vulgar mind, enlightened by the energy of mania, stumbles on\ntheories which the greatest thinkers arrive at with difficulty.\n\nG. B., a maniac, nephew of a celebrated author, said to me one day, when\nI hesitated before permitting him to ride a somewhat skittish horse, \u201cNo\nfear, doctor--_similia similibus_.\u201d\n\nM. G., a merchant, suffering from melancholia, said to some one who had\ncalled him \u201cCount\u201d by mistake, \u201cWhat count? I have kept plenty of\n_accounts_--I know no others!\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy will you not shake hands with me?\u201d I asked Madame M----, a sufferer\nfrom moral insanity, one morning, \u201cAre you angry with me?\u201d \u201c_Pallida\nvirgo cupit, rubicunda recusat_,\u201d she replied. Another time I asked her,\n\u201cDo you hope to leave this establishment soon?\u201d She answered, \u201cI shall\nleave it when those outside have recovered their reason.\u201d\n\nV----, a thief, and insane, made his escape during a walk which had been\npermitted him. When overtaken and reproached with having betrayed the\nconfidence reposed in him, he replied, \u201cI only wanted to try whether my\nknees were stiff or not.\u201d\n\nB. B., a maniac woman, over seventy years of age, who had lost all her\nteeth, made obscene remarks. When remonstrated with for using\nexpressions so unbecoming to her age, she said, \u201cOld! old! Why, do you\nnot see that I have not yet cut my teeth?\u201d\n\nN. B., who became a poet through insanity, writes with much subtlety,\nbut his verses do not scan. His companion, G. R., once told us that he\nlengthened the feet on purpose, so that, being well _planted_, they\nshould not be able to escape his memory.[297]\n\n_Synthesis._--The most original and general characteristic of the poets\nwho are the product of insanity is precisely the forcing of the mind to\na state so at variance with previous conditions of life and culture. In\nmany, it is true, the only result of this effect is a continuous flow of\nepigrams, plays upon words, and assonances--puns, in short, such as are\npraised in society as evidences of wit; though it is no wonder that they\nshould abound in lunatic asylums, being, as they are, the very negative\nof truth and logic. This tendency, or, at least, the tendency to\nalliteration and rhyme, is evident in all their works, even those\nwritten in prose. Yet, on the other hand, we not rarely meet with\nimprovised philosophers, who in their utterances reproduce parts of the\nsystems of the Positivists, of Epicurus and Comte; the brain, quickened\nby insanity, being able to seize upon those salient points of truth from\nwhich the systems named took their rise, and that because these men have\nless hatred of novelty, and more originality, than normal people.\n\nTheir most salient characteristic--originality heightened to the point\nof absurdity--is due to the overflowing of the imagination which can no\nlonger be restrained within the bounds of logic and common sense. It is\nnatural that the mind which has been most injured, or is by nature the\nmost deficient, should exceed most in this respect. We need only refer\nnow to the pretended metamorphosis and journeyings of the soul of P----\nof Siena, and the writings of M---- of Pesaro, who had carried his\npassion for the Greek language so far as to invent a new idiom, in which\ngravel was called _lithiasis_, the sea, _equor_, convictions, _agonies_,\nthe world, a _vase_.[298]\n\nTheir more rapid association of ideas, and livelier imagination, often\nenable them to solve problems which more cultivated, but normal,\nintellects can scarcely attack with success.\n\nAnother peculiarity characteristic of them, but which, be it noted, is\noften found also in the writings of criminals, is the tendency to speak\nof themselves or their companions, and to write autobiographies,\nabandoning themselves without restraint to the torrent of ambition or\nlove. But with insane persons the form of expression is much less\nartificial than that used by criminals, in whose writings one finds more\ncoherence but less creative power and originality.\n\nThe use of assonances in place of reasoning is entirely peculiar to the\ninsane, as also the use of special words, or words used in a peculiar\nsense, and the exaggerated importance attributed to the most trifling\nthings.\n\n    \u201c_C\u2019est le travail des fous d\u2019\u00e9puiser leurs cervelles_\n    _Sur des riens fatigants, sur quelques bagatelles_,\u201d\n\nsaid H\u00e9cart in his _Gualana_, which, by the way, is only the work of a\nmattoid.\n\nMany of them, though fewer than among the mattoids, mingle drawing with\npoetry, as though neither art by itself were sufficient for the impetus\nof their ideas. Their style lacks the polish which comes of much\nelaboration, but abounds in incisive and vigorous sentences, so that it\noften equals, and even surpasses, the productions of calmer and more\nrefined art.\n\n_Passion._--This should not cause surprise any more than the tendency to\nversification in individuals who, before losing their reason, were\nignorant of prosody, when it is remembered that poetry--as Byron well\nsaid and demonstrated in his own person--is the expression of passion\nunder excitement, and grows in vigour and effectiveness as the\nexcitement increases.\n\nThat rhythm can relieve and express abnormal psychic excitement much\nbetter than prose can be deduced from the poetic inspirations of\ndrunkards, as well as from the spontaneous affirmations of insane poets.\n\n    \u201c_Je vous-\u00e9cris en vers, n\u2019en soyez point choqu\u00e9,_\n     _En prose je ne sais exprimer ma pens\u00e9e_,\u201d\n\nan insane criminal wrote to Arboux, clearly explaining this\ntendency.[299]\n\nA lunatic at Pesaro gave this reason for some of his verses: \u201cPoetry is\na spontaneous emanation from the mind--poetry is the cry of the soul\npierced by a thousand griefs.\u201d[300]\n\n_Atavism._--Vico had already guessed, and Buckle, at a later date, has\nadmirably explained that, among primitive peoples, all thinkers and\nsages were poets. In fact, the earliest histories were put into a fixed\nform and handed down by the bards of Gaul, or by the Toolkolos of Tibet;\nlikewise in America,[301] the Deccan,[302] Africa,[303] and\nOceania.[304] Ellis writes that the Polynesians have recourse to their\nballads as to historical documents when any question arises regarding\nthe deeds of their ancestors. And as in ancient India, so also in\nmedi\u00e6val Europe, the sciences were explained in verse. Montucla speaks\nof a mathematical treatise of the thirteenth century written in verse;\nan Englishman versified the Institutes of Justinian, and a Pole wrote a\nrhyming work on heraldry.\n\nHistory, properly so called, though written in prose was in the Middle\nAges no less fabulous and full of fantastic absurdities and puns than\npoetry. Troyes was derived from Troy, Nuremberg from Nero, the Saracens\nfrom Sara; Mahomet was a cardinal; Naples was built on a foundation of\neggs; after certain victories of the Turks there were children born with\n22 or 23 instead of 32 teeth. Turpin, the Macaulay of those times,\nrelates in his chronicle that the walls of Pampeluna fell as soon as the\nfollowers of Charlemagne had begun to pray. Ferrante was 20 cubits in\nheight, and had a face a cubit in length. In short, the history of those\ndays was the same as the fairy tales still told at rustic firesides,\nfrom which we can gather nothing but the uniform quality of human\nimbecility which becomes more fantastic the more ignorant it is.\n\nA tendency to revert to ancestral conditions appears even in the prose\nof the mattoid or insane. Thus Tanzi and Riva,[305] speaking of some\nworks by monomaniacs write as follows:--\n\n\u201cFor the demonomaniacs of a hundred years ago--belated representatives\nof medi\u00e6val mysticism, who typify the ancient form of _paranoia_--are\nnow substituted the modern paranoiacs; new alchemists who, with their\npseudo-scientific delusions, and their vainglorious phrases, revive in\nour day the style and thoughts of Trithemius, Agrippa, Paracelsus, and\nother men of the sixteenth century who were strange, but learned and\nvenerated students of occult science and magic. Paranoia follows the\npath of humanity through the centuries, undergoing, with a certain\ndelay, all its changes, though often separated from it only by a slight\ninterval. As an example of this latter kind we may take the following\npassage from an extremely long autobiography, written by a paranoiac, in\nwhich the acute and accurate account of his own adventures is found in\ncompany with insane statements like the following:--\n\n\u201c\u2018It ought to be known that the aristocracy, or persons descended from\nthem, secrete a certain, as yet undefined, substance which produces\nelectricity. In this way it is easy to understand how there can be\ncommunication between one nobly-born person and another--if one thinks\nfor a moment of the telegraph and its electric batteries. In this manner\ntwo nobles, being placed in communication, act upon each other as\nelectric batteries, transmitting every movement and thought by means of\na thread, as if the idea and way of thinking were so many strokes on the\npart of the manipulator of the telegraphic instrument. The system, as\nmay be understood, is infinitesimal, for thought, transmitted from one\nside, forms on the other as many infinitesimal points as there are atoms\nforming the idea.\u2019\u201d\n\nMM. Riva and Tanzi observe that many of the ancient alchemists expressed\nthemselves in precisely the same way.\n\n\u201cSo,\u201d they continue, \u201cnothing could be easier than to recognize a born\nparanoiac in the King of Bavaria,[306] misanthropic, vain, ambitious,\nmystical, romantic, voluble, subject to hallucinations, eccentric in his\nacts, his habits, his judgment and his conduct, perverted in his\n\u00e6sthetic tastes, in love, in the ethical sentiments, exaggerated and\nunbalanced in everything. He was so profoundly impressed with the stamp\nof medi\u00e6val atavism that political journalism--hitting the mark with\nunconsciously scientific correctness--designated him as a Sir Percival\ncome to life again.\u201d\n\nThe pathologic and atavistic origin of many of the literary productions\nof the insane explains the frequent inequalities of the style, which is\nas feeble and slovenly when the excitement ceases, as it was at first\nsplendid and vigorous, and the abrupt transition from stanzas worthy of\na classic author to the scribbling of an idiot. This origin also\naccounts for the extreme contradictions to be found in the writings of\none and the same author--as is seen in Farina and Lazzaretti--their\nfondness for aphorisms and detached periods, the abrupt and disconnected\ncharacter of their style--which is both primitive and childish--and the\nmonotonous repetition of certain words or phrases, recalling the verses\nof the Bible or the suras of the Koran. It also explains their\npropensity for continually dwelling on the same subject, nearly always\nconnected with matters out of the line of their own studies, and (what\nis more important) of no advantage to themselves or others. Their works\nare nearly always autobiographical.\n\n_Conclusion._--Summing up what has been said, there is a special\norganization in all the writings of madmen, even the absurdest--a true\nfinality, as Paulhan calls it.\n\n\u201cI understand by this,\u201d he says, \u201cthat, as soon as one psychic element\nexists, it tends to call forth others. It is not the totality of the\nmind--if it is not itself co-ordinated--which determines the appearance\nof phenomena, but the elements. That is to say, what is already\nsystematized in the mind tends to acquire a more complete\nsystematization. If it is a sensation, it will tend to awaken\nparticular, precise, and appropriate ideas or acts; if it is a general\ntendency--a pre-established mental organization--it will tend to make\nthe mind interpret in such or such a manner the sensations which reach\nit.\n\n\u201cAs every psychic element is systematic, and as, when finality is not to\nbe found in the totality of a psychic organism, or of a series of\nactions, or a theory, or an argument, or a passion (and in this case all\nthese facts are not really psychic elements), it exists in the elements.\nThis tendency on the part of the elements to systematic association,\nexercising itself without higher control, without general direction,\nends in producing numerous discords in the totality of psychic\noperations. The result is somewhat as though all the musicians in an\norchestra were to play different tunes in as many different keys.\n\n\u201cWhen, in the constitution of society, an association is dissolved, a\nlaw of finality is broken and the elements (the human beings who formed\nthe association) are restored to individual life. They then enter upon\nnew forms of social activity. If, for example, a factory is closed, the\nmen and women who worked there and were united by a systematic\nassociation, go to work again, each on his or her own account, either\nseparately, or in new associations, in which some of them may chance to\nmeet again. The same thing takes place with the psychic elements,\nwherever, from one cause or another, the bond which united them is\nbroken; they enter into new associations where they work, each on its\nown account, at the risk of producing nothing but incoherence. This\nisolated activity of the elements is met with in a striking manner in\nmental disease.\n\n\u201cThe pun is a form of this disorder. On analyzing it, we find that it\nconsists essentially in this: A sound employed in a particular complexus\n(consisting of the sound, the ideas, and the systematized images\nconstituting the signification of the sound), itself forming part of a\nmore complex system, separates itself at least partially from these two\nsystems, and becomes associated with other systems of ideas and images.\nThe association through a resemblance between certain parts of the\nwords--for example, by means of rhyme--is an essentially analogous fact.\nHere it is a sound which, systematically associated with other sounds,\nallies itself at the same time with different sounds, in order to form\nsimultaneously, or at short intervals, systems which do not harmonise\ntogether. Among the latter class may be reckoned the greater number of\n_lapsus lingu\u00e6_ and _lapsus calami_.\n\n\u201cExamples of this abound. M. Regnard has cited several pieces of verse\nwritten by madmen, which show in a high degree the mode of elementary\nsystematic association. Sometimes one observes a remnant of intellectual\nco-ordination, as in the following lines, in which, however, incoherence\nis also abundantly manifested:--\n\n    \u201c\u2018_J\u2019aime le feu de la foug\u00e8re_\n     _Ne durant pas, mais p\u00e9tillant;_\n     _La fum\u00e9e est \u00e2cre de go\u00fbt._\n     _Mais des cendres de: l\u00e0 Fou j\u2019erre_\n     _On peut tirer en s\u2019amusant_\n     _Deux sous d\u2019un sel qui lave tout,_\n     _De soude, un sel qui lave tout._\u2019[307]\n\nAt other times sense disappears altogether, as in these lines, also\nquoted by M. Regnard, and composed by a patient whose mania was that of\nself-conceit, and who had been insane for twenty-five years:--\n\n    \u201c\u2018_Magnan! \u00e0 mon souhait, m\u00e9decin_ Magnan _ime,_\n     _Adore de mon sort la force qui ... t\u2019anime_.\n\n           *       *       *       *       *\n\n    _Admirant son beau cr\u00e2ne ... autre remord de Ph\u00e8dre,_\n     _Nargue Legrand du Saulle et sois un Grand du C\u00e8dre._\u2019[308]\n\nA good example of this phenomenon is afforded by the patient, observed\nby Trousseau, who wrote down more than five hundred pages of words\nconnected with one another by assonance or sense: _Chat_, _chapeau_,\n_peau_, _manchon_, _main_, _manches_, _robe_, _rose_, _jupon_, _pompon_,\n_bouquet_, _bouqueti\u00e8re_, _cimeti\u00e8re_, _bi\u00e8re_, _&c._[309]\n\n\u201cOne need not be either insane or imbecile to make puns and associate\nwords together on account of superficial resemblances. In this case,\ninstead of being a permanent dissociation of the more complex systems,\nit is a momentary dissociation which gives rise to the phenomenon.\nNothing is more natural--when one feels the need of unbending one\u2019s\nmind--than to restore to themselves the psychic elements retained in\ncomplex systems not necessary to life, and to allow them a liberty which\nthey sometimes abuse. To continue the above comparison--which may be\ncarried a long way--the workmen in the factory are not always at work;\nthey have their moments of rest and recreation, and then usually occupy\nthemselves with less complex systems.\u201d[310]\n\nThose most prone to these rhythmic manifestations are, in my opinion\n(which is borne out by Adriani and Toselli), chronic maniacs, alcoholic\nmaniacs, and paralytics in the early stage--in whom, however, there is\napt to be more rhyme than verse, and more verse than sense. Melancholy\npatients would take the next place, owing to the small number of these\nfound in asylums; they seem to find in versification a relief from their\nhabitual silence, or a defence against imaginary persecutions. This is\na much more important fact than would appear at first sight, when\nconnected with another, already well known, viz., that all great\nthinkers and poets are constitutionally inclined to melancholy.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nART IN THE INSANE.\n\n     Geographical distribution--Profession--Influence of the special\n     form of\n     alienation--Originality--Eccentricity--Symbolism--Obscenity--Criminality\n     and moral insanity--Uselessness--Insanity as a\n     subject--Absurdity--Uniformity--Summary--Music among the insane.\n\n\nThough the artistic tendency is very pronounced, and might almost be\ncalled a general characteristic, in some varieties of insanity, few\nauthors have paid sufficient attention to it.\n\nThe only exceptions are Tardieu, who, in his _\u00c9tudes M\u00e9dico-L\u00e9gales sur\nla folie_, remarks that the drawings of the insane are of great\nimportance from the point of view of forensic medicine; Simon,[311] who,\nin speaking of drawing among megalomaniacs, observes that the\nimagination appears in them in inverse proportion to the intellect; and\nFrigerio, who some time later gave a survey of the subject in an\nexcellent essay, published in the _Diario del Manicomio di Pesaro_.[312]\nSince then I have been able to make a completer examination of this\nsubject, thanks to the curious documents supplied to me by MM. Riva,\nToselli, Lolli, Frigerio, Tamburini, Maragliano, and Maxime du Camp.\n\nBy comparing their observations with my own, I find a total of 108\nmental patients with artistic tendencies, of which:--46 were towards\npainting, 10 sculpture, 11 engraving, 8 music, 5 architecture, 28\npoetry.\n\nThe prevailing psychopathic forms in these 108 cases were:--In 25,\nsensorial monomania and that of persecution; 21 dementia, 16\nmegalomania, 14 acute or intermittent mania, 8 melancholia, 8 general\nparalysis, 5 moral insanity, 2 epilepsy.\n\nIt is evident that those which predominate are the congenital and least\nreadily curable forms (monomania and moral insanity), together with\ndementia, and those forms which it accompanies, or in which it is latent\n(megalomania and paralysis).\n\nLet us now consider the special characteristics of these insane artists.\n\n_Geographical distribution._--In the districts where the artistic\ntendency is more marked among the sane, the number of insane artists is\nalso higher. In fact, I have found very few of the latter at Turin,\nPavia, or Reggio, while at Perugia, Lucca, and Siena they abound.\n\n_Profession._--Only in a few cases could the tendency be explained by\nprofession or habits acquired before the appearance of the disease. We\nfind among the insane artists mentioned above--8 ex-painters or\nsculptors, 10 ex-architects, carpenters, or cabinet makers; 10 former\nschoolmasters or priests, 1 telegraphist, 2 students, 6 sailors,\nsoldiers, or officers of engineers.\n\nAmong modern painters affected with insanity, we may note Gill, Cham,\nChirico, Mancini, and others.\n\nIn some cases, former tendencies were accentuated by insanity. Thus, a\nmechanician made drawings of machines, two sailors constructed models of\nships, a major-domo traced, on the floor, pictures of tables prepared\nfor a banquet, with pyramids of fruit. At Reggio, a cabinet-maker carved\nsome very fine foliage and ornaments; a naval officer at Genoa at first\ncarved models of ships, and afterwards was continually occupied in\ndepicting--though he had never learnt to paint--scenes at sea which, he\nsaid, consoled him for being debarred from his favourite element.\n\nSometimes these men were inspired by insanity with a strange energy in\ntheir work, \u201cjust as if,\u201d as MM. de Paoli and Adriani wrote to me, \u201cthey\nhad been paid for it. They cover the walls, the tables, and even the\nfloor, with painting.\u201d One of them, a painter, who had formerly only\nreached mediocrity, attained such perfection through his malady, that a\ncopy of one of Raphael\u2019s Madonnas, executed by him during one of his\nattacks, gained a prize medal at the Exhibition.\n\nMignoni, the celebrated painter of Reggio, who became an inmate of the\nasylum at that town on account of dementia and megalomania, remained\nidle there for fourteen years. At last, at the suggestion of Dr. Zani,\nhe resumed his brush, and covered the walls of the asylum with excellent\nfrescoes. One of them represented the story of Count Ugolino so vividly,\nthat one of the patients began to throw meat at it, so that the father\nand children might not die of hunger, and the grease spots are still to\nbe seen.[313]\n\nOf eight painters, whose history Adriani has related to me, four kept\ntheir former skill while under the influence of acute or intermittent\nmania; in two others, it was so far weakened that one of them, after his\nrecovery, sincerely deplored the work done during his illness.\n\n_Influence of the special form of Insanity._--In many cases, the choice\nof subject is inspired by the malady. A melancholiac was continually\ncarving a figure of a man with a skull in his hand. A woman affected\nwith megalomania was always working the word DIO (God) into her\nembroidery. Most monomaniacs habitually allude to their imaginary\nmisfortunes by means of special emblems.\n\nA monomaniac, who laboured under the delusion that he was being\npersecuted, drew his enemies pursuing him on one side of the picture and\nJustice defending him on the other.\n\nAlcoholic maniacs often make an excessive use of yellow in their\npictures. One painter, in whom alcohol had completely destroyed the\nsense of colour, became very skilful in the rendering of white, and,\nbetween his drunken fits, became the best painter of snow-scenes in\nFrance.\n\nAn artist of note, C----, when affected with general paralysis, lost his\nsense of proportion, _e.g._, he began to sketch a tree which, if drawn\nin its entirety, would have reached beyond the frame of the picture. He\ncollected the poorest oleographs and admired them, and coloured\neverything green.\n\nIt is more usual, however, for insanity to transform into painters\npersons who have never been accustomed to handle a brush, than for it to\nimprove skilled artists. Sometimes the disease, while suppressing some\nqualities of value to art, causes the appearance of others which did not\npreviously exist, and gives to all a peculiar character.\n\nInsanity changed Luke Clennell from a painter to a poet,[314] while\nMelmour, a physician who fell into a state of dementia after the loss of\nhis wife, who died on their wedding-day, took to literature and lost his\nprevious aptitudes.\n\n\u201cExaggeration pushed to its extreme--to the improbable, or even the\nimpossible,\u201d says Regnard, \u201cis one characteristic of paralytics. One of\nthese madmen painted a man touching the stars with his head and the\nearth with his feet.\u201d[315]\n\nDaudet, in _Jack_, speaks of insane artists whose pictures seemed to\nrepresent earthquakes or the inside of a ship during a storm.\n\nIndividuals, who previously had not the remotest idea of art, are\nimpelled by disease to paint, especially at the periods of strongest\nexcitement. B----, a mason, became a painter while in the Pesaro asylum.\nHis attacks of mania were always announced by an outbreak of his\ntendency to draw caricatures of the hospital staff, whom he condemned,\nin effigy, to the strangest punishments. For instance, he painted the\ncook, a stout and ruddy man, in the attitude of an _Ecce Homo_, behind a\ngrating which prevented him from touching the most appetising viands.\nThis was the penalty for having refused B---- one of his favourite\ndishes.\n\nThe grotesque apotheosis of himself, painted by the pederast and\nmegalomaniac, R----, in which he excretes and fecundates eggs which\nsymbolise worlds, is characteristic of the boundless vanity and\nunbridled imagination of megalomaniacs and paralytics.\n\nAmong the pictures executed by the patients at San Servolo, the most\ncurious is one by a lunatic who, in his lucid intervals, paints fairly\nwell, though with excessive minuteness of detail; but during his attacks\nthis minuteness is so far exaggerated as to become grotesque.\n\nNothing but an intense religious monomania could have inspired the\nsingular self-crucifixion of the Venetian shoemaker, Matteo Lovat. I\nhave been able to procure an authentic picture of this strange\nperformance which is reproduced below. Shortly afterwards Lovat died in\nan asylum.[316]\n\n[Illustration]\n\nOne patient, G----, was a poor peasant woman, utterly uneducated, in\nwhose family _pellagra_ and insanity were both hereditary. In the long\nisolation required by her state, she developed great skill (quite\nunknown before her illness) in embroidering on linen, with coloured\nthreads pulled from her clothing, an extraordinary number of figures,\nwhich were faithful representations of her delusions. Her autobiography\nis, so to speak, traced in this embroidery; in every piece of work she\nhas represented herself, sometimes struggling with the nurses or the\nnuns, sometimes herding cows, or occupied with other rustic work.\nElsewhere she would depict tables spread for meals, with an infinite\nvariety of accessories. But the most singular thing is that the outlines\nare drawn with a clearness which would be the envy of a professional\ncaricaturist; no shading whatever, four stitches, representing nose,\neyes, and mouth, were arranged with so much artistic judgment as to show\nclearly the individual expression of each face.\n\nAnother artist in the same line, though of less striking gifts, is a\ncertain I----, suffering from moral insanity, who shows numerous\ndegenerative symptoms. She, too, embroiders figures of men and women\nwith considerable skill, but always in harmony with her perverted sexual\ntendencies.[317]\n\n_Originality._--Disease often develops (as we have already seen in the\ncase of insane authors) an originality of invention which may also be\nobserved in mattoids, because their imagination, freed from all\nrestraint, allows of creations from which a more calculating mind would\nshrink, for fear of absurdity, and because intensity of conviction\nsupports and perfects the work.\n\nAt Pesaro there was a woman who drew, or embroidered, by a method\npeculiar to herself, unravelling cloth, and fastening the threads on\npaper by means of saliva.\n\nAnother embroideress, formerly given to drink, executed butterflies\nwhich seemed to be alive. She had applied to white embroidery the\nmethods of coloured work, and was able to produce marvellous effects of\nlight and shade.\n\nAt Macerata a patient, with a number of pipe-stems, constructed a model\nof the front of the asylum; another had the idea of representing a song\nin sculpture. At Genoa, a dementia patient carved pipes out of coal.\n\nOne Zanini, at Reggio, constructed a boot which was unique of its kind,\nso that, as he said, no one else should be able to put it on. This\nexceptional foot-gear was open on one side, and tied up with string, its\nedges were ornamental, and worked with hieroglyphics.\n\nM. L---- of Pesaro was constantly making requests to leave the asylum.\nWhen told that there was no means of transporting him to his home, he\nset about constructing one for himself. This was a four-wheeled cart,\nwith an upright pole, at the top of which was a pulley with a rope\nrunning through it. One end of the rope was fastened to the axle of the\nfore-wheels, the other to that of the hind-wheels. An elastic cord was\nattached to the rope for a distance of four or five centimetres, and by\npulling this, first at one end and then at the other, a person standing\non the cart was able to make the wheels go round.[318]\n\nIn many arabesques drawn by a megalomaniac, one can trace, carefully\nhidden among the curves, sometimes a ship, sometimes an animal, a human\nhead, or a railway train, or even landscapes and towns; though the\nessential character of arabesques is the absence of the human figure.\n\nThe best asylums of Italy have sent to the exhibitions of Siena and\nVoghera, models in relief of their respective buildings, admirably\nexecuted by some of the patients. That of the asylum at Reggio could be\ntaken to pieces, and showed the inside arrangements, staircases, rooms,\nwith their furniture, &c., all carefully finished. Even the trees, I am\ntold, were copied accurately from nature.\n\nA canon, who had no technical knowledge of architecture, began, after an\nattack of melancholia, to construct with cardboard and papier-m\u00e2ch\u00e9,\nmodels of temples and amphitheatres, which excited great admiration.\n\nDr. Virgilio has made me a present of some portraits of Italian\nspecialists, nearly all of them exceedingly lifelike, the work of a\nmelancholia patient. The note of originality only comes out in some\naccessory introduced into each picture, such as a fly, or a butterfly,\nrepeated persistently in every copy, or in the way in which the artist\u2019s\nname is worked into the painting, in vertical lines so as to form some\nsort of decorative ornament.\n\nA work of extreme though useless skill and originality is the\nself-crucifixion of Lovat, already mentioned.\n\n\u201cThe monomaniac, King Louis of Bavaria, was the first who entirely\nunderstood Wagner. His prodigality in spending money, and the creation\nof the theatre at Bayreuth--one of his most original conceptions--have\nbeen known for years, but the greatest manifestation of his genius is\nknown only to a few. Three castles, three palaces of splendid and\nindescribable beauty, rose from the earth, as if by enchantment. He\nsuperintended even the minutest details himself. King Louis\u2019s madness\nwas a dream with his eyes open. By himself, in the space of ten years,\nhe accomplished more than any twenty sovereigns, aided by the artistic\ngenius of the best ages. Certainly no one, at the present day, could\nproduce another such hall, 75 m\u00e8tres in length (without counting the two\nrooms at either end, which would bring the length up to 100 m\u00e8tres), a\ngallery illuminated by 17 great windows, 33 rock-crystal chandeliers, 44\ncandelabra, and who knows what else!\u201d[319]\n\n_Eccentricity._--But even originality ends by degenerating, in all, or\nnearly all, into mere eccentricity, which only seems logical when one\nenters into the idea of the delusion.\n\nSimon remarks that, in manias of persecution, and in paralytic\nmegalomania, the greater the mental disturbance the livelier the\nimagination, and the more grotesque the fancies engendered by it. He\nmentions the case of a painter, who declared that he could see the\ninterior of the earth, filled with houses of crystal, illuminated by\nelectric light, and pervaded by sweet odours. He described the city of\nEmma, whose inhabitants have two noses and two mouths--one for ordinary\nfood, the other for sweet things--a silver chin, golden hair, three or\nfour arms, and only one leg resting on a little wheel.[320]\n\nThese bizarre creations arise in great part from the strange\nhallucinations to which the patients are subject. We may see an example\nof this in the four-legged and seven-headed beasts painted by Lazzaretti\non his banners. A melancholiac made himself a cuirass of stones, to\ndefend himself against his enemies. Another would continue all day\ndrawing the map of the stains left by damp on the walls of his room.\nLater on it was discovered that he believed those lines to represent the\ntopography of the regions which God had given him to rule over on earth.\n\nThis is one of the reasons why, sometimes, greater excellence in art is\nfound in cases of dementia, than in those of mania or melancholia.\n\n_Symbolism._--Another characteristic trait of art in the insane is the\nmingling of inscriptions and drawings, and, in the latter, the abundance\nof symbols and hieroglyphics. All this closely recalls Japanese and\nIndian pictures, and the ancient wall-paintings of Egypt, and is due in\npart to the same cause at work in these--the need of helping out speech\nor picture, each powerless by itself to express a given idea with the\nrequisite energy.\n\nThis cause is very evident in a case communicated to me by Dr. Monti, in\nwhich an architectural design, though well and accurately drawn, was\nrendered incomprehensible by the numerous inscriptions, often in rhyme,\nwhich had been crowded into it by its author, an aphasiac, who had\nsuffered from dementia for fifteen years.\n\nIn some megalomaniacs this happens through the fancy they have for\nexpressing their ideas in a language different from that of ordinary\nhuman beings. Such was the case of the master of the world, fully\ntreated of elsewhere, by M. Toselli and myself.[321]\n\nThe patient in question was a peasant named G---- L----, 63 years of age,\nwith an easy and confident bearing, prominent cheek-bones, spacious\nforehead, and expressive and penetrating look. Cranial capacity 1544,\nindex 82, temperature, 37\u00b0 6\u00b4.\n\nIn the autumn of 1871 he became noted for vagrancy and excessive\nloquacity; he stopped the most notable persons of the village in public\nplaces, complaining of injustice which he alleged himself to have\nsuffered; he destroyed the vines, devastated the fields, and rushed\nabout the streets, threatening terrible vengeance.\n\nGradually he began to identify himself with the Deity, and believe\nhimself ruler of the universe, and preached in the Cathedral of Alba on\nhis lofty destiny. In the asylum he remained calm as long as he was able\nto believe that his power was recognized by every one, but at the first\nshow of opposition he threatened--in the character of ruler and\npersonification of the elements, calling himself sometimes the son,\nsometimes the brother, or at others the father of the sun--to convulse\nthe world with earthquakes, overthrow kingdoms and empires, and erect\nhis throne on the ruins. He was tired, he said, of keeping up so many\narmies, and providing for so many idle persons; it would be but just if\nthe authorities and the rich were at least to send him a large sum of\nmoney, to redeem themselves from what he called \u201cthe debts of death.\u201d In\nreturn for this payment he would allow them to live for ever. The poor\nought all to die, as useless persons, and it was preposterous that he\nhad to support so many madmen in his own palace. He therefore suggested\nto the doctor that it would be well to cut their heads off; yet he\nwaited on them with the greatest unselfishness when they were ill, an\ninconsistency which is among the characteristics of paranoia.\n\nHe usually bestowed his scanty earnings on some rogue whom he entrusted\nwith letters and commissions for the other world, addressed to the sun,\nthe stars, the weather, Death, the lightning, and other powers, whose\nhelp he was in the habit of invoking, and with whom he held confidential\nconversations at night. He was quite pleased when some calamity had\ndesolated the country, this being the beginning of the judgments\nthreatened by him, and a sign that the weather, the sun, or the\nlightning, had obeyed him.\n\nHe kept in a trunk some roughly-fashioned crowns which, he said, were\nthe true royal and imperial crowns of Italy, France, and other states.\nThose worn by the actual sovereigns of these states were no longer of\nany value, having been usurped by wretched men, doomed to speedy\ndestruction, unless they paid him their _debts of death_, in letters of\nexchange to the amount of several hundred millions.\n\nBut his most characteristic eccentricities were the writings in which\nhis delusion was manifested. Although able to read and write, he scorned\nthe use of the ordinary kind of writing, and, in a character of his own,\nscrawled letters, orders, and cheques, to the Sun, to Death, or to the\ncivil and military authorities. He always had his pockets full of these\ndocuments. His writing consisted mainly of large capital letters, mixed,\nat intervals, with signs and figures indicating objects or persons. The\nwords are usually separated by one or two large dots, and he only wrote\nsome of the letters of each word (nearly always the consonants) without\nany respect for the laws of syllabation. In some of his writings, the\nalphabet almost entirely disappears.\n\nFor instance, in order to demonstrate his effective power, he sketched a\nseries of rough figures representing the elements and powers which were\nhis familiar spirits,--the army ready, at a sign from him, to make war\non all terrestrial powers contending with him for the dominion of the\nworld. These are--1. The Eternal Father. 2. The Holy Spirit. 3. St.\nMartin. 4. Death. 5. Time. 6. Thunder. 7. Lightning. 8. Earthquake. 9.\nThe Sun. 10. The Moon. 11. Fire (his minister of war). 12. A very\npowerful man who has lived ever since the beginning of the world, and is\nG. L.\u2019s brother. 13. The Lion of Hell. 14. Bread. 15. Wine. The whole is\nfollowed of his usual signature--a two-headed eagle. Each of these\npowers is also indicated by letters placed beneath the figures, thus,\nthe 1st=P. D. E.; the 2nd=L. S. P. S., &c.\n\nThis mixture of letters, hieroglyphics, and figurative signs,\nconstitutes a kind of writing recalling the phonetico-ideographic stage\nthrough which primitive peoples (the Mexicans and Chinese certainly)\npassed, before the discovery of alphabetic writing.\n\nAmong the savages of America and Australia, writing consists in a more\nor less rough kind of painting; _e.g._, to indicate, \u201cwould that I had\nthe swiftness of a bird,\u201d they depict a man with wings instead of\narms.[322] These characters are not so much writing as aids to memory\nstill further connected together and vivified by traditional songs or\nstories.\n\nSome tribes, however, have attained to a somewhat less imperfect mode,\nwhich resembles our _rebus_; for instance, the Maya of America, to\nsignify a physician, painted a man with a herb in his hand and wings to\nhis feet; an evident allusion to the rapidity with which he is obliged\nto hasten to those who require him. Rain is represented by a\nbucket.[323]\n\nThe ancient Chinese represented _malice_ by means of three women,\n_light_ by the sun and moon, and the verb _to listen_ by an ear between\ntwo doors.\n\nThis primitive writing shows us that the rhetorical tropes and figures\nof which our pedants are so proud, are expressions of poverty rather\nthan wealth on the part of the intellect. In fact, they are frequently\nfound in the speech of idiots and of educated deaf-mutes.\n\nAfter having used this system for a considerable time, some more\ncivilised races, such as the Chinese and Mexicans, took another step\nforward. They classified the more or less picturesque figures referred\nto above, and succeeded in forming ingenious combinations which, without\ndirectly representing the idea, indirectly suggested a reminiscence of\nit, as in our charades. Besides this, to prevent any uncertainty on the\nreader\u2019s part, they placed either before or after these signs a sketch\nof the object to be expressed--a scanty remnant of the actual\npicture-writing of a previous age. This certainly took place at a time\nwhen--the language once being fixed--it was observed how some people, in\nwriting down a given sign, recalled the sound of the words which it\nsuggested. Thus Itzicoatl, the name of a Mexican king, was written by\ndrawing a serpent (Coatl, in Mexican) and a lance (Itzli); thus, too, in\nChinese, the character _tschen_ represents _boat_, _lance_, and\n_table_.[324]\n\nOur megalomaniac, by reviving this custom, affords one more proof that,\nin the visible manifestation of their thoughts, the insane frequently\nrevert (as also do criminals) to the prehistoric stage of civilization.\nIn the present case, it is quite easy to understand by what mental\nprocess G---- came to use this mode of writing. Under the megalomaniac\ndelusion, believing himself lord of the elements, superior to all known\nor imaginable forces, he could not make himself properly understood with\nthe common words of ignorant and incredulous men; neither could ordinary\nwriting suffice to express ideas so new and marvellous. The lion\u2019s\nclaws, the eagle\u2019s beak, the serpent\u2019s tongue, the lightning-flash, the\nsun\u2019s rays, the arms of the savage, were much worthier of him, and more\ncalculated to inspire men with fear and respect for his person.\n\nNor is this an isolated case. One quite analogous to it is described by\nRaggi in his excellent study of the writings of the insane. Prof.\nMorselli has furnished me with another and still more interesting\ninstance.\n\n\u201cThe patient A. T----\u201d he writes, \u201cwas a joiner and cabinet-maker; he\nhad a certain skill in wood-carving, and his furniture was much sought\nafter.[325] About seven years ago he was attacked with mental disease,\napparently melancholia, and tried to commit suicide by throwing himself\nfrom the roof of the town hall. He is now subject to attacks of\nexcitement with systematized delusions. His predominant ideas are\npolitical--republican and anarchist--on a certain groundwork of\nambition. He fancies himself changed into some great criminal; sometimes\nhe is Gasperone, sometimes Il Passatore, at others Passanante. He is\nalways drawing or carving, and his work generally takes the form of\ntrophies or allegorical figures.\n\n\u201cThe most curious of all these is a piece of carving which represents a\nman dressed as a soldier, provided with wings, and standing on an\ninlaid pedestal covered with allegorical inscriptions. This figure has a\ntrophy on its head, and other objects are carved on or around it, each\nof which expresses emblematically some one of T----\u2019s delusions. For\ninstance, the wings recall the fact that, when his first attack came on,\nhe was in the square at Porto Recanati, selling his carvings, among\nwhich were several figures of angels, at a soldo a-piece. The \u2018Medal of\nthe order of the Pig\u2019 is a token of contempt, wherewith he would like to\ndecorate all the rich and powerful of the earth. The helmet, with a\nlantern hanging to the vizor (a reminiscence of Offenbach\u2019s _Brigands_),\nsymbolises the gendarmes who escorted him to the asylum. The cigar\nplaced crosswise (note the position) represents his disdain for kings\nand tyrants; and the position of the leg recalls a fracture of that limb\nsustained by him in his attempt at suicide.\n\n\u201cThe inscriptions on the pedestal are scraps of verse or extracts from\nnewspapers which T---- is always quoting, and to which he attaches some\nmysterious significance. They always, however, refer to the state of\nslavery to which he is reduced (_i.e._, his detention in the asylum),\nand the vengeance he will one day wreak on his captors.\n\n\u201cThe most remarkable thing, however, is the trophy resting on the head\nof the figure, which is the graphic expression, so to speak, of a\nsong[326] either written by him or adapted from other popular poetry.\nEach phrase of the song has its symbol in the trophy. Thus the word\n_poison_ in the first verse is represented by the cup; the _two daggers_\nare likewise present; the _end of life_ and the _tomb_ are figured by a\nkind of sarcophagus or closed chest; _love_ by two sprays of flowers.\nThe _bell_ of the second stanza is easily recognisable; the _funereal\nmusic_ are the two trumpets crossed, lower down. The _cross_ of the\nthird stanza, and the _priest_ (represented by a clerical hat) are not\nforgotten. It is curious that the _gallows_ should be wanting to\ncomplete this trophy. The _spoon_ and _fork_, by the by, are T----\u2019s\nfavourite implements. They denote that he eats and drinks in slavery,\nor, as he says, in a convict-prison; and for this reason, he always\nwears a set, carved in wood by himself, in the button-hole of his coat,\nor in his cap.\u201d\n\nWe may once more remind the reader that savages hand down their history\nby associating picture-signs with poetry.\n\nA most interesting example of elaborate symbolic faculty in a\nmonomaniac, combined with higher artistic power than is usually found\namong the insane, has been recorded with very full illustrations by Dr.\nWilliam Noyes.[327] This patient studied art at Paris under G\u00e9rome and\nreturned to America to become an illustrator of books and magazines. He\ndeveloped systematic religious delusions, and frequently worked them out\nin very beautiful and artistic shapes, nine of which, all executed in\nthe asylum at which he was confined, are here reproduced. The circular\ndesign is one of a series of twelve charts (one for each of the tribes\nof Israel) illustrating the progress of the Holy Spirit. They were all\ndelicately coloured in water colours, the fine shading making it very\ndifficult to give in black and white an adequate idea of the beauty of\nthe original.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\u201cIn the centre is the dove representing the Holy Spirit, and surrounding\nit are seven different crosses [St. Andrew, St. Colomba, St. George, St.\nMichael, The Prophet, St. Evangeli, Royal Priesthood], and a close study\nwill show the seven crosses, most ingeniously worked together. It is\nprobable that in looking at the design closely for the first time one\nwill suddenly see a new cross take shape before his eyes, and this\nindeed is what the patient says occurs with him. In describing the\ncrosses he will say, for example, that in drawing the cross of St.\nAndrew the lines suddenly took a new shape and he found he had also\nmade a cross of St. Michael. This to him is a matter of deep\nsignificance, and he feels that, his work is directly controlled by a\nhigher power, and that the work of his fancy is really inspired.\n\n\u201cOutside these central crosses are the names of three ancient deities\nwho were each characterized by some special attribute, and under these\nthe parts of the body that the artist conceives these deities especially\nto have represented, and then comes the name of the Biblical personage\nin whom these elements were finally exemplified and embodied. To the\nleft of the dove is Venus, representing Blood, exemplified in Moses;\nabove is Osiris, representing Flesh, embodied in Adam; and to the right\nPsyche, representing Water, typified in Noah. These three are but the\ngross and material parts of Man, representing indeed necessary steps in\nhis progress through life, but secondary and subordinate to the higher\npart of his nature represented by Truth and the Spirit--which receive\ntheir ultimate embodiment in _Christ_.\n\n\u201cThe Lion denotes Might, and the Eagle signifies Emulation; but it is\nuncertain just what symbolism is connected with the serpent twining\nround the cross, and the open book crossed by a sword and pen, unless\nindeed this last may mean the Bible with the emblems of peace and war\nlying quietly within it, and it seems not unlikely that the serpent is\nemblematic of the Betrayal. For the rest of the design, however, we need\nmake no inferences, as it corresponds closely with his description.\n\n\u201cOutside of the circle enclosing the crosses are the seals, sealing the\nHoly Spirit. In the large light triangles, or rather rays of the sun,\nare given the names of the twelve apostles, forming the Seal of the\nProphet. Above these, in the same space, are the signs of the zodiac in\nthe extreme points of the triangle, with the names of the parts of the\nbody underneath, that these signs correspond to in the ancient\nmythology; this forms the Seal of the Zodiac. Between these large light\ncoloured triangles are the twelve holy stones, represented as ovals, and\nwith their names plainly distinguished in the cut, making the Seal of\nthe Holy Stones. In the small triangles directly above the Holy Stones\nare given the names of the twelve tribes of Israel, but the colour of\nthese in the chart (vermilion) is such that the lettering does not come\nout in the photographic negative. This gives the Seal of the Twelve\nTribes. Directly beneath the Holy Stones, filling in the space between\nthe bottom of each large triangle, is the Seal of the Germ, coloured\ndark green, and running down on each side of the top of these large\ntriangles are small triangles, coloured dark red and forming the Seal of\nthe Aceldama or Bloody Seal. On the circumference are the names of the\nconstellations of the zodiac, and directly under these the names of the\ncorresponding months of the year, and under these again are the\nmythological representations of the constellations, Leo (July) being at\nthe top, and then in order to the right come Virgo (August), Libra\n(September), Scorpio (October), Sagittarius (November), Capricornus\n(December), Aquarius (January), Pisces (February), Aries (March), Taurus\n(April), Gemini (May), Cancer (June). This gives the last sealing of the\nSeed, the Seal of the Sun.\n\n\u201cIt will be seen that beginning at the circumference at any point and\ngoing toward the centre there is a complete astronomical representation\nof the season of the year, first the name of the constellation, then in\nsuccession the month, the constellation depicted pictorially, the sign\nof the zodiac and the part of the human body corresponding in the old\nastronomy to this sign of the zodiac.\u201d\n\nOf the four designs reproduced together, the first, the Shechinah, or\nLight of Love, represents that miraculous light or visible glory which\nwas to the Jews a symbol of the Divine presence; the second represents\nthe angel Sandalphon with the Holy Grail at the side and the letters\nAlpha and Omega at top (the design must be inverted to make out the\nOmega); the third, Sub Rosa, and the fourth, Imp and Frogs, are graceful\nfancies which sufficiently explain themselves, as does the Witch.\n\nWhile working on these sketches, he made at the same time the design for\na book-plate, representing Cupid learning the alphabet, and the entire\ndesign, he says, is full of symbolism--a favourite word with him. Cupid\nhas his finger on _Alpha_, signifying the beginning of his education;\nabove the book is Cupid\u2019s target, with a heart for\n\n[Illustration: SHECHINAH.]\n\n[Illustration: SANDALPHON.]\n\n[Illustration: SUB ROSA.]\n\n[Illustration: IMP AND FROGS.]\n\nthe centre, that he has pierced with an arrow, while the full quiver\nstands to the right. The curious fish under the _Veritas_ represents the\n\u0399\u03a7\u0398\u03a5\u03a3 of the early Christians, while three crosses, symbolic\nof the Christian religion, are in the upper left-hand corner, brought\nout by heavy shading of the cross lines. On the book of knowledge is\nperched the dove, emblematic of purity, while the olive branch at the\nleft of the book and the palm under the Fool\u2019s Bauble give still other\nreligious symbols. The lamp of knowledge is burning brightly in front of\nCupid, while at his feet are the square, compass, triangle, and pencils,\nsymbolizing the designer\u2019s profession.\n\n_Minuteness of Detail._--In some insane artists, especially monomaniacs,\nwe find an opposite characteristic--the exaggeration of particular\ndetails--the general effect being lost in obscurity through their\nexcessive efforts after verisimilitude. Thus, in a landscape exhibited\namong those rejected from the Turin _salon_, not only was a general view\nof the country given, but every separate blade of grass could be\ndistinguished. In another picture, intended to be very imposing, the\nstrokes of the brush produced the effect of pencil shading.\n\n[Illustration: THE WITCH.]\n\n_Atavism._--Both minuteness and symbolism are themselves atavistic\nphenomena; but, in addition to them, there may be noted (in a large\nnumber of cases) a\n\n[Illustration: ARABESQUES BY PARANOIAC ARTIST.]\n\ntotal absence of perspective, while the rest of the execution shows\nclearly enough that the author is not wanting in artistic sense. One\nwould take him to be a true artist, but one brought up in China or\nancient Egypt. Here we have evidently a kind of atavism explicable by\narrested development of some one organ, and a corresponding backwardness\nin the products of that organ. A French captain, suffering from\nparalysis, drew figures stiff as Egyptian profiles. A megalomaniac of\nReggio executed a coloured bas-relief, in which the disproportionate\nsize of the feet and hands, the extreme smallness of the faces, and the\nstiffness of the limbs, completely recall the work of the thirteenth\ncentury. Another patient, at Genoa, carved bas-reliefs on pipes and on\nvases, exactly similar to those of the Neolithic Age.\n\nRaggi has sent me some flints carved by a monomaniac entirely ignorant\nof arch\u00e6ology, which, in the choice of figures and emblems, recall the\nstyle of Egyptian and Ph\u0153nician amulets. In these instances we see the\ninfluence of similar psychical conditions at work.\n\n_Arabesques._--In some few patients, M. Toselli has called my attention\nto a singular predilection for arabesques and ornaments which tend to\nassume a purely geometric form, without loss of elegance. This is the\ncase with monomaniacs; in cases of dementia and acute mania there\nprevails a chaotic confusion, which, however, does not always imply\nabsence of taste. I have seen an instance of this in a kind of ship, the\nwork of a dementia patient, composed of an enormous number of little\nslips of wood, brilliantly coloured, very thin, and intertwined in an\ninfinite variety of ways, the general effect being very graceful.\n\n_Obscenity._--In some work done by erotomaniacs, paralytics, and\ndemented patients, the salient characteristic, both of the drawings and\nof the verses, is the most shameless indecency. Thus a cabinet-maker\nwould carve virile members at every corner of a piece of furniture, or\nat the summits of trees. This, too, recalls many works of savages and of\nancient races, in which the organs of sex are everywhere prominent. A\ncaptain at Genoa was fond of drawing scenes in a brothel. In many the\nobscene character is marked by the most singular pretexts, as though it\nwere demanded by artistic requirements. A monomaniac priest used to\nsketch his figures nude, and then artfully drape them by means of lines\nwhich revealed the generative organs. He defended himself against\ncriticism by saying that his figures could only appear indecent to those\nwho were in search of evil.\n\nM---- illustrated his strange and often beautiful verses with\ninnumerable daubs, representing animals of monstrous forms struggling\nwith men and women, or monks and nuns, naked, in the most shameless\nattitudes.\n\nIn others the indecency is, if possible, still more evident, especially\nin cases of paralytic dementia. I remember an old man who used to draw a\nvulva on the address of his letters to his wife, surrounding it with\nobscene couplets in dialect.\n\nIt is a curious coincidence that two artists--one at Turin and the other\nat Reggio--who were both megalomaniacs, should both have had sodomitic\ninstincts, which they combined with the delusion of being deities, and\nlords of the world, which they had created and emitted from their\nbodies. One of them (who, nevertheless, had a real artistic sense)\npainted a full-length picture of himself, naked, among women, ejecting\nworlds, and surrounded by all the symbols of power. This repeats, and at\nthe same time explains, the Ithyphallic divinity of the Egyptians.\n\n_Criminality and Moral Insanity._--In this connection it is important to\nnotice that the greater number of these artists show, in addition to\ntheir other forms of mania, a marked tendency to moral insanity,\nespecially in the form of unnatural vice. The painter who produced the\npicture of \u201cDelirium\u201d was a pederast. The man who constructed the\nmarvellous model of the Reggio Asylum, already alluded to, was neither\ndraughtsman, sculptor, nor engineer. He was a madman, and, in addition,\na thief, with unnatural tendencies. This man, whenever the fancy took\nhim, escaped from the asylum, wandered about for some days, began to\nsteal when he had exhausted the small amount of money he had about him,\nand when imprisoned declared himself a lunatic, and so got acquitted\nand sent back to Reggio, when, after a short interval, he would repeat\nthe same line of conduct.\n\nDr. Tamburini told me that he, too, had been struck by the co-existence\nof artistic faculty and moral insanity in these patients.\n\n_Uselessness._--A characteristic common to many is the complete\nuselessness of the work to which they devote themselves; and here I\nrecall once more H\u00e9cart\u2019s dictum:--\n\n    \u201c_C\u2019est le travail des fous d\u2019\u00e9puiser leurs cervelles_\n     _Sur des riens fatigants, sur quelques bagatelles._\u201d[328]\n\nA Genevan, affected by persecutory monomania, spent years in\nembroidering on egg-shells and lemons. Though her work was most\nbeautiful, it could be of no advantage to her, for she kept it jealously\nconcealed; and I myself, though she was very fond of me, never saw any\nof it till after her death.\n\nHere we have, as in the case of artists of genius, the love of truth and\nbeauty for their own sake alone, only that the aim is reversed.\n\nSometimes the work done, though very useful in itself, is of no\nadvantage to the artist, and has no connection with his profession. Thus\na captain, who had become insane, presented me with the model of a bed\nfor violent patients, which, I believe, would be extremely useful in\npractice. Two other patients, together, made, out of a piece of\nbeef-bone, some very neat match-boxes, ornamented with carvings in\nrelief, which could be of no profit to themselves, since they refused to\npart with them for money.\n\nThere are, however, some exceptions. A melancholiac patient, with\nhomicidal and suicidal tendencies, manufactured himself a very\nserviceable knife, fork, and spoon--metal ones not being allowed\nhim--out of the bones which remained over from his dinner. A caf\u00e9-keeper\nat Colligno, a megalomaniac, compounded excellent liqueurs out of the\nscraps left over from meals, though of the most different kinds of food.\nA criminal lunatic constructed himself a key out of a number of small\npieces of wood joined together. I do not count among these examples\nthose who have prepared themselves real cuirasses of iron and stone--a\npiece of work in relation to the special delusion of persecutions, and\nimplying an amount of labour out of proportion to the advantage\nobtained.\n\n[Illustration: DELIRIUM.]\n\n_Insanity as a subject._--Many choose insanity as the subject of their\npaintings. Professor Virgilio has furnished me with a very curious\nportrait of an insane patient at the moment of attack--the eyes rolling,\nthe hair on end, the arms extended. Under his feet is the epigraph:\n\u201c_Delira_\u201d (\u201cHe is raving\u201d). This is the work of an alcoholic pederast.\n\nI think that a sane artist would have some difficulty in painting a\ncloser likeness of delirium. This reminds me how frequently I have\nfound, among the poets of asylums, the tendency to describe insanity;\nand it has been a favourite theme with great poets who have suffered\nfrom ill-health--Tasso, Lenau, Barbara, Musset. Mancini, immediately\nafter his recovery, painted a woman offering for sale the picture\nexecuted by a madman; and Gill, in the hospital of Sainte-Anne, painted\na raving maniac with terrible truth to nature.[329]\n\n_Absurdity._--One of the most salient characteristics of insane art is,\nas might be expected, absurdity, either in drawing or colouring. This is\nespecially noteworthy in some maniacs, owing to the exaggerated\nassociation of ideas, through which the connecting links (which would\nserve to explain the author\u2019s conception) are totally lost. Thus, an\nartist painted a \u201cMarriage at Cana,\u201d with all the figures of the\napostles exceedingly well drawn; but in place of the figure of Christ\nwas a large bunch of flowers.\n\nParalytic patients draw objects without any sense of proportion; their\nhens are the size of horses, and their cherries of melons; or, while\nstriving after perfection in the design, the execution is merely\nchildish. One, who believed himself a second Horace Vernet, drew horses\nby means of four straight strokes and a tail.[330] Another drew all his\nfigures upside down. Other dementia patients, owing to the same amnesia\nwhich is apparent in their speech, leave out the most essential points\nof their conception, like M---- at Pesaro, who made an excellent drawing\nof a general, seated, but forgot the chair. (Frigerio.)\n\n_Imitation._--There are some who are very successful in imitation, but\ncan produce nothing original; they will, for instance, copy the _fa\u00e7ade_\nof the asylum, or heads of animals, with the minute accuracy of detail\nwhich characterizes primitive art. In this branch I have seen successful\nwork done by cretins and idiots, the latter drawing in exactly the same\nmanner as primitive man.\n\n_Uniformity._--Many continually repeat the same idea; thus one,\nmentioned by Frigerio, filled sheets of paper with a bee gnawing the\nhead of an ant; another, who believed that he had been shot, would paint\nnothing but fire-arms; a third confined himself to arabesques.\n\n_Summary._--These traits explain the instances of partial perfection to\nbe found in dementia patients; for a repetition of the same movement\ntends to bring it nearer and nearer to perfection. At other times, as we\nhave seen in the extempore poets and authors of the asylum, it is the\ntenacity and energy of the hallucinations which makes a painter of a man\nwho was never one before. Blake was able to picture to himself, as\nliving and present, persons already dead, angels, &c. This was the case,\nalso, with the strange insane poet, John Clare, who believed himself a\nspectator of the Battle of the Nile, and the death of Nelson; and was\nfirmly convinced that he had been present at the death of Charles I. In\nfact, he described these events with such remarkable fidelity and\naccuracy, that it is scarcely probable he could have done it so well had\nhe been in full possession of his reason--the more so, as he was\nentirely without culture.[331] This explains why insane painters and\npoets are so numerous. It is easy to reproduce clearly what one sees\nclearly. Moreover, the imagination is most unrestrained when reason is\nleast dominant; for the latter, by repressing hallucinations and\nillusions, deprives the average man of a true source of artistic and\nliterary inspiration.\n\nFor the same reason, too, art itself, may, in its turn, encourage the\ndevelopment of mental disease. Vasari relates that one Spinelli, a\npainter of Arezzo, having attempted to paint the deformity of Lucifer,\nthe latter appeared to him in a dream and reproached him with having\nmade him so ugly. The painter was so affected by this apparition as to\nfall seriously ill; and it continued to haunt him for years.[332]\n\n_Music in the Insane._--Musical ability is often diminished in those\nwho, previous to their illness, cultivated this art with passion. Dr.\nAdriani observed that musicians, under his care for insanity, almost\nentirely lost their powers. They could still play any piece, but it was\ndone quite mechanically and without expression. Other dementia patients\nwould play the same piece, sometimes even a few phrases, over and over\nagain.\n\nDonizetti, in the last stage of dementia, no longer recognized his\nfavourite melodies. His last works show traces of that fatal influence\nwhich critics have also observed in Schumann\u2019s symphony of the \u201cBride of\nMessina,\u201d composed during his attacks of insanity.[333]\n\nThese facts, however, do not contradict our assertion that insanity\nawakens new artistic qualities in persons not previously gifted in that\nway; they only show that (as we have seen in the case of professional\npainters) it can give no additional power or skill to those who already\npossessed them when attacked by disease.\n\nA megalomaniac--formerly a syphilitic patient--under the care of Dr.\nTamburini, sang beautiful airs when under excitement, at the same time,\ninstead of playing an accompaniment, she improvised, on the pianoforte,\ntwo distinct motives which had no connection with each other or the air\nshe was singing. This fact confirms the observations of Luys as to the\nindependent action of the cerebral hemispheres.\n\nA young man attacked by _pellagra_, who recovered in my hospital,\ncomposed expressive and original melodies.\n\nM. Raggi told me that he had had under his care a melancholic patient\nwho, during her attacks, played without enthusiasm, and even with\nrepugnance, but, when the fit passed off, would spend whole days at the\npiano, and execute the most difficult _partitions_ with a truly artistic\nenthusiasm. In the same way, a paralytic showed, through the whole\ncourse of his illness, a genuine musical mania, during which he imitated\nall instruments, and agitated himself, in frantic enthusiasm, at the\n_piano_ passages.\n\nRaggi also observed a paralytic dementia patient who, after breaking his\nthigh-bone by a leap from a window, rendered every bandage which could\nbe devised useless by singing, for days together, motives from _Il\nTrovatore_ at the top of his voice, and accompanying his singing with\nabrupt rhythmical movements of the pelvis. A fancy for monotonous\nchanting also showed itself in another paralytic, who believed himself\nto be a great admiral.\n\nIn maniacs, acute and joyous notes predominate, and, still more, the\nrepetition of the rhythm.\n\nEvery one who has paid even a short visit to an asylum has noticed the\nfrequency of singing and shouting and \u201chigh and thin voices, and with\nthem a sound of hands.\u201d[334] Nor is it hard to understand this, if we\nremember how Spencer and Ardig\u00f2 have shown that the law of rhythm is the\nmost general form under which, in the whole of nature, energy is\nmanifested, from the crystal to the star, or to the animal organism.\nMan, therefore, only follows a general organic law in giving way to this\nimpulse, which he does the more readily the less he is controlled by\nreason. This explains the number of poets of the new school who are\nfound in asylums. This is the reason why savage nations have a natural\ninclination for music; and a missionary told Spencer that many to whom\nhe taught the Psalms, with music, in the evening, could repeat them by\nheart on the following day.\n\nSavages, in speaking, make use of a sort of monotonous chant analogous\nto our recitative. Primitive poetry was always sung, whence all the\ndifferent words connected with singing applied to poetry and poets. The\nmysterious magic formulas and recipes of the ancients[335] were also\nsung, or chanted, whence the word \u201cenchantment.\u201d Even at the present\nday, in the neighbourhood of Novi and Oulx, I have heard peasant-women,\nin making inquiries of one another, modulate their voices in true\nmusical rhythm. Modern _Improvvisatori_ do not seem able to produce\ntheir verses except when singing, and agitating all their muscles.\n\nIt must be remembered that, according to the observations of Herbert\nSpencer,[336] \u201cthe act of singing employs and exaggerates the signs of\nthe natural language of passion. Mental excitement is transformed into\nmuscular energy. An infant will laugh and bound in its nurse\u2019s arms at\nthe sight of a brilliant colour, or the hearing of a new sound.\u201d Strong\nsensations or painful emotions cause us to gesticulate; in short, they\nexcite the muscular system, which is acted upon in proportion to the\nintensity of the sensations. Slight pain calls forth a groan, greater\npain a cry: the pitch of the voice varies with the force of the emotion,\nso that, in the strongest emotions, it rises to the octave, or higher;\nand singing is always involuntarily accompanied by tremors and\nagitations of the muscles.\n\nWhat could be more natural than that, in the conditions in which the\nemotions are most energetic, and so frequently atavistic, as is the case\nin insanity, these tendencies should be reproduced on a larger scale?\n\nThis, too, explains why so many morbid men of genius should be\nmusicians: Mozart, Schumann, Beethoven, Donizetti, Pergolese, Fenicia,\nRicci, Rocchi, Rousseau, Handel, Dussek, Hoffmann, Gl\u00fcck, Petrella.[337]\nMusical creation is the most subjective manifestation of thought, the\none most intimately connected with the affective emotions, and having\nless relation to the external world than any other, which causes it to\nstand more in need of the fervent but exhausting emotions of\ninspiration.\n\nPerhaps the study of these peculiarities of art in the insane, besides\nshowing us a new phase in this mysterious disease, might be useful in\n\u00e6sthetics, or at any rate in art-criticism, by showing that an\nexaggerated predilection for symbols, and for minuteness of detail\n(however accurate), the complication of inscriptions, the excessive\nprominence given to any one colour (it is well known that some of our\nforemost painters are great sinners in this respect), the choice of\nlicentious subjects, and even an exaggerated degree of originality, are\npoints which belong to the pathology of art.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nLITERARY AND ARTISTIC MATTOIDS.\n\n     Definition--Physical and psychical characteristics--Their literary\n     activity--Examples--Lawsuit mania--Mattoids of genius--Bosisio--The\n     _d\u00e9cadent_ poets--Verlaine--Mattoids in art.\n\n\nWe have just been considering, in madmen, the substantial character of\ngenius under the appearance of insanity. There is, however, a variety of\nthese, which permits the appearance of genius and the substantial\ncharacter of the average man; and this variety forms the link between\nmadmen of genius, the sane, and the insane properly so called. These are\nwhat I call semi-insane persons or mattoids.\n\nThis variety constitutes, in the world of mental pathology, a particular\nspecies of a genus distinguished by Maudsley as \u201codd, queer, strange\u201d\npersons of insane temperament, and previously by Morel. Legrand du\nSaulle, and Sch\u00fcle (_Geisteskrankheit_, ii., 1880) regard them as\n_hereditary neurotics_, Raggi as _neuropathics_, and now many as\n_paranoiacs_--a terminology which produces a hopeless confusion.\n\nThe graphomaniac, representing the commonest variety, has true negative\ncharacteristics--that is to say, the features and cranial form are\nnearly always normal (Bosisio, Cianchettini, F----, P----, &c.). His\ncharacteristics are not the result of heredity; at most, he is the son\nof a man of genius (Flourens, Broussais, Spandri, Knester, &c.). This\nform of aberration is most frequently found in men; I only know of one\nexception in Europe--Louise Michel--and it appears more especially in\ngreat cities, worn out with civilization. The mattoid shows far fewer\nsigns of degeneracy than the insane properly so called:--Of 33 mattoids\nonly 21 showed degenerative characters, and of these last 12 had 2, 2\nwere found to have 3, there were 2 with 4, and only 1 with 6.\n\nAnother negative characteristic is the survival of family affection, and\neven of that for the human race in general, sometimes reaching such a\npoint as to become exaggerated altruism; though, in many cases, vanity\nenters largely into the composition of this virtue. Thus Bosisio thinks\nof and provides for the well-being of posterity, and even of the dead.\nThus D---- loves his wife and grandchildren, and constantly works for\nhis family; Cianchettini supported a deaf and dumb sister; Sbarbaro,\nLazzaretti, Coccapieller, adored their wives.\n\nIn prison, a few days ago, I had occasion to perform the operation of\nblood-transfusion, and wasted much time in trying to find a healthy\nindividual from whom to take the blood. All refused; but a consumptive\nmattoid, as soon as he heard of the matter, volunteered for the\noperation, and was overwhelmed with shame when I would not make use of\nhim.\n\nThey have an exaggerated conviction of their own personal merit and\nimportance, with the peculiar characteristic that this opinion shows\nitself rather in writing than in words or actions, so that they do not\nshow irritation at the contradictions and evils of practical life.\n\nCianchettini compares himself to Galileo and to Jesus Christ; but sweeps\nthe barrack-stairs. Passanante proclaims himself President of the\nPolitical Society while working as a cook. Mangione classified himself\nas a martyr to Italy and to his own genius; yet he condescended to act\nas a broker. Caissant claimed to be a cardinal, but, in the meantime, he\nwas a clever parasite, and made large profits through his very insanity.\nThe shepherd Bluet believed himself to be an apostle and count of\nPermission, and, like the author of _Scottatinge_, deigned to address\nhimself to none but royal personages. Yet he did not refuse to carry on\nthe trade of a horse-breaker.\n\nStewart, the eccentric author of the _New System of Physical\nPhilosophy_, who travelled all over the world to discover the polarity\nof truth, asserted that all the kings of the earth had entered into an\nalliance to destroy his works. He therefore gave the latter to his\nfriends, with the request to wrap them up well, and bury them in remote\nlocalities,--never revealing the latter, except on their death-beds.\nMartin Williams--brother of that Jonathan Williams, who, in an attack of\ninsanity, set fire to York Minster, and of John Williams who struck out\na new line in painting--published many works to prove the theory of\nperpetual motion. After having convinced himself by means of thirty-six\nexperiments of the impossibility of demonstrating it scientifically, it\nwas revealed to him in a dream that God had chosen him to discover the\ngreat cause of all things, and perpetual motion; and this he made the\nsubject of many works.[338]\n\nThese persons would not come under the heading of mattoids, if, in their\nwritings, the earnestness and persistence in one idea which make them\nresemble the monomaniac and the man of genius, were not often associated\nwith the pursuit of absurdity, continual contradictions, and the\nprolixity and utility of insanity. One tendency overpowers all\nothers--one which we find predominant in insane genius: viz., personal\nvanity. Thus, out of 215 mattoids, we find forty-four prophets.\n\nFilopanti, in the _Dio Liberale_, places his father Berillo, a\ncarpenter, and his mother Berilla among the demigods. He discovered\nthree Adams, and gives a minute narrative, year by year, of the actions\nof each. Cordigliani prepared to insult the Chamber of Deputies in order\nto obtain an annuity from the Government, and thought this action much\nto his own credit. Guiteau thought he was saving the Republic by the\nmurder of the President, and had himself called a great lawyer and\nphilosopher. In the same way Passanante, after having preached the\nabolition of capital punishment, condemns the guilty members of the\nAssembly to death; and, after having given orders to \u201crespect the forms\nof government,\u201d insults the monarchy, makes an attempt at regicide, and\nproposes to \u201cabolish all misers and hypocrites.\u201d\n\nA physician, S----, prints a statement that blood-letting exposes to an\nexcess of light, another announces in two thick volumes, that _diseases\nare elliptical_.\n\nCritics have said, referring to the works of D\u00e9mons, that his Dialectic\nQuintessence and sextessence are a true quintessence of absurdity.[339]\nGleizes affirms that flesh is atheistical. Fuzi (a theologian) asserts\nthat the menstrual blood has the property of quenching conflagrations.\n\nHannequin, who used to write in the air with his fingers, and had an\n_aromal trumpet_, by means of which he communicated with the spirits\ndispersed through the air, declares that in the future age many men\nshall become women and demigods.\n\nHenrion, at the Acad\u00e9mie des Inscriptions, advanced the theory that Adam\nwas forty feet in height, Noah twenty-nine, Moses twenty-five, &c.\n\nLeroux, the celebrated Paris Deputy, who believed in metempsychosis and\nthe cabbala, defined love as \u201cthe ideality of the reality of a part of\nthe totality of the Infinite Being,\u201d &c., and wished to insert the\nprinciple of the _triad_ in the preamble of his Constitution.\n\nAsgill maintained that men might live for ever, if only they had faith.\n\nIt is true that, here and there, some new and vigorous notion emerges\nfrom the chaos of such minds, because the only symptom of genius\ndeveloped in them by psychosis is a less degree of aversion to novelty,\nor, to employ my own terminology, of misoneism.[340] Thus, for example,\namid the most absurd opinions, Cianchettini has some very fine passages:\n\n\u201cAll animals have the instinct of self-preservation, with the minimum of\nfatigue, of escaping from troublesome thoughts, and of enjoying the\ndelights of life; and to obtain these things, liberty is indispensable\nto them.\n\n\u201cAll animals, except man, gratify and always have gratified these\ninstincts, and perhaps will always continue to do so. Mankind alone,\nconstituted as a society, find themselves fettered, and in such a Way\nthat no one has ever succeeded, not merely in bringing them into a state\nof peace and liberty, but even in showing how they may attain this end.\n\n\u201cWell--I propose to demonstrate this proposition. And, as a locked door\ncannot be opened without breaking it, save by means of a key or a\npick-lock; so, as man has lost his liberty by means of the tongue,\nnothing but the tongue, or its equivalents, can set him free without\ninjury to his nature.\u201d\n\nAmid the doggerel jargon of the _Scottatinge_, I find this beautiful\nline on Italy--\n\n    \u201c_Padrona e schiava sempre, ai figli tuoi nemica._\u201d[341]\n\nWe shall see, in Passanante\u2019s biography, that sometimes, in his writings\nand still more in his speeches, he struck out vigorous and original\nideas which, in fact, led many persons into error as to the nature and\nreality of his disease. I may mention the sentence, \u201cWhere the learned\nlose themselves, the ignorant man may triumph,\u201d--and another, \u201cHistory\nlearnt from the people is more instructive than that which is studied in\nbooks.\u201d Bluet distinguishes \u201cthe maid from the virgin, in that the first\nhas the will for evil without the power, and the second has neither the\npower nor the will.\u201d\n\nIt is natural that mattoids should repeat in their conceptions the ideas\nof stronger politicians and thinkers, but always in their own way, and\nalways exaggerated. Thus Bosisio exaggerates the delicate consideration\nof our lovers of animals, and anticipates the ideas of Mlle. Cl\u00e9mence\nRoyer and Comte on the necessity for the application of the Malthusian\ntheory. In the same way, Detomasi, a dishonest broker, discovered a\npractical application (except for the morbid eroticism which he added to\nit) of the Darwinian system of natural selection. Cianchettini wishes to\nput Socialism into practice.\n\nBut the stamp of insanity is evident, not so much in the exaggeration of\ntheir ideas, as in the disproportion of the latter among themselves; so\nthat, from some well-expressed and even sublime conception, we pass\nsuddenly to one which is more than mediocre and paradoxical, nearly\nalways opposed to the received ideas of the majority, and at variance\nwith the position and education of the author. In short, we have that by\nmeans of which Don Quixote, instead of extorting our admiration, makes\nus smile. Yet his actions, in another age, and even in a different man,\nwould have been admirable and heroic. In any case, among mattoids,\ntraits of genius are rather the exception than the rule.[342]\n\nMost of them show a deficiency rather than an exuberance of inspiration;\nthey fill entire volumes, without sense or savour; they eke out the\ncommonplaceness of their ideas and the poverty of their style with a\nmultitude of points of interrogation and exclamation, with repeated\nsignatures, with special words coined by themselves, as is the habit of\nmonomaniacs; thus Menke already observed that some mattoids contemporary\nwith himself had invented the words _derapti felisan_. Berbiguier\ncreated the word _farfiderism_. A monomaniac, Le Bardier, wrote a work\nentitled _Dominatmosfheri_ intended to show farmers how to obtain double\nharvests, and sailors to avoid storms. He entitled himself\n_Dominatmosfherifateur_.[343] Cianchettini invented the _travaso_ of the\nidea; Pari invented _cafungaia_, and _morbozoo_, and we owe to Wahltuch,\n_alitrologia_ and _anthropomognotologia_, and to G---- _lepidermocrinia_\nand _glossostomopatica_.\n\nWe often find an eccentric handwriting, with vertical lines cut by\nhorizontal ones and transverse furrows, even with unusually-formed\nletters, as in Cianchettini.\n\nThey frequently introduce drawings into their sentences, as if to\nheighten their force, thus returning (as we have already seen to be the\ncase with megalomaniacs) to the ideographic writing of the ancients, in\nwhich the figure served as a determining symbol.\n\nWahltuch published two books on Psychography, a new kind of philosophic\nsystem which, however, has found a serious commentator in a sane\nphilosopher--which speaks volumes for the seriousness of some\nphilosophers. According to this system, ideas are represented by so many\nimages impressed on each of the cerebral convolutions. Thus the symbol\nof Physics is a lighted candle; that of alitrology, or the faculty of\njudgment, is the nose (or the sense of smell); of ethics, a ring; and of\nmotion, a fishing-hook. The author, despairing (and with good reason) of\nmaking himself understood in words, philosophises with his pencil, and\nhas crammed his book with diagrams of brains covered with such\nfigurative signs.\n\nIn order to prove the applicability of these principles to literature,\nhe has presented us with a tragedy--_Job_--in which the characters have\ntheir heads covered with similar signs, and chant verses worthy of the\nsystem, _e.g._, \u201cO that I could separate the two united conceptions of\nmyself and impiety. I am just. Satan is impious.\u201d[344]\n\nThe Jesuit missionary, Paoletti, wrote a book against St. Thomas, and\nillustrated it with a drawing of the vessels used in the Tabernacle, so\nas to determine the future condition of the sons of Adam with regard to\npredestination. The Divine and human wills are figured as two balls\nrevolving in opposite directions, and finally meeting at a common\ncentre.\n\nThe titles of all their works show an exuberance which is really\nsingular. I possess one of eighteen lines, not counting a note included\nin the title-page itself, and intended to explain it. A socialistic work\npublished in Australia, by an Italian, and in pure Italian, has a title\narranged in the shape of a triumphal arch.\n\nIt is precisely in the title-page that nearly all of them at once betray\nthe taint of madness. This example--from the work of the mattoid\nD\u00e9mons--will suffice: \u201cThe demonstration of the fourth part of nothing\nis something; everything is the quintessence extracted from the quarter\nof nothing and that which depends on it, containing the precepts of the\nholy, magic, and devout invocations of D\u00e9mons, to discover the origin of\nthe evils which afflict France.\u201d\n\nMany have the crotchet of mixing up with their sentences accumulated\nseries of numbers, which is also sometimes done by paralytics. In a mad\nproduction of Sovbira\u2019s, entitled \u201c666,\u201d all the verses are accompanied\nby the number 666. The strange thing is that, at the same time, a\ncertain Porter, in England, had published a work on the number 666,\ndeclaring it the most exquisite and perfect of numbers.[345] Lazzaretti,\ntoo, had a singular partiality for this number. Spandri, Levron, and\nC---- have a similar preference for the number 3. A special\ncharacteristic found in mattoids, and also, as we have already seen, in\nthe insane, is that of repeating some words or phrases hundreds of times\nin the same page. Thus, in one of Passanante\u2019s chapters, the word\n_riprovate_ occurs about 143 times.\n\nSome have had special paper manufactured for their works, like Wirgman,\nwho had it made with different colours on the same sheet, at an enormous\nincrease of expense, so that a volume of four hundred pages cost him\nover \u00a32,200 sterling. Filon had every page of his book of a different\ncolour.\n\nAnother characteristic is that of employing an orthography and\ncaligraphy peculiar to themselves, with words in large type or\nunderlined. They will sometimes write even private letters in double\ncolumn, or with vertical lines traversed by horizontal and sometimes by\ndiagonal ones. They sometimes underline one letter in preference to\nothers in the same word (Passanante), or they write in detached verses\nlike those of the Bible, or introduce points after every two or three\nwords, as in the MS. (in my possession) of a certain Bellone, or\nparentheses, even one within the other, as Madrolle used to do, or notes\nupon notes, even in the title-page, as in the case of Cas---- and of\nLa----. The latter (a University professor) in a work of twelve pages\nhas nine consisting of notes alone.\n\nHepain invented a _physiological_ language, which consists in the main\nof our own letters reversed, and of numbers used in their places.\n\nMany have a caligraphy quite peculiar to themselves, close, continuous,\nwith lengthened letters, and always extremely legible.\n\nMany (like some of the insane, whom they surpass in this point)\ncontinually intersperse their conversation with puns and plays on words.\nA certain Jassio wished to prove the analogy of the _hand_ and the\n_week_ in which God created the world, by means of a pun on the words\n_main_ and _semaine_. H\u00e9cart, who had himself said that it is the\npeculiarity of the insane to occupy themselves with useless trifles,\nwrote the biography of the madmen of Valenciennes, and the strange book\nentitled _Anagrammata, po\u00ebme en VII. chants, XCVe \u00e9dition_ (as a\nmatter of fact, it was the first), _rev. corr. et augment\u00e9e; \u00e0\nAnagrammatopolis, l\u2019an XIV. de l\u2019\u00e8re anagrammatique_ (Valenciennes,\n1821, 16\u00ba). The book is almost entirely composed of inversions of words.\nThe following is an example:\n\n      \u201c_Lecteur; il_ sied _que je vous_ dise\n    _Que le_ sbire _fera la_ brise;\n    _Que le_ dupeur _est sans_ pudeur,\n    _Qu\u2019on peut_ maculer _sans_ clameur....\n\n      _La_ nomade _a mis la_ madonne\n    _A la_ paterne _de_ P\u00e9tronne\n    _Quand le grand_ Dacier _\u00e9tait_ diacre\n    _Le_ caffier _cultiv\u00e9 du_ fiacre.\u201d\n\nAnd so on for twelve thousand lines, concluding with this:\n\n    \u201c_Moi je vais poser mon repos._\u201d\n\nHere it is as well to note that, on the margin of a copy of the\n_Anagrammata_ belonging to the Biblioth\u00e8que Nationale of Paris is the\nfollowing confession, in the author\u2019s handwriting, \u201cAnagrams are one of\nthe greatest inanities of which the human mind is capable; one must be a\nfool to amuse one\u2019s self with them, and worse than a fool to make them.\u201d\nThis is a correct diagnosis of his case.\n\nFilopanti, in the _Dio Liberale_, explains Luther\u2019s propaganda by a\ncaprice on the part of the Deity, who caused Mars to become a monk. The\nlatter thus became Martin, and then Martin Luther.\n\nThe origin of Gleizes\u2019 vegetarian mania was a dream, in which he heard a\nvoice crying in his ears, \u201c_Gleizes_ means _\u00e9glise_.\u201d He thus thought\nhimself suddenly appointed by God to preach his doctrine to mankind. Du\nMonin has the plague decapitated, \u201cTake away this head from hence; I\nfear that this head will deprive my people of their heads by a new\nmischief.\u201d[346]\n\nBut a still more prevalent characteristic is the singular copiousness of\ntheir writings. Bluet left behind no less than 180 books, each more\nfoolish than the other. We shall see how Mangione, who, in addition, was\ncrippled in one hand and could not write, deprived himself of food to\ndefray the cost of printing, and sometimes spent more than one hundred\nscudi per month to enable him to gratify his taste for authorship. We\nknow how many reams of paper Passanante covered, and how he attached\nmore importance to the publication of a foolish letter of his than to\nhis own life. Guiteau used so much paper as to incur a considerable debt\nwhich he was unable to pay. The list of George Fox\u2019s works is so long\nthat the bibliographer Lowndes does not venture to give it. Howerlandt\u2019s\n_Essay on Tournay_ consists of 117 volumes.\n\nSometimes they content themselves with writing and printing their\nvagaries, and make no attempt to diffuse them among the public, though\nthey assume that the latter must be acquainted with them.\n\nIn these writings, apart from their morbid prolixity, let it be noted\nthat the aim is either futile, or absurd, or in complete contradiction\nwith their social position and previous culture. Thus two physicians\nwrite on hypothetic geometry and astrology; a surgeon, a veterinary\nsurgeon and an obstetric practitioner, on aerial navigation; a captain\non rural economy; a sergeant on therapeutics; and a cook on high\npolitical questions. A theologian writes a treatise on menstrua, a\ncarter on theology. Two porters are the authors of tragedies, and a\ncustom-house officer of a work on sociology.\n\nAs to the subjects chosen, an examination of 186 insane books in my\ncollection gives the following result:\n\n   51 deal with Personal Topics\n   36 are works on Medicine\n   27  \u201c    \u201c      Philosophy\n   25 contain Lamentations\n    7 are Dramatic\n    7  \u201c  Religious\n    6  \u201c  Poetry\n    4 are on Astronomy\n    4  \u201c   \u201c Physics\n    4  \u201c   \u201c Politics\n    4  \u201c   \u201c Political Economy\n    3  \u201c   \u201c Rural        \u201c\n    2  \u201c   \u201c Veterinary Medicine\n    2  \u201c   \u201c Literature\n    2  \u201c   \u201c Mathematics\n    1  is on Grammar\n    1   \u201c a  Dictionary\n  ---\n  186\n\nI do not count miscellaneous works, such as controversial treatises,\nessays on mechanics, studies in magnetism, funeral orations, eccentric\ntheological works, researches in literary history, proclamations,\nmatrimonial advertisements, &c.\n\nSome statistics compiled by Philomneste give a list of such books known\nin Europe, which are thus classified:\n\n  Theology                         82\n  Prophecy (esoteric mysticism)    44\n  Philosophy                       36\n  Politics                         28\n  Poetry and Drama                  9\n  Languages and Grammar             8\n  Erotic Literature                 5\n  Hieroglyphics                     3\n  Astronomy                         2\n  Aeronautics                       2\n  Chemistry                         1\n  Physics                           1\n  Zoology                           1\n  Strategy                          1\n  Chronology                        1\n  Hygiene                           1\n  Pedagogy                          1\n  Arch\u00e6ology                        1\n\nWhile poetry prevails among the insane, theology and prophecy\npredominate in the mattoids, and so on in diminishing proportions for\nthe more abstract, uncertain and incomplete sciences, as we see by the\nscarcity of the naturalists and mathematicians. It is well to note the\nsmall number of atheists--three only, amid such a swarm of theologians\nand philosophers (162). Spiritualism, on the other hand, is so much in\nfavour, that Philomneste gave up the task of cataloguing the works which\ntreated of it.\n\nAll topics are welcome to mattoids, even those most foreign to their\nprofession or occupation; but they are found to choose by preference the\nmost grotesque and uncertain subjects, or questions which it is\nimpossible to solve. Such are the quadrature of the circle,\nhieroglyphics, exposition of the Apocalypse, air-balloons, and\nspiritualism. They are also fond of treating the subjects most talked\nof--what one might call the questions of the day. Speaking of D\u00e9mons,\nwho has already been mentioned, Nodier said, \u201cHe was not a\nmonomaniac--very much the contrary; he was a many-sided madman, always\nready to repeat any strange thing that came to his ears, a\nchameleon-like dreamer, who insanely reflected the colours of the\nmoment.\u201d[347] Thus, at the time of our great national deficits,\nprojectors appeared by the dozen, with proposals to restore the Italian\nfinances, either by means of assignats, or by the spoliation of the Jews\nor the clergy, by forced loans, &c. Later on, came the social and\nreligious problem (Passanante, Lazzaretti, Bosisio, Cianchettini); at\nthe present moment the question most under discussion is that of the\n_pellagra_.\n\nThus we have, among others, Pari, who has discovered the cause of the\ndisease in certain fungi, which fall from the roofs of dirty huts into\nthe peasants\u2019 food, and make them ill. The proof is evident: photograph\nthe section of a hut, and place it under the microscope, and you will\nfind, on comparison, that fungi are more numerous than in town houses\nwhere _pellagra_ is unknown.\n\nBut why do these fungi produce the _pellagra_? The reason is very\nsimple. These fungi contain the substance _fungina_, which burns at 47\u00b0\n(_sic_). Now, when the outside temperature is at 13\u00b0 and the body at 32\u00b0\n(_sic_) the two quantities of caloric are added together, and we burn!\nThis is why sufferers from the _pellagra_ appear scorched by the sun!\n\nIt is noteworthy that in nearly all--Bosisio, Cianchettini, Passanante,\nMangione, De Tommasi, B----,--the convictions set forth in their written\nworks are exceedingly deep and firmly fixed. They show as much absurdity\nand prolixity in their writings as they do common sense and prudence in\ntheir verbal answers--even rebutting objections with a single\nmonosyllable, and explaining their own eccentricities with so much good\nsense and sometimes acuteness that the unlearned may well take their\nfancies for wisdom; while, later on, they relieve their insane impulses\nby covering reams of paper.\n\n\u201cThe guardian is the true sentinel of the people and government,\nliberty, the circulation of the press\u201d--was a sentence of Passanante\u2019s,\nwhich at first seems a mere play on words, but he explained it to\nexperts in these terms: \u201cThe liberty of the press, the free circulation\nof journals constitute a surveillance over the rights of the people.\u201d\nWhen I asked Bosisio why he was so eccentric as to wear sandals and walk\nabout bare-headed and half-naked in the heat of July, he replied, \u201cTo\nimitate the Romans, and to keep the head healthy, and, lastly, to call\npublic attention to my theories by some visible sign. Would you have\nstopped to speak to me if I had not been dressed like this?\u201d\n\nMoreover, mattoids--the reverse being the case both with genius and with\ninsanity--are united by common interest and sympathy, and, above all, by\nhatred to the common enemy, the man of genius. They form a kind of\nfree-masonry,--all the more powerful that it is irregular--founded on\nthe common need of resisting the ridicule which inexorably attacks them\non every side, on the need of extirpating, or at least opposing, their\nnatural antithesis, genius. Though hating one another, they are firmly\nunited; and though they do not enjoy one another\u2019s triumphs, they\nrejoice in common over the victims who never fail to fall to the lot of\none or the other. For, as we have seen, the vulgar, called upon to\nchoose between the mattoid and the man of genius, never hesitate to\nsacrifice the latter. Even at the present day, many practitioners who\ntake the dosimetricians seriously, laugh at hom\u0153opathy; and the academic\nmultitudes who laugh at Schliemann and Ardig\u00f2 never treated the\narch\u00e6ological discoveries of Father Secchi in the same way. This is also\nshown by the emphatic and senseless addresses presented to Coccapieller\nand Sbarbaro by many individuals who were still more insane than their\nidols.[348]\n\nThis explains why, in spite of the fact that universal suffrage was\nintroduced under the Roman Republic of 1849, the populace never thought\nof electing Ciceruacchio to the parliament. Ciceruacchio was a rough\nworkingman, but he was sane.\n\nOne characteristic which further distinguishes mattoids from criminals\nand from many of the actually insane is an extreme abstemiousness, which\nsometimes equals the excesses of the early Cenobites. Bosisio lived on\npolenta without salt; Passanante on bread only; Lazzaretti often on\nnothing but a few potatoes; Mangione on peas, beans, rice, &c., at\nthirteen sous a day. This may be explained by their finding sufficient\nsupport and comfort in their own grotesque lucubrations,[349] as is the\ncase with ascetics and great thinkers; and besides, being usually poor,\nthey prefer to spend their small means in securing the triumph of their\nideas rather than in satisfying their stomachs; all the more so, as\nnearly all of them (Cianchettini, Bosisio, F----, for instance) were\nscrupulously honest, and almost excessively methodical, keeping account\neven of scraps of waste-paper, which they catalogued with singular\norder.\n\nIn short, such men, certainly insane in their writings, and sometimes as\nmuch so as any patient in an asylum, are scarcely so in the ordinary\nacts of life, in which they show themselves full of good sense,\nshrewdness, and even of a sense of order; so that they are quite the\nreverse of men of real genius--especially those inspired by madness,\nwhose ability in literature is nearly always in inverse proportion to\ntheir aptitude for practical life. This is how it happens that many\nauthors of medical eccentricities are practitioners of great repute.\nThree such are directors of hospitals. The author of the _Scottatinge_\nis a captain and commissariat officer. Another, the inventor of almost\nprehistoric machines, and author of works which are more than humorous,\nfills an office which exposes him to continual contact with cultivated\nmen who have never suspected him of madness. Five are professors, two of\nwhom are attached to a university; three are deputies, two senators, one\nis a counsellor of state, one counsellor of prefecture, and another\ncounsellor of the Court of Cassation. Three are provincial counsellors,\nand five, priests; and nearly all of them are of advanced age and\nrespected in their vocations. Frecot was mayor of Hesloup, Leroux and\nAsgill were members of parliament. Mattoid theologians--Simon Morin,\nLebreton, Geoffroi Vallee, Vanini--have unfortunately been taken so\nseriously as to be burned alive or hanged. Joris\u2019s bones were burned\nwith his writings under the gallows at B\u00e2le. Kehler was beheaded for the\nsole offence of having corrected Joris\u2019s proofs. We shall see, in the\nfollowing chapter, how many others--Smith, Fourier, Kleinov, Fox--found\nfanatical followers.\n\nThat calmness, in spite of obstinate persistence in a delusion,\nwhich distinguishes them from more ordinary insane patients, may\nalso be observed in monomaniacs--in even their most prominent\ncharacteristic--and is not rarely found in some of the stages of\ninebriety.\n\nBut, precisely as in the ordinary insane, so also in mattoids, the calm\nsometimes suddenly ceases, and gives place to impulsive forms of mania\nand delusion, especially under the stimulus of hunger or irritated\npassion, or during the return of the various neuroses which accompany\nand often generate the disease, as in the cases of Cordigliani and\nMangione.\n\nThis is why it is important to note that many are subject to symptoms\nwhich indicate the pre-existence of disturbance at the nervous centres.\nGiraud and Spandri have convulsive movements of the face, lowering of\nthe right eyebrow, and ptosis on the right side. An\u00e6sthesia was found in\nLazzaretti, Mangione, and De Tommasi; delusions of short duration in\nCordigliani. P----, a young man of distinguished abilities, became\nmattoid only after an attack of typhus fever. Kulmann became a prophet\nat eighteen, after suffering from disease of the brain. These impulsive\noutbursts make such cases extremely important to alienist\nphysicians--who, finding no similar cases in any of the better-known\nforms of mental disease, often erroneously infer imposture, or soundness\nof mind--and still more to politicians who, by not at once placing such\nmen (at first, it is true, far more ridiculous than dangerous) in\nasylums, expose themselves to perils perhaps greater than those\nthreatened by actual madmen, who betray themselves at once, thus making\nit possible to take measures for rendering them harmless.\n\nThere is a much more dangerous variety of these graphomaniacs--those\nwhose disease was formerly known as \u201clawsuit mania.\u201d These individuals\nfeel a continual craving to go to law against others, while considering\nthemselves the injured party. They display an extraordinary activity,\nand a minute knowledge of the law, which they always try to interpret to\ntheir own advantage, heaping up petition on petition, memorial on\nmemorial, in such quantities as is difficult to imagine. Many attach\nthemselves to some person, to obtain whose influence they are\ncontinually scheming; then they apply to the King or the Parliament.\nThey are apt to succeed at first, especially with members of Parliament,\nor at least to be considered merely as over-zealous suitors. At last,\nhowever, when their persistence has wearied every one out, they convert\ntheir forensic and literary violence into deeds, certain that everything\nwill be pardoned them in consideration of the justice of their\ncause--nay, that their action will have the effect of deciding the suit\nin their favour. This result, to tell the truth, sometimes ensues,\nthanks to the institution of the jury. Thus G----, having lost his\ncause, shot at and wounded Count Colli, but was acquitted through the\nsingular eloquence he displayed before the jury. Ten years later, he\nforced his way, armed, into an apartment which he had already sold, and\nwhich, nevertheless, he insisted on having back.\n\nAs the erotomaniac falls in love with an ideal person, and imagines\nhimself loved by one who has never even seen him, so they can see no\naspect of the case but their own; and the lawyers and judges who do not\nsupport them become enemies on whom they concentrate the fiercest\nhatred, and whom they look on as the cause of every misfortune that may\nbefall them. It is not rare to find them constituting themselves judges\nin their own cause, pronouncing sentence, on their own responsibility,\non their adversaries, and sometimes going the length of executing the\nsame. A certain B----, from whom the parish priest had taken a field by\na perfectly legal and regular contract, took it into his head that he\nhad the right to assault all the priests of his village, \u201cbecause,\u201d he\nsaid, \u201cCatholicism is in opposition to the Government.\u201d For the same\nreason he tried to burn down the church; and all this, after a series of\nlawsuits and proclamations, very just, it may be conceded, in principle,\nbut certainly not in application.\n\nThese persons have, too, a similar kind of handwriting, with very much\nlengthened letters; and they likewise abuse the alphabet. Their theme,\nhowever, is confined to their immediate circle, and they show more\nviolence in dealing with it; they only touch by rebound, as it were, on\nsocial and religious questions.\n\nYet the personal litigations of many of these suitors are mixed up with\npolitical differences; and this is the kind from which most danger is to\nbe expected in our day. These are usually individuals whose scant\neducation and extreme poverty do not allow them to air their ideas in\nprint, so that they have to relieve their feelings by deeds of violence.\nSuch was Sandon, who caused such annoyance to Napoleon and to Billault,\nand was a genuine political mattoid; such, too, were Cordigliani,\nPassanante, Mangione, and Guiteau. Krafft-Ebing speaks of a man who had\nfounded a Club of the Oppressed, for the assistance of those who could\nget no justice from the Courts, and forwarded its rules to the king.\n\n_Mattoids of Genius._--Not only is there an imperceptible gradation\nbetween sane and insane, between madmen and mattoids, but also between\nthese last (who are the very negation of genius) and men of real genius.\nSo much so, that among my collection there are certain individuals I\nfind a difficulty in classifying. Such, for instance, is Bosisio, of\nLodi.\n\nL. Bosisio, of Lodi, fifty-three years of age, has one cousin, a\n_cr\u00e9tin_. His mother is sane and intelligent; his father intelligent,\nbut given to drink. He had two brothers who died of meningitis. As a\nyoung man he became a revenue officer; left his native town in 1848, and\nwhen nearly dying of hunger at Turin, threw himself from a balcony and\nbroke his legs. Having obtained promotion in 1859, he fulfilled his\nduties in a satisfactory manner up to the year 1866, when--though still\nshowing intelligence and accuracy in the duties of his office--he began\nto perform eccentric actions, especially inexplicable in a member of the\nbureaucracy. Thus, one day, he bought all the birds for sale in the\nvillage of Bussolengo, and then opened their cages and set them at\nliberty. He took to reading newspapers all day long, and began to send\nenergetic protests to the Government, petitioning them to put a stop to\nthe disforesting of the country, the massacre of birds, &c. Being\ndismissed from his post, with a meagre pension, he suddenly gave up all\nthe luxuries of life, and took no food but polenta without salt. He left\noff, one at a time, all his clothes except shirt and drawers, and spent\nall his scanty means in the purchase of books and papers, and in\npublishing works on the regeneration of posterity, which he distributed\ngratuitously--_Criticism on My Times_, _The Cry of Nature_, \u201c\u00a7 113 of\nthe _Cry of Nature_.\u201d\n\nTo any one who studies these books, and, still more, to one who hears\nhim talk, it is evident that he has worked out in his own head a system\nnot entirely illogical. We suffer loss, he says, through the grape\ndisease, through the diseases among the silkworms and crabs, through\nfloods. All these things are caused by injury done to the globe through\nthe destruction of forests and the extermination of birds, and (this is\nwhere we first perceive his madness) the torture inflicted on it by the\nrailways which pass over its surface. In economical matters, we are\ndoing equally ill; by raising ruinous loans we are compromising the\nfuture of that posterity whose champion he has appointed himself.\n\n\u201cAdd to this,\u201d he continues, \u201cthat the ancient Romans took much\nexercise, had not the luxury that we have, and did not take coffee. All\nthese things compromise posterity, because they ruin the germs of\nhumanity. And what ruins them far more is the ill-treatment of women,\nmarriages for the sake of money, and certain forms of ill-judged\ncharity. Unhappy children, crippled or consumptive, are kept alive, who,\nif killed in time, would not reproduce themselves; and, in the same way,\nif, instead of keeping sickly individuals alive in hospitals, at great\ntrouble and expense, people were to help the strong and healthy when\nthey fall ill, the race would be improved. And thieves and\nmurderers--are they, too, not sick men who ought to be exterminated, if\nthe race is not to be ruined? How deadly and bestial is human greed!\nEverything is neglected for the sake of satisfying the appetites,\nwithout a thought for the fate of the generations who are to succeed\nus.... The ill-omened mania for procreation, which is inexorably\nprecipitating all nations into an abyss whence one can see no outlet,\nand which arrested the attention of Malthus, reminds me of the story of\nMidas, who asked of a god that everything which he touched might turn to\ngold. The divinity consented; but his first transports of joy were\nfollowed by grief and despair, and his very food being changed into\ngold, he saw himself condemned by himself to die of hunger.\u201d\n\nI think there could be no better example than this to prove the\nexistence of an active and powerful mind, unsound on a single given\npoint. Any one who knows the writings of Cl\u00e9mence Royer and Comte will,\nin fact, find nothing insane in these ideas of Bosisio\u2019s, except his\nrefusal to eat salt (which he scarcely justifies by adducing the example\nof savages who are strong and healthy without it), his notion of\nrailways ruining the globe, and his very airy fashion of dress. For this\nlast whim, however, he gives a tolerably good reason, by alleging the\nexample of Roman simplicity, and by the assertion (not altogether\nwithout foundation) that the wearing of a hat tends to promote baldness.\nMoreover, he observed, very justly, that without those eccentric habits\nhe would be unable to gain a hearing and promulgate his ideas.\n\nA truly morbid symptom, however, is to be found in the fact that he\nbased all his conclusions on the information gained from political\njournals--poor material, indeed, for study. However, he justified\nhimself thus: \u201cWhat can I do? They are modern studies, and I cannot do\nwithout them, much as I dislike them, as I have no other means of\ngaining information about mankind.\u201d But the point where his insanity\ncomes out most clearly is in the importance attached by him to the\nslightest fact gathered up in these sweepings of the political world. If\na child falls into the water at Lisbon, or a lady sets her skirts on\nfire, he immediately infers from these facts the degeneracy of the race.\nThe student of hygiene must be astonished at seeing a man retain robust\nhealth (and Bosisio walks his twenty miles a day) on unsalted polenta.\nThe psychologist cannot refuse to recognize in this case that madness\nacts like leaven on the intellectual powers, and excites the psychic\nfunctions so as almost to reach the level of genius, though not without\ntraces of disease. It is certain that if Bosisio had been a student of\nlaw or medicine, instead of a poor exciseman, and had been grounded in\nthe culture which he only gained at haphazard, and under the influence\nof mental disease, he might have become a Cl\u00e9mence Royer or a Comte, or\nat least another Fourier; for his philosophic system is, in the main,\nsimilar to that of the latter, except for the peculiarities engrafted on\nit by mental aberration.\n\nBut, when we think of the integrity of his life, the method and order to\nbe perceived in all his affairs, can we dismiss him merely as a man of\nunsound mind? And, when we remember the relative novelty of his ideas,\ncan we confuse him with the many absurd mattoids already described?\nCertainly not.\n\nLet us suppose that Giuseppe Ferrari, instead of a superior culture, had\nonly received Bosisio\u2019s education; we should certainly have had, in\nplace of a savant justly admired by the world, something similar to\nBosisio. Certainly, indeed, those systems of historical arithmetic, with\nkings and republics dying on a fixed day, at the will of the author, can\nonly belong to the world of mental alienation.\n\nThe same thing might be said of Michelet, if one thinks of his fancy\nnatural history, his academic obscenities, his incredible vanity,[350]\nand the later volumes of his _History of France_ which are nothing but a\ntangled thicket of scandalous anecdotes and grotesque paradoxes.[351]\nSo, too, of Fourier and his disciples, who predict with mathematical\nexactness that, 80,000 years hence, man will attain to the age of 144;\nthat in those days we shall have 37 millions of poets (unhappy world!);\nlikewise 37 millions of mathematicians equal to Newton; of Lemercier,\nwho, along with some very fine dramas, wrote some in which speeches are\nassigned to ants, seals, and the Mediterranean; and of Burchiello, who\nasks painters to depict for him an earthquake in the air, and describes\na mountain giving a pair of spectacles to a bell-tower! The same is true\nof the heir of Confucius, the astronomer who created the _Dio\nLiberale_; of the pseudo-geologist who has discovered a secret of\nembalming bodies which might be known to any assistant demonstrator of\nanatomy, and who believes that the world can be purified by cremation.\n\nIn Italy, a man has for many years been a professor in one of the great\nuniversities who, in his treatises, created the nation of the _cagots_,\nand suggested a certain instrument for resuscitating the apparently\ndrowned, which would have been enough to suffocate a healthy person.\nAnother talked of baths at a temperature of--20\u00b0, and the advantages of\nsea-water owing to the exhalations of the fish! Yet his volumes contain\nsome very fine things, and have reached a second edition, and none of\nhis colleagues ever suspected that his mind was not perfectly sound. How\nis he to be classified? He occupies a middle place between the madman,\nthe man of genius, and the graphomaniac, with which last he has in\ncommon the sterility of his aims, and his calm and persistent search\nafter paradoxes.\n\nItaly, for the rest, as I have shown in _Tre Tribuni_,[352] has had, and\nidolized, for a brief quarter of an hour, two mattoids of considerable\ngifts, Coccapieller and Sbarbaro, who, in the midst of immoralities,\ntrivialities, contradictions, and paradoxes, had a few traits of\ngenius,[353] explicable by a less degree of misoneism, and a greater\nfacility in adopting new ideas.\n\n_D\u00e9cadent Poets._--Some acquaintance with this new variety of literary\nmadmen will explain to us the existence, in the seventeenth century, of\nthe French _pr\u00e9cieux_, and, at the present day, that of the\n_Parnassiens_, _Symbolistes_, and _D\u00e9cadents_.\n\n\u201cI have read their verses,\u201d says Lema\u00eetre,[354] \u201cand not even seen as\nmuch as the turkey in the fable, who, if he did not distinguish very\nwell, at least saw something. I have been able to make nothing of these\nseries of words, which--being connected together according to the laws\nof syntax--might be supposed to have some sense, and have none, and\nwhich spitefully keep your mind on the stretch in a vacuum, like a\nconundrum without an answer....\n\n    \u201c\u2018_En ta dentelle o\u00f9 n\u2019est notoire_\n     _Mon doux \u00e9vanouissement,_\n     _Taisons pour l\u2019\u00e2tre sans histoire_\n     _Tel v\u0153u de l\u00e8vres r\u00e9sumant._\n\n    _Toute ombre hors d\u2019un territoire_\n     _Se teinte it\u00e9rativement_\n     _A la lueur exhalatoire_\n     _Des p\u00e9tales de remuement._\u2019....\n\n\u201cOne of them, however, has explained to us what they intended doing, in\na pamphlet modestly entitled, _Trait\u00e9 du Verbe_, by St\u00e9phane Mallarm\u00e9.\nBy this it appears that they have invented two things--the symbol, and\n\u2018poetic instrumentation.\u2019\n\n\u201cThe invention of the symbolists seems to consist in _not saying_ what\nfeelings, thoughts, or states of mind they express by images. But even\nthis is not new. A SYMBOL is, in short, an enlarged comparison of which\nonly the second term is given--a connected series of metaphors. Briefly,\nthe symbol is the old \u2018allegory\u2019 of our fathers.[355]\n\n\u201cNow, here is the second discovery made by our wild-eyed symbolists. Men\nhave suspected, ever since Homer\u2019s time, that there are relations,\ncorrespondences, affinities, between certain sounds, forms, and colours,\nand certain states of mind. For instance, it was felt that the repeated\nsound of a had something to do with the impression of freshness and\npeace produced by this line of Virgil--\n\n    \u201c\u2018_Pascitur in silva magna formosa juvenca._\u2019\n\nIt was known that sounds may, like colours, be striking or subdued;\nlike feelings, sad or joyful. But it was thought that these resemblances\nand relations are somewhat fugitive, having nothing constant or\nsharply-defined, and that they are, at least, hinted at by the sense of\nthe words which compose the musical phrase.\n\n\u201cNow, attend to this! For these gentlemen, _a_ = black, _e_ = white, _i_\n= blue, _o_ = red, _u_ = yellow.\n\n\u201cAgain, black = the organ, white = the harp, blue = the violin, red =\nthe trumpet, yellow = the flute.\n\n\u201cAgain, the organ expresses monotony, doubt, and simplicity; the harp,\nserenity; the violin, passion and prayer; the trumpet, glory and\novation; the flute, smiles and ingenuousness.\n\n\u201cIt is difficult to make out to what degree the young _symbolards_ still\ntake account of the sense of words. That degree, however, is, in any\ncase, very slight, and, for my part, I cannot well distinguish the\npassages where they are obscure from those where they are only\nunintelligible.\n\n\u201cIn short, a poetry without thoughts, at once primitive and subtle,\nwhich does not (like classic poetry) express a connected series of\nideas, nor (like the poetry of the _Parnassiens_) the physical world in\nits exact outlines, but states of mind in which we can scarcely\ndistinguish ourselves from surrounding objects, where sensation is so\nclosely united to sentiment; where the latter grows so rapidly and\nnaturally out of the former, that it is quite sufficient for us to note\ndown our sensations at random just as they present themselves, to\nexpress _ipso facto_ the emotions which they successively give rise to\nin the mind.\n\n\u201cDo you understand?... Neither do I. One would have to be drunk in order\nto understand this.\u201d\n\nI can only conceive that the poetry, an attempt to define which has here\nbeen made, could be that of a solitary, a nerve-sufferer, and almost a\nmadman. This poetry thus flourishes on the borderland between reason and\nmadness.\n\nYet these mattoids have their man of genius--Verlaine. Let us hear\nLema\u00eetre on this subject:--\n\n\u201cI imagine he must be almost illiterate. He has a strange head--the\nprofile of Socrates, an enormous forehead, a skull knobbed like a\nbattered basin of thin copper. He is not civilized, he ignores all\nreceived codes of morality.\n\n\u201cOne day he disappears. What has become of him? It would be in character\nfor him to have been publicly cast out from regular society. I see him\nbehind the grate of a prison, like Fran\u00e7ois Villon--not for having, like\nhim, become an accomplice of thieves and rogues, for the love of a free\nlife, but rather for an error of over-sensitiveness--for having avenged\n(by an involuntary stab, given, as it were, in a dream) a love\nreprobated by the laws and customs of the modern and Western world. But,\nthough socially degraded, he remains innocent. He repents as simply as\nhe sinned--with a Catholic repentance, all terror and tenderness,\nwithout reasoning, without pride of intellect. In his conversion, as in\nhis sin, he remains a purely emotional being....\n\n\u201cThen, it may be, a woman took pity on him, and he let himself be led\nlike a little child. He reappears, but continues to live apart. No one\nhas ever seen him on the Boulevards, or in a theatre, or at the Salon.\nHe is somewhere at the other end of Paris, in the back-room of a\nwine-merchant\u2019s shop, drinking blue wine. He is as far from us as if he\nwere an innocent satyr in the great forests. When he is ill, or at the\nend of his resources, some doctor, whom he knew formerly, when in jail,\ngets him into the hospital; he stays there as long as he can and writes\nverses; he hears queer, sad songs whispered to him out of the folds of\nthe cold white calico curtains. He is not a _d\u00e9class\u00e9_, for he never had\na class. His case is rare and peculiar. He finds means to live, in a\ncivilized society, as he could live in a state of the freest nature.\n\n\u201cIt may be that he has sometimes felt for an instant the influence of\nsome contemporary poets, but these have done nothing for him, save to\nawaken and reveal to him the extreme and painful sensibility which is\nhis whole being. In the main, he is without a master. He moulds language\nat his will, not, like a great writer because he knows it, but, like a\nchild, because he is ignorant of it. He gives wrong senses to words in\nhis simplicity. Little as we might expect it, this poet, whom his\ndisciples regard as such a consummate artist, writes on occasion (if we\nmay dare to speak out), like a pupil of the technical schools, or a\nsecond-rate chemist subject to lyric outbursts. After this, it is\namusing to see him while posing as the impeccable artist, the sculptor\nof strophes, the gentleman who distrusts imagination, write, with the\nkeenest sense of enjoyment:--\n\n    \u201c\u2018_A nous qui ciselons les mots comme des coupes_\n     _Et qui faisons des vers \u00e9mus tr\u00e8s froidement...._\n     _Ce qu\u2019il nous faut, \u00e0 nous, c\u2019est, aux lueurs des lampes,_\n     _La science conquise et le sommeil dompt\u00e9._\u2019\n\nYet this writer, so wanting in ordinary technical skill, has yet\nwritten--I cannot tell how--verses of a penetrating sweetness, a languid\ncharm which is peculiarly his own, and which perhaps arises from a union\nof these things--charm of sound, clearness of feeling, and partial\nobscurity in the words. Thus, when he tells us that he is dreaming of an\nunknown woman, who loves him, who understands him, and weeps with him,\nhe adds:--\n\n    \u201c\u2018_Son nom? Je me souviens qu\u2019il est doux et sonore,_\n     _Comme ceux_ des aim\u00e9s que la vie exila.\n\n     _Son regard est pareil au regard des statues,_\n     _Et pour sa voix lointaine, et calme, et grave, elle a_\n     L\u2019inflexion des voix ch\u00e8res qui se sont tues.\u2019\n\n\u201cI am also very fond of the _Chanson d\u2019Automne_, though certain words\n(_bl\u00eame_ and _suffocant_) are not perhaps used with entire accuracy, and\nscarcely correspond with the \u201clanguor\u201d described just before.\n\n    \u201c_Les sanglots longs_\n     _Des violons_\n      _De l\u2019automne_\n     _Blessent mon c\u0153ur_\n     _D\u2019une langueur_\n      _Monotone._\n\n     _Tout suffocant_\n     _Et bl\u00eame, quand_\n      _Sonne l\u2019heure,_\n     _Je me souviens_\n     _Des jours anciens,_\n      _Et je pleure._\n\n     _Et je m\u2019en vais_\n     _Au voit mauvais_\n      _Qui m\u2019emporte_\n     _De \u00e7a, de l\u00e0,_\n     _Pareil \u00e0 la_\n      _Feuille morte._\u2019\n\n\u201cHe celebrates the Virgin in an exceedingly fine hymn:--\n\n    \u201c\u2018_Je ne veux plus aimer que ma m\u00e8re Marie._\n\n           *       *       *       *       *\n\n    _Et, comme j\u2019\u00e9tais faible et bien m\u00e9chant encore,_\n    _Aux mains l\u00e2ches, les yeux \u00e9blouis des chemins,_\n    _Elle baissa mes yeux, et me joignit les mains_\n    _Et m\u2019enseigna les mots par lesquels on adore._\n\n           *       *       *       *       *\n\n    _Et tous ces bons efforts vers les croix et les claies,_\n    _Comme je l\u2019invoquais, Elle en ceignit mes reins._\u2019\n\n\u201cHis piety inspires him with some very sweet lines:--\n\n          \u201c\u2018_\u00c9coutez la chanson bien douce_\n          _Qui ne pleure que pour vous plaire._\n          _Elle est discr\u00e8te, elle est l\u00e9g\u00e8re:_\n          _Un frisson d\u2019eau sur de la mousse!..._\n\n          _Elle dit, la voix reconnue,_\n          _Que la bont\u00e9 c\u2019est notre vie,_\n          _Que de la haine et de l\u2019envie_\n          _Rien ne reste, la mort venue...._\n\n          _Accueillez la voix qui persiste_\n          _Dans son na\u00eff \u00e9pithalame._\n          _Allez, rien n\u2019est meilleur \u00e0 l\u2019\u00e2me_\n          _Que de faire une \u00e2me moins triste!..._\n\n    _Je ne me souviens plus que du mal que j\u2019ai fait._\n\n    _Dans tous les mouvements bizarres de ma vie,_\n    _De mes \u201cmalheurs,\u201d selon le moment et le lieu,_\n    _Des autres et de moi, de la route suivie,_\n    _Je n\u2019ai rien retenu que la gr\u00e2ce de Dieu._\u2019\n\n\u201cBut, even in the _Po\u00ebmes Saturniens_, we already meet with pieces of an\noddity difficult to define--pieces which seem to belong to a poet who is\nslightly mad, or perhaps to one who is only half awake, and whose brain\nis darkened by the fumes of his dreams, or of drink; so that external\nobjects only appear to him through a mist, and the indolence of his\nmemory prevents him from getting hold of the right words. Take this for\nan example:--\n\n    \u201c\u2018_La lune plaquait ses teintes de zinc_\n         _Par angles obtus;_\n     _Des bouts de fum\u00e9e en forme de cinq_\n     _Sortaient drus et noirs des hauts toits pointus._\n\n     _Le ciel \u00e9tait gris. La bise pleurait_\n         _Ainsi qu\u2019un basson._\n     _Au loin un matou frileux et discret_\n     _Miaulait d\u2019\u00e9trange et gr\u00eale fa\u00e7on._\n\n     _Moi, j\u2019allais r\u00eavant du divin Platon_\n         _Et de Phidias,_\n     _Et de Salamine et de Marathon,_\n     _Sous l\u2019\u0153il clignotant des bleus becs de gaz._\u2019\n\n\u201cThat is all. What is it? It is an impression--the impression of a\ngentleman who walks about the streets of Paris at night, and thinks\nabout Plato and Salamis, and thinks it funny to think of Plato and\nSalamis \u2018_sous l\u2019\u0153il des becs de gaz_.\u2019 Why should it be funny? I cannot\ntell.\n\n    \u201c\u2018_Aimez donc la raison: que toujours vos \u00e9crits_\n     _Empruntent d\u2019elle seule et leur lustre et leur prix._\u2019\n\n\u201cOne might almost say that Paul Verlaine is the only poet who has never\nexpressed anything but sentiment and sensation, and has expressed them\nfor himself, and for no one else,[356] which dispenses him from the\nobligation of showing the connection between his ideas, since he knows\nit. This poet has never asked himself whether he should be understood,\nand he has never wished to prove anything. This is why (_Sagesse_\nexcepted) it is almost impossible to give a _r\u00e9sum\u00e9_ of his collections,\nor to state their main idea in a succinct form. One can only\ncharacterise them by means of the state of mind of which they are most\nfrequently the rendering--semi-intoxication, hallucination which\ndistorts objects, and makes them resemble an incoherent dream;\nuneasiness of the soul which, in the terror of this mystery, complains\nlike a child; then languor, mystic sweetness, and a lulling of the mind\nto rest, in the Catholic conception of the universe accepted in all\nsimplicity.\n\n\u201cThere is something profoundly involuntary and illogical in the poetry\nof M. Paul Verlaine. He scarcely ever expresses movements of full\nconsciousness or entire sanity. It is on this account, very often, that\nthe meaning of his song is clear--if it is so at all--to himself alone.\nIn the same way, his rhythms, are sometimes perceptible by no one but\nhimself. I do not refer here to the interlaced feminine rhymes,\nalliterations, assonances within the line itself, of which none has made\nuse more frequently or more successfully than he.\n\n\u201cBut there are two sides to him. On one, he looks very artificial. He\nhas an _Ars Poetica_ of his own, which is entirely subtle and\nmysterious, and which, I think, he was very late in discovering:--\n\n    \u201c\u2018_De la musique avant toute chose,_\n     _Et pour cela pr\u00e9f\u00e8re l\u2019impair_\n     _Plus vague et plus soluble dans l\u2019air,_\n     _Sans rien en lui qui p\u00e8se ou qui pose._\n\n     _Il faut aussi que tu n\u2019ailles point_\n     _Choisir tes mots sans quelque m\u00e9prise:_\n     _Rien de plus cher que la chanson grise_\n     _O\u00f9 l\u2019ind\u00e9cis au pr\u00e9cis se joint...._\n\n     _Car nous voulons la nuance encor,_\n     _Pas la couleur, rien que la nuance!_\n     _Oh! la nuance seule fiance_\n     _Le r\u00eave au r\u00eave, et la flute au cor...._\u2019\n\n\u201cOn the other side, he is quite simple:--\n\n    \u201c\u2018_Je suis venu, calme orphelin,_\n     _Riche de mes seuls yeux tranquilles,_\n     _Vers les hommes des grandes villes:_\n     _Ils ne m\u2019ont pas trouv\u00e9 malin._\u2019\n\n\u201cOr, elsewhere:--\n\n    \u201c\u2018_J\u2019ai peur d\u2019un baiser_\n     _Connue d\u2019une abeille._\n     _Je souffre et je veille_\n     _Sans me reposer,_\n     _J\u2019ai peur d\u2019un baiser._\u2019\u201d\n\nThus far Lema\u00eetre.\n\nIt will be seen that the _d\u00e9cadents_ correspond exactly to the diagnosis\nof literary mattoids, in all their old vacuity, but with the appearance\nof novelty. At the same time, there are among them, real men of genius\nwho--amid the (frequently atavistic) oddities of mattoidism--have struck\nan original note.\n\nAll these cases show us that the gradations and transitions between\nsanity and insanity are far from being as hypothetical as Livi asserts\nthem to be. Moreover, all this is in perfect harmony with the eternal\nevolution which we see going on in the ample realm of nature, which, as\nhas been well said, never proceeds by leaps, but by successive and\ngradual transformations.\n\nNow, it is natural that, as these gradations exist in this very strange\nform of literary insanity, they should also be found in the forms of\ncriminal insanity, and that, in consequence, many of those asserted to\nbe guilty or mad, are only half responsible, although no human thought\ncan trace the limits with entire certainty.\n\nIt is well to observe here, what a different appearance madness assumes,\naccording to the age in which it occurs. Had Bosisio lived in the Middle\nAges, or in Spain or Mexico at a later period, the kind-hearted\nliberator of birds, the martyr for posterity, would have become a St.\nIgnatius or a Torquemada--the Positivist atheist an ultra-Catholic,\ncommanded by a cruel Deity to immolate human victims; but Bosisio was an\nItalian, living in 1870.\n\nThis case affords an excellent explanation of the occurrence, in remote\ntimes, and among savage or slightly civilized nations, of numerous\noutbreaks of epidemic insanity; and shows that many historical events\nmay have been the result of mania on the part of one or more persons.\nCases in point are those of the Anabaptists, the Flagellants, the\nwitch-mania, the Taeping revolution.\n\nMental aberration gives rise in some men to ideas which, though bizarre,\nare sometimes gigantic and rendered more efficacious by a singular force\nof conviction, so as to sweep along the feeble-minded multitude, who are\nall the more attracted by any singularity in dress, attitudes or\nabstinence (which such disease alone can suggest and render possible),\nthat these phenomena are made inexplicable to them (and therefore worthy\nof veneration) by their ignorance and barbarism. The ignorant man always\nadores what he cannot understand.\n\nOur poor sufferer from hallucinations wanted nothing but a favourable\nepoch to impress his ideas on the multitude--neither muscular strength,\nnor a certain vigour of thought, nor extraordinary endurance under\nprivations, nor disinterestedness, nor conviction. At another epoch,\nItaly would have found her Mahomet in Bosisio.\n\n_Mattoids in Art._--At the competition opened at Rome for designs for a\nproposed monument to Victor Emmanuel--the subject being an international\none--mattoids came forward in crowds. In fact, we find, in Dossi\u2019s\ncurious book, not less than 39 out of 296 (13 per cent.), a number which\nwould be raised to 25 per cent. if we add 38 more, who, in addition to\ntheir eccentricity, gave tokens of being imbecile.\n\nThe most general characteristic of these productions is their stupidity.\nOne of them proposes a square stone box without a roof (similar to the\n\u201cmagnaneries\u201d or roofless stone buildings used in the South of France\nfor silkworms), which he calls a \u201cRight Quadrangular Tower\u201d--destined to\nreceive the late king\u2019s remains, and protect them against the\ninundations of the Tiber. Tr----\u2019s monument--\u201cdestined to live for\ncenturies\u201d--consists of a column surrounded by obelisks, by four flights\nof steps, and four triangles, each surrounded by twelve small spires.\nEach of the latter is to support a bust, each of the columns a statue of\nsome great Italian; with regard to six statues, the artist reserves the\nright of changing them at the death of our illustrious men--Sella,\nMamiani, &c. This is a case for saying, \u201cPerish the astrologer!\u201d Another\ncompetitor--two, in fact--have projected rooms to serve as public\nlavatories at the base of their columns. There is a curious coincidence\nand emulation of hatred in nearly all; most of them make use of\ncelebrated monuments, whose destruction is, of course, a _sine qu\u00e2 non_\nto the erection of theirs.\n\nBut, if wanting in every sign of genius, these designs are not\ndeficient in allegorical symbols of the most grotesque type, or in\ninscriptions. Some of them, indeed, are nothing but a mass of irrelevant\ninscriptions, relating to everything in the world, except the poor _Re\nGalantuomo_ himself--but more particularly to the supposed genius of the\nartist.\n\nHere we find that the main characteristic of such minds--vanity,\nheightened to the point of disease--makes each of them think his own\nproduction a masterpiece. Canfora declares that he is \u201cneither engineer\nnor architect, but _inspired by God alone_.\u201d A. B. does not send in his\ndesign to the Committee, because it is too grand; and another ends by\nsaying, \u201cHow mighty is the thought of the artist!\u201d\n\nNearly all are absolutely ignorant of the art in which they claim to\nexcel. Thus Dossi found among the projectors, teachers of mathematics\nand of grammar, doctors in medicine and in law, military men,\naccountants, and others who themselves asserted that they had never\nbefore handled pencil or compasses. At the same time, their far from\nhumble social position bears out what I consider to be one of the\nprincipal points: viz., that we have before us (as might be suspected)\nidiots, or persons actually insane, but men quite respectable outside\ntheir special artistic mania. Such should be M----, a member of the\nRussian Arch\u00e6ological Society, of the Hellenic Syllage,\nArchitect-in-chief of Roumelia and the palaces of the Sultan, Knight and\nCommander of various Orders, &c., &c.\n\nWhen we compare these stupid abortions with the pictures inspired by\ninsanity (I am not now speaking of those painters who, like various\npoets and musicians, in losing their reason, lost artistically more than\nthey gained--especially in right proportion and the harmony of colour),\nwe shall often find the absurd and disproportionate; but also, at the\nsame time, a true, even excessive originality, mingled with a savage\nbeauty _sui generis_, which, up to a certain point, recalls the\nmasterpieces of medi\u00e6val, and, still more, of Chinese and Japanese, art,\nso extraordinarily rich in symbols. We shall see, in short, that art\nsuffers here, not from a defect, but from an excess of genius, which\nends by crushing itself.\n\nIn conclusion, it is very evident that the insane artist is as superior\nto the mattoid in the practice of his art, as he is inferior to him in\npractical life; that, in short, in the region of art, the mattoid\napproaches nearest to the imbecile, and the lunatic to the man of\ngenius.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nPOLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS LUNATICS AND MATTOIDS.\n\n     Part played by the insane in the progressive movements of\n     humanity--Examples--Probable causes--Religious epidemics of the\n     Middle Ages--Francis of Assisi--Luther--Savonarola--Cola da\n     Rienzi--San Juan de Dios--Campanella--Prosper\n     Enfantin--Lazzaretti--Passanante--Guiteau--South Americans.\n\n\nAll this helps us to understand why the great progressive movements of\nnations, in politics and religion, have so often been brought about, or\nat least determined, by insane or half-insane persons. The reason is\nthat in these alone is to be found, coupled with originality (which is\nthe special characteristic of the genius and the lunatic, and still more\nof those who partake of the character of both), the exaltation capable\nof generating a sufficient amount of altruism to sacrifice their own\ninterests, and their lives, for the sake of making known the new truths,\nand, often, of getting them accepted by a public to which innovations\nare always unwelcome, and which frequently takes a bloody revenge on the\ninnovator.\n\n\u201cSuch persons,\u201d says Maudsley, \u201care apt to seize on and pursue the\nbypaths of thought, which have been overlooked by more stable\nintellects, and so, by throwing a side-light on things, to discover\nunthought-of relations. One observes this tendency of mind even in those\nof them who have no particular genius or talent; for they have a novel\nway of looking at things, do not run in the common groove of action, or\nfollow the ordinary routine of thought and feeling, but discover in\ntheir remarks a certain originality and perhaps singularity, sometimes\nat a very early period of life.\n\n\u201cNotable, again, is the emancipated way in which some of them discuss,\nas if they were problems of mechanics, objects or events round which\nthe associations of ideas and feelings have thrown a glamour of\nconventional sentiment. In regard to most beliefs, they are usually more\nor less heterodox or heretical, though not often constant, being apt to\nswing round suddenly from one point to a quite opposite point of the\ncompass of belief.... Inspired with strong faith in the opinions which\nthey adopt, they exhibit much zeal and energy in the propagation of\nthem.\u201d[357] They are careless of every obstacle, and untroubled by the\ndoubts which arise in the minds of calm and sceptical thinkers. Thus\nthey are frequently social or religious reformers.\n\nIt should be understood that they do not _create_ anything, but only\ngive a direction to the latest movements prepared by time and\ncircumstances, as also--thanks to their passion for novelty and\noriginality--they are nearly always inspired by the latest discoveries\nor innovations, and use these as their starting-point in guessing at the\nfuture.\n\nThus Schopenhauer wrote at an epoch in which pessimism was beginning to\nbe fashionable, together with mysticism, and only fused the whole into\none philosophic system. C\u00e6sar found the ground prepared for him by the\nTribunes.\n\nWhen, says Taine, a new civilization produces a new art, there are ten\nmen of talent who express the idea of the public and group themselves\nround one man of genius who gives it actuality; thus De Castro, Moreto,\nLopez de la Vega, round Calderon; Van Dyck, Jordaens, De Vos, and\nSnyders round Rubens.\n\nLuther summed up in himself the ideas of many of his contemporaries and\npredecessors; it is sufficient to mention Savonarola.\n\nThe spherical shape of the earth had already been maintained by St.\nThomas Aquinas, and by Dante, before the discoveries of Columbus, which\nare also antedated by those of the Canary Islands, Iceland, and Cape\nVerde.\n\nIf the new ideas are too divergent from prevalent popular opinion, or\ntoo self-evidently absurd, they die out with their author, if, indeed,\nthey do not involve him in their fall.\n\nArnold of Brescia, Knutzen,[358] Campanella, tried to shake off the\ndominion of the clergy, and take away the temporal power of the Pope;\nthey were persecuted and crushed.\n\n\u201cThe insane person,\u201d says Maudsley, \u201cis in a minority of one in his\nopinion, and so, at first, is the reformer, the difference being that\nthe reformer\u2019s belief is an advance on the received system of thought,\nand so, in time, gets acceptance, while the belief of the former, being\nopposed to the common sense of mankind, gains no acceptance, but dies\nout with its possessor, or with the few foolish persons whom it has\ninfected.\u201d[359]\n\nOf late years there has arisen in India, owing to the efforts of Keshub\nChunder Sen, a new religion which deifies modern rationalism and\nscepticism; but here, also, the madness of Keshub evidently outran the\nmarch of the times; for the triumph of a similar religion is not\nprobable, even among us, with our much greater progress in knowledge.\nThus, too, Buddhism, finding the ground contested by the caste system in\nIndia, took no firm hold there, while it extended itself in China and\nTibet. Keshub was induced to take up this line of action by a form of\nmadness analogous to that which we shall also see in B---- of Modena. In\nfact, this strange rationalist believes in revelation, and in 1879 he\ndeclaimed, \u201cI am the inspired prophet,\u201d &c.[360]\n\nThe same thing may be said of politics. Historical revolutions are never\nlasting, unless the way has been prepared for them by a long series of\nevents. But the crisis is often precipitated--sometimes many years\nbefore its time--by the unbalanced geniuses who outrun the course of\nevents, foresee the development of intermediate facts which escape the\ncommon eye, and rush, without a thought of themselves, on the opposition\nof their contemporaries, acting like those insects which, in flying from\none flower to another, transport the pollen which would otherwise have\nrequired violent winds, or a long space of time to render it available\nfor fertilization.\n\nNow, if we add the immovable, fanatical conviction of the madman to the\ncalculating sagacity of genius, we shall have a force capable, in any\nage, of acting as a lever on the torpid masses, struck dumb before this\nphenomenon, which appears strange and rare even to calm thinkers and\nspectators at a distance. Add further, the influence which madness, in\nitself, already has over barbarous peoples at early periods, and we may\nwell call the force an irresistible one.\n\nThe importance of the madman among savages, and the semi-barbarous\npeoples of ancient times, is rather historical than pathological. He is\nfeared and adored by the masses, and often rules them. In India, some\nmadmen are held in high esteem, and consulted by the Brahmins--a custom\nof which many sects bear traces. In ancient India the eight kinds of\n_demonomania_ bore the names of the eight principal Indian divinities;\nthe Yakshia-graha have deep intelligence; the Deva-graha are strong,\nintelligent, and esteemed and consulted by the Brahmins; the\nGandharva-graha serve as choristers to the gods. But, in order to know\nwhat a point the veneration of the insane may reach, and how little\nmodern India has changed in this respect, it is quite sufficient to\nobserve that there exist at present in that country 43 sects which show\nparticular zeal towards their divinity, sometimes by drinking urine,\nsometimes by walking on the points of sharp stones, sometimes by\nremaining motionless for years exposed to the rays of the sun, or by\nrepresenting to their own imagination the corporeal image of the god,\nand offering up to him, also in imagination, prayers, flowers, or\nfood.[361]\n\nThe existence of endemic insanity among the ancient Hebrews (and, by\nparity of reasoning, among their congeners, the Ph\u0153nicians,\nCarthaginians, &c.--the same words being used for _prophet_, _madman_,\nand _wicked man_) is proved by history and language. The Bible relates\nthat David, fearing that he would be killed, feigned madness,[362] and\nthat Achish said, \u201cHave I need of madmen that ye have brought this\nfellow to play the madman in my presence?\u201d This passage is evidence of\ntheir abundance, and also of their inviolability, which was certainly\nowing to the belief, still common among the Arabs, which causes the word\n_nabi_ (prophet) to be constantly used in the Bible in the sense of\n_madman_, and _vice versa_. Saul, even before his coronation, was\nsuddenly seized with the prophetic spirit, so much to the surprise of\nthe bystanders that the event was made the occasion of a proverb--\u201cIs\nSaul also among the prophets?\u201d One day, after he had become king, the\nspirit of an evil deity weighed upon him, and he prophesied (here\n_raged_) in the house, and attempted to transfix David with a\nlance.[363] In Jeremiah xxix. 26, we read \u201cThe Lord hath made thee\npriest, ... for every man that is mad and maketh himself a prophet, that\nthou shouldst put him in prison and in the stocks.\u201d In 1 Kings xviii. we\nsee the prophets of the groves, and of Baal crying out like madmen, and\ncutting their flesh. In the First Book of Samuel we find Saul as a\nprophet rushing naked through the fields.[364] Elsewhere we see prophets\npublicly approaching places of ill-fame, cutting their hands, eating\nfilth, &c. The Medjdub of the Arab, and the Persian Davana are the\nmodern analogues.[365]\n\n\u201c_Medjdubim_,\u201d says Berbrugger, \u201cis the name given to these individuals\nwho, under the influence of special circumstances fall into a state\nwhich exactly recalls that of the Convulsionnaires of St. Medard. They\nare numerous in Algeria, where they are better known under the names of\nA\u00efssawah or Ammarim.\u201d Mula Ahmed, in the narrative of his journey\n(translated by Berbrugger) speaks of \u201cSidi Abdullah, the Medjdub, who\nbrought the best influence to bear on the Hammis, his thievish and\nvicious fellow-citizens. He would remain for three or five days like a\nlog, without eating, drinking, or praying. He could do without sleep for\nforty days at the end of which, he was seized with violent convulsions\u201d\n(p. 278). Further on, he speaks of one Sidi Abd-el-Kadr, who wandered\nfrom place to place, forgetful of himself and his family--an\nindifference probably due to his sainthood. Drummond Hay shows us how\nfar respect for the insane is carried in Morocco, and among the\nneighbouring nomadic tribes: \u201cThe Moor tells us that God has retained\ntheir reason in heaven, whilst their body is upon earth; and that when\nmadmen or idiots speak, their reason is, for the time, permitted to\nreturn to them, and that their words should be treasured up as those of\ninspired persons.\u201d[366]\n\nThe author himself and an English consul were in danger of being killed\nby one of these novel saints, who, naked, and often armed, insist on\nacting out the strangest caprices which enter their heads; and those who\noppose them do so at their peril.\n\nIn Barbary, says Pananti,[367] the caravans are in the habit of\nconsulting the mad santons (Vasli), to whom nothing is forbidden. One of\nthem strangled every person who came to the mosque; another at the\npublic baths violated a newly married bride, and her companions\ncongratulated the fortunate husband on the occurrence.\n\nThe Ottomans[368] extend to the insane the veneration which they have\nfor dervishes, and believe that they stand in a special relation to the\nDeity. Even the ministers of religion receive them into their own houses\nwith great respect. They are called _Eulya_, _Ullah Deli_--\u201cdivine\nones,\u201d \u201csons of God\u201d--or, more accurately, \u201cmadmen of God.\u201d And the\nvarious sects of Dervishes present phenomena analogous to those of\nmadness. Every monastery[369] has its own species of prayer or dance--or\nrather its own peculiar kind of convulsion. Some move their bodies from\nside to side, others backwards and forwards, and gradually quicken the\nmotion as they go on with their prayer. These movements are called\n_Mukabdi_ (heightening of the divine glory), or _Ovres Tewhid_ (praise\nof the unity of God). The Kufais are distinguished above all other\norders by exaggerated sanctity. They sleep little, lying, when they do,\nwith their feet in water, and fast for weeks together. They begin the\nchant of Allah, advancing the left foot and executing a rotatory\nmovement with the right, while holding each other by the forearm. Then\nthey march forward, raising their voices more and more, quickening the\nmotion of the dance, and throwing their arms over each other\u2019s\nshoulders, till, worn out and perspiring, with glazing eyes and pale\nfaces, they fall into the sacred convulsion (_haluk_). In this state of\nreligious mania (says our author) they submit to the ordeal of hot iron,\nand, when the fire has burnt out, cut their flesh with swords and\nknives.\n\nIn Batacki, when a man is possessed by an evil spirit, he is greatly\nrespected; what he says is looked on as the utterance of an oracle, and\nimmediately obeyed.[370]\n\nIn Madagascar, the insane are objects of veneration. In 1863 many people\nwere seized with tremors, and impelled to strike those who came near\nthem. They were also subject to hallucinations and saw the dead queen\ncoming out of her grave. The king ordered these persons to be respected,\nand for a space of at least two months, soldiers were seen beating their\nofficers, and officials their superiors.\n\nIn China the only well-defined traits of insanity are to be found in the\nonly Chinese sect which was ever conspicuous, in that sceptical nation,\nfor religious fanaticism. The followers of Tao[371] believe in\ndemoniacal possession, and endeavour to gather the future from the\nutterances of madmen, thinking that the possessed person declares in\nwords the thought of the spirit.\n\nIn Oceania, at Tahiti, a species of prophet was called _Eu-toa_--_i.e._,\npossessed of the divine spirit. The chief of the island said that he was\na bad man (_toato-eno_). Omai, the interpreter, said that these prophets\nwere a kind of madmen, some of whom, in their attacks, were not\nconscious of what they were doing, nor could they afterwards remember\nwhat they had done.[372]\n\nWith regard to America, Schoolcraft, in that enormous medley entitled\n_Historical and Statistical Information of the Indian Tribes_[373]\n(1854), says that the regard for madmen is a characteristic trait of the\nIndian tribes of the north, and especially of Oregon, who are considered\nthe most savage. Among these latter, he mentions a woman who showed\nevery symptom of insanity--sang in a grotesque manner, gave away to\nothers all the trifles she possessed, and cut her flesh when they\nrefused to accept them. The Indians treated her with great respect.\n\nThe Patagonians[374] have women-doctors and magicians who prophesy amid\nconvulsive attacks. Men may also be elected to the priesthood, but they\nmust then dress as women, and cannot be admitted unless they have, from\ntheir childhood, shown special qualifications. What these are is shown\nby the fact that epileptics are appointed as a matter of course, as\npossessing the divine spirit.\n\nIn Peru, besides the priests, there were prophets who uttered their\nimprovisations amid terrible contortions and convulsions. They were\nvenerated by the people, but despised by the higher classes.[375]\n\nAll revolutions in Algeria and in the Soudan[376] are due to lunatics or\nneurotics who make, of their own neurosis and the religious societies to\nwhich they attach themselves, instruments for invigorating religious\nfanaticism and getting themselves accepted as inspired messengers of\nGod. Such were the Mahdi, Omar, and a madman who headed the great revolt\nof the Taepings in China.[377]\n\nPhenomena which present such complete uniformity must arise from like\ncauses. These seem to me to be reducible to the following:\n\n1. The mass of the people, accustomed to the few sensations habitual to\nthem, cannot experience new ones without wonder, or strange ones without\nadoration. Adoration is, I should say, the necessary effect of the\nreflex movement produced in them by the overwhelming shock of the new\nimpression. The Peruvians applied the word _Huacha_ (divine) to the\nsacred victim, the temple, a high tower, a great mountain, a ferocious\nanimal, a man with seven fingers, a shining stone, &c. In the same way\nthe Semitic _El_ (divine) is synonymous with _great_, _light_, _new_,\nand is applied to a strong man, as well as to a tree, a mountain, or an\nanimal. After all, it is quite natural that men should be struck by the\nphenomenon of one of their fellow-creatures completely changing his\nvoice and gestures, and associating together the strangest ideas--when\nwe ourselves, with all the advantages of science, are often puzzled to\nunderstand the reasons for his actions.\n\n2. Some of these madmen possess (as we have seen, and shall see again,\nin the Middle Ages and among the Indians) extraordinary muscular\nstrength. The people venerate strength.\n\n3. They often show an extraordinary insensibility to cold, to fire, to\nwounds (as among the Arab Santons, and among our own lunatics), and to\nhunger.\n\n4. Some, affected either by theomania or ambitious mania, having first\ndeclared themselves inspired by the gods, or chiefs and leaders of the\nnation, &c., drew after them the current of popular opinion, already\ndisposed in their favour.\n\n5. The following is the principal reason. Many of these madmen must have\nshown a force of intellect, or at any rate of will, very much superior\nto those of the masses whom they swayed by their extravagances. If the\npassions redouble the force of the intellect, certain forms of madness\n(which are nothing but a morbid exaltation of the passions) may be said\nto increase it a hundred-fold. Their conviction of the truth of their\nown hallucinations, the fluent and vigorous eloquence with which they\ngive utterance to them--and which is precisely the effect of their real\nconviction--and the contrast between their obscure or ignoble past, and\ntheir present position of power or splendour, give to this form of\ninsanity, in the mind of the people, a natural preponderance over sane\nbut quiet habits of mind. Lazzaretti, Briand, Loyola, Molinos, Joan of\nArc, the Anabaptists, &c., are proofs of this assertion. And it is a\nfact that, in epidemics of prophecy--such as those which prevailed in\nthe Cevennes, and, recently, at Stockholm--ignorant persons,\nservant-maids, and even children, excited by enthusiasm, are fired to\ndeliver discourses which are often full of spirit and eloquence.\n\nA maid-servant said, \u201cCan you put a piece of wood in the fire without\nthinking of hell?--the more wood, the greater the flames.\u201d Another\nprophetess, a cook, cried out, \u201cGod pronounces curses on this wine of\nwrath (_i.e._, brandy), and the sinners who drink of it shall be\npunished according to their sin, and torrents of this wine of wrath\nshall flow in hell to burn them.\u201d A child of four said, \u201cMay God in\nheaven call sinners to repentance! Go to Golgotha--there are the festal\nrobes!\u201d[378]\n\n6. Mania, among barbarous people, often takes the epidemic form, as\namong the savage negroes of Juidah, among the Abipones and among the\nAbyssinians in those affections analogous to the tarantula which are\ncalled _tigretier_. Thus, in Greece, an instance is recorded of an\nepidemic madness among the people of Abdera, who had been deeply moved\nby the recital of a tragedy; and those Thyades who appeared at Athens\nand Rome--worshippers of Bacchus, thirsting for luxury and blood, and\nseized with sacred fury--were affected by erotico-religious insanity.\nBut this is more especially seen in the Middle Ages, when mental\nepidemics were continually succeeding one another.\n\nThe strangest forms of madness were thus communicated, like a true\ncontagion, from whole villages to whole nations, from children to old\nmen, from the credulous to the most resolute sceptics. Demonomania, more\nor less associated with nymphomania and convulsions, &c., produced\nsometimes witches, sometimes persons possessed with devils, according as\nit was boasted of and displayed, or suffered with horror, by its\nvictims. It showed itself in the most obscene hallucinations (especially\nof commerce with evil spirits, or the animals which represented them),\nin an antipathy to sacred things, or those believed to be such (_e.g._,\nthe bones said to be relics), or in an extraordinary development,\nsometimes of muscular, sometimes of intellectual, power, so that they\nspoke languages of which they had previously only the slightest\nknowledge, or recalled and connected the most remote and complicated\nreminiscences. This form of insanity was sometimes associated with\nerotic ecstasies, or partial an\u00e6sthesia, and often with a tendency to\nbiting, to murder, or to suicide. Sometimes there was a shuddering\nhorror, oftener gloomy hallucinations; but always a profound conviction\nof their truth.\n\nWhen the prophetic enthusiasm became epidemic in the Cevennes, women,\nand even children, were reached by this contagion, and saw Divine\ncommands in the sun and in the clouds. Thousands of women persisted in\nsinging psalms and prophesying, though they were hanged wholesale. Whole\ncities, says Villani, seemed to be possessed of the devil.\n\nAt Aix-la-Chapelle, in 1374, there spread, from epileptics and choreics\nto the people in general--affecting even decrepit old men and pregnant\nwomen--a mania for dancing in the public squares, crying, \u201c_Here Sant\nJohan, so so, vrisch und vro!_\u201d This was accompanied by religious\nhallucinations, in which they saw heaven opened, and within it, the\nassembly of the blessed. The subjects also had an antipathy to anything\nred, unlike tarantula subjects who are madly attracted to red. The mania\nextended to Cologne, where 500 persons were seized with it; thence to\nMetz, where there were 1,100 dancers, Strasburg, and other places. Nor\ndid it cease speedily, for it recurred periodically in subsequent years;\nand on the day of St. Vitus (probably chosen as a patron on account of\nthe Celtic etymology of his name) thousands of dances took places near\nhis relics. In 1623 these pilgrimages still continued.[379]\n\nMost curious is that epidemic mania for pilgrimages, developed among\nchildren in the Middle Ages. When men\u2019s minds were cast down with grief\nfor the loss of the Holy Land, in 1212, a shepherd-boy of Cloes, in\nVend\u00f4me, thought himself sent by God, who had appeared to him in the\nshape of an unknown man, accepted bread from him, and entrusted him with\na letter for the king. All the sons of the neighbouring shepherds\nflocked to him; 30,000 men became his followers. Soon there arose other\nprophets of eight years old, who preached, worked miracles, and led\nhosts of delirious children to the new saint at Cloes. They made their\nway to Marseilles, where the sea was to withdraw its waves in order to\nlet them pass over dry-shod to Jerusalem. In spite of the opposition of\nthe king and their parents, and the hardships of the journey, they\nreached the sea, were put on board ship by two unscrupulous merchants,\nand sold as slaves in the East.\n\nThe first impulse towards the epidemic form caused by mania was the\nveneration for individuals affected by it, which rendered them liable to\nbe taken as models; but the principal cause is just that isolation, that\nignorance, which is the accompaniment of barbarism. It is, above all,\nthe advance of civilization, the greater contact of a greater number of\npersons, which gives definite form to the sense of individuality,\nsharpening it by means of interest, diffidence, ambition, emulation,\nridicule; but, above all, by the continual variety of sensations and\nconsequent variety of ideas. Thus it seldom happens that great masses of\npeople are equally predisposed towards, and impressed by, the same\nmovement. In fact, though epidemics of mental alienation have shown\nthemselves, even in the most recent times, it has always been among the\nmost ignorant classes of the population, and in districts remote from\nthe great centres of communication; always, moreover, in mountainous\ncountries (certainly through atmospheric influences, as well as on\naccount of greater isolation)[380]--as in Cornwall, Wales, Norway,\nBrittany (the barking women of Josselin), in the remotest colonies of\nAmerica, in the distant valley of Morzines in France, and the Alpine\ngorge of Verzegnis in Italy, where Franzolini has so well described it.\nThus, at Monte Amiata (where, later on, we shall find Lazzaretti), the\nchroniclers record that one Audiberti lived in an extraordinary state\nof filth, and was for this reason venerated as a saint. Not far from\nthis place, Bartolomeo Brandano, a tenant of the Olivetan monks, who\nlived towards the end of the sixteenth century--perhaps overcome by the\nsufferings of his country during the occupation by the Spanish army--was\nseized by religious monomania, and believed himself to be John the\nBaptist. He assumed the dress of the saint, and, covered with a\nhair-shirt reaching to his knees, with bare feet, a crucifix in his\nhand, and a skull under his arm, he travelled through the district of\nSiena, preaching, prophesying, working miracles, and finding proselytes.\nHe then went to Rome, and, on the square of St. Peter\u2019s, preached\nagainst the Pope and the Cardinals. But Clement VII., instead of having\nhim hanged, sent him to the Tordinona prison, where it was usual at that\ntime to seclude the insane, when they were not burnt at the stake as\nbeing possessed of demons. When he came out of prison he returned to\nSiena, and several times insulted Don Diego Mendoza, commander of the\nSpanish army; but Don Diego, unable to tell whether he were a saint, a\nprophet, or a madman, had him seized and taken to the prison of\nTalamone, so that the governor might decide the question. The Siennese\ngovernor would have nothing to do with him, and said, \u201cIf he is a saint,\nsaints are not sent to the galleys; if he is a prophet, prophets are not\npunished; and if he is mad, madmen are exempt from the laws.\u201d Brandano\nwas thus liberated in a short time, and, after having preached a sermon\nto the prisoners, he went away, and returned to his prophecies and his\nexorcisms.\n\nEven recently, in the remote village of Busca, in Piedmont, two saints\nhave arisen, one of whom had been a convict for twenty years,[381] and\nthe other already had a congregation of over 300 members. Not far from\nthere, in the Alpine village of Montenero, there appeared, in 1887, the\nepidemic delirium of the second coming of Christ, in expectation of\nwhich event more than 3,000 inhabitants assembled, in spite of the snow.\nAbout the same time a vagabond Messiah was arrested at Vezzola, in the\nAbruzzi.\n\nThe retrograde metamorphosis of the intellectual faculties passes\nthrough slighter gradations in the barbarian than in the civilized man.\nThe former is much less able to distinguish illusions from realities,\nhallucinations from desires, and the possible from the supernatural, and\nalso to keep his imagination in check.\n\nThe Norwegian preaching epidemic of 1842 was termed _Magdkrankheit_--the\nmaid-servants\u2019 disease--because it attacked servants, hysterical women\nin general, and children of the lower classes. The Redruth epidemic was\ndiffused entirely among persons \u201cwhose intellect is of the very lowest\nclass\u201d;[382] whereas when, in recent years, the craze of magnetism, and\nthe still more foolish one of table-rapping, appeared, they never\npresented any other characteristic than that of widely diffused errors,\nand mental alienation in this direction could only boast of isolated\nvictims.\n\nIt is not long since the Haytian negroes looked on certain trees which\nhad been hung with cloths as images of saints; and the Nubians see their\ngods in the grotesque forms of splintered rocks. The slightest cause\npredisposes the barbarian to terror; and from terror to superstition is\nbut a short step. This last, which disappears before the logic and the\nsarcasm of civilized people, is the most important factor in the\ndevelopment of insanity. Ideler,[383] speaking of the Stockholm epidemic\nof 1842, mentions it as a historical fact that, in the places where the\ndisease first appeared, people\u2019s minds had for a long time past been\ndisturbed and excited by sermons and devotional exercises; and that, in\nthese places, the number of those affected had perceptibly increased.\n\nThis is the explanation of ancient and modern prophets, and their sudden\npower which has left traces on the history of nations.\n\nMany unhappy persons affected by ambitious mania, or theomania, are\nlooked upon as prophets, and their delusions taken for revelations; and\nthis is the origin of a number of sects which have intensified the\nstruggle between religion and liberty both in the Middle Ages and in\nmodern times.\n\nPicard, for example, imagined himself to be a son of God, sent on earth\nas a new Adam, to re-establish the natural laws, which consisted,\naccording to him, in going naked, and in the community of women. He met\nwith believers and imitators, and founded the sect of the Adamites, who\nwere exterminated by the Hussites in 1347, but were afterwards revived\nunder the name of Turlupins.\n\nIn the same way, the Anabaptists, at M\u00fcnster, at Appenzell, and in\nPoland, believed that they saw luminous forms of angels and dragons\nfighting in the sky, that they received orders to kill their brothers or\ntheir best-beloved children (homicidal mania), or to abstain from food\nfor months together, and that they could paralyze whole armies by their\nbreath or by a look. Later on, those sects of Calvinists and Jansenists\nwhich caused the shedding of so much blood, had--as Calmeil has\ndemonstrated--an analogous origin. This is also the origin of the belief\nin wizards and demoniacs.\n\nIf we glance over the lists of literary madmen and _illuminati_ given by\nDelepierre, Philomneste, and Adelung, the number of followers found by\nmany of them makes us laugh and sigh in the same breath at the extent of\nhuman folly. Let us mention, for example, Kleinov, who, in the middle of\nthe eighteenth century, claimed to represent the King of Zion, whose\nsons his followers asserted themselves to be; and Joachim of Calabria,\nwho declared that the Christian era was to end in 1200, when a new\nMessiah was to appear with a new gospel. Swedenborg, who believed that\nhe had spoken with the spirits of the various planets for whole days,\nand even for months together, who had seen the inhabitants of Jupiter\nwalking partly on their hands and partly on their feet, those of Mars\nspeaking with their eyes, and those of the Moon with their stomachs,\nincredible as it may seem, has believers and followers even up to the\npresent time.[384]\n\nIrving, in 1830, asserted that he had received, by divine inspiration,\nthe gift of unknown tongues, and founded the sect of the Irvingites.\n\nJohn Humphrey Noyes, of the United States, believed himself to have the\ngift of prophecy, and founded the sect of \u201cPerfectionists\u201d established\nat Oneida, who considered marriage and property as theft, did not\nrecognize human laws, and believed every action, even the commonest, to\nbe inspired by God.\n\nAt the beginning of the century that prophetess of monarchy, Julie de\nKr\u00fcdener, possessed great influence. She was hysterical, and so far\nerotic as to throw herself on her knees in public before a tenor;\nafterwards, impelled by disappointment in love towards the ancient\nfaith, she believed herself chosen to redeem humanity, and found in this\nbelief the vigour of a burning eloquence. She went to B\u00e2le and turned\nthe city upside down by preaching the speedy coming of the Messiah.\nTwenty thousand pilgrims responded to her call; the Senate became\nalarmed and banished her. She hastened to Baden, where four thousand\npeople were waiting on the square to kiss her hands and her dress. A\nwoman offered her ten thousand florins to build a new church; she\ndistributed them to the poor \u201cwhose reign was at hand.\u201d She was exiled\nfrom Baden, and returned to Switzerland, followed by crowds. Though\npersecuted by the police, she passed from town to town, followed by\nacclamations and blessings. She said that her works were dictated to her\nby angels. Napoleon, who had treated her with contempt, became, for her,\nthe \u201cdark angel,\u201d Alexander of Russia, the angel of light. Her influence\nbecame the inspiration of the latter; so much so, that the idea of the\nHoly Alliance seems to be due to her alone.[385]\n\nLoyola, when wounded, turned his thoughts to religious subjects, and,\nterrified by the Lutheran revolt, planned and founded the great Company.\nHe believed that he received the personal assistance of the Virgin Mary\nin his projects, and heard heavenly voices encouraging him to persevere\nin them.\n\nAnalogous phenomena may be observed in the lives of George Fox and the\nearly Quakers.[386]\n\n_Francis of Assisi._[387]--The son of a religious woman, Francis of\nAssisi was forced to devote himself to business after receiving only the\nelements of education from the priests of S. Giorgio. Being rich, and\nable to spend money as he pleased, he became the life and soul of the\njoyous companies of young men, whose custom it was to go about the city\nby day and night, singing and diverting themselves. He seemed to be the\nson of a great prince rather than of a merchant. The citizens of Assisi\ncalled him \u201cthe flower of youths,\u201d and his companions deferred to him as\nto their leader. He excelled in singing, his biographers praise his\nsweet and powerful voice; and he was also dexterous in feats of arms.\nWhen taken prisoner, in a skirmish between the burghers of Perugia and\nthose of Assisi, he encouraged his companions in prison, and exhorted\nthem to cheerfulness both by word and example. His naturally refined and\nnoble disposition was shown both in his person and manners, and in a\nliberality which delighted in giving to the poor.\n\nIt is said that, in his twenty-fourth year, a severe illness confined\nhim for a long time to his bed. At the beginning of his convalescence,\nhe left the house, leaning on a stick, and stood still to gaze at the\nbeautiful country which surrounds Assisi, but could find no pleasure in\nit, as he had once done. From that day forward, he was sad and\nthoughtful. He often left his companions, and retired to a cave, where\nhe spent hours in meditation.\n\nIn order to relieve his sufferings, he had recourse to prayer, and\nprayed so fervently that one day he thought he saw before him Christ\nnailed to the cross, and felt \u201cthe passion of Christ impressed even upon\nhis bowels, upon the very marrow of his bones, so that he could not keep\nhis thoughts fixed upon it without being overflowed with grief.\u201d He was\nthen seen wandering about the fields with his face bathed in tears; and\nwhen asked whether he felt ill, he replied, \u201cI am weeping for the\npassion of my Lord Jesus.\u201d His friends said to him, \u201cThink of choosing\na wife,\u201d and he replied, \u201cYes, I am thinking of a lady--of the noblest,\nthe richest, the most beautiful, that was ever seen!\u201d Who was the lady\nof his thoughts, he revealed on the day when, laying aside the dress of\nhis rank, he threw a beggar\u2019s mantle over his shoulders, to the\nunbounded anger of his father, who in vain tried to imprison him, and to\nthe great scandal of every one. By many, we read in the _Fioretti_, he\nwas thought a fool; and as a madman he was mocked and driven away with\nstones, by his relations and by strangers; and he suffered patiently all\nmockery and harsh treatment, as though he had been deaf and dumb.\n\nFrancis of Assisi, however, was original and great, not through those\nqualities which he had in common with the vulgar herd of\nascetics--abstinences, mortifications, prayers, ecstasies, visions--but\non account of something which was, without his knowing it, the very\nnegation of asceticism--the affirmation and the triumph of the gentlest\nand sweetest feelings of humanity. The ascetic abhorred, condemned, and\nfled from nature, life, all human affections, in order to steep himself\nin solitary contemplation: Francis, by example and precept, preached the\nlove of nature, concord, mutual affection between human beings, and\nwork. The ascetic called everything beautiful in the world the work of\nSatan: Francis brought about a true revolution by calling it the work of\nGod, praising and thanking God for it. It was a new kind of loving and\npassionate Pantheism which inspired him with the _Song of the Sun_, in\nwhich all creatures, animate and inanimate, are joined in fraternal\nembrace, in which the beautiful and radiant sun, the bright and precious\nmoon and stars, the wind, the clouds, the clear sky--water, \u201cuseful,\nhumble, precious, and chaste,\u201d--fire, shining, joyous, \u201chardy and\nstrong,\u201d Mother Earth, who sustains and feeds us, together with man, who\nup to that time had been taught to despise everything that might\ndistract him from the selfish thought of his fate in the next world--all\nthese are called upon to sing the glory of the Lord _who is good_, to\nbless Him for having made the universe so rich, varied, and beautiful,\nso worthy to be loved.[388]\n\nIf we think of this bold and far-reaching change, we shall no longer\nsmile in reading the _Song_; remembering, too, that it was the first\nattempt made by the Italian people to express their religious feelings\nin the vulgar tongue.\n\nFor such a song to burst from the impassioned heart of Francis, the\ngerms of universal love which he cherished there must already have come\nto perfect growth. He must have freed himself entirely from the ancient\nterror, which, in the common superstitious belief, peopled woods,\nmountains, air and water, with hidden enemies. As also, in order to\nbring men back to mutual love, in an age when \u201cthose whom one wall and\none ditch confined, gnawed one another,\u201d he had, through the natural\ntendency to extremes, to include, not only Brother Sun and Sister Moon,\nbut even Brother Wolf.\n\nHaving composed the _Song_, Francis was so well pleased with it that he\nadapted to it a musical melody, taught it to his disciples, and thought\nof choosing among his followers some who should go about the world\nsinging the praises of God, and \u201casking, as their only recompense that\ntheir listeners should repent, should call themselves just \u2018God\u2019s\njesters\u2019--_Joculatores Domini_.\u201d Thus he gave the first and most\nvigorous impulse to religious poetry in the vulgar tongue.\n\n_Luther._--Luther[389] attributed his physical pains and his dreams to\nthe arts of the devil, though all those of which he has left us a\ndescription are clearly due to nervous phenomena. He often suffered,\n_e.g._, from an anguish which nothing could lighten, caused, according\nto him, by the anger of an offended God. At 27, he began to be seized\nwith attacks of giddiness, accompanied by headaches and noises in the\nears, which returned at the ages of 32, 38, 40, and 52, especially when\nhe was on a journey. At thirty-eight, moreover, he had a real\nhallucination, perhaps favoured by excessive solitude. \u201cWhen, in 1521,\u201d\nhe writes, \u201cI was in my Patmos, in a room which was entered by no one\nexcept two pages who brought me my food, I heard, one evening, after I\nwas in bed, nuts moving inside a sack, and flying of themselves against\nthe ceiling and all round my bed. Scarcely had I gone to sleep, when I\nheard a tremendous noise, as if many berries were being thrown over; I\nrose, and cried, \u2018Who art thou?\u2019 commended myself to Christ,\u201d &c.\n\nIn the church at Wittenberg, he had just begun explaining the Epistle to\nthe Romans, and had reached the words, \u201cThe just shall live by faith,\u201d\nwhen he felt these ideas penetrate his mind, and heard that sentence\nrepeated aloud several times in his ear. In 1507, he heard the same\nwords when on his journey to Rome, and again in a voice of thunder, as\nhe was dragging himself up the steps of the Scala Santa. \u201cNot seldom,\u201d\nhe confesses, \u201chas it happened to me to awake about midnight, and\ndispute with Satan concerning the Mass,\u201d and he details the many\narguments adduced by the Devil.\n\n_Savonarola._--But the illustration in every respect most apposite (if\nit did not seem almost a national blasphemy to say so) is that offered\nus by Savonarola. Under the influence of a vision, he believed himself,\neven from his youth, sent by Christ to redeem the country from its\ncorruption. One day, while speaking to a nun, it seemed to him that\nheaven suddenly opened; and he saw in a vision the calamities of the\nChurch, and heard a voice commanding him to announce them to the people.\n\nThe visions of the Apocalypse and of the Old Testament prophets passed\nin review before him. In 1491 he wished to leave off treating of\npolitics in his sermons. \u201cI watched all Saturday, and the whole night,\nbut at daybreak, while I was praying, I heard a voice say, \u2018Fool, dost\nthou not see that God will have thee go on in the same way?\u2019\u201d\n\nIn 1492, while preaching during Advent, he had a vision of a sword, on\nwhich was written, \u201c_Gladius Domini super terram_.\u201d Suddenly, the sword\nturned towards the earth, the air was darkened, there was a rain of\nswords, arrows, and fire, and the earth became a prey to famine and\npestilence. From this moment, he began to predict the pestilence which,\nin fact, afterwards came to pass.\n\nIn another vision, becoming ambassador to Christ, he makes a long\njourney to Paradise, and there holds discourse with many saints and with\nthe Virgin, whose throne he describes, not forgetting the number of the\nprecious stones with which it is adorned.[390]\n\nWe shall see how a similar scene was described by Lazzaretti. Savonarola\nwas continually meditating on his dreams; and he tried to distinguish\nwhich among his visions were produced by angels, and which were the work\nof demons. Scarcely ever is he touched by a misgiving that he may\npossibly be in error. In one of his dialogues he declares that \u201cto feign\none\u2019s self a prophet in order to persuade others, would be like making\nGod Himself an impostor. Might it not be,\u201d continues the objector, \u201cthat\nyou were deceiving yourself? No,\u201d is the reply, \u201cI worship God--I seek\nto follow in His footsteps; it cannot be that God should deceive\nme.\u201d[391]\n\nYet, with the contradiction peculiar to unhinged minds, he had written a\nshort time before, \u201cI am not a prophet, neither the son of a prophet; it\nis your sins that make me a prophet perforce.\u201d Moreover, in one page he\nsays that his prophetic illumination is independent of grace, whereas, a\nfew pages back, he had declared that the two were one and the same\nthing.\n\nVillari justly remarks that \u201cthis is the singularity of his character,\nthat a man who had given to Florence the best form of republic, who\ndominated an entire people, who filled the world with his eloquence and\nhad been the greatest of philosophers--should make it his boast that he\nheard voices in the air, and saw the sword of the Lord!\u201d\n\n\u201cBut,\u201d as the same author well concludes, \u201cthe very puerility of his\nvisions proves that he was the victim of hallucinations; and a still\nstronger proof is their uselessness, even hurtfulness, as far as he\nhimself was concerned.\n\n\u201cWhat need was there, if he wished to cheat the masses, to write\ntreatises on his visions, to speak of them to his mother, to write\nreflections on them on the margins of his Bible? Those things which his\nadmirers would have been most eager to hide, those which the simplest\nintelligence would never have allowed to get into print, these very\nproductions he continued to publish and republish. The truth is that,\nas he often confessed, he felt an inward fire burning in his bones, and\nforcing him to speak; and as he was himself swept away by the force of\nthat ecstatic delirium, so he succeeded in carrying with him his\naudience, who were moved by his words in a way we find it hard to\nunderstand when we compare the impression produced with the text of the\nsermons themselves.\u201d\n\nThis helps us to understand how--exactly in the same manner as\nLazzaretti--he propagated his divine madness among the people, not only\nepidemically, by the contagion of ideas, but producing actual insanity\nin persons, who, being nearly or quite without education, preached and\nwrote extempore in consequence of their madness. Thus Domenico\nCecchi[392] was the author of a work entitled _Sacred Reform_, which\ncontains the very just suggestions of relieving the Great Council from\nminor business, taxing church property, imposing a single tax, and\ncreating a militia, also that of fixing the amount of girls\u2019 dowries. In\nhis preface, he writes: \u201cI set myself with my fancy to make such a work,\nand I can make no other, and by day and night methinks I have made such\nefforts that I might call them miraculous; but it has come to pass that\nI myself stand amazed thereat.\u201d\n\nA certain Giovanni, a Florentine tailor, seized with morbid enthusiasm,\nwrote _terzine_ in which he extolled the future glories of Florence, and\nproduced verses worthy of Lazzaretti,[393] and prophecies like the\nfollowing, \u201cYet it must needs be that the Pisan shall descend, with\nirons on his feet, into the sewer, since he has been the cause of so\nmuch woe.\u201d\n\nIf I were asked whether, in our asylums, we often meet with types\nanalogous to these, I should reply that there is, perhaps, not an asylum\nin Italy which has not received one of these strange lunatics.\n\n_Cola da Rienzi._--In 1330, Rome was sinking into chaos. Historians have\nleft us an appalling picture of the disorders of the time, the absence\nof any regular government, and the lawless tyranny of the robber\nbarons.\n\nThe general conditions of the age were favourable to popular movements.\nKing Robert, the protector of the barons was dead; and Todi (1337),\nGenoa (under Adorno, in 1367), and Florence (1363), had initiated a\ndemocratic _r\u00e9gime_, which ushered in the terrible _Ciompi_ revolution\nof 1378. A premature thrill of revolt ran through Europe, and was felt\neven in feudal and monarchical France, where the movement was organized,\nfor a short time, at Paris, under Marcel.[394]\n\nUnder these circumstances, Cola--a young man, born in the Tiber\ndistrict, in 1313, the son of an innkeeper and a washerwoman, or\nwater-seller, who though at first little better than a field-labourer,\nhad studied as a notary, and acquired a considerable knowledge of the\nhistory and antiquities of his country--saw his brother murdered by the\nwretches who formed the government, or rather the misgovernment of Rome.\n\nThen he--who, as the anonymous historian tells us, always had \u201ca\nfantastic smile\u201d on his lips, and already, when meditating on ancient\nbooks and the ruins of Rome, had often wept, exclaiming, \u201cWhere are the\ngood Romans of the old time? Where is their justice?\u201d--was seized, as he\nafterwards acknowledged,[395] by an irresistible impulse to put into\naction the ideas which he had acquired from books.\n\nIn his capacity of notary, he devoted himself to the protection of\nminors and widows, and assumed the curious title of their Consul, just\nas there were, in his time, consuls of the carpenters, cloth-workers,\nand other guilds.\n\nIn 1343, in one of the numerous small revolutions of the period, the\npeople had attempted to overthrow the Senate, creating the government of\nthe Thirteen, under the papal authority. On that occasion, Cola was sent\nas spokesman of the people, to Avignon, where he vividly depicted the\nevils prevalent in Rome, and, by his bold and powerful eloquence, amazed\nand won over the cool-headed prelates, from whom he attained the\nappointment of notary to the Urban Chamber, in 1344.\n\nOn his return to Rome, he continued to exercise this office with\nexaggerated zeal, and got himself called Consul no longer _of the\nwidows_, but _of Rome_. He excelled others in courtesy, was also\ninflexible in the administration of justice, and never failed to involve\nhimself in long harangues against those whom he called the dogs of the\nCapitol.\n\nOne day, in a moment of exaggerated fanaticism, he cried to the barons,\nin full assembly, \u201cYe are evil citizens--ye who suck the blood of the\npeople.\u201d And, turning to the officials and governors, he warned them\nthat it was their place to provide for the good of the State. The result\nof this was a tremendous buffet dealt him by a chamberlain of the House\nof Colonna. He then took matters more calmly, and began to depict the\nformer glories and present miseries of Rome, by means of paintings, in\nwhich the homicides, adulterers, and other criminals were represented by\napes and cats, the corrupt judges and notaries by foxes, and the\nsenators and nobles by wolves and bears.\n\nOn another day, he exhibited the famous table of Vespasian, and invited\nthe public, including the nobles, to a dramatic explanation of it. He\nappeared, arrayed in a German cloak with a white hood, and a hat also\nwhite and surrounded by many crowns, one of which was divided in the\nmidst by a small silver sword. The interpretation of these grotesque\nsymbols, which already indicate his madness (the continual use of such\nbeing, as already stated, characteristic of monomaniacs, till they end\nby sacrificing to their passion for symbols the very evidence of the\nthings which they wish to represent), is unknown. Thus,\napplying--somewhat after his own fashion--the decree of the Senate which\ngranted to Vespasian the right of making laws at his pleasure, of\nincreasing or diminishing _the gardens of Rome and of Italy_ (if he had\nbeen a scholar, he would have said the area of the Roman district), and\nof making and unmaking kings, he called on them to consider into what a\nstate they had fallen. \u201cRemember that the jubilee is approaching, and\nthat you have made no provision of food or other necessaries. Put an end\nto your quarrels,\u201d &c.\n\nBut along with these, he delivered other discourses which were, to say\nthe least, eccentric; _e.g._, \u201cI know that men wish to find a crime in\nmy speeches, and that out of envy; but, thanks to heaven, three things\nconsume my enemies--luxury, envy, and fire.\u201d[396] These two last words\nwere greatly applauded; I do not understand them, however, especially\nthe last. I believe that they were applauded, precisely because the\naudience did not understand them, as happens to many street orators,\nwith whom resonant and meaningless words supply the place of ideas, and\nare even greeted with greater enthusiasm.\n\nThe fact is, that, among the upper classes, he passed for one of those\npersons of unsound mind who were then in great request for the amusement\nof society.[397] The nobles, especially the Colonna, disputed the\npleasure of his company with each other, and he would tell them of the\nglories of his future government. \u201cAnd when I am king or emperor, I will\nmake war on all of you. I will have such an one hanged, and such another\nbeheaded.\u201d He spared none of them, and mentioned them by name, one by\none, to their faces; and, all the time, both to nobles and commons, he\ncontinued to speak of the good state, and of how he was going to restore\nit.\n\nHere I insert a parenthesis. It has been said (by Petrarch in\nparticular) that he feigned madness, and was a second Brutus; but when\nwe see his love for pomp, luxury, strange symbols, and garments,\ngradually increasing as he advanced in his political career, and after\nhis rise to power, we no longer have any doubt as to the reality of his\nmadness.\n\nHe continued to put forth new symbolical pictures, among others one with\nthis inscription: \u201c_The day of justice is coming--Await this moment_.\u201d\nBe it noted that this picture represented a dove bringing a crown of\nmyrtle to a little bird. The dove stood for the Holy Spirit (as we shall\nsee, one of the favourite objects of his delirium) and the bird was\nhimself, who was to crown Rome with glory. At last, on the first day of\nLent, 1347, he affixed to the door of San Giorgio another placard:\n\u201c_Before long, the good State of Rome shall be restored_.\u201d\n\nNot being feared by the nobles, who thought him mad, he was able to\nconspire secretly, or rather to keep up the ferment of public opinion,\nby taking apart, gradually, one by one, the men who seemed to him best\nadapted for the purpose, and assigning them their posts on Mount\nAventine, towards the end of April, on a day when the governor was to be\nabsent.\n\nIn this assembly, the only one which, up to that time, had been held in\nsecret, the mode of bringing about the Good State was deliberated on.\nHere he showed the eloquence of a man who speaks from conviction, and of\nthings which are too true not to produce a deep impression. He described\nthe discord of the great, the debasement of the poor, the armed men\nroaming about in quest of plunder, wives dragged from their\nmarriage-beds, pilgrims murdered at the gates, priests drowned in\nsensual orgies, no strength or wisdom among those who held the reigns of\npower. From the nobles there was everything to fear and nothing to hope.\nWhere were they, in the midst of all these disorders? They were leaving\nRome, to enjoy a holiday on their estates, while everything was going to\nwreck and ruin in the city.\n\nAs the members of the popular party were hesitating for want of funds,\nhe gave them a hint that these might be obtained from the revenues of\nthe Apostolic Chamber, reckoning 10,000 florins for the tax on salt\nalone, 100,000 for the hearth-tax, figures which Sismondi (chapter\nxxxviii.) declares to be absolutely erroneous. He also gave them to\nunderstand that he was acting in accordance with the wishes of the Pope\n(_which was false_), and that he was able with the consent of the\nlatter, to seize upon the revenues of the Holy See.\n\nOn May 18, 1347, in Colonna\u2019s absence, he had proclamation made through\nthe streets, by sound of trumpet, that all citizens were to assemble in\nthe night of the day following, in the church of Sant\u2019 Angelo, to take\nmeasures for the establishment of the Good State. On the 19th, Rienzi\nwas present at the meeting, in armour, guarded by a hundred armed men,\nand accompanied by the Papal Vicar, and by three standards covered with\nthe most extraordinary symbols--one of them representing Liberty, one\nJustice, and one Peace.\n\nAmong the measures which he caused to be adopted by this improvised\nassembly were some which would be well suited to our own times; the\nfollowing, for instance:--\n\nAll lawsuits were to be terminated within fifteen days.\n\nThe Apostolic Chamber was to provide for the support of widows and\norphans.\n\nEvery district of Rome was to have a public granary.\n\nIf a Roman were killed in the service of his country, his heirs to\nreceive a hundred _lire_ if he were a foot soldier, and a hundred\n_florins_ if a horseman.\n\nThe garrisons of cities and fortresses to be formed of men chosen from\namong the Roman people.\n\nEvery accuser who could not make good his accusation, to be subject to\nthe penalty which his victim would have incurred.\n\nThe houses of the condemned not to be destroyed (as was then the case in\nall communities), but to become the property of the municipality.\n\nCola received from this popular assembly entire lordship over the city;\nhe associated the Papal Vicar with himself as a harmless assistant,\nentitled himself Tribune, and performed an actual miracle in restoring\npeace where there had been chaos. He saw the proud barons--even the\nrebellious and powerful prefect of Vico--prostrate at his feet. He\nexecuted severe justice upon the most powerful nobles as well as the\npopulace. Members of the Orsini, Savelli, and Gaetani families were\nhanged by him, for violation of the laws; and, what is more, even\npriests, such as the monk of St. Anastasius who was accused of several\nmurders.\n\nBy means of the so-called Tribunal of Peace, he reconciled with each\nother 1800 citizens, who had previously been mortal enemies. He\nabolished, or, more accurately speaking, tried to abolish, the servile\nuse of the title _Don_, which is still rampant among us in the south; he\nprohibited dicing, concubinage, and fraud in the sale of\nprovisions--which last was the measure which conduced most to his\npopularity. Finally, he created a true citizen militia, a real national\nguard.\n\nHe caused the escutcheons of the nobles to be erased from all palaces,\nequipages, and banners, saying that there was to be in Rome no other\nlordship than the Pope\u2019s and his own.\n\nHe re-established a tax on every hearth, in all the towns and villages\nof the Roman district, and was obeyed even by the Tuscan communities,\nwho might have claimed exemption. The collectors were not sufficient for\nthe work. All the governors, except two, submitted; and he finally\nappointed a kind of justice of the peace, to decide even criminal cases.\n\nHe did even more. He was the first to conceive, what even Dante had not\nthought of, an Italy neither Guelf nor Ghibelline, under the headship of\nthe Roman municipality, in which like Marcel of Paris, he attempted to\nassemble a true national Parliament.[398] He was the first man in Italy\nto think of this, and was only understood by thirty-five communes.\n\nAt Avignon, finally, he was able to achieve what I consider his greatest\nenterprise: to get himself pardoned, after a course of speech and action\nso hostile to the Papal Court, by those who never pardon--the clergy of\nthat ferocious and implacable age; and not only pardoned, but sent back,\nthough for a short period and in an inferior capacity, to a position\nfraught with the greatest dangers to that order.\n\nBut all these miracles, alas! lasted for a few days only. The man who in\nhis political ideas surpassed not only his contemporaries, but many\nmodern thinkers, and preceded Mazzini and Cavour in the idea of unity,\nwas in fact a monomaniac, as is recorded by the historians, Re and\nPapencordt; if he was great in conception, he was uncertain and\nincapable in practical matters. This was fully shown, _e.g._, when,\nthough he had his greatest enemy, the prefect of Vico, in his hands, he\nlet him go, keeping his son as a hostage; and when he failed to profit\nby his unexpected victory over the barons.\n\nAlways incapable of taking any resolution which was not merely\ntheoretical, he believed that everything he did was done by the grace of\nthe Holy Spirit,[399] under whose auspices we have seen that he began\nhis enterprize.\n\nHe was still further confirmed in his delusion by a heresy which had\nthen recently sprung up, according to which the Holy Spirit was to\nregenerate the world, and especially by the fact, very insignificant in\nitself, that a dove alighted near him while he was showing the people\none of his allegorical pictures. To this dove he attributed his\nsuccessful beginning, as he ascribed to his prophetic inspiration the\nvictory over the Colonna[400] and that over the Prefect.[401]\n\nIn the most important affairs, he believed that he heard in himself,\nthrough the medium of a dream or other sign, the voice of God, with whom\nhe took counsel, and to whom he referred everything.\n\nSustained by the _prestige_ of this inspiration, he furthermore enacted\nreligious laws, _e.g._, one compelling confession once a year, under\npain of confiscation to the extent of one-third of a man\u2019s property.\n\nHe did not fail to exhibit the usual contradictions peculiar to the\ninsane. Very religious himself, he had no hesitation in comparing\nhimself to Christ, only on account of the coincidence implied in his\nhaving gained a victory at the age of thirty-three. After his defeat, he\nagain compared himself to him, in a play upon numbers such as is common\namong the insane, because he was for thirty-three months an exile in the\nMajella, in a wild and lonely hermitage, surrounded by several persons\nsubject to hallucinations, followers of the Holy Spirit, who prophesied\nthat he would once more be victorious, and even rule over the whole\nworld. The megalomaniac delirium which usually prevailed in his case,\nexplains the greater part of these contradictions. He believed that in\nhis own person were centred all the hopes of a Messiah of Italy, who was\nto restore the Roman Empire, nay, even redeem the world.[402]\n\nAt a moment when he must have thought himself near death, in the prison\nat Prague,[403] he thought himself the victim of diabolical\nimaginations, or believed that he was obeying the will of heaven. Thus\nhe wrote, \u201cI kiss the key of the prison, as it were the gift of God.\u201d\n\nOne day he arose from the throne and, advancing towards his faithful\nfollowers, said in a loud voice, \u201cWe command Pope Clement to present\nhimself before our tribunal, and to live at Rome; and we give the same\ncommand to the College of Cardinals. We cite to appear before us the two\nclaimants, Charles of Bohemia and Ludwig of Bavaria, who take upon\nthemselves the title of Emperors. We command all the electors of Germany\nto inform us on what pretext they have usurped the inalienable right of\nthe Roman people--the ancient and legitimate sovereign of the empire.\u201d\n\nThen he drew his sword, waved it three times towards the three divisions\nof the known world, and said, three times, in a transport of ecstasy,\n\u201cThis, too, belongs to me!\u201d\n\nAll this because he had bathed in the porphyry basin of Constantine--to\nthe great scandal of his followers--and believed that he had thus\nsucceeded to the power of that emperor.\n\nWhile he was going on this course the Papal Legate, by whose concurrence\nalone all these eccentricities could, up to a certain point, be\njustified, protested with all the force his slight degree of energy\nwould allow. It would be pretty much as if the Consul of San Marino were\nto take it into his head, on the strength of a majority of votes, or\nbecause he had worn a hat belonging to Napoleon I., that he could summon\nbefore his tribunal the emperors of Austria, Germany, and Russia, with a\nfew dukes into the bargain. And if this would appear ridiculous in our\nown times, when, in theory at least, right is esteemed above might, what\nmust it have seemed in that age?\n\nNor was this a mere momentary aberration. We still possess the\ndiplomatic communication (dated Aug. 12th), destined for the emperors,\nafter that mad theatrical ceremony. I extract some passages:[404]\n\n\u201cIn virtue of the same authority, and of the favour of God, the Holy\nSpirit, and the Roman people, we say, protest, and declare that the\nRoman Empire, the election, jurisdiction, and monarchy of the Sacred\nEmpire belong, by full right, to the city of Rome, and to all Italy, for\nmany good reasons which we shall mention at the proper place and time,\nand after having summoned the dukes, kings, &c., to appear between this\nday and that of Pentecost next following, before us in St. John Lateran,\nwith their titles and claims; failing which, on the expiry of the term,\n_they will be proceeded against_ according to the forms of law, and the\ninspiration of the Holy Spirit.\u201d\n\nMoreover, he adds, as though he had not yet expressed himself clearly\nenough, \u201cBesides what has been heretofore said, in general and in\nparticular, we cite in person the illustrious princes, Louis, Duke of\nBavaria, and Charles, Duke of Bohemia, _calling themselves_ emperors, or\nelected to the empire; and, besides these, the Duke of Saxony, the\nMarquis of Brandenburg, &c., that they may appear in the said place\nbefore us in person, and before other magistrates, failing which we\nshall proceed against them, as contumacious,\u201d &c.\n\nThis was too much. The mutual animosity of the Colonna and the Orsini\nwas momentarily suspended. They united their forces to combat him openly\nand conspire against him in secret.\n\nAn assassin, sent by them to attempt the tribune\u2019s life, was arrested,\nand, when put to the torture, accused the nobles. From that instant\nRienzi incurred the fate of a tyrant, and adopted a tyrant\u2019s suspicions\nand rules of conduct. Shortly afterwards, under various pretexts, he\ninvited to the capital his principal enemies, among whom were many of\nthe Orsini and three of the Colonna. They arrived, believing themselves\ncalled to a council or banquet; and Rienzi, after inviting them to take\ntheir places at table, had them arrested; innocent and guilty had to\nundergo this terror alike. After the people had been summoned to the\nspot, by the sound of the great bell, they were accused of a conspiracy\nto assassinate Rienzi, and not a single voice or hand was raised to\ndefend the heads of the nobility.\n\nThey passed the night in separate rooms; and Stefano Colonna, battering\nat his prison door, several times entreated that he might be freed by a\nswift death from so humiliating a position. The arrival of a confessor,\nand the sound of the funeral bell, showed them what was awaiting them.\n\nThe great hall of the Capitol, where the trial was to take place, was\nhung with white and red, as was usual when a death-sentence was about to\nbe pronounced. All seemed ready for their condemnation, when the\ntribune, touched by fear or pity, after a long speech to the people, _in\ntheir defence_, caused them to be acquitted, and even granted them some\noffices (such as the Prefecture of arms), which could not fail to be\nformidable weapons against him. It was not the sort of thing which was\ndone in those days; and even Petrarch thought he had been too lenient,\nwhile the lower classes expressed their sense of his folly in a coarser\nand more energetic fashion.\n\nSuch was his madness, says the anonymous historian, that he allowed his\nenemies to entrench themselves afresh, and then sent a messenger to\nsummon them to his presence. The messenger was wounded, whereupon he\nsummoned them a second time, and then had two of them painted, hanging\nhead downward. They, in their turn, took the town of Nepi from him, for\nwhich he could devise no other retribution than the drowning of two\ndogs, supposed to represent them. After some bloodless and useless\nmarches, he returned to Rome, and, having put on the _dalmatica_(_!_) of\nthe emperors, had himself crowned for the third time. Worse still, he at\nthe same time expelled the Papal legate, Bertrando,[405] thus throwing\naway his last anchor of safety at the moment when he needed it most.\n\nBesides the eccentricity of his consecration as Knight of the Holy\nSpirit, preceded by the bath in the vase of Constantine (which, though\nit can readily be explained by the ideas of the period, did him serious\ninjury in the estimation of the majority, and especially the religious,\nas being an act of profanation), he was guilty of the egregious\npolitical folly of declaring that, after that ceremony, the Roman people\nhad returned to the full possession of their jurisdiction over the\nworld; that Rome was the head of the world, that the monarchy of the\nempire and the election of the emperor were privileges of the city, of\nthe Roman people, and of Italy. This was clearly a declaration of war\nagainst both pope and emperor. Later on, on August 15th, with his usual\nmonomaniac tendency to symbolism, he crowned himself with six wreaths of\ndifferent plants--ivy, because he loved religion; myrtle, because he\nhonoured learning; parsley, because of its resistance to poison (as the\nemperor was supposed to resist the malevolence of his enemies). To these\nhe added, for no discoverable reason, the mitre of the Trojan king, and\na silver crown!\n\nAll this proves, says Gregorovius, that it was his intention to get\nhimself crowned emperor.\n\nAnd, as it was the custom of the Roman emperors to promulgate edicts\nafter their coronation, so he, immediately after this ceremony, by\npolitical decrees confirmed to the whole of Italy the right of Roman\ncitizenship. Alberto Argentaro[406] adds that he threatened Pope Clement\nwith deposition, if he did not return to Rome within the year, and that\nhe would have elected another pope. Villani says,[407] that he wished to\nreform the whole of Italy in the ancient manner, and subject it to the\ndominion of Rome. To understand how truly insane was this project, it\nmust be remembered that his sacred militia--that which he believed most\nfaithful--numbered no more than 1600 men, and that the whole army,\ncounting both horse and foot, did not, on an outside calculation, exceed\n2000.\n\nAfter defeating the nobles, without any merit on his part, he, who had\nformerly been so generous, forbade the widows to weep for the dead; and\nwas guilty of words and actions which, even in that ferocious age,\nstruck his _Sacred Knights_ (as he called them) as so barbarous and\nfoolish, that they refused to bear arms for him any longer. From this\nmoment date, on the one hand, his undoubted insanity, on the other, the\ncontempt of all honourable men, vigorously expressed by Petrarch himself\nin a well-known letter.\n\nIt can now be understood why he was, even from the time of his first\nexploits, so fond of pompous titles. After calling himself \u201cConsul of\nthe Widows,\u201d and \u201cConsul of Rome,\u201d he adopted the title of Tribune,\nwhich afterwards became \u201cClement and Severe Tribune,\u201d the contradiction\nbeing nothing to him, so long as he could suggest the name of Severinus\nBoethius, whose arms he had also adopted; and, not long after this\n(referring, with that kind of play upon words so dear to the insane and\nto idiots, to his nomination in August), \u201cAugust Tribune.\u201d[408] We can\nalso comprehend that, stripped of all his power, an exile and a\nprisoner, he should have turned to the prosaic Emperor Charles IV.,\ntelling him his dreams, as we shall see, with complete confidence in\ntheir reality.\n\nAt Rome, after his first fall (which was, perhaps, one cause of the\nindulgence with which he was treated by the pope), there had been a new\noutburst of disorder, which a tribune who has remained almost\nunknown--one Baroncelli--in vain endeavoured to stem. Nor did Rienzi\nhimself meet with any better success on his return, shorn of his ancient\n_prestige_, and without that youthful audacity which, united to a\nmaniacal erethism, had increased the strength of the poor scholar a\nhundredfold; and he was overthrown by the populace themselves. For men,\nwhether madmen of genius or complete geniuses, have no power against the\nnatural force of things. Marcel had no success at Paris, though he had\nfar greater forces at his disposal, and was allied with the Jacquerie of\nthe country districts.\n\nBut Rienzi could not even succeed in realizing the prodigies of insane\ngenius, since he had by this time fallen into true dementia.\n\nIt appears that in the early stages of his government he was a sober and\ntemperate man, so much so that he had to make an effort to find time to\neat. From this he passed to the opposite extreme of continued orgies and\nactual dipsomania, which he excused by alleging the effects of a poison\nwhich he believed to have been administered to him in prison.[409] I\nbelieve, on the contrary, that this phenomenon was occasioned by the\nprogress of his malady, since we see that it began in the early months\nof his first tribunate,[410] and since slow poisons produce emaciation,\nnot obesity, in their victims.\n\n\u201cAt every hour he was eating dainties and drinking; he observed neither\ntime nor order; he mixed Greek with Flavian wine; he drank new wine at\nany hour. He used to drink too much.\u201d\n\n\u201cMoreover he had now become enormously stout, he had a face like a\nfriar, round and jovial as that of a bonze, a ruddy complexion, and a\nlong beard. His eyes were white, and suddenly he would turn red as\nblood, and his eyes would become inflamed.\u201d\n\nIn short, as is usually the case with persons inclining to dementia, his\nbody became enormous, and his eyes were often bloodshot, while his face\nacquired an entirely brutal cast of expression. His mind was much less\nactive, and his temper fundamentally changed, while the fickleness,\nrestlessness, and oddity, which had served to excite great admiration\nfor him in the mind of the populace, now had so degenerated as to\nredound to his injury. Those who saw most of him said that he changed\nhis mind, as well as his expression of face, from one minute to the\nnext, and was never constant to the same thought for a quarter of an\nhour together. Thus he began the siege of Palestrina, and then abandoned\nit; he would appoint a skilful commander, and then cashier him.\n\nIn later times, when he was forced to impose taxes on wine and salt,\neven for the poor, he restrained his luxurious tendencies, and became\napparently temperate; but his other evil propensities did not change. To\nthe intermittent generosity of which he had given proofs in his early\nperiod succeeded a cold selfishness, which excited horror even in that\ncruel age--when, for instance, he had Fra Monreale beheaded, for not\nrepaying a sum of money which Rienzi had lent him. His friend Pandolfo\nPandolfini, respected by all Rome as the model of an honourable man, was\nbeheaded by him, without the shadow of a reason, merely from envy of his\nreputation. Thus he sacrificed, or despoiled of their property, the best\nmen in the country, and passed from the extreme of timidity to that of\nferocity.\n\nHe was seen to laugh and weep almost at the same time, and in both cases\nwithout sufficient cause; his paroxysms of joy were followed by sighs\nand tears.\n\nBut it is chiefly in his letters that the whole of his genius and of his\nmadness is revealed.\n\nThe letters of Cola da Rienzi were sought for and collected with\nsingular curiosity, as though (Petrarch several times writes to him)\n\u201cthey had fallen from the Antipodes, or the sphere of the moon.\u201d Four\ncollections of his letters are extant--at Mantua, at Turin (twenty-two\nclosely written pages), at Paris, and at Florence (the last-named being\nautographs). They have been published and republished by Gaye, De Sade,\nHobhouse, Hoxemio, Pelzel, and Papencordt,[411] and would by themselves\nbe sufficient material on which to base a diagnosis.\n\nIn fact, there is not one of them which does not bear the impress,\neither of a morbid vanity, or of those trivial repetitions and plays\nupon words especially characteristic of the insane.\n\nThe first point to note is their great abundance, in an age when very\nlittle was written.\n\nWhen his residence in the Capitol was sacked, after his first flight,\nwhat most surprised those who entered his private office was the mass of\nletters which had been drafted and never sent. It was well known that\nthe numerous staff of clerks employed by him could not keep pace with\nthe amount of matter he dictated, and that he was continually sending\ncouriers not only to friendly republics, but to indifferent or hostile\npotentates, like the King of France, who sent a jesting reply by an\narcher--a functionary somewhat analogous to a modern policeman. Thus,\ntoo, the lords of Ferrara, Mantua, and Padua returned him his letters.\n\nAdd to this their style, their exaggerated length, the addition of\npostscripts longer than the letter itself, and the singular signature,\nricher in laudatory titles than was ever used except by Oriental\nprinces.\n\nThese letters have, indeed, a flavour of their own, a vivacity breaking\nloose from the restraints of the classical writers who served as his\nmodels, an exuberant self-confidence which, at first sight, obliged the\nreader to put faith in the falsehoods with which they swarmed. Nay, it\nseems that--as happens with some lunatics, and some incorrigible\nliars--he ended by himself believing in his own fictions.\n\nLeaving aside many strange blunders, surprising in a Latin scholar,[412]\nand the prolixity already mentioned, without dwelling on the very\nundiplomatic want of delicacy, present to a morbid extent, and all the\nmore surprising in a statesman of that age, when reserve was more\ngeneral than at present, one fact particularly strikes me--an inveterate\nhabit of punning, a symptom of extreme frivolity, which was certainly\nnot a characteristic of medi\u00e6val diplomacy.\n\nWhat man in his senses would, even in the depths of the Dark Ages, have\nwritten as he did to Pope Clement, in the letter dated August 5, 1347?--\n\n     \u201cThe grace of the Holy Spirit having freed the Republic under my\n     rule, and my humble person having been, at the beginning of\n     _August_, promoted to the militia, there is attributed to me, as in\n     the signature, the name and title of _August_.\n\n               \u201cGiven as above on the 5th of August,\n\n                                        \u201cHUMBLE CREATURE,\n\n     \u201cCandidate of the Holy Spirit, Nicol\u00f2 the Severe and Clement,\n     Liberator of the City, Zealous for Italy, Lover of the World, who\n     kisses the feet of the blessed.\u201d\n\nNote that, after all this signature, the letter goes on for three pages\nmore, on much more serious topics, which he had postponed to the pun on\n\u201cAugust.\u201d\n\nIn this respect, a clear proof of his insanity is to be found in the\nletter which he wrote in the elation of his victory over the barons. Not\nto dwell on the strange familiarity with the Deity which he shows, when\nhe writes \u201cthat God formed to war those fingers which had been trained\nto the use of the pen\u201d (whereas, as a matter of fact, he had no\nknowledge whatever of the art of war), it is well to note that, among\nhis gravest charges against the Colonna was that of their having sacked\na church where _he had deposited his golden crown_. Still more strange\nis the following claim to prophecy, addressed to the clergy--who, as\ndealing in such matters, are likely to be most sceptical concerning\nthem:\n\n\u201cWe should not forget to tell you that, two days before these\noccurrences, we had a vision of Pope Boniface, who foretold our triumph\nover those tyrants. We made a report thereof in full season, and in the\npresence of the assembled Romans, and going into St. Peter\u2019s, to the\naltar of St. Boniface, we presented to him a chalice and a veil.\n\n\u201cThe vision, at last, thanks to Heaven, was fulfilled, thanks to the\nhelp of the Blessed Martin, His tribune.\u201d (Here he forgets that, two\npages previously, in the same letter, he had attributed his victories to\nSt. Laurence and St. Stephen.) \u201cAs those traitors,\u201d he continues, \u201chad\nplundered the pilgrims on the day of his festival, that Saint took\nvengeance on them, by the hand of a _tribune_, _three_ days afterwards,\nthat is to say, on the day of _St. Columba_, who glorified the dove\n(_colomba_) of our flag.\u201d Note the puns in the above.\n\nHe concludes with some of those postscripts which are so frequent in the\nletters of monomaniacs, and are found in nearly all of his:\n\n\u201cGiven at the Capitol, on the very day of the victory--the 3rd of\nNovember, on which day there perished six tyrants of the house of\nColonna, and none remained but the unhappy old man Stefano Colonna, who\nis half dead. He is the seventh, and this is how Heaven was willing to\nmake the number of the slain Colonna equal the crowns (_sic_) of our\ncoronation,[413] and to the branches of the fruit-bearing tree which\nrecall the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit.\u201d\n\nAbsolute insanity is here shown, both in the idea and the word, in which\nhe makes the Deity intervene to extinguish a family of heroes for the\nsake of a sinister freak of language, in honour of the man who, a few\npages previously--with a hypocrisy soon belied by facts--had written,\n\u201cConsistently with our character, we were not willing to employ the\nseverity of the sword--however just--against those whom we might bring\nback to grace without injury to freedom, justice, and peace.\u201d\n\nBoth comic and insane is the way in which, in another letter to Rinaldo\nOrsini (Sept. 22, 1347), he tries to disguise, by a number of useless\nfictions, the enormous error of which he had been guilty in setting at\nliberty the nobles arrested shortly before. \u201cWe wish that Your Paternity\nshould know how, having judged certain nobles, lawfully suspected by the\npeople and by us, it pleased God that they should fall into our hands\u201d\n(We see, on the contrary, that he had expressly invited them). \u201cWe\ncaused them to be shut up in the dungeons of the Capitol; but, finally\n(our scruples and suspicions having been removed), we made use of an\ninnocent artifice (_sic_) to reconcile them not only with ourselves, but\nwith God, wherefore we procured them the happy opportunity of making a\ndevout confession. It was on the 15th of September that we sent\nconfessors to each one of them, in prison, and as the latter were\nignorant of our good intentions, and believed that we were going to be\nsevere, they said to the nobles, \u2018The Lord Tribune will condemn you to\ndeath.\u2019 Meanwhile the great bell of the Capitol tolled without ceasing\nfor the assembly, and thus the terrified nobles gave themselves up for\nlost; and, in the expectation of death, confessed devoutly and with\ntears.... I then made a speech in praise of them,\u201d &c.\n\nLet the reader judge of the condition of the moral sense in a man who\ncould write thus. It should be noted, besides, that, diplomatically, an\nexcuse of this sort (especially in dealing with priests, who, being in\nthe trade, so to speak, would know its exact value), would not only be\nuseless, but even constitute a serious accusation. Nor is his conclusion\nless strange, \u201cWithal their hearts are so united to ours and to those of\nthe people, that this union must last for the good of our country;\nbecause thus they see that we are impartial, and do not wish to be as\nsevere as we might be.\u201d\n\nBut his useless hypocrisies did not end there; the confusion of the\npatricians probably suggested the order, already mentioned, that all\ncitizens were to confess and receive the communion at least once a year,\nunder pain of losing a third of their goods--half the forfeited property\nto go to the parish church of the defendant, the other to the city. And\nthe notaries were obliged to act as spies for every testator. Now,\nRienzi, in a postscript to the above letter (and I repeat that I have\nfrequently observed in monomaniacs this fad of postscripts occurring at\nthe end of letters), gives notice of his new edict, adding, \u201cIt seemed\nto us fitting that, as a second Augustus provides for the temporal\nprofit of the Republic, he should also seek to favour and promote its\nspiritual welfare.\u201d This, if one thinks about it, was a usurpation of\nthe special rights and duties of the pontiff, even according to the most\nmodern view of them, as also when he prescribed to the clergy special\nceremonies and ecclesiastical processions of his own invention, and\nenacted decrees against the members of religious orders who should fail\nto return to Rome. This, in fact, was one of the principal\naccusations--and a just one--levelled against him at Prague and at\nAvignon, and one which he only rebutted by false statements.\n\nElsewhere he speaks of being inspired by the Holy Spirit, with a\nconfidence which would be altogether unintelligible except in a man who\nwas perfectly sincere, and therefore under the influence of\nhallucination.\n\nA glance at other letters explains at once that the bath in the vase of\nConstantine was for him what the tattooed marks on his forehead were to\nLazzaretti--one of those symbolic freaks to which the insane attach a\npeculiar significance; in fact, a kind of imperial investiture.\n\nA long letter to Charles IV., written from prison in July, 1350,\ndwelling on a supposed intrigue of his mother with the Emperor Henry\nVII., bears, in subject-matter and style, the unmistakable impress of\ninsanity.[414]\n\nA little later (Aug. 15, 1350), we find him writing to the emperor\nanother letter full of senseless puns, in which he tells him, with\ndoubly absurd freaks of thought and language, how, in the idea that the\nmother of Severinus Boethius was descended from the kings of Bohemia (!)\nhe had called Boethius the younger and himself, the _Severe_; and how he\nhad adopted from them the device of the seven stars--matters which could\nneither interest the emperor nor be of advantage to himself, but have\nall the characteristics of insanity.\n\nSo also, when he wrote that he was persuaded by the prophecies of the\nMajella hermits already mentioned, that his second exaltation should be\nmuch more glorious than the first, as the sun long hidden by the clouds\nappears more beautiful to the eye of the beholder: Perhaps the Lord,\njustly indignant at the wicked and unheard-of murder of Rienzi\u2019s\nillustrious grandfather, Henry VII., and the losses in souls and bodies\nsuffered by the world during the Interregnum, had raised up Cola for the\nadvantage of Charles, chosen him to re-establish the empire, and\nordained that he should be _baptized in the Lateran_, in the Church of\nthe Baptist, and in the _bath of Constantine_, that he might be the\nforerunner of the emperor, as John the Baptist was of Christ. Charles,\nit is true, had said that the empire could only be restored by a\nmiracle; but was not this a miracle, that one poor man should be able to\nsuccour the falling empire, as St. Francis had succoured the Church? Let\nhim awake, and gird on his sword--let him not count for anything the\nrevelation of the friars, since the whole Old and New Testaments were\nfull of revelations: he alone could become master of Rome. If he did not\ndo so at once, Charles would lose at least one hundred thousand gold\nflorins from the tax on salt and the other revenues of the city which\nhad been increased by the approach of the Jubilee.... Within a year and\na half, the pope should die, and many cardinals be slain.... In fifteen\nyears there should be but one shepherd and one faith, and the new pope,\nthe Emperor Charles, and Cola should be, as it were, a symbol of the\nTrinity on earth. Charles should reign in the west, the Tribune in the\neast. For the present, he was content with supporting the emperor in his\njourney to Rome--he was willing to open the way for him with the Romans\nand the other peoples of Italy, who would otherwise be averse to the\nempire; so that Charles might come among them peaceably and without\nbloodshed, and his arrival should not be the signal for mourning to the\ncity and the whole nation, as had that of former emperors.\n\nSo far did he go, that the Archbishop of Prague wrote to him, \u201cthat he\nwondered how the Tribune, who had done things which at first appeared to\ncome from God, could be so far from exercising the virtue of humility as\nto consider his own elevation the work of the Holy Spirit, and to call\nhimself the candidate of the latter\u201d--words which may well be noted by\nthose who see in his madness only the effect of the superstitions of the\nperiod.\n\nThe emperor replied, with much common sense, advising him to \u201ccease from\nignorant hermits, who think themselves to be walking in the spirit of\nhumility, without being able even to resist their sins and save their\nown souls, and who speak fantastically of knowing hidden things and\ngoverning in the spirit all that is under heaven ...\u201d and telling him\nthat, out of love to God and his neighbours, he has \u201ccaused thee to be\nimprisoned as a sower of tares, and, withal, out of love for thine own\nsoul, to cure it.\u201d\n\nLater on, he counsels him to \u201clay aside all these vagaries, and,\nwhatever his origin may have been, to remember that we are all God\u2019s\ncreatures, sons of Adam, made out of the earth,\u201d &c. A curious lesson in\ndemocracy, given by a king of Bohemia to the ex-tribune of an Italian\nrepublic!\n\nBut all was useless, and when, after many vicissitudes, he once more\nacquired a shadow of his former power--by the aid of money obtained by\nsheer trickery--he announced the fact at Florence, in a pompous\nproclamation, adding that \u201cwomen, men, boys, priests, and lay-folk had\ngone to meet him with palms and olive-branches, and trumpets, and cries\nof welcome.\u201d\n\nThese speeches seemed so very extravagant that their genuineness has\nbeen doubted by Zeffirino Re, on the ground of the extreme improbability\nof Petrarch\u2019s having defended him, or the emperor regarded him with\nfavour for a single moment, had he really entertained ideas so eccentric\nand heretical.\n\nBut that, however improbable, such is the fact is already evident _\u00e0\npriori_ to any one who--even without examining these strange letters and\nstill stranger circulars--has observed the progressive development of\ninsanity in Cola\u2019s career, and knows that it was just through his\nunheard-of audacity that he triumphed, and that the Bohemians were not\nso much scandalized as struck dumb by his eloquence,[415] and afterwards\nastonished and deeply moved by his recantations.\n\nMoreover, these writings were refuted by the Bohemian bishops, in a\ndocument which is still extant, and afterwards retracted by himself.\nWith a delicacy of which historians have not taken sufficient account,\nthey were not consigned in their entirety to the Papal Court along with\nthe person of the Tribune, whose condemnation, indeed, could bring\nneither pleasure nor profit to the host who had been already forced by\npolitical considerations to betray the confidence reposed in him.\n\nHe remained, meanwhile, an isolated phenomenon, an enigma to historians,\nsince it was not so much history as the science of mental pathology\nwhich could succeed in completely explaining him. That science has\npointed out to us in Rienzi all the characteristics of the monomaniac:\nregular features and handwriting, exaggerated tendency to symbolism and\nplays upon words--an activity disproportioned to his social position,\nand original even to absurdity, which entirely exhausted itself in\nwriting--an exaggerated consciousness of his own personality, which at\nfirst aided him with the populace, and supplied the want of tact and\npractical ability, but afterwards led him into absurdities--a defective\nmoral sense--a calm marking the approach of dementia, which was only\ndisturbed by the abuse of alcohol, or by a spirited opposition.[416]\n\n_Campanella._--If Cola da Rienzi was a strange problem for historians\nuntil resolved by the modern psychiatric studies on monomania, not less\nstrange has been the problem presented by Campanella, who, from being a\nhumble and disdained monk in a forgotten district of Calabria, claimed\nto be a monarch and, as it were, a demi-god against the power of Spain\nand of the Pope, and then suddenly became and died a zealot for both,\ncontradicting himself, even against his own advantage, certainly against\nthat of his fame.\n\nAt last, it seems to me, the problem is approaching solution, after the\nclassical works of Baldacchino, of Spaventa, of Fiorentino, but, above\nall, of Amabile, especially since Carlo Falletti[417] has passed those\npowerful works through the alembic of his synthetic criticism and\nremoved from this strange medal the stains deposited by legends and\nhistorical prejudices.\n\n\u201cCampanella,\u201d remarks Falletti, \u201cwith his badly formed skull, surmounted\nby seven inequalities--hills, as he himself called them--possessed most\nsensitive nerves, an acute intellect, and easily exalted emotions.\u201d The\nmystical education of the order to which he belonged completed the work\nof nature; having entered a Dominican monastery at the age of fourteen,\nhe always lived outside the real world. He spent eight years in the\nschools of Calabria amid disputes with his masters and fellow-pupils,\nand then departed, almost fled, from Cosenza and went to Naples. But no\ngood fortune met him there. Soon after his arrival he chanced to speak\nslightingly of excommunication. He was at once denounced, imprisoned,\ntaken to Rome, tried, and condemned. On leaving prison he decided to go\nto Padua; on the way he was robbed of his manuscripts; three days after\nreaching Padua he was accused of using violence against the General of\nthe Dominicans; hence a fresh imprisonment and fresh trial. Discharged\nand set at liberty, he took part in public discussions, but the\ndoctrines he openly professed led to another trial and imprisonment. He\nwas only twenty-six, and had already spent three years in prison.\n\nAt the age of twenty, in the monastery at Cosenza, Campanella had\nassociated with a certain Abramo, from whom he received lessons in\nnecromancy, and who predicted that he would one day be a king. This was\nthe starting-point of his wild and ambitious imaginations. It should be\nadded that when studying astrology, especially in 1597, he talked with\nmany astrologers, mathematicians, and prelates who all held that the end\nof the world was approaching. Excited by their arguments, he gave\nhimself to the study of prophecy, seeking it in the Bible, the Fathers,\nand the poets of antiquity; and in the symbol of the white horses and\nthe white-robed elders of the New Zion he saw the brothers of Saint\nDominic. Convinced that the prediction of the Holy Republic referred to\nthe Dominicans, he retired to Stilo. All the political and social\ndisorders of his time were for Campanella manifest signs; and to these\nwere added earthquakes, famines, floods, and comets. Evidently the\nprophecies were being fulfilled. No doubt 1600 was the fatal year which\nwould indicate the beginning of great changes and revolutions.\nCampanella spread the prophecies, and prepared the ground for the Holy\nRepublic. There can be no question that these predictions and\npreparations led to a real rebellion, because they fitted in with the\nmiserable condition of Calabria. Such prophecies pleased many who\ncherished desires of revenge. In the ears of these exasperated people\nCampanella\u2019s words sounded like a call to rebellion. Maurizio di\nRinaldi, the leader of a band, so understood it, as did other bandits.\nRinaldi cared little for religious reforms, and knew nothing of what the\nseven seals of the Apocalypse signified. He understood, however, that\nhis arm was needed, and persuaded that it was not possible to fight\nagainst Spain with writings and words and the weapons of brigands, he\nsought the aid of the Turks. He was the real rebel, the real martyr in\nthe liberation of Calabria from subjection to Spain. Of all the chief\npersons concerned in this disturbance he alone confessed himself a\nrebel; the others either denied the existence of a rebellion or\nprofessed their innocence. Seeing the old world doubled by the discovery\nof new lands, and Europe turned upside down by wars, Campanella thought\nof a universal monarchy with the Pope and himself for king and pastor.\n\nTurn to his Utopia of the City of the Sun, in which all are educated in\ncommon. All the Solarians call each other brother; they are all sons of\nthe great Father adored on the summit of the mountain on which the city\nis built. There is not, and cannot be, among them any selfishness. All\nconsider the common good, and, under the guidance of the priest and\nhead, live happily together; since all are instructed, and knowledge is\nthe foundation of every honour, there is a noble strife of\nintelligence. The Solarian citizens have made wonderful progress in the\narts and sciences. They have ships that plough the seas without sails\nand without oars; and cars that are propelled by the force of the wind;\nthey have discovered how to fly, and they are inventing instruments\nwhich will reveal new stars. They know that the world is a great animal\nin whose body we live, that the sea is produced by the sweat of the\nearth, and that all the stars move. They practise perpetual adoration,\noffer up bloodless sacrifices, and reverence, but do not worship, the\nsun and the stars.\n\nAll this simplicity, happiness, and prosperity are due in the first\nplace to education and to communism, and in the second place to the\nmagistrates who are all priests. The spiritual and temporal head is\nHoch, who is assisted by Pom, Sim, and Mor. Pom has charge of all that\nrefers to war; Sim presides over the arts, industries, and instruction;\nMor directs human generation and the education of children; he regulates\nthe sexual relationships in order to produce healthy and robust\noffspring, only permitting the strong to procreate; the rest are allowed\nto sacrifice to the terrestrial Venus after fecundation has been\nascertained.\n\nThe City of the Sun is not in favour of war, but does not refuse to\nfight; in battle her citizens are invincible, because they fight in\ndefence of their country, natural law, justice, and religion.\n\nThe felicity of the City of the Sun rested, therefore, on a community of\ngoods, of women, of pleasures, and of knowledge; on wholesome\ngeneration, on sacerdotal government, and on simplicity in religion.\nCampanella aimed at founding in Calabria a _fac-simile_ of the City of\nthe Sun. The whole of his trial for heresy showed that he wished to\nreform religion and to render it more in harmony with human nature; by\nhis own confession it is proved that he wished to establish a sacerdotal\ngovernment. Nauder affirms, in fact, that he aimed at becoming King of\nCalabria in order to extend his authority thence over the whole world.\nCampanella\u2019s mind was in such a condition that it may be held, with\nAmabile, that he saw the possibility of founding a republic similar to\nthat described in the City of the Sun. Naturally the head of this\nlittle Holy Republic, the Hoch of the City of the Sun, would be a\nphilosopher, and, therefore, himself. All nations, observing the\nfelicity enjoyed by the citizens of the New Sion, would accept the new\nlaw, and thus Campanella would become the monarch and guide of the\nworld.\n\nOnly a lunatic would consider it possible to undertake the\nreorganization of society at a stroke, _ab imis fundamentis_, changing\nthe form of government, and overturning the most ancient customs,\ninstitutions, laws, and traditions. But the madness diminishes if this\nreorganization is the consequence of a profound and general upheaval,\nlike that proclaimed by the prophets for the end of the world. In his\nwritings, certainly, we find puerilities which go to prove his insanity;\nif he had been an ordinary man they would not be remarkable; they would\nharmonize with the common prejudices of the day; but he had broken with\ntheology, and had undertaken to examine its _ratio_; he had caught a\nglimpse of the modern state, and he proposed reforms which for his time\nwere most liberal and remarkable. Thus he writes: \u201cLaw is the consent of\nall, written and promulgated for the common good\u201d (_A. pol._, 32). \u201cThe\nlaws should establish equality\u201d (_Ibid._ 40). \u201cThe laws should be such\nthat the people can obey them with love and fear\u201d (_Mon. di Spagna_, c.\nxi.). \u201cHeavy taxes should be levied on articles that are not necessary\nand are of luxury, and light ones on necessaries\u201d (B. ii. doc. 197, p.\n91). \u201cThere should be unity of government\u201d (_Mon. di Spagna_, c. xii.).\n\u201cThe barons should be deprived of the _jus carcerandi_\u201d (_Ibid._ c.\nxiv.). \u201cThey should be deprived of fortresses\u201d (_Ibid._); a national\narmy should be established; education should be free (_Ibid._); medical\naid should be gratuitous (B. ii. doc. 97, p. 82). In fact, Campanella\nproposed what Sully, Richelieu, Colbert, and Louis XIV. did for the\nFrench nation.\n\nNow when a man who reasons so profoundly fails to see the absurdity and\nimpossibility of becoming, with a few followers in a remote\ncountry-side, the monarch and reformer of the whole world, he can only\nbe insane. And so he was judged by the more sagacious among his\ncontemporaries. Thus Father Giacinto, the confidant of Richelieu, wrote:\n\u201cNo one believes so easily any story that is told him, and examines\nthings that he believes to be _de facto_ with less judgment.\u201d And again:\n\u201cI shall always hold him for a man wilder than a fly, and less sensible\nin worldly affairs than a child.\u201d Peirescio called him \u201c_bon homme_.\u201d\n\nFollowing human intellect, Campanella reached Pantheism, the soul of\nthings, the transformation of animate and inanimate beings, veneration\nof the sun, that \u201cbeneficent star, living temple, statue and venerable\nface of the true God.\u201d Stricken by adversity, not assisted by his god,\nhe returned to Catholicism, to the angels and miracles, to the future\nlife which promises enjoyments which cannot be had on earth, and the\nrestoration of the beloved lost.\n\nLike all madmen, incapable of moderation he became furiously intolerant;\nhence his ferocious suggestions for oppressing the Protestants, and the\ntitle which he took of emissary of Christ or of the Most High. He\nimagined that his works would serve to confute the Protestants, wrote\nand disputed against Lutherans and Calvinists, wished to found colleges\nof priests for the diffusion of Catholicism, gave advice to those who\nwould none of it for overthrowing heresy and propagating the true faith.\nIn short, he ended as he had begun, in a delirious dream of religious\nambition, which only varied in subject, going from one pole to the\nopposite.\n\nBut, I repeat, this phenomenon of contradiction, and of the passage from\nopposite excesses of feeling, is one of the most marked characters of\nmonomania, and especially of religious monomania. I remember nuns of\nwhom I had charge at the asylum at Pesaro, who on first becoming insane\nwere violent and blasphemous, and later on in the course of their\nmadness, apostles of Christianity; and thus it is easy to see that the\nmiserly may, under the influence of insanity, develop extraordinary\nprodigality. We have seen Lazzaretti, a drunkard and a blasphemer,\nbecome austere and pious under the influence of insanity; and then from\nbeing a fanatical Papist becoming and dying an Anti-Papist, when he\nfound himself repulsed by the Vatican. Recently De Nino, in his book\n_Il Messia degli Abruzzi_, has described a certain priest, become a\nMessiah, who, while insane, attempted reforms, at all events in rites,\nand who, during the last months of his life, like Campanella, starved\nhimself in penitence for his revolutionary sins, and in spite of fasts\nand penances believed that he was damned.\n\n_San Juan de Dios._--Juan Ciudad was born on March 8, 1495, in the town\nof Montemor-o-Novo, in Portugal.[418] He seems to have been tormented by\nthe spirit of adventure from his childhood, as he left his father\u2019s\nhouse at the age of eight. A priest took him as far as Oropesa, where he\nentered the service of a Frenchman in the capacity of shepherd. After\nsome years he became tired of this work, and, being tall and strong,\nenlisted as a soldier.\n\nThe life he led in the army cannot be described; the officers set the\nexample, and plundered as greedily as the privates. One of the former\nentrusted his share of the booty to Juan, who either lost or stole it.\nHe was condemned to death, and was just going to be hanged, when a\nsuperior officer, passing by, granted him his life, but dismissed him\nfrom the army. He then returned to Oropesa, and resumed his former\nposition. Towards 1528, he enlisted a second time, and marched under the\norders of the Count of Oropesa. When the war was over, he returned to\nMontemor-o-Novo, to see his parents; but he lost his memory, and forgot\nhis father\u2019s name. He then left the place, and went to Ayamonte in\nAndalusia, where he became a shepherd. It was there that he believed\nhimself to have been called, and, later on, to have had a dream in which\nhe dedicated himself to God and to the poor.\n\nThose were the days when the Barbary pirates flourished, making descents\non ill-defended countries, and kidnapping their inhabitants, whom they\nsold at Fez, Algiers, and Tunis. Two religious orders had made it their\nspecial task to collect alms for the ransom of the Catholics who were\nbeing sold in the slave-market.\n\nIt seems that Juan Ciudad had the intention of consecrating himself to\nthis sacred duty. He embarked for Ceuta, where he entered the service of\nan exiled and ruined Portuguese family, whom, it is said, he supported\nby his labour as an artizan. After a time, he grew weary of this life;\nhe left his master and sailed for Gibraltar, where he established a\nsmall trade in relics and other sacred objects.\n\nThe sale of these having brought him some money, he left Gibraltar and\nsettled at Granada, where he opened a shop. He was then aged 43, and was\njust about to undergo that mental convulsion which determined his\nvocation.\n\nOn the 20th of January, 1539, after hearing a sermon by Juan d\u2019Avila, he\nwas seized with a fit of frantic devotion. He confessed his sins in a\nloud voice, rolled in the dust, pulled out the hair of his head, tore\nhis clothes, and rushed through the streets of Granada, imploring the\nmercy of God, and followed by boys shouting after him as a madman. He\nentered his library, destroyed all the secular books in his possession,\ngave away the sacred ones, distributed his furniture and clothes to any\none who was willing to have them, and remained in his shirt, beating his\nbreast and calling on every one to pray for him. The crowd followed him\nnoisily as far as the cathedral, where, half-naked, he again began his\nvociferations and bursts of despair. The preacher, Juan d\u2019Avila, having\nbeen informed of the conversion occasioned by his words, listened to the\npoor man\u2019s confession, consoled him, and gave him advice, which does not\nappear to have had much effect, since, on leaving him, Ciudad rolled\nhimself on a dung-heap, proclaiming his sins in a loud voice. The crowd\namused themselves by hissing him, throwing stones and mud, and otherwise\nmaltreating him. Some, however, took pity on him, and conducted him to\nthe place set apart for the insane in the Royal Hospital. He was\nsubjected to the treatment then in vogue, that is, he was bound and\nscourged, in order to deliver him from the evil spirit supposed to\npossess him.\n\nThis attack of mania appears to have been one of great violence. In\ngeneral, with regard to mental maladies, the more excessive the\nalienation, the more easily it ceases. It is said that, in the midst of\nthe blows inflicted on him, he took avow \u201cto receive poor madmen, and\ntreat them as is fitting.\u201d\n\nWhen the nervous exacerbation was calmed, he employed himself in\nattending on the sick, and, later on, obtained his liberty, and a\ncertificate attesting his sanity. Having made a vow to go on pilgrimage\nto the shrine of the Virgin of Guadalupe, he started barefoot, without a\nfarthing, in the middle of winter. On his way through the forests and\nacross the moors, he picked up dry sticks and made them into a faggot,\nwhich, when he reached an inhabited place, he gave in exchange for a\nlittle food and a night\u2019s lodging.\n\nIt is said that, when he reached Guadalupe, he had a vision which\nexercised a decisive influence on him. The Virgin appeared to him, and\ngave him the Child Jesus, naked, with clothes to cover him. This was to\nshow him that he ought to have pity on the weak, shelter the destitute,\nand clothe the poor--at least such was his interpretation. His mission\ndates from that day, and he executed it with so much the more zeal, as\nhe believed it to have been laid upon him by the Virgin whom he adored.\n\nDressed in a white garment, which an Hieronymite monk had given him,\nwith a wallet on his back, and a pilgrim\u2019s staff in his hand, he\nreturned to Oropesa, and went to lodge in the poor-house.\n\nThe misery of the inmates so touched him, that he went outside the city,\nbegged alms for them, and gave them all that he received. Later on, he\ntook to selling faggots in the public square, gave to the poor and sick\nall that he gained, and slept in stables, through the charity of their\nowners.\n\nOne day, having seen a notice posted up in the square, \u201cHouse to let for\nthe poor,\u201d he conceived the idea of making it into an asylum. Having\nbegged money from the rich, with which he bought mats, blankets, and\nutensils, he received and sheltered forty-six sick and crippled paupers.\nIn order to maintain them, he went about the streets at the dinner hour,\nto collect from the rich the remnants of their meals, crying, \u201cDo good,\nmy brethren; it will return in blessing to yourselves.\u201d\n\nJuan de Dios\u2019 example provoked emulation; several men offered themselves\nto help him. He instructed them in their new duties, and thus became the\nhead of a group, which, by multiplying, has become the great\ncongregation now in existence.\n\nThe resources now put at his disposal permitted him to treat the sick,\n\u201cas is fitting.\u201d\n\nIt is worthy of attention that Juan de Dios was a reformer in the manner\nof treating the sick, only placing one patient in each bed. He was the\nfirst to divide the sick into classes--he was, in short, the creator of\nthe modern hospital, and the founder of casual wards; for he opened, in\nconnection with his hospital, a house where the homeless poor and\ntravellers without money could sleep.\n\nIt was at this period that he took the name of Juan de Dios. The good\ndone by him did not remain unknown, and the name of Juan de Dios, father\nof the poor, was spread abroad through Spain. Profiting by this, he made\na journey as far as Granada, and returned with abundant contributions.\n\nHe was exhausted by hard work and exposure rather than by years. He\ntreated himself with exaggerated austerity--always travelling on foot\nwithout shoes, hat, or linen--only covered with a single grey garment;\nhe fasted with extreme frequency, and imposed on himself the most trying\nexertions. He would rush through a burning house to save the sick, he\noften threw himself into the water to save children; he may be said to\nhave died of the hardships he endured.\n\nDuring his last days, he sent for Antonio Martin, his earliest disciple,\nand recommended the work to his care. Feeling the approach of death, he\nleft his bed to pray, and died on his knees.\n\nHe was born on March 8, 1495, and died on Saturday, March 8, 1550.\n\nHe had a splendid funeral; sick men touched the bier in the hope of\nbeing healed; the sheet which covered the corpse was torn to pieces, and\neach rag became a relic. He was canonised on September 21, 1630, by\nUrban VIII., and is now known as San Juan de Dios.[419]\n\n_Prosper Enfantin._--Prosper Enfantin, though an engineer, a railway\ndirector, and otherwise connected with such rational and prosaic\nsubjects as mathematics, nevertheless, in 1850, believed himself to be,\nand in fact was, the head of a new religion, a variation of that of\nSaint Simon. He had a handsome face and large forehead of an Olympian\ncast; he was very kind-hearted, but profoundly convinced of his own\ninfallibility on all subjects--on industrial and philosophical\nquestions--on painting as well as on cooking. He had what, in the\npeculiar language of monomaniacs, he called _circumferential_ ideas, in\nwhich every new fact found, in its pre-established place, the proper\nsolution. The new religion was to equalize men and women, and to make\nthe language of finance and industry poetical. He himself represented\nthe Father, and was always hoping to find the Mother, the free woman,\nthe Eve,--a woman, reasoning like man, who, knowing the needs and\ncapabilities of women, would make the confession of her sex without\nrestriction, so as to furnish the elements for a declaration of the\nrights and duties of women. But the right woman was never found, for\nMadame de Sta\u00ebl and George Sand, to whom he and his friends first\nturned, laughed at them; they sought her in the East, at Constantinople,\nand found, instead, a prison! But for all that, he never lost his\nillusion. He used to say that only great men could found a new religion.\n\nHis goodness was exquisite; he constantly sacrificed himself for his\nfollowers--his sons, as he called them. These wore at one time, like\ncertain monomaniacs, a symbolical uniform--white trousers to represent\n_love_, red waist-coat for _work_, and blue coat for _faith_. This\nsignified that his religion was founded on love, strengthened the heart\nwith work, and was wholly encompassed by faith. Every one was to have\nhis name written on his shirt-front, and to wear, in addition, a collar\nadorned with triangles, and a semi-circle which was to become a circle\nas soon as the Mother, the Eve aforesaid, had been found.\n\nThese are the symbols usual with the monomaniac and the mattoid.\n\nThis is seen in their programmes, in which they announced--in type of\nvarious sizes--that: \u201cMan recalls the Past, Woman represents the\nFuture,--the two united see the present.\u201d Yet, in spite of all this, he\nforesaw--and even tried to undertake--the Suez Canal, and counted among\nhis followers such men as Chevalier, Lambert, and Jourdan.[420]\n\n_Lazzaretti._--An example the more curious as well as authentic, as it\nhas manifested itself in recent years, under the eyes of all, and has\narrived at the dignity of an historic event, is the case of David\nLazzaretti.[421]\n\n[Illustration: David Lazzaretti]\n\nThis man was born at Arcidosso, in 1834. His father, a carter, appears\nto have been given to drink, but was of great strength. He had some\nrelatives who were suicidal, and others insane; one, in particular, died\na religious maniac, and believed himself to be the Eternal Father.\nLazzaretti\u2019s six brothers were all strong men, of gigantic stature,\nranging from 1\u00b790 to 1\u00b795 m. in height (which, however, is not uncommon\nin that part of the country), of quick wits and tenacious memory.\n\nDavid was distinguished from the rest by his superior stature, by the\ndistinction and regularity of his features, by greater intelligence, by\nthe large size of his head, which was dolichocephalic in form, and by\nhis eyes, which some found fascinating, though to many (says the\nadvocate Pugno) they seemed to have the character of possession and of\ninsanity. It is asserted that he was hypospadic and perhaps impotent in\nhis youth--anomalies of no slight importance, if we remember that Morel\nand, especially, Legrand du Saulle[422] have often discovered them in\nhereditary madmen.\n\nEven from his childhood, he showed those contradictions, those\ntendencies to extremes in character, which are frequent precursors of\ninsanity. Thus, when a boy he wished to become a monk; later on, after\nhe had taken to his father\u2019s trade, he began to lead an irregular life,\nand gave himself up to alcoholic intemperance. In the meantime, however,\nhe cultivated his mind by a course of reading which was singular for a\nman in his position, including Dante and Tasso; and at fifteen he was\ncalled \u201cThousand Ideas\u201d from the strange songs he invented,[423] though\nhe could never succeed in learning the rules of grammar. He was\nquarrelsome, used the foulest language, and was dreaded by all, so much\nso that, one day, on the occasion of a festival, unarmed and followed\nonly by his brothers, he put to flight the entire population of Castel\ndel Piano. Yet he was easily excited by a speech, a poem, a sermon, a\nplay--anything that appeared noble and great. He had an extreme\nveneration for Christ and Mahomet, whom he used to call the two greatest\nmen that had ever appeared in the world.\n\nAccording to his own confessions, he had, at the age of fourteen,\nvarious hallucinations of the same kind as those which proved so fatal\nto him in 1878. It is certain, besides, that, at one time in his youth,\nhe had a strong sympathy for a Jewess of Pittigliano, awakened by the\neloquence with which she defended her religion. Yet at that time he was\naccustomed to say that there were three things he abhorred--women,\nchurches, and dancing.\n\nIn 1859, at twenty-five, he enlisted as a volunteer in the cavalry; and\nin 1860, he took part in Cialdini\u2019s campaign, but rather as an officer\u2019s\nservant than as a soldier. Before starting, he wrote a patriotic hymn,\nwhich was sent to Brofferio, and surprised him by the novelty of its\nthoughts and the beauty of some of the verses, contrasting strangely\nwith the roughness of the phraseology, and the numerous grammatical\nerrors.\n\nAfter this, he again returned to his trade as a carter, and at the same\ntime to his habits of debauchery and foul language. He also rejoined his\nwife, whom he had married three years previously, and for whom he felt a\npoetic affection which he carried so far as to write love-songs to her.\nHere, again, his ambitious ideas reappeared, and induced him anew,\nthough so uncultivated, to seek fame through his verses and tragedies,\nwhich read like burlesques.\n\nGradually, his fantastic delusions took another direction. In 1867, at\nthirty-three, he had--whether as an effect of drink, or of political\nexcitement--a return of the religious hallucinations of 1848, in a more\nmarked form than previously. One day he disappeared, in consequence of a\nvision of the Madonna, who had commanded him to go to Rome, and remind\nthe Pope (who at first refused to receive him, but afterwards treated\nhim with courtesy, though, it is said, not without advising him to try\nthe remedy of a good shower-bath) of his divine mission. He then went to\nthe hermitage of Montorio Romano, in the Sabine mountains, inhabited by\na Prussian monk named Ignazio Micus. The latter kept him with him for\nthree months in the \u201cGrotto of the Blessed Amadeus,\u201d directing him in\nhis theological studies.\n\nIt is very probable--though on this point we can only conjecture, as all\ndirect evidence is wanting--that this monk assisted him to make the\ntattoo-marks on his forehead, which he claimed to have received from the\nhand of St. Peter, and which he hid under a lock of hair from the gaze\nof the profane, showing them only to true believers.\n\nThis tattooing, according to the testimony of medical men, consists of\nan irregular parallelogram, on the upper side of which are thirteen\ndots, disposed in the form of a cross. To this mark, and to two others\nwhich he afterwards produced on himself, on the deltoid muscle and the\ninside of the leg, he attributed--through a tendency common among the\ninsane--a strange and mysterious significance, as seals of a special\ncovenant with God.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n       .\n       .\n|      .       |\n|. . . . . . . |\n|      .       |\n|      .       |\n|      .       |\n|______________|]\n\nFrom that moment a complete change took place in him, such as is often\nobserved in the insane.[424] From being quarrelsome, blasphemous, and\nintemperate, he became tractable, gentle, and abstemious to the point of\nliving on bread and water in Sabina, and, in the _tempora_ on the\nmountains, on herbs with salt and vinegar. At other times he had no\nother food but polenta, or _soupe-maigre_, or bread with onions or\ngarlic. On the island of Monte Cristo, in 1870, he lived for over a\nmonth on six loaves, garnished with a few herbs;[425] and in the French\nmonastery, he got through several days on two potatoes a day. What must\nhave appeared still more strange, and surprised even cultured minds, was\nthe fact that the chaotic and burlesque writer became sometimes elegant,\nalways effective--full of vigorous images supplied by a piety comparable\nalone to that of the early Christians.\n\nThis, in fact, struck the clergy of the district, who, rightly seeing\nin him a repetition of the ancient prophets, took him seriously, all the\nmore that, according to their usual custom, they perceived the means of\nmaking a profit out of him and getting a church rebuilt.\n\nThe people, already justly astonished at his changed ways of life, no\nless than by his tattooings, his inspired speech, his long neglected\nbeard and grave bearing, rushed in masses to hear him, encouraged by the\npriests.\n\nA procession was then organized, in which Lazzaretti, accompanied by\npriests and by some of the most influential among the laity, marched to\nArcidosso, Roccalbegna, Castel del Piano, Pian Castagnaio, Cinigiano,\nand Santafiora. In all these places he was received with rejoicings by\nthe people on their knees; and the parish priests kissed his face and\nhis hands and even his feet. The construction of the church was begun,\nand contributions to the building fund flowed in abundantly. But though\nnumerous, the amounts were small, the mountaineers being unable to give\nmuch. The notion was then suggested of employing the labour of their\narms.\n\nThe site of the church had been selected not far from Arcidosso--about a\nhundred paces from the village, at the spot called _La Croce dei\nCanzacchi_, where, by a strange fatality, he was to receive his\ndeath-shot.\n\nThe faithful assembled by thousands to begin the building. Men, women\nand children were employed in carrying fascines, beams of wood, and\nstones. But, unfortunately, architecture, like grammar, has rules; and\nin carrying them out prophetic inspiration is of little use without\ntraining. Thus, as Lazzaretti\u2019s verses remained lame, so the materials\ncollected with so much labour remained a useless heap, like the tower\nwhich was to reach to heaven, and never became more than a pile of\nstones.\n\nIn January, 1870, he founded the \u201cSociety of the Holy League,\u201d a mutual\nassistance society which he called the symbol of charity. In March of\nthe same year, after having assembled his followers at a Last Supper, he\nset out, accompanied by Raffaello and Giuseppe Vichi, for the island of\nMonte Cristo, where he remained for some months, writing epistles,\nprophecies, and sermons. He then returned to Montelabro, where he wrote\ndown the visions or prophetic inspirations which he had, and where he\nwas arrested for sedition (April 27th). After his liberation,[426] he\nfounded a society to which he gave the name of \u201cChristian Families.\u201d\nThis was considered, very erroneously, as a proof of continued fraud;\nand he was arrested, but discharged, through the efforts of the advocate\nSalvi, after seven months\u2019 imprisonment.\n\nIn 1873, Lazzaretti, in obedience to other divine commands, started on a\njourney, passing through Rome, Naples, and Turin, whence he proceeded to\nthe Chartreuse at Grenoble. Here he wrote the Rules and Discipline of\nthe Order of Penitent Hermits, invented a system of cipher, with a\nnumerical alphabet, and dictated the \u201cBook of the Heavenly Flowers,\u201d in\nwhich it is written that \u201cThe great man shall descend from the\nmountains, followed by a little band of mountain burghers.\u201d To which are\nadded the visions, dreams, and divine commands which he believed himself\nto have received in that place.\n\nOn his return to Montelabro he found an immense crowd, attracted both by\ndevotion and curiosity, encamped on the summit of the mountain, to whom\nhe addressed a sermon on the text, \u201cGod sees us, judges us, condemns\nus.\u201d For this he was denounced to the authorities as tending to\noverthrow the government and promote civil war.\n\nIn the night of Nov. 19, 1874, he was arrested a second time, and\nbrought before the court at Rieti. This time the authorities were\ndesirous of obtaining the opinion of non-specialist experts, who, with\ninexplicable want of perception, pronounced him to be of sound mind and\na cunning knave.[427] Thus, in spite of his strange publications and his\ntattoo marks, he was condemned to fifteen months\u2019 imprisonment, and one\nyear of police supervision, for fraud and vagabondage.\n\nThe sentence, however, was referred to the Court of Appeal at Perugia;\nand on the 2nd of August, 1875, he was allowed to return to Montelabro,\nwhere he reconstituted his society, and placed the priest Imperiuzzi at\nthe head of it. His health had suffered in prison, and for this\nreason--perhaps, also, to avoid new arrests, and to enjoy the glory of\neasy martyrdom among the Legitimist fanatics--he went to France in\nOctober. Being mysteriously carried, as he expresses it, by the Divine\npower, into the environs of a town in Burgundy, he produced a book,\nwhich with good reason he calls \u201cmysterious,\u201d entitled \u201cMy Wrestling\nwith God,\u201d or \u201cThe Book of the Seven Seals, with the description and\nnature of the Seven Eternal Cities\u201d--a mixture of Genesis and\nRevelation, with sentences and rhapsodies entirely of an insane\ncharacter. He also wrote a manifesto addressed to all the princes of\nChristendom, in which he calls himself the great Monarch, and invites\nthem to make alliance with him, for, \u201cat an unexpected time the end of\nthe world shall be manifested to the Latin nation in a way quite opposed\nto human pride.\u201d In the same document he declares himself Leader,\nMaster, Judge, and Prince over all the potentates of earth. These\nwritings were copied for him by the priest Imperiuzzi, who corrected the\nmost conspicuous mistakes; and many of them attained not only the\nundeserved honour of appearing in print, but also that of being\ntranslated into French, by the aid of M. L\u00e9on du Vachat, and various\nItalian and foreign reactionaries, who had taken Lazzaretti seriously.\n\nHowever, a short time after, he was so far carried away by delirium as\nto begin inveighing against the corruptions of the priesthood and the\npractice of auricular confession, for which he wished to substitute a\npublic one. Thereupon the Holy See declared his doctrines false and his\nwritings subversive, and the same man who had formerly written a\nwork[428] in favour of the Pope, now wrote, and despatched on May 14,\n1878, an exhortation addressed to his brethren of the Order of Hermits,\nagainst Papal idolatry, and the beast of the seven heads. After all\nthis, with the usual contradictoriness of the insane, he went to Rome\nto lay aside his symbolic seal and his rod, and retracted before the\nHoly Office; yet, afterwards, returning to Montelabro, he continued to\ndeliver addresses against the Catholic Church, which, he said, had\nbecome a shopkeeping church, and against the _priests, true atheists in\npractice, who, not believing themselves, profit by the belief of\nothers_. Preaching the Holy Reformation, and declaring himself the Man\nof Mystery, the New Christ, Leader and Avenger, he exhorted believers to\nseparate themselves from the world, and prove their separation by\nabstaining from food and from sexual intercourse, even in the case of\nmarried persons, who, however, if they indulged, were required to pray\nfor at least two hours, naked, outside their bed, before the act. He\nissued paper money for considerable sums, in proportion to the means at\nthe disposal of the community, _i.e._, up to 104,000 francs; but it\nshould be noted that this was absolutely useless, being kept shut up in\na closed vase. This idea savours unmistakably of insanity.\n\nAfter announcing a great miracle, he caused to be prepared, with a part\nof the money collected, banners and garments for the members,\nembroidered with the animals which had appeared to him in his\nhallucinations--all of strange and grotesque shapes. He had a richer one\nmade for himself, and, for the rank and file, a square piece of stuff to\nwear on the breast, which showed a cross, with two C\u2019s reversed, \u2184 \u2020 C,\nthe usual emblem of the association.\n\nIn August, 1878, he assembled a larger number than ever, and, having\nprescribed prayers and fasts for three days and three nights, delivered\naddresses, some of which were public, others private and reserved for\nbelievers (who were divided into the various classes of Priest-Hermits,\nPenitentiary Hermits, Penitent Hermits, and simple associations of the\nHoly League and Christian Brotherhood) and caused the so-called\nConfession of Amendment to be made on the 14th, 15th, and 16th August.\nOn the 17th, the great banner with the inscription, \u201cThe Republic is the\nKingdom of God,\u201d was raised on the tower. Then, having assembled all the\nmembers at the foot of a cross, erected for the purpose, the Prophet\nadministered the solemn oath of fidelity and obedience. At this point,\none of David\u2019s brothers tried to persuade him to renounce his perilous\nenterprise, but in vain; for, on the contrary, he replied to those who\npointed out the possibility of a conflict, \u201cHe would, on the following\nday, show them a miracle to prove that he was sent from God in the form\nof Christ, a judge and leader, and therefore invulnerable, and that\nevery power on earth must yield to his will; a sign from his rod of\ncommand was enough to annihilate all the forces of those who dared\noppose him.\u201d A member having remarked on the opposition of the\ngovernment, he added that \u201che would ward off the balls with his hands,\nand render harmless the weapons directed against himself and his\nfaithful followers; and the Government Carbineers themselves would act\nas a guard of honour to them.\u201d More and more intoxicated with his\ndelirium, he wrote in all seriousness to the Delegate of Public\nSafety--to whom he had already shown the preparations, and, later on,\ngiven a half-promise to countermand the procession--\u201cThat he was no\nlonger able to do so, having received superior orders to the contrary\nfrom God Himself.\u201d He threatened unbelievers with the Divine wrath, if,\nthrough want of faith, they rebelled against his will.\n\nWith such intentions, on the morning of August 18th, he set out from\nMontelabro at the head of an immense crowd, going down towards\nArcidosso. He was dressed in a royal cloak of purple embroidered with\ngold ornaments, and crowned with a kind of tiara surmounted by a crest\nadorned with plumes; and he held in his hand the staff which he called\nhis rod of command. His principal associates were dressed, less richly\nthan himself, in strangely-fashioned robes of various colours, according\nto their position in the hierarchy of the Holy League. The ordinary\nmembers were dressed in their every-day clothes, without other mark of\ndistinction than the emblematic breastplate previously described. Seven\nof the graduates of the Brotherhood carried as many banners with the\nmotto, \u201cThe Republic is the Kingdom of God.\u201d They sang the Davidian\nhymn, each stanza of which ended with the refrain, \u201cEternal is the\nRepublic,\u201d &c. It is needless to relate what took place in those last\nhours. The man who had shortly before called himself the King of kings,\nand believed himself invulnerable, fell, struck by a shot fired by the\norders, perhaps by the hand, of a delegate who had many a time been his\nguest. It appears that he exclaimed as he fell, under the influence of a\nlast delusion, \u201cThe victory is ours!\u201d\n\nIt is certain that the procession he had arranged was not only unarmed,\nbut appeared to be in every way calculated to turn out perfectly\nharmless. Nocito has well remarked that an examination of the strange\nemblematic properties of the League proved beyond all doubt that the\nGovernment had mistaken a monomaniac for a rebel.\n\nHe took his stand on that passage of the Nicene Creed, which states that\nChrist rose from the dead, and ascended to the right hand of the Father,\n\u201cWhence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead.\u201d Having waited in\nvain for the appearance of Christ, he came to believe that this part\nmust be reserved for him. Christ had twelve apostles, therefore he\nwished to have twelve. Christ had included St. Peter among the number,\nand Lazzaretti also determined to have a St. Peter, who was\ndistinguished by the badge of a pair of crossed keys on his breast. In\nimitation of the forty days\u2019 fast, Lazzaretti fasted in mid-winter, in\nthe island of Monte Cristo, and there received communications from God\namid the noise of the tempest, the crash of thunders, and the shaking of\nthe whole island. There, too, he held a sort of Last Supper with his\ndisciples, on January 15, 1870, in the course of which he said, \u201cThus it\nhas pleased Him who directs me in all my works. Know that this supper\ncarries with it the greatest of mysteries; think that you are in a place\nwhich God has chosen for His dwelling--or, to speak more correctly, for\nHis adoration. Here, here, not far from us, on this soil, shall be\nraised marvellous pyramids in honour of His most Holy Name, and the said\npyramids shall be an oracle of the Divine Majesty.\u201d\n\nTo say the truth, he did not, at this supper, institute any sacrament.\nBut that nothing might be wanting in his mad idea of imitating Jesus\nChrist, he evolved a sacrament of his own--that of the Confession of\nAmendment--at bottom a slight variation of auricular confession.\n\nAll this, however, was not sufficient. David Lazzaretti was determined\nto have his _transfiguration_ and his _earthquake_, and promised them\nfor August 18, 1878.\n\nWhen the surgeon was hesitating to operate on one of his sons for\ncalculus, he took the knife out of his hand, and performed the\noperation. The boy died under it, but Lazzaretti, quite undisturbed,\nkept on repeating, \u201cThe son of David cannot die.\u201d\n\nAt the _post-mortem_ examination, a second tattoo mark was discovered on\nhis body. This was the usual cross, placed inside a reversed tiara. His\nbrothers, questioned on the subject, replied that he had had a golden\nseal made in France, which he called the _imperial seal_, and that after\nimmersing it in boiling oil, he had branded, first his own flesh, and\nthen that of his sons and his wife. With this impression (which is, in\nfact, a convincing proof of the insensibility to pain peculiar to the\ninsane, and of their tendency to express their eccentric ideas by means\nof figures and symbols) he claimed to leave a visible sign of the\ndescent which, in common with all his family, he boasted from the\nEmperor Constantine.\n\nHowever, not satisfied with descent from a royal race, he also wanted to\nrule the world in his own person, though afterwards he was willing to\ncontent himself with the creation of a prince whom he would invest with\nit. In a manifesto addressed \u201cto all Christian princes,\u201d he makes the\nfollowing proclamation:--\n\n\u201cI address myself to all the princes of Christendom--Catholics,\nschismatics, or heretics--provided only they have been baptized. It\nmatters little whether or not they have been invested with power or the\ngovernment of nations, so long as they are sprung from royal blood. I\ncall them all, and the first one who shall present himself to me, who is\nnot under twenty years of age, or over fifty, and has no bodily\nimperfection, I constitute him king in my stead.\u201d\n\nThe strange thing is, that he was taken at his word by the Comte de\nChambord, who sent an embassy to him.\n\n\u201cI have need,\u201d he continued, \u201cof a Christian alliance. I am decided,\nto-day, to hasten this great enterprise; and if they (the Christian\nprinces) do not come to me within the fixed time of three years, from\nthe date of publication of this programme, I will leave Europe and go to\nthe unbelieving nations to do with them what I have not been able to do\nwith Christians.\n\n\u201cBut in that case, woe to all of you, princes of Christendom. Ye shall\nbe punished by the seven heads of the great Antichrist, which shall\narise in the midst of Europe, and, above all, by a youth, who, after my\ndeparture, shall advance from the regions of the north towards Central\nFrance, and shall pretend to be that which _I myself_ am.\u201d\n\nFrom henceforward, there appears in David Lazzaretti, the fixed idea of\nbeing the King of kings and Prince of all princes. To the head of the\nmunicipal body of Arcidosso, who would not obey him, he said, \u201cI am the\nKing of kings, the Monarch of all monarchs, I bear on my shoulders all\nthe princes of the world. All the carbineers and soldiers there are, are\nmine, and dependent on me, and there are no ropes that can bind me.\u201d To\nMinucci, who was trying to escape unnoticed, he said, \u201cYou do not know\nthat I am the Prince of princes, the King of all the earth, and if you\ntry to run away, I will have you stoned alive.\u201d\n\nThe witness G. B. Rossi was present at the sermon on the 17th, and heard\nDavid say that he was the King of kings, Christ the Judge; that the Pope\nwas no longer to reside at Rome, but that he (Lazzaretti), on certain\nconditions, would provide him with another residence, and that the king\nof Italy, too, would be his subject.\n\nThe witness Mariotti also deposed that he had heard David say in his\nsermon, \u201cthat he had no fear of force, and that, even with a million of\nsoldiers, it was impossible for a subject to arrest his monarch.\u201d\n\nLastly--not to lengthen the series of proofs--the witness Giuseppe\nTonini heard him assert, in the sermon, that he was \u201cthe King of kings,\nand commanded the whole world;\u201d while the witness Valentino Mazzetti\nsays that Lazzaretti was determined to hold the procession of Aug. 18th\nat any cost, and said, \u201cDo you think they are going to arrest us? No,\nno, it is not possible for subjects to arrest their monarch.\u201d\n\nThe emblematic device he adopted is worth noting: the double C, to which\nhe attached so much importance, representing the first and second\nChrist, _i.e._, Christ, the son of St. Joseph of Nazareth, and Christ,\nthe son of the late Joseph Lazzaretti of Arcidosso. In truth, it is not\nin any way comprehensible what relation Christ could hold to\nConstantine, the latter to David, and all these to Lazzaretti. But the\nrelation exists precisely in those strange contradictions and\nabsurdities, which--amid the persistence of the _Prince_\nidea--constantly come to the surface in monomaniacs, so that some have\nwished to class their disease as dementia. In fact, although they keep\nup the character, so to speak, far better than general paralytics, and\ntry to give a plausible appearance to their delirium, yet, oftentimes,\nwhen overpowered with the necessity of finding a vent for their\npersistent ambitious idea, they pay no attention to the contradictions\nthey fall into. A Pavia embroideress, believing herself a descendant of\nthe Bonaparte family, modelled her dress, language, and aspect with\ngreat success on those of the members of the reigning families. Yet,\nwhile she asserted herself to be the daughter of Marie Louise, she at\nthe same time claimed Victor Emmanuel as her father; as, on other\noccasions, she tried to persuade us that she had found the poison of\nvipers in the eggs she was eating.\n\nThus, though at first calling on the Pope to liberate Italy, Lazzaretti,\nwhen excommunicated, or merely treated with contempt by the Pope, wrote\nagainst Papal idolatry. Though he wished to die a member of the Catholic\nApostolic Church, he inveighed against auricular confession, which is\nthe very pivot of Catholicism; and, while he called himself the son of\nDavid, he also wished to be thought the son of Constantine.\n\n_Passanante._--Passanante, the would-be regicide of Naples, has no\nmorbid hereditary antecedents.[429] At the age of 29, his height was\n1\u00b763 m., and his weight 51\u00bd kilogrammes, _i.e._, 14 kilogrammes less\nthan the Neapolitan average. His head may be described as almost\nsub-microcephalic--cephalic index 82, probable capacity 1513. His\nfeatures show the characteristics of the Mongol and the _cretin_--small\nand deeply-set eyes abnormally far apart, zygomatic bones highly\ndeveloped, beard scanty. The pupils show a low degree of mobility; and\nthe genitals are atrophied--a fact connected with that of almost\ncomplete anaphrodisia. On the other hand, the liver and spleen are\nhypertrophied, which partly explains the increase of the temperature\n(varying from 38\u00b0 to 37\u00b78\u00b0 at the arm-pits) the weakness of the pulse\n(88), and the very slight degree of strength, which, moreover, is less\non the right side (60 kil.) than on the left (78 kil.). This last\nfact--which perhaps arises from an old burn on the hand--is most\nimportant, because rendering the complete carrying out of the crime\nimprobable, especially taking into account the clumsy weapon with which\nhe was armed, and the unfavourable position which was the only one he\ncould take. The sensibility was perverted--the tactile presenting 5 mm.\non the back of the hand (where the normal sensitiveness is from 16 to\n20), and 7 on the forehead, where it is usually from 20 to 22 (that on\nthe palm of the hand was not registered). On the contrary, the\nsensitiveness of the skin to puncture was much weakened. In prison he\nhad attacks of delirium accompanied by hallucinations.\n\nAll these characteristics are clear indications of disease, both in the\nabdominal viscera, and in the nervous centres. This result is even more\nevident from the psychological study of the case. A merely superficial\nexamination might have induced the belief that his affections and moral\nsentiments were normal. He showed, indeed, a horror of crime, lived a\nmost frugal and abstemious life; and, while sometimes over-religious,\nsometimes exaggeratedly patriotic, always appeared to prefer the\nadvantage of others to his own. He thus presented to those unversed in\nthe study of mental pathology, the appearance, as it were, of a martyr\nto an idea which had been maturing for years, the mouthpiece and tool of\na powerful sect, who might call for execration politically, but as an\nindividual commanded respect.\n\nThis view, however, is at once seen to be fallacious, (even leaving\naside the delirium, which might have been the effect of imprisonment),\nif we remember that, as has already been said, frugality and\nunselfishness are special characteristics of the mattoid, and, not\nseldom, also of the insane, some of whom seem to have more affection for\ntheir country, and for humanity in general, than for their families and\nthemselves, and if we notice the indifference or even pleasure with\nwhich, in his writings, he refers to the murders committed by his\ncountrymen, when, \u201cto the sound of axes, they make foreigners give them\nmoney,\u201d above all, the enjoyment with which he records the cruel\npractical joke played on a poor man who was very fond of his cherry\ntree, by digging up the latter, bringing it back stripped of its fruit,\nand leaving it at his front door. This morbid apathy is especially\nrevealed in the want of emotion shown after the crime, in the face of\nthe anger of the populace which was let loose against him. Yet even the\ngreatest fanatics among political assassins, such as Orsini, Sand, and\nNobiling, have been overwhelmed by emotion after the deed, and have\noften attempted suicide.\n\nThe true motive of the act is quite sufficient to prove this: being\ndismissed from his situation on account of his political vagaries,\narrested as a vagabond, and, in addition, ill-used by the police, he\nthought--with a vanity as boundless as his impotence to gratify it, or\neven to live--of imitating the heroes he had heard talked of in the\nclubs (and against whom he had himself declaimed), so as to find a way\nof ending his life by the hand of another.\n\n\u201cAs I found myself ill-used by my employers, and felt a horror of life,\nI formed the design of assassinating the king, so as not to have to kill\nmyself,\u201d he said to the magistrate, immediately after his arrest. To the\njudge Azzaritti, \u201cI attempted the king\u2019s life in the certainty that I\nshould be killed.\u201d In fact, two days previously, he had been much more\noccupied with his dismissal from his place than with projects of\nregicide; and at his arrest he did all he could to make his situation\nmore serious, reminding the delegate that he had forgotten his\nrevolutionary card on which was written, \u201cDeath to the King! long live\nthe Republic!\u201d It was a case of _indirect_ suicide, such as Maudsley,\nCrichton, Esquirol,[430] and Krafft-Ebing have recorded in great\nnumbers. These, however, are only committed by the insane, or by\ncowardly and immoral men; and I insist upon this motive all the more\nthat he formed at the same time the means of satisfying that incoherent\nvanity which in him predominated over the love of life. It is well known\nthat many vain suicidal maniacs enjoy the sight of their own death\nsurrounded by pomp, like the Englishman who had a mass composed and\nexecuted in public, and shot himself while the _Requiescat_ was being\nchanted.\n\nIf, therefore, we find in him any fanaticism, it is not for politics,\nbut for his own ridiculous and ungrammatical effusions. When he lost his\ntemper and shed tears at the trial, the outburst was not provoked by any\ninsult to his party, but by a refusal to permit the reading of one of\nhis letters, and when his reputation as a scullion was attacked by the\nassertion that he was continually reading instead of washing up the\ndishes, which he flatly denied, though the implied proof of unsoundness\nof mind would have been entirely in his favour.\n\nHis intelligence might be called unusual and original rather than\nsuperior to the average; and appeared much more brilliant in his\nconversation than in his writings--in which it is difficult to find a\nvigorous expression, such as we so frequently meet with in the works of\nthe insane, as distinguished from mattoids.\n\nHowever, searching here and there amid the enormous mass of his\nwritings, and piecing out their gaps, we meet with some few fragments\nwhich are both original and curious. For example, though grotesque\nenough, his idea of having deputies and officials chosen by lot, like\nsoldiers for the conscription, \u201cthat they may not be so proud,\u201d is not\nwithout originality. Equally striking is the idea of forcing the\nconvicts, who pass their time in enforced idleness, to cultivate waste\nlands, of calling out the young men for conscription before they have\nchosen a trade, and of crying after the Emperor William who \u201cwants five\nmilliards from France\u201d: \u201cHe who sows thorns should be made to walk\nbarefoot.\u201d Good, too, in its way, though somewhat Turkish, is that of\nestablishing a free inn for travellers in every village.\n\nStill more remarkable is this, which, if it had not been written some\ntime previously, might be taken as referring to his own case: \u201cIt is\nblamable that the authorities should exercise severity of punishment\ntowards a man whose only idea is to change the form of government and\nattack the head of the State. The country is the mother of all without\ndistinction; to all, without distinction, the law should be sister of\ndeath, which has no respect for any, but cuts them down when their time\nhas come.\u201d\n\nHis contrast between man isolated and man in association with his\nfellows is worthy of Giusti. \u201cWhen you see him alone he is weak as a\nglass tumbler--if you see a glass, think of the strength of man, there\nis no great difference; but, united, men become hard and have the\nstrength of a thousand Samsons.\u201d\n\nWhere he really appeared superior to the average was in his _viva-voce_\nanswers. Thus: \u201cHistory studied practically among the people is more\ninstructive than the history studied in books. The people is the best\nteacher of history,\u201d &c. To justify the literary pretensions which\nseemed so inconsistent with his position as a poor cook, he replied,\n\u201cWhere the learned man goes astray, the ignorant often triumphs.\u201d\n\nWhen asked what takes place in the conscience when one is about to\ncommit a bad action, he replied, \u201cIn us there are, as it were, two\nwills--one pushing us on, the other holding us back,--and the one that\nproves strongest determines the action.\u201d\n\nBut it is precisely in his intermittent flashes of political insight, so\nstrange in his position, that a morbid abnormality becomes evident. For\nit must be remarked that they constitute rather the exception than the\nrule. What we find, as a rule, is the commonplace and the absurd. In the\nsame code he proposes to hang coiners and burn thieves, and abolish the\ndeath penalty! He wishes to kill the king, yet in another article he\ndemands for him a pension of two-and-a-half millions![431]\n\n_Guiteau._--The same thing may be said of Guiteau, who presented an\nenormous number of degenerative characteristics. His handwriting is\nquite that of the mattoid; and he was descended from a family which\ncounted among its members many lunatics and fanatics. Advocate,\ntheologian, politician, and swindler, he had tried all trades, and\nclaimed to have made a great discovery about the birth of Christ. The\nfact is that he had spoilt a great deal of paper, and issued one or two\njournals and ridiculous works on _The Existence of Hell_ and on _Truth_\nwhich he believed to be written under Divine dictation. He thought that\nGod would pay his debts as a reward for his eccentric preachings; it was\nin obedience to a Divine command that he killed Garfield--yet it was\nonly done in revenge for his failure to appoint him U.S. consul at\nLiverpool, ambassador to Austria, &c.--which showed great ingratitude on\nGarfield\u2019s part, considering the trouble Guiteau had taken, in his own\nbelief, to secure his election as President.[432]\n\n_South Americans._--The number of great men in the Argentine Republic\nsuffering from cerebral affections is so considerable that it has\nenabled Mejia to compose on this subject a work which is among the most\ncurious and valuable produced in the New World.[433]\n\nThus, according to Mejia, Rivadura was a hypochondriac, and died of\nsoftening of the brain. Manuel Garcia also suffered from hypochondria,\nand finally succumbed to a brain affection. Admiral Brown was subject to\nthe delusion that he was persecuted. Varela was epileptic, Francia was a\nmelancholiac, Rosas was morally insane, and Monteagudo was hysterical.\n\n\n\n\nPART IV.\n\n_SYNTHESIS. THE DEGENERATIVE PSYCHOSIS OF GENIUS._\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nCHARACTERISTICS OF INSANE MEN OF GENIUS.\n\n     Characterlessness--Vanity--Precocity--Alcoholism--Vagabondage--Versatility--Originality--Style--Religious\n     doubts--Sexual abnormalities--Egoism--Eccentricity--Inspiration.\n\n\nThe conception of the morbid and degenerative character of genius is\nconfirmed and completed more and more when its isolated phenomena are\nsubjected to a more rigorous examination, and, as in chemical reactions,\nto mutual contact. If, in fact, we analyze the lives and works of those\ngreat diseased minds which have become famous in history, we find that\nthey can at once be distinguished by many characteristic traits from the\naverage man, and also, in part, from other geniuses, who have completed\ntheir life\u2019s orbit without trace of madness.\n\nI. These insane geniuses have scarcely any character. The full, complete\ncharacter, \u201cwhich bends not for any winds that blow,\u201d is the distinctive\nmark of honest and sound-minded men.\n\nTasso, on the contrary, declaims against courts, and yet, even to his\nlast hour, we find him perpetually coming back to beg their grudging\nfavours. Cardan accuses himself of lying, evil-speaking, and gambling.\nRousseau, though so sensitive, abandons to want the tenderest and\nkindest of friends, casts off his children, calumniates others and\nhimself, and apostatizes three times over--from Catholicism, from\nProtestantism, and, what is worse, from the religion of philosophy.\n\nSwift, though an ecclesiastic, wrote the obscene poem of the loves of\nStrephon and Chloe, and belittled the church of which he was a\ndignitary, though his pride reached the proportions of delirium.\n\nLenau, religious to fanaticism in _Savonarola_, shows himself in the\n_Albigenses_ even cynically sceptical; he knows it, confesses it, and\nlaughs at it.\n\nSchopenhauer denounced women, and at the same time was too warm an\nadmirer of the sex; he professed to believe in the happiness of Nirvana,\nand then predicted for himself more than a hundred years of life.\n\nII. Genius is conscious of itself, appreciates itself, and, certainly,\nhas no monkish humility. Yet the conceit seething in diseased brains\npasses the limits of all truth and probability. Tasso and Cardan\ncovertly, and Mahomet openly, declared themselves inspired by God, and\nthe slightest criticism, therefore, appeared to them as deadly\npersecution. Cardan wrote of himself, \u201cMy nature is placed on the very\nlimits of human substance and conditions, and within the confines of the\nimmortals.\u201d[434] Rousseau believed that all men, and sometimes even the\nelements, were in a conspiracy against him. Perhaps it is on this very\naccount that we have seen almost all these unhappy great spirits fly\nfrom association with other men. Swift humiliated and insulted cabinet\nministers, and wrote to a duchess desirous of making his acquaintance\nthat the greater men were, the lower must they bow before him. Lenau had\ninherited the pride of rank from his mother, and in his delirium\nbelieved himself king of Hungary.\n\nIII. Some of these unfortunate men have given strangely precocious\nproofs of their genius. Tasso could speak when six months old, and knew\nLatin at the age of seven. Lenau, at a very early age, composed most\ntouching sermons, and played the bagpipes and the violin with\nastonishing skill. Cardan at eight had apparitions and revelations of\ngenius. Amp\u00e8re was a mathematician at thirteen. Pascal, at ten, inspired\nby the noise made by a plate struck with a knife, worked out a theory\nof sound, and at fifteen composed his celebrated treatise on Conic\nSections. Haller preached at four, and devoured books at five.\n\nIV. Many of them have been excessive in their abuse of narcotics, or of\nstimulants and intoxicants. Haller was in the habit of taking enormous\ndoses of opium, and Rousseau was excessive in his use of coffee. Tasso\nwas renowned as a drinker, as also the modern poets Kleist, G\u00e9rard de\nNerval, Musset, Murger, Majl\u00e1th, Praga, and Rovani, as well as the very\noriginal Chinese writer Li-Tai-P\u00f4, who was inspired by alcohol, and died\nof it. Lenau also, in his latter years, was an immoderate consumer of\nwine, coffee, and tobacco. Baudelaire abused opium, tobacco, and wine.\nCardan confessed himself an indefatigable drinker. Poe was a\ndipsomaniac; so was Hoffmann.\n\nV. Nearly all of these great men, moreover, showed anomalies of the\nreproductive functions. Tasso, who was guilty of exaggerated\nlicentiousness in his youth, was rigidly chaste after his thirty-eighth\nyear. On the other hand, Cardan, impotent in his youth, gave himself up\nto excess at thirty-five. Pascal, sensual in his early youth, afterwards\nbelieved even a mother\u2019s kiss to be a crime. Rousseau was affected by\nhypospadias and spermatorrh\u0153a, and, like Baudelaire, was subject to a\nsexual perversion. Newton and Charles XII., so far as is known, were\nabsolutely continent. Lenau wrote, \u201cI have the painful conviction that I\nam unsuitable for marriage.\u201d[435]\n\nVI. Instead of preferring the quiet seclusion of the study, they cannot\nrest in any place, and have to be continually travelling. Lenau removed\nfrom Vienna to Stokerau, and then to Gm\u00fcnden, and finally emigrated to\nAmerica. \u201cI need,\u201d he said, \u201ca change of climate every now and then to\nstir up my blood.\u201d[436] Tasso was continually travelling from Ferrara to\nUrbino, Mantua, Naples, Paris, Bergamo, Rome, and Turin. Poe was the\ndespair of his editors, because he was continually wandering about\nbetween Boston, New York, Richmond, Philadelphia, and Baltimore.\nGiordano Bruno wandered to Padua, Oxford, Wittenberg, Magdeburg,\nHelmst\u00e4dt, Prague, and Geneva.\n\nRousseau, Cardan, Cellini were constantly staying now at Turin, now at\nParis, now at Florence, Rome, Bologna, or Lausanne. \u201cChange of place,\u201d\nsays Rousseau,[437] \u201cis a necessity for me. In the fine season, I find\nit impossible to remain for more than two or three days in one place\nwithout suffering.\u201d\n\nVII. Sometimes they change their career and course of study several\ntimes in succession, as though the mighty intellect could not find rest\nand relief in a single science.[438] Swift, in addition to his satiric\npoems, wrote on the manufactures of Ireland, on theology, on politics,\nand on the history of the reign of Queen Anne. Cardan was at the same\ntime a mathematician, physician, theologian, and literary man. Rousseau\nwas painter, music-master, charlatan, philosopher, botanist, and poet;\nand Hoffmann, magistrate, caricaturist, musician, romance-writer, and\ndramatist.\n\nTasso--as did Gogol after him--attempted all varieties of poetry, epic,\ndramatic, and didactic, in all metres. Newton and Pascal, in moments of\naberration, abandoned physics for theology. Lenau cultivated medicine,\nagriculture, law, poetry, and theology.\n\nVIII. These energetic and terrible intellects are the true pioneers of\nscience; they rush forward regardless of danger, facing with eagerness\nthe greatest difficulties--perhaps because it is these which best\nsatisfy their morbid energy. They seize the strangest connections, the\nnewest and most salient points; and here I may mention that originality,\ncarried to the point of absurdity, is the principal characteristic of\ninsane poets and artists. Amp\u00e8re always sought out the most difficult\nproblems in mathematics--the abysses--as Arago has noted.\n\nRousseau, in the _Devin du Village_, had attempted the music of the\nfuture, afterwards tried again by another insane genius, Schumann. Swift\nused to say that he only felt at his ease when treating the most\ndifficult subjects, and those most out of the line of his habitual\noccupations. In fact, in his _Directions to Servants_, he seems, not a\ntheologian or a politician, but a servant himself. His _Confession of a\nThief_ was believed to have been really written by a well-known\ncriminal, so that the latter\u2019s accomplices, thinking that they were\ndiscovered, gave themselves up to justice. In the prophecies of\nBickerstaff, he assumed the character of a Catholic, and succeeded in\ndeceiving the Roman Inquisition.\n\nWalt Whitman is the creator of a rhymeless poetry, which the\nAnglo-Saxons regard as the poetry of the future, and which certainly\nbears the imprint of strange and wild originality.\n\nPoe\u2019s compositions (says Baudelaire, one of his greatest admirers) seem\nto have been produced in order to show that strangeness may enter into\nthe elements of the beautiful; and he collected them under the title of\n_Arabesques and Grotesques_, because these exclude the human\ncountenance, and his literature was _extra-human_. Here, too, we note\nthe predilection of insane artists for arabesques, and, moreover, for\narabesques which suggest the human figure.[439]\n\nBaudelaire himself created the prose poem, and carried to the highest\npoint the adoration of artificial beauty. He was the first to find new\npoetic associations in the olfactory sense.[440]\n\nIX. These morbid geniuses have a style peculiar to\nthemselves--passionate, palpitating, vividly coloured--which\ndistinguishes them from all other writers, perhaps because it could only\narise under maniacal influences. So much so that all of them confess\ntheir inability to compose, or even to think, outside the moments of\ninspiration. Tasso wrote, in one of his letters, \u201cI am unsuccessful, and\nfind difficulty in everything, especially in composition.\u201d[441] \u201cMy\nideas,\u201d Rousseau confesses, \u201care confused, slow in arising and\ndeveloping themselves, nor can I express myself well except in moments\nof passion.\u201d The eloquent and vivid exordiums of Cardan\u2019s works, so\ndifferent from the rest of his tedious books, show what a difference\nthere was between the first and last moments of his inspiration. Haller,\nthough a successful poet himself, used to say that the whole art of\npoetry consisted in its difficulty. Pascal began his 18th _Provincial\nLetter_ thirteen times.\n\nPerhaps it was this analogy in character and style that was the cause of\nSwift\u2019s and Rousseau\u2019s predilection for Tasso, and drew the severe\nHaller towards Swift; while Amp\u00e8re was inspired by Rousseau\u2019s\neccentricities, and Baudelaire by those of Poe (whose works he\ntranslated) and of Hoffmann, whom he idolized.[442]\n\nX. Nearly all these great men were painfully preoccupied by religious\ndoubts, raised by the intellect, and combated, as a crime, by the timid\nconscience and morbid emotions. Tasso was tormented by the fear of being\na heretic. Amp\u00e8re often said that doubts are the worst torture of man.\nHaller wrote in his journal, \u201cMy God! give me--oh! give me one drop of\nfaith: my mind believes in Thee, but my heart refuses--this is my\ncrime.\u201d Lenau used to repeat, towards the end of his life, \u201cIn those\nhours when my heart is suffering, the idea of God passes away from me.\u201d\nIn fact, the real hero of his _Savonarola_ is Doubt,[443] as is now\nadmitted by all critics.\n\nXI. All insane men of genius, moreover, are much preoccupied with their\nown _Ego_. They sometimes know and proclaim their own disease, and seem\nas though they wished, by confessing it, to get relief from its\ninexorable attacks.\n\nIt is quite natural that, being men of great intellect and therefore\nacute observers, they should at last notice their own cruel anomalies\nand be struck by the spectacle of the _Ego_ which obtruded itself so\npainfully on their notice. Men in general, but more particularly the\ninsane, love to speak of themselves, and on this theme they even become\neloquent. All the more should we expect it in those whose genius is\naccompanied and quickened by mania. It is thus we get those wonderful\nrecords of passion and grief, monuments of phrenopathic poetry, which\nreveal the great and unhappy personality of the writer. Cardan wrote,\nnot only his autobiography, but also poems on his misfortunes, and the\nwork _De Somniis_, entirely composed of his dreams and hallucinations.\nThe poems of Whitman are the glorification of the _Ego_. Rousseau, in\nhis _Confessions, Dialogues, R\u00eaveries_, like De Musset in his\n_Confessions_, and Hoffmann in _Kreisler_,[444] only give a minute\ndescription of themselves and their own madness.\n\nThus also Poe, as Baudelaire has well remarked, took as his text the\nexceptions of human life, the hallucination which, at first doubtful,\nafterwards becomes a reasoned conviction; absurdity enthroned in the\nregion of intellect and governing it with a terrible logic; hysteria\noccupying the place of the will; the contradiction between the nerves\nand the mind carried so far that grief is driven to utter itself in\nlaughter.\n\nPascal, who was driven by delirium into exaggerated humility, who said\nthat Christianity suppressed the _Ego_, has not written his\nautobiography; yet he, too, showed traces of his hallucinations in the\ncelebrated Amulet, and, in his _Pens\u00e9es_, subtly described himself when\nspeaking of others. It is certain that he was alluding to himself when\nhe wrote that \u201cextreme genius is close to extreme folly, and men are so\nmad that he who should not be so would be a madman of a new kind;\u201d and\nwhen he observed that \u201cmaladies influence our judgment and sense; and\nwhile great ones perceptibly alter them, even slight ones cannot but\ninfluence them in proportion;\u201d and that \u201cmen of genius have their heads\nhigher, but their feet lower than the rest of us; they are all on the\nsame level, and stand on the same clay as ourselves, children, and\nbrutes.\u201d\n\nHaller, in his diary, gives detailed notes of his own religious\ndelusions, and often confesses to having completely changed his\ncharacter in the course of twenty-four hours, and being \u201cgiddy, mad,\npersecuted by God, and scorned and despised by men.\u201d\n\nLessmann who, at a later time, hanged himself, wrote the humorous _Diary\nof a Melancholiac_ (1834). Tasso, in his letter to the Duke of Urbino,\nand in the stanza already quoted, clearly depicted his own insanity.\n\u201cFrancesco,\u201d he says elsewhere, \u201cO Francesco, within my infirm limbs I\nhave an infirm soul.\u201d[445] It is a curious fact that, shortly before his\nfirst attack of mania, he wrote these words, \u201cAs I do not deny that I am\nmad, I must believe that my madness has been caused by drunkenness or\nlove, since I know well that I drink to excess,\u201d &c.[446]\n\nDosto\u00efeffsky continually introduces semi-insane characters, and\nespecially epileptics, in _Besi_ and _The Idiot_, and moral lunatics in\n_Crime and Punishment_.\n\nG\u00e9rard de Nerval was the author of _Aurelia_, which has been well called\nthe \u201cSong of Songs of Fever,\u201d and is a mixture of poetry and gibberish.\nBarbara wrote _Les D\u00e9traqu\u00e9s_. Buston described his own hallucinations.\nAllix, though not a medical man, wrote on the treatment of the insane.\nLenau, twelve years before he actually succumbed to the attacks of\ninsanity, had foreseen and described it. All his poems depict, in\ncolours painfully vivid, suicidal and melancholic tendencies. The reader\nmay judge of this from the mere titles of some of his lyrics, \u201cTo a\nHypochrondriac,\u201d \u201cThe Madman,\u201d \u201cThe Diseased in Soul,\u201d \u201cThe Violence of\na Dream,\u201d \u201cThe Moon of Melancholy.\u201d\n\nI do not think that it is possible to find, in the most doleful pages of\nJ. Ortis so accurate and vividly coloured a description of suicidal\ntendencies as in the following extract from the _Seelenkranke_, \u201cI carry\na deep wound in my heart, and will carry it in silence to the grave; my\nlife is broken from hour to hour. One alone could comfort me, ... but\nshe lies in the grave.... O my mother! let thyself be moved by my\nentreaties, if thy love still survives death, if it is still permitted\nthee to care for thy child.... Oh! let me soon escape from life! I long\nfor the night of death! Oh! only help thy crazy son to lay aside his\ngrief.\u201d His _Traumgewalten_ is, as I have already observed, a terribly\ntruthful picture of that hallucination which preceded or accompanied the\nfirst attack of suicidal mania; and here the reader can easily trace in\nthe phrases and ideas that disconnected and fragmentary character which\nis the mark of the delirious paralytic.\n\nHere is a specimen--\u201cThe dream was so terrible, so wild, so frightful,\nthat I wish I could tell myself it was nothing but a dream; ... yet I\ncontinue to weep, and to feel that my heart beats; I awaken, and find\nthe sheets and the pillow wet.... Did I seize them in my dream and wipe\nmy face? I do not know.... While I was sleeping, my hostile guests have\nbeen holding an orgy here.... Now they are gone, those savages, they are\ngone, but I find their traces in my tears. They have fled, and left the\nwine on the table,\u201d &c.\n\nHe had previously, in the _Albigenses_, dropped some allusions to the\nterrible impression made on him by his dreams: \u201cTerrible, often, is the\nmight of dreams; it shakes, pains, presses, threatens, and if the\nsleeper does not awaken in time, in the twinkling of an eye, he is a\ncorpse.\u201d[447]\n\nXII. The principal trace of the delusions of great minds is found in the\nvery construction of their works and speeches, in their illogical\ndeductions, absurd contradictions, and grotesque and inhuman fantasies.\nThus Socrates was clearly of unsound mind when, after having all but\narrived, intuitively, at Christian morality and Judaic monotheism, he\ndirected his steps in accordance with a sneeze, or the voice and signs\nof his imaginary genius. Thus Cardan, who had anticipated Newton in\ndiscovering the laws of gravitation, and Dupuis in theology--who, in his\nbook _De Subtilitate_, explains as hallucinations the strange and\nportentous symptoms of the possessed, and also of some of those hermits\nwho were accounted saints, comparing them to the delirium of quartan\nfever--Cardan was insane, when he attributed to the influence of a\ngenius, not only his scientific inspirations, but the creaking of the\ntable and the vibration of the pen, when he declared that he had been\nseveral times bewitched, and when he produced his book _On Dreams_,\nwhich speaks to the mental pathologist as a pseudo-membrane would to the\nphysical. In this, at first, he puts on record the most accurate and\ncurious observations on the phenomena of dreams--_e.g._, how severe\nphysical pains act with less energy, slight ones with greater--a fact\nrecently confirmed by psychiatrists; that the insane are much given to\ndreaming; that in a dream, as on the stage, a long series of ideas\npasses in a very short space of time; and finally (and this is a remark\nof much justice) that men have dreams either entirely analogous to, or\nentirely at variance with, their own habits. But, after these clear and\nundoubted proofs of genius, he re-affirms one of the most absurd and\ncontemptible theories ever held by the populace of ancient times,\nnamely, that the slightest accidental circumstance of a dream must be\nthe revelation of a more or less distant future. Thus he draws up, with\nthe sincerest conviction, a dictionary, identical in form and origin\n(which last is undoubtedly pathological) with Cabalistic productions.\nEvery object, every word, which may find a place in a dream, is there\nattached to a series of allusions which serve to interpret each other.\n_Father_ may signify author, husband, son, commander. _Feet_, foundation\nof a house, arts, workmen, &c. A _horse_, appearing in a dream, may\nsignify flight, riches, or a wife. _Shoemaker_ and _physician_ are\ninterchangeable in meaning. In short, it is not actual analogies which\nprevail, but analogies in words, in sounds, even in terminations.\n_Orior_ and _morior_ have an equal prophetic value, because \u201csince they\ndiffer from each other only by a single letter, the one passes over to\nthe other.\u201d We are seized with compassion for human nature and for\nourselves, when we find him relating that a knight who suffered from the\nstone always, if he dreamed of food, had an attack on the following day,\nand adding _cibos enim et dolores degustare dicimus_--as though nature\nwere in the habit of amusing herself by making puns in Latin. Yet this\nwas the man who had intuitively divined the admirable theory of painful\nsensations in sleep already alluded to, and who, a physician, and one of\nno mean distinction, had clearly conceived the sympathetic action of the\nsolar plexus.\n\nNewton himself can scarcely be said to have been sane when he demeaned\nhis intellect to the interpretation of the Apocalypse, or the horns of\nDaniel; nor, again, when he wrote to Bentley, \u201cBy means of the law of\nattraction, one can very well understand the elongated orbits of comets;\nbut as to the nearly circular orbits of planets, I see no possibility of\nobtaining their lateral difference, and this can only be accomplished by\nGod.\u201d Yet in his _Optics_, Newton had inveighed against those who, after\nthe manner of the Aristotelians admit occult properties in matter, thus\narresting the researches of natural philosophers, without leading to any\nconclusion. In fact, a century later, the true cause, which had escaped\nNewton\u2019s observations, was discovered by La Place.\n\nAmp\u00e8re believed, in all sincerity, that he had found the method of\nsquaring the circle.\n\nPascal, though he had been the first to study the laws of probability,\nbelieved that the touch of a relic had power to cure a lachrymal\nfistula--a statement which he printed in one of his works.\n\nRousseau makes of his own maniacal savagery the ideal type of man, and\nbelieves that every natural production, if agreeable to the sight or\ntaste, must be innocuous, so that arsenic, according to him, could not\nbe harmful. His life is made up of contradictions: he prefers the\ncountry, and lives in the Rue Platoni\u00e8re; he writes a treatise on\neducation, and sends his children to the foundling hospital; he\nadjudicates on the claims of the various religions with the acuteness\nof an unbiassed sceptic, and throws stones at trees in order to divine\nthe future and decide the question of his own salvation; nay, he writes\nto the Deity, and lays his letters on the altars of churches, as though\nthey were His exclusive abode.\n\nBaudelaire finds the sublime in the artificial--\u201clike the rouge which\nenhances the beauty of a handsome woman.\u201d He carries out an insane idea\nby describing a metallic landscape, with neither water nor vegetation.\n\u201cAll is rigid, polished, shining; without heat and without sun; in the\nmidst of the eternal silence the blue water is enclosed, like the\nancient mirrors, in a golden basin.\u201d He finds his ideal in the Latin of\nthe Decadence, \u201cthe only tongue which can thoroughly render the language\nof passion,\u201d and adores cats to such a degree as to address three poems\nto them.\n\nLenau, in his \u201cMoon of the Hypochondri\u00e0c,\u201d sees, contrary to the usual\npractice of poets, in the cold moon, without water and without\natmosphere, \u201cthe sexton of the planets, who, with a silver thread\nentwined, enchains the sleepers and draws them to death; she beckons\nwith her finger, leads sleep-walkers astray, and counsels the thief.\u201d\nThough, as a young man, he had frequently expressed his opinion that\n\u201cmysticism is a symptom of insanity,\u201d he often showed mystical\ntendencies, especially in his later poems.\n\nIn the Koran, there is not a single chapter which has any connection\nwith another; on the contrary, it often happens that, in the course of a\nsingle _sura_, the ideas are interrupted, and follow each other almost\nat random. \u201cOn Mahomet,\u201d writes Morkos, \u201cthe most contradictory verdicts\nmay be pronounced, for it is impossible to deny his great excellence,\nwhile at the same time there is no disguising the fact that we find in\nhim the most signal artifices of imposture, the grossest ignorance, and\nthe greatest imprudence.\u201d\n\nIt appears to me, moreover, that the great writers who have been under\nthe dominion of alcohol, have a style peculiar to themselves, whose\ncharacteristics are a deliberate eroticism, and an inequality which is\nrather grotesque than beautiful, owing to too unrestrained fancy,\nfrequent imprecations and abrupt transitions from the deepest melancholy\nto obscene gaiety, and a marked preference for such subjects as madness,\ndrink, and the gloomiest scenes of death. \u201cPoe,\u201d says Baudelaire, \u201clikes\nto place his figures against greenish or violet backgrounds, surrounded\nby the phosphorescence of decay, and the atmosphere of storms and\norgies. He throws himself into grotesquery for the love of the\ngrotesque, into horror for the love of the horrible.\u201d\n\nThe same thing is done by Baudelaire himself, who loves to describe the\neffects of alcohol or opium.\n\n\u201cThere are days when my heart faints in me, and the mud overwhelms\nme,\u201d[448] sang poor Praga, who killed himself with alcohol, and who,\nsinging the praises of wine, blasphemed thus:\n\n\u201cLet it come--the reproach of the sober man; come--the contempt of the\nhuman race,--come, the hell of the Eternal Father: I will go down into\nit with my glass in hand.\u201d[449]\n\nSteen, the drunken painter, usually painted drinking scenes. Hoffmann\u2019s\ndrawings ended in caricatures, his tales in extra-human extravagancies,\nhis music in a senseless succession of sounds.\n\nAlfred de Musset saw in the ladies of Madrid,\n\n                \u201c_sous un col de cigne_\n    _Un sein vierge et dor\u00e9 comme la jeune vigne._\u201d\n\nMurger admired women with green lips and yellow cheeks--no doubt through\na species of colour-blindness, such as we have already met with among\npainters.\n\nXIII. Nearly all of these great men--for instance, Cardan, Lenau, Tasso,\nSocrates, Pascal--attached great importance to their dreams, which, no\ndoubt, assumed a more vivid and powerful colouring than those of sane\npersons.\n\nXIV. Many presented voluminous but very irregular skulls; and, like\nmadmen, have ended by serious alterations of the nervous centres.\nPascal\u2019s cerebral substance was harder than is normally the case, and\nthe left lobe had suppurated. The brain of Rousseau revealed dropsy in\nthe ventricles. Byron and Foscolo, great but eccentric geniuses, both\nshowed premature ossification of the sutures. Schumann died of chronic\nmeningitis and cerebral atrophy.\n\nXV. The insane characters of men of genius are scarcely ever found\nalone. Thus melancholia was associated and alternated with exaggerated\nself-esteem in Chopin, Comte, Tasso, Cardan, Schopenhauer; with\nalcoholic mania, impulsive insanity, or sexual perversion in Baudelaire\nand Rousseau; with erratic and alcoholic mania and that of self-esteem,\nin G\u00e9rard de Nerval. In Coleridge, the mania of morphia was associated\nwith _folie du doute_.\n\nXVI. But the most special characteristic of this form of insanity\nappears to reduce itself to an extreme exaggeration of two alternating\nphases, viz., erethism and atony, inspiration and exhaustion, which we\nsee physiologically manifested in nearly all great intellects, even the\nsanest--phases to which they, all alike, give a wrong interpretation,\naccording as their pride is gratified or offended. \u201cAn indolent soul,\nafraid of every kind of business, a bilious temperament, which suffers\neasily and is sensitive to every discomfort, seem as though they could\nnot be combined in one character--yet they form the groundwork of mine.\u201d\nSuch is Rousseau\u2019s confession in Letter II. Therefore, as the ignorant\nman explains the modifications of his own _ego_ by means of material and\nexternal objects, they often attribute to a devil, a genius, or a God,\nthe happy inspiration of their exalted moments. Tasso, speaking of his\nfamiliar spirit, genius, or messenger, says, \u201cIt cannot be a devil,\nsince it does not inspire me with a horror for sacred things; nor yet a\nnatural creature, for it causes to arise in me ideas which I never had\nbefore.\u201d A genius inspires Cardan with his written works, his knowledge\nof spiritual matters, his medical opinions; Tartini with his Sonata,\nMahomet with the pages of the Koran. Van Helmont asserted that he had\nseen a genius appear before him at all the most important moments of his\nlife; and, in 1633, he discovered his own soul under the form of a\nshining crystal. William Blake often retired to the sea-shore to\nconverse with Moses, Homer, Virgil, and Milton, with whom he believed\nhimself to have been previously acquainted. When questioned as to their\nappearance, he replied, \u201cThey are shades full of majesty--grey, but\nluminous, and much taller than the generality of men.\u201d Socrates was\ncounselled in his actions by a genius who, as he expressed it, was\nbetter than ten thousand teachers; and he often advised his friends as\nto what they ought, or ought not to do, according as he had received\ninstructions from his \u03b4\u03b1\u03b9\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd\u1f31\u03bf\u03bd.\n\nIt is certain that the vivid and richly-coloured style of all these\ngreat men--the clearness with which they describe their most grotesque\neccentricities, such as the Liliputian Academies, or the horrors of\nTartarus, denote that they saw and touched, as it were, with the\ncertainty of hallucination, all that they describe; that, in short, in\nthem inspiration and insanity became fused, and resulted in a single\nproduct.\n\nIt may be said, indeed, of some--as of Luther, Mahomet, Savonarola,\nMolinos, and, in modern times, the chief of the Taeping rebels--that\nthis false explanation of the _afflatus_ was of great service to them,\ngiving to their speeches and prophecies that air of truth only resulting\nfrom a profound conviction, which alone can shake the popular ignorance\nand carry it in the wake of a new doctrine. This characteristic is\ncommon to the insanity of genius and the most trivial aberrations of\neccentricity.\n\nWhen inspiration and high spirits fail together, and depression of mind\nprevails, then these great unfortunate ones, interpreting their own\ncondition still more strangely, believe themselves to have been\npoisoned, like Cardan; or to be condemned to eternal fire, like Haller\nand Amp\u00e8re; or persecuted by inveterate enemies, like Newton, Swift,\nBarthez, Cardan, and Rousseau.\n\nMoreover, in all these cases, religious doubt, raised by the intellect\nin despite of the heart, appears to the subject himself as a crime, and\nbecomes both cause and instrument of new and real misfortunes.\n\nXVII. Yet the temper of these men is so different from that of average\npeople that it gives a special character to the different psychoses\n(melancholia, monomania, &c.) from which they suffer, so as to\nconstitute a special psychosis, which might be called the psychosis of\ngenius.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nANALOGY OF SANE TO INSANE GENIUS.\n\nWant of character--Pride--Precocity--Alcoholism--Degenerative\nsigns--Obsession--Men of genius in revolutions.\n\n\nBut these characteristics are not confined to insane genius; they are\nalso met with, though far less conspicuously among the great men freest\nfrom any suspicion of insanity, those of whom the insane geniuses just\nmentioned are but the exaggeration and caricature. It is thus that the\ncomplete and perfect character, while conspicuously seen in Socrates,\nColumbus, Cavour, Christ, Galileo, Spinoza, is not to be found in\nNapoleon, Bacon, Cicero, Seneca, Alcibiades, Alexander, Julius C\u00e6sar,\nMachiavelli, Carlyle, Frederick II., Dumas, Byron, Comte, Bulwer Lytton,\nPetrarch, Aretino, Gibbon.\n\nSelf-esteem, carried to an almost incredible point, has been noticed in\nNapoleon, Hegel, Dante, Victor Hugo, Lassalle, Balzac, and Comte; and,\nas we have already seen, even in men of talent, but not of genius, as\nCagnoli, Lucius, Porta, &c.\n\nPrecocity, moreover, does not fail to appear in normal men of genius,\nsuch as Mozart, Raphael, Michelangelo, Charles XII., Stuart Mill,\nD\u2019Alembert, Lulli, Cowley, Otway, Prior, Pope, Addison, Burns, Keats,\nSheffield, Hugo.\n\nAmong these we also find the abuse of alcohol, sexual deficiencies, or\nexcesses followed by sterility, the tendency to vagrancy, and impulsive\nacts of violence, alternating, or associated, with convulsive movements.\nBismarck once said to Beust, \u201cDo you ever feel the wish to break\nanything as an amusement?\u201d Like Gladstone and the Belgian Malon, he\noften takes exercise by cutting down trees like a woodman.\n\nWe have also found, in some of them, numerous anomalies in the shape of\nthe skull and conformation of the brain. Degenerative symptoms, such as\nstammering, lefthandedness, precocity, sterility, abound in both, as\nwell as divergences from ancestral character.\n\nThere is also seen in them that invasion, or rather possession, by their\nsubject which transforms the creature of the imagination into a true\nhallucination, or an auto-suggestion. Flaubert says that his characters\nseized upon him, and pursued him, or that, more correctly speaking, he\nlived through them. When he described the poisoning of Madame Bovary, he\nfelt the taste of arsenic on his tongue, and showed symptoms of actual\npoisoning so far as to vomit. Dickens, too, was affected by sorrow and\ncompassion for his characters, as if they had been his own\nchildren.[450]\n\n\u201cTo my mind,\u201d writes Edmond de Goncourt, \u201cmy brother died of over-work,\nand more especially the elaboration of literary form, the chiselling of\nphrases, the labour of style. I can still see him taking up again pieces\nwhich we had written together, and which, at first, had satisfied us,\nworking at them for hours, for half a day at a time, with an almost\nangry persistency....\n\n\u201cYou must remember, in short, that all our work--and in this, perhaps,\nconsists its originality, an originality dearly bought--has its root in\nnervous illness; that we drew our pictures of disease from our own\nexperience, and that, by dint of analyzing, studying, dissecting\nourselves, we at last attained a kind of super-acute sensitiveness,\nwhich was wounded on all sides by the infinite littlenesses of life. I\nsay _we_, for, when we wrote _Charles Demailly_, I was more diseased\nthan he. Alas! he took the first place, later on. _Charles\nDemailly!_--it is a strange thing to write one\u2019s own history fifteen\nyears in advance.\u201d[451]\n\nThe obsession of genius sometimes attains such a point as actually to\ncreate a double personality, and transform a philanthropist into an\noverbearing tyrant, a melancholy man into a jovial reveller.\n\nFinally, we have found, even in the sanest and most complete genius, the\nincomplete and rudimentary forms of mania--as melancholy, megalomania,\nhallucinations, &c.--a fact which helps to explain the convictions of\ncertain prophets and founders of dynasties, convictions so deeply rooted\nas to serve the purpose of inspiration, as far as the mass of the people\nwere concerned. Maudsley says that one of the conditions essential to\nthe originality of genius is a disposition to be dissatisfied with the\nexisting state of things.\n\nWe have also met with the use of peculiar words which is so frequent a\ncharacteristic of monomania, and also those uncertainties which reach\ntheir extreme point in the madness of doubt.\n\nThe whole difference resolves itself, at bottom, into this: that in sane\ngenius the symptoms are less exaggerated, the double personality is less\nconspicuous, the choice of subjects connected with madness less frequent\n(Shakespeare, Goncourt, and Daudet being exceptions), and the note of\nabsurdity less emphasized. This, however, is scarcely ever wanting,\ninasmuch as nothing is closer to the ridiculous than the sublime.\n\nIt is also not without importance to note that, whenever genius appears\nin a race, the number of the insane also increases. Of this fact we have\nfound remarkable proofs among the Italian, German, and English Jews. So\nmuch is this the case, that it is the custom, in German lunatic asylums,\nto reckon genius in the parents among the etiological elements of\ninsanity. Both genius and insanity are influenced by violent passions at\nthe time of conception, by advanced age, or alcoholism in the parents;\nand as, in all degenerate natures, genius is only exceptionally\ntransmitted, it almost always assumes the form of more and more\naggravated neurosis, and rapidly disappears, thanks to that beneficent\nsterility through which nature provides for the elimination of monsters.\nThough all the proofs we have given should have been forgotten, the\nfact would be quite sufficiently demonstrated by the pedigrees of Peter\nthe Great, the C\u00e6sars, and Charles V., in which epileptics, men of\ngenius, and criminals, alternate with ever greater frequency, till the\nline ends in idiocy and sterility.[452]\n\nIn all these three types (insanity, insane genius, and sane genius), we\nsee at work, with nearly equal intensity, the influence of race,[453] of\nhot climates, of diminutions (unless greatly exaggerated), in the degree\nof atmospheric pressure, and, in frequent cases, of maladies accompanied\nby a high temperature.\n\nBut the most convincing proof of all is offered by the insane who,\nthough not possessed of genius, apparently acquire it, for a time, while\nunder treatment. These cases prove that geniality, originality, artistic\nand \u00e6sthetic creation may show themselves in the least predisposed\nnatures, as a consequence of mental alienation. Finally, not the least\nimportant proof is contained in the singular phenomenon of the mattoid,\nwho, as distinguished from the really insane, has all the appearances,\nwithout the reality, of genius.\n\nTaking all this into consideration, we may confidently affirm that\ngenius is a true degenerative psychosis belonging to the group of moral\ninsanity, and may temporarily spring out of other psychoses, assuming\ntheir forms, though keeping its own special peculiarities, which\ndistinguish it from all others.\n\nThe identity of genius with moral insanity is seen in that general\nalteration of the affective instincts, which shows itself, more or less\ndisguised, in all,[454] even in those rare altruistic persons with a\ngenius for goodness to whom the name of saints has been given. This also\nexplains their longevity.\n\nThere is, beyond all doubt, some connection between all these\nobservations, and the fact, established by Tamburini and myself, that\nthe best artists of the asylums were all morally insane.\n\nIt should be remembered here, that the Klephts were brigands, and that\nthe moral character of many great conquerors has been so far subject to\nalteration as to make of them true brigands on a large scale. Arved\nBarine, in noticing the beauty of countenance of certain brigands\nfigured in my work in _L\u2019uomo Delinquente_, has very justly\nobserved[455] that \u201csuch a profession requires high intellectual\nendowments, and precisely the same as those needed by conquerors, who\ncertainly have had no superabundance of moral sense. History proves that\nthe moral sense is in no degree a function of the intellect. Great men\nhave been so often devoid of it, that the world has been forced to\ninvent for them a special morality which may be summed up in five words,\nfrequently uttered by such--from Napoleon down to Benvenuto Cellini:\n_Everything is permitted to genius_.\u201d\n\nMen of genius are among the principal factors in true revolutions.[456]\nHistory records the saying of Tarquin that for the preservation of\ndespotism it was necessary to cut down the tallest heads. Carlyle\nbelieved that the whole of history is that of great men. Emerson wrote\nthat every new institution might be regarded as the prolonged shadow of\nsome man of genius, Islamism of Mahomet, Protestantism of Calvin,\nQuakerism of Fox, Methodism of Wesley, Abolitionism of Clarkson, &c. Men\nof genius, wrote Flaubert,[457] summarise in a single type many\nseparate personalities, and bring new persons to consciousness in the\nhuman race. This is one of the causes of their immense influence. And\nnot only are they not misoneistic; they are haters of old things and\nardent lovers of the new and the unknown. Garibaldi, when he pushed on\ninto almost unknown regions of America, said, \u201cI love the unknown.\u201d[458]\nAnd Christ carried his idea of the new world, that was about to appear,\nas far as complete communism. Many men of genius rule beyond the tomb:\nC\u00e6sar was never so powerful (wrote Michelet) as when he was a corpse;\nand so William the Silent. Max Nordau even claims that all human\nprogress is owing to despots of genius. \u201cEvery revolution is the work of\na minority whose individuality cannot conform to conditions which were\nneither calculated nor created for them.\u201d The only real innovators known\nto history are tyrants endowed with ability and knowledge. \u201cNo\nrevolution succeeds without a leader,\u201d wrote Machiavelli; and elsewhere,\n\u201cA multitude without a head is useless.\u201d This is natural, because the\nman of genius, being essentially original and a lover of originality, is\nthe natural enemy of traditions and conservatism: he is the born\nrevolutionary, the precursor and the most active pioneer of\nrevolutions.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nTHE EPILEPTOID NATURE OF GENIUS.\n\n     Etiology--Symptoms--Confessions of men of genius--The life of a\n     great epileptic--Napoleon--Saint Paul--The saints--Philanthropic\n     hysteria.\n\n\nWe may, however, enter more deeply into the study of the phenomena of\ngenius by the light of modern theories on epilepsy. According to the\nentirely harmonious researches of clinical and experimental observers,\nthis malady resolves itself into localised irritation of the cerebral\ncortex, manifesting itself in attacks which are sometimes instantaneous,\nsometimes of longer duration, but always intermittent and always resting\non a degenerative basis--either hereditary or predisposed to irritation\nby alcoholic influence, by lesions of the skull, &c.[459] In this way we\ncatch a glimpse of another conclusion, viz., that the creative power of\ngenius may be a form of degenerative psychosis belonging to the family\nof epileptic affections.\n\nThe fact that genius is frequently derived from parents either addicted\nto drink, of advanced age, or insane, certainly points to this\nconclusion, as also does the appearance of genius subsequently to\nlesions of the head. It is also indicated by frequent anomalies,\nespecially of cranial asymmetry; the capacity of the skull being\nsometimes excessive, sometimes abnormally small; by the frequency of\nmoral insanity, and of hallucinations; by sexual and intellectual\nprecocity, and not rarely by somnambulism. To these we may add the\nprevalence of suicide, which is, on the other hand, very common among\nepileptic patients; the intermittence of bodily and mental functions,\nmore particularly the occurrence of amnesia and analgesia; the frequent\ntendency to vagabondage; religious feeling, manifesting itself even in\nthe case of atheists, as with Comte; the strange terrors by which they\nare often seized (W. Scott, Byron, Haller); the double personality, the\nmultiplicity of simultaneous delusions, so common in epileptic\ncases;[460] the frequent recurrence of delusions produced by the most\ntrifling causes; the same misoneism; and the same relation to\ncriminality, which finds its point of union in moral insanity. Add to\nthis the origin and ancestry of criminals and imbeciles, which\nconstantly show traces both of genius and epilepsy, as may be seen in\nthe genealogical charts given of the families of the C\u00e6sars and Charles\nV.;[461] and the strange passion for wandering, and for animals, which I\nhave also often found in degenerated, and especially in epileptic,\nsubjects.[462]\n\nThe distractions of mind for which great men are so famous, are often,\nwrites Tonnini, nothing else but epileptic absences.[463]\n\nThe greatest proof of all, however, is that affective insensibility,\nthat loss of moral sense, common to all men of genius, whether sane or\ninsane, which makes of great conquerors, even in the most recent times,\nnothing else than brigands on a large scale.\n\nSuch conclusions may seem strange to persons unacquainted with the way\nin which the region of epilepsy has been extended in modern times, so\nthat many cases of headache (hemicrania) or simple loss of memory, are\nnow recognized as forms of epilepsy, though in disguise; their\nmanifestation--as Savage has observed--causing the disappearance of\nevery trace of the pre-existing epilepsy. It is sufficient, however, to\nrecall to the reader the numerous men of genius of the first order who\nhave been seized by motory epilepsy, or by that kind of morbid\nirritability which is well known to supply its place. Among these we\nfind such names as Napoleon, Moli\u00e8re, Julius C\u00e6sar, Petrarch, Peter the\nGreat, Mahomet, Handel, Swift, Richelieu, Charles V., Flaubert,\nDosto\u00efeffsky, and St. Paul.[464]\n\nTo those acquainted with the so-called binomial or serial law, according\nto which no phenomenon occurs singly--each one being, on the contrary,\nthe expression of a series of less well-defined but analogous\nfacts--such frequent occurrence of epilepsy among the most distinguished\nof distinguished men can but indicate a greater prevalence of this\ndisease among men of genius than was previously thought possible, and\nsuggests the hypothesis of the epileptoid nature of genius itself.\n\nIn this connection, it is important to note how, in these men, the\nconvulsion made its appearance but rarely in the course of their lives.\nNow it is well known that, in such cases, the psychic equivalent (here\nthe exercise of creative power) is more frequent and intense.[465]\n\nBut, above all, the identity is proved to us by the analogy of the\nepileptic seizure with the moment of inspiration. This active and\nviolent unconsciousness in the one case manifests itself by creation,\nand in the other by motory agitation.\n\nThe demonstration is completed when we come to analyse this creative\ninspiration or _\u0153strus_ which has often suggested epilepsy, even to\nthose ignorant of the recent discoveries with regard to its nature. And\nthis, not only on account of its frequent association with insensibility\nto pain, with irregularity of the pulse, and with an unconsciousness\nwhich is often that of a somnambulist, of its instantaneous occurrence\nand intermittent character; but also because it is not seldom\naccompanied by convulsive movements of the limbs, followed by amnesia,\nand provoked by substances or conditions which cause or increase the\nexcessive flow of blood to the brain; or by powerful sensations; and\nalso because it may succeed or pass into hallucinations.\n\nThis resemblance between inspiration and the epileptic seizure,\nmoreover, is demonstrated by an even directer and more cogent proof--the\nconfessions of eminent men of genius, which show how completely the one\nmay be confounded with the other. Such confessions are those of\nGoncourt[466] and Buffon, and especially of Mahomet and Dosto\u00efeffsky.\n\n\u201cThere are moments,\u201d writes the latter (in _Besi_)--\u201cand it is only a\nmatter of five or six seconds--when you suddenly feel the presence of\nthe eternal harmony. This phenomenon is neither terrestrial nor\ncelestial, but it is an indescribable something, which man, in his\nmortal body, can scarcely endure--he must either undergo a physical\ntransformation or die. It is a clear and indisputable feeling: all at\nonce, you feel as though you were placed in contact with the whole of\nnature, and you say, \u2018Yes! this is true.\u2019 When God created the world, He\nsaid, at the end of every day of creation, \u2018Yes! this is true! this is\ngood!\u2019 ... And it is not tenderness, nor yet joy. You do not forgive\nanything, because there is nothing to forgive. Neither do you love--oh!\nthis feeling is higher than love! The terrible thing is the frightful\nclearness with which it manifests itself, and the rapture with which it\nfills you. If this state were to last more than five seconds, the soul\ncould not endure it, and would have to disappear. During those five\nseconds, I live a whole human existence, and for that I would give my\nwhole life and not think I was paying it too dearly.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018You are not epileptic?\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018No.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018You will become so. I have heard that it begins just in that way. A\nman subject to this malady[467] has minutely described to me the\nsensation which precedes the attack; and in listening to you, I thought\nI heard him speaking. He, too, spoke of a period of five seconds, and\nsaid it was impossible to endure this condition longer. Remember\nMahomet\u2019s water-jar; for the space of time it took to empty it, the\nprophet was rapt into Paradise. Your five seconds are the jar--Paradise\nis your harmony--and Mahomet was epileptic! Take care you do not become\nso also, Kiriloff!\u2019\u201d[468]\n\nAnd in the _Idiot_ (vol. i. p. 296):--\n\n\u201c ... I remember, among other things, a phenomenon which used to precede\nhis epileptic attacks, when they came on in a waking state. In the midst\nof the dejection, the mental marasmus, the anxiety, which the madman\nexperienced, there were moments in which, all of a sudden, his brain\nbecame inflamed, and all his vital forces suddenly rose to a prodigious\ndegree of intensity. The sensation of life, of conscious existence, was\nmultiplied almost tenfold in these swiftly-passing moments.\n\n\u201cA strange light illuminated his heart and mind. All agitation was\ncalmed, all doubt and perplexity resolved itself into a superior\nharmony, a serene and tranquil gaiety, which yet was completely\nrational. But these radiant moments were only a prelude to the last\ninstant--that immediately succeeded by the attack. That instant was, in\ntruth, ineffable. When, at a later time, after his recovery, the prince\nreflected on this subject, he said to himself, \u2018Those fleeting moments,\nin which our highest consciousness of ourselves--and therefore our\nhighest life--is manifested, are due only to disease, to the suspension\nof normal conditions; and, if so, it is not a higher life, but, on the\ncontrary, one of a lower order.\u2019 This, however, did not prevent his\nreaching a most paradoxical conclusion. \u2018What matter, after all, though\nit be a disease--an abnormal tension--if the result, as I with recovered\nhealth remember and analyze it, includes the very highest degree of\nharmony and beauty; if at this moment I have an unspeakable, hitherto\nunsuspected feeling of harmony, of peace, of my whole nature being\nfused in the impetus of a prayer, with the highest synthesis of life?\u2019\n\n\u201cThis farrago of nonsense seemed to the prince perfectly comprehensible;\nand the only fault it had in his eyes was that of being too feeble a\nrendering of his thoughts. He could not doubt, or even admit the\npossibility of a doubt, of the real existence of this condition of\n\u2018beauty and prayer,\u2019 or of its constituting \u2018the highest synthesis of\nlife.\u2019\n\n\u201cBut did he not in these moments experience visions analogous to the\nfantastic and debasing dreams produced by the intoxication of opium,\nhaschisch, or wine? He was able to form a sane judgment on this point\nwhen the morbid condition had ceased. These moments were only\ndistinguished--to define them in a word--by the extraordinary\nheightening of the inward sense. If in that instant--that is to say, in\nthe last moment of consciousness which precedes the attack--the patient\nwas able to say clearly, and with full consciousness of the import of\nhis words, \u2018Yes, for this moment one would give a whole lifetime,\u2019 there\nis no doubt that, as far as he alone was concerned, that moment was\nworth a lifetime.\n\n\u201cNo doubt, too, it is to this same instant that the epileptic Mahomet\nalluded, when he said that he used to visit all the abodes of Allah in\nless time than it would take to empty his water-jar.\u201d\n\nI will add here some lines from the _Correspondance_ of Flaubert:--\n\n\u201cIf sensitive nerves are enough to make a poet, I should be worth more\nthan Shakespeare and Homer.... I who have heard through closed doors\npeople talking in low tones thirty paces away, across whose abdomen one\nmay see all the viscera throbbing, and who have sometimes felt in the\nspace of a minute a million thoughts, images, and combinations of all\nkinds throwing themselves into my brain at once, as it were the lighted\nsquibs of fireworks.\u201d\n\nLet us now compare these descriptions of an attack, which might be\ncalled one of _psychic epilepsy_ (and which corresponds exactly to the\nphysiological idea of epilepsy--_i.e._, cortical irritation), with all\nthe descriptions given us by authors themselves of the inspiration of\ngenius. We shall then see how perfect is the correspondence between the\ntwo sets of phenomena.\n\nIn order the better to illustrate these strange displacements of\nfunction in epileptic subjects, I should call attention to an example,\ncited by Dr. Frigerio, of an epileptic patient who, at the moment of\nseizure, felt the venereal desire awaken, not in the generative organs,\nbut in the epigastrium, accompanied by ejaculation.[469]\n\nLet me add that, in certain cases, it is not only isolated paroxysms\nwhich recall the psychic phenomenology of the epileptic, but the whole\nlife. Bourget remarks that, \u201cfor the Goncourts, life reduces itself to a\nseries of epileptic attacks, preceded and followed by a blank.\u201d And what\nthe Goncourts wrote has always been autobiography. Zola in his\n_Romanciers Naturalistes_ gives us this confession by Balzac: \u201cHe works\nunder the influence of circumstances, of which the union is a mystery;\nhe does not belong to himself; he is the plaything of a force which is\neminently capricious; on some days he would not touch his brush, he\nwould not write a line for an empire. In the evening when dreaming, in\nthe morning when rising, in the midst of some joyous feast, it happens\nthat a burning coal suddenly touches this brain, these hands, this\ntongue: a word awakens ideas that are born, grow, ferment. Such is the\nartist, the humble instrument of a despotic will; he obeys a master.\u201d\n\nLet us glance at the pictures which Taine has given us of the greatest\nof modern conquerors, and Renan of the greatest of the apostles:--\n\n\u201cThe principal characteristics of Napoleon\u2019s genius,\u201d says Taine, \u201care\nits originality and comprehensiveness. No detail escapes him. The\nquantity of facts which his mind stores up and retains, the number of\nideas which he elaborates and utters, seem to surpass human capacity.\n\n\u201cIn the art of ruling men his genius was supreme. His method of\nprocedure--which is that of the experimental sciences--consisted in\ncontrolling every theory by a precise application observed under\ndefinite conditions. All his sayings are fire-flashes. \u2018Adultery,\u2019 said\nhe to the Conseil d\u2019Etat, when the question of divorce was under\ndiscussion, \u2018is not exceptional; it is very common--_c\u2019est une affaire\nde canap\u00e9_.\u2019 \u2018Liberty,\u2019 he exclaimed, on another occasion (and he\nremained faithful all his life to the spirit of this exclamation), \u2018is\nthe necessity of a small and privileged class, endowed by nature with\nfaculties higher than those of the mass of mankind; _it may therefore be\nabridged with impunity_. Equality, on the contrary, pleases the\nmultitude.\u201d\n\n\u201cHe possesses a faculty which carries us back to the Middle Ages--an\nastounding _constructive_ imagination. What he accomplished is\nsurprising; but he undertook far more, and dreamed much more even than\nthat. However vigorous his practical faculties may have been, his poetic\nfaculty was still stronger; it was even greater than it ought to have\nbeen in a statesman. We see greatness in him exaggerated into immensity,\nand immensity degenerating into madness. What aspiring, monstrous\nconceptions revolved, accumulated, superseded each other in that\nmarvellous brain! \u2018Europe,\u2019 he said, \u2018is a mole-hill; there have never\nbeen great empires or great revolutions save in the East, where there\nare six hundred millions of men.\u2019\u201d\n\nIn Egypt, he was thinking of conquering Syria, re-establishing the\nEastern Empire at Constantinople, and returning to Paris by way of\nAdrianople and Vienna. The East allured him with the mirage of\nomnipotence; in the East he caught a glimpse of the possibility that, a\nnew Mahomet, he might found a new religion. Confined to Europe, his\ndream was to re-create the empire of Charlemagne; to make Paris the\nphysical, intellectual, and religious capital of Europe, and assemble\nwithin its precincts the princes, kings, and popes, who should have\nbecome his vassals. By way of Russia, he would then advance towards the\nGanges, and the supremacy of India. \u201cThe artist enclosed within the\npolitician has issued from his sheath; he creates in the region of the\nideal and the impossible. We know him for what he is--a posthumous\nbrother of Dante and Michelangelo; only these two worked on paper and in\nmarble; it was living man, sensitive and suffering flesh, that formed\nhis material.\u201d\n\n\u201cNapoleon differs from modern men in character as much as do the\ncontemporaries of Dante and Michelangelo. The sentiments, habits, and\nmorality professed by him are the sentiments, habits, and morality of\nthe fifteenth century. \u2018I am not a man like other men,\u2019 he exclaimed;\n\u2018the laws of morality and decorum were not made for me.\u2019\n\n\u201cMme. de Sta\u00ebl and Stendhal compare Napoleon psychologically to the\nlesser tyrants of the fourteenth century--Sforza and Castruccio\nCastracani. Such, in fact, he was.\n\n\u201cOn the evening of the 12th Vendemiaire, being present at the\npreparations made by the Sections, he said to Junot, \u2018Ah! if the\nSections would only place me at their head, I would answer for it that\nthey should be in the Tuileries within two hours, and all these wretched\nConventionnels out of it!\u2019 Five hours later, being called to the\nassistance of Barras and the Convention, he opened fire on the\nParisians, like a good _condottiere_, who does not give but lends\nhimself to the first who offers, to the highest bidder, reserving for\nhimself full liberty of action, and the power of seizing everything,\nshould the occasion present itself....\n\n\u201cNever, even among the Borgias and Malatestas, was there a more\nsensitive and impulsive brain, capable of such electric accumulations\nand discharges.... In him, no idea remained purely speculative; each\none, as it occurred, had a tendency to embody itself in action, and\nwould have done so, if not prevented by force.... Sometimes the outburst\nwas so sudden that restraint did not come in time. One day, in Egypt, he\nupset a decanter of water over a lady\u2019s dress, and, taking her into his\nown room, under the pretext of remedying the accident, remained there\nwith her for some time--too long--while the other guests, seated around\nthe table, waited, gazing at each other. On another occasion he threw\nPrince Louis violently out of the room; on yet another, he kicked\nSenator Volney in the stomach.\n\n\u201cAt Campo-Formio, he threw down and broke a china ornament, to put an\nend to the resistance of the Austrian plenipotentiary. At Dresden, in\n1813, when Prince Metternich was most necessary to him, he asked him,\nbrutally, how much he received from England for defending her interests.\n\n\u201cNever was there a more impatient sensibility. He throws garments that\ndo not fit him into the fire. His writing--when he tries to write--is a\ncollection of disconnected and indecipherable characters. He dictates so\nquickly that his secretaries can scarcely follow him--if the pen is\nbehindhand, so much the worse for it; if a volley of oaths and\nexclamations give it time to catch up, so much the better. His heart and\nintellect are full to overflowing; under pressure like this, the\nextempore orator and the excited controversialist take the place of the\nstatesman.\u201d\n\n\u201cMy nerves are irritable,\u201d he said of himself; and, in fact, the tension\nof accumulated impressions sometimes produced a physical convulsion; he\nwas not seldom seen to shed tears under strong emotion. Napoleon wept,\nnot on account of true and deep feeling, but because \u201ca word--an idea by\nitself is a stimulus which reaches the inmost depth of his nature.\u201d\nHence, certain distractions, consequent upon vomitings or fainting fits,\nwhich caused, it is said, the loss of General Vandamme\u2019s corps, after\nthe battle of Dresden. Though the regulator is so powerful, the balance\nof the works is, from time to time, in danger of being deranged.\n\n\u201cAn enormous degree of strength was necessary, to co-ordinate, to guide\nand to dominate passions of such vitality. In Napoleon, this strength is\nan instinct of extraordinary force and harshness--an egoism, not inert,\nbut active and aggressive, and so far developed as to set up in the\nmidst of human society a colossal _I_, which can tolerate no life that\nis not an appendix, or instrument of its own. Even as a child, he showed\nthe germs of this personality; he was impatient of all restraint, and\nhad no trace of conscience; he could brook no rivals, beat those who\nrefused to render homage to him, and then accused his victims of having\nbeaten him.\n\n\u201cHe looks upon the world as a great banquet, open to every comer, but\nwhere, to be well served, it is necessary for a man to have long arms,\nhelp himself first, and let others take what he leaves.\n\n\u201c\u2018One has a hold over man through his selfish passions--fear, greed,\nsensuality, self-esteem, emulation. If there are some hard particles in\nthe heap, all one has to do is to crush them.\u2019 Such was the final\nconception arrived at by Napoleon; and nothing could induce him to\nchange it, because this conception is conditioned by his character; he\nsaw man as he needed to see him. His egoism is reflected in his\nambition--\u2018so much a part of his inmost nature that he cannot\ndistinguish it from himself; it makes his head swim. France is a\nmistress who is his to enjoy.\u2019 In the exercise of his power he\nacknowledges neither intermediaries, nor rivals, nor limits, nor\nhindrances.\n\n\u201cTo fill his office with zeal and success is not enough for him; above\nand beyond the functionary, he vindicates the rights of the man. All who\nserve him must extinguish the critical sense in themselves; their\nscarcely audible whispers are a conspiracy, or an attack on his majesty.\nHe requires of them anything and everything--from the manufacture of\nfalse Austrian and Russian bank-notes in 1809 and 1812, to the\npreparation of an infernal machine, to blow up the Bourbons in 1814. He\nknows nothing of gratitude; when a man is of no further use to him as a\ntool, he throws him away....\n\n\u201cDuring a dance, he would walk about among the ladies, in order to shock\nthem with unpleasant witticisms; he was always prying into their private\nlife, and related to the empress herself the favours which, more or less\nspontaneously, they granted him.\n\n\u201cWhat is still stranger, he carried the same methods of proceeding into\nhis relations with sovereigns and ambassadors of foreign states. In his\ncorrespondence, in his proclamations, in his audiences, he provoked,\nthreatened, challenged, offended; he divulged their real or supposed\namorous intrigues (the bulletins 9, 17, 18, 19, after the battle of\nJena, evidently accuse the Queen of Prussia of having had an intrigue\nwith the Emperor Alexander), and reproaches them with a personal insult\nto himself, in the employment of such or such a man. He requires of\nthem, in short, to modify their fundamental laws: he has but a poor\nopinion of a government without the power of prohibiting things which\nmay displease foreign governments.\u201d[470]\n\nThis is the completest view of Napoleon ever given by any historian. To\nany one acquainted with the psychological constitution of the epileptic,\nit becomes clear that Taine has here given us the subtlest and precisest\npathological diagnosis of a case of psychic epilepsy, with its gigantic\nmegalomaniacal illusions, its impulses, and complete absence of moral\nsense.\n\nIt is not, therefore, only in moments of inspiration that genius\napproaches epilepsy; and the same thing may be said of St. Paul.\n\nSt. Paul[471] was of low stature, but stoutly made. His health was\nalways poor, on account of a strange infirmity which he calls \u201ca thorn\nin the flesh,\u201d and which was probably a serious neurosis.\n\nHis moral character was anomalous; naturally kind and courteous, he\nbecame ferocious when excited by passion. In the school of Gamaliel, a\nmoderate Pharisee, he did not learn moderation; as the enthusiastic\nleader of the younger Pharisees, he was among the fiercest persecutors\nof the Christians.... Hearing that there was a certain number of\ndisciples at Damascus, he demanded of the high priest a warrant for\narresting them, and left Jerusalem in a disturbed state of mind. On\napproaching the plain of Damascus at noon, he had a seizure, evidently\nof an epileptic nature, in which he fell to the ground unconscious. Soon\nafter this, he experienced a hallucination, and saw Jesus himself, who\nsaid to him in Hebrew, \u201cPaul, Paul, why persecutest thou me?\u201d For three\ndays, seized with fever, he neither ate nor drank, and saw the phantom\nof Ananias, whom, as head of the Christian community, he had come to\narrest, making signs to him. The latter was summoned to his bed, and\ncalm immediately returned to the spirit of Paul, who from that day\nforward became one of the most fervid Christians. Without desiring any\nmore special instruction--as having received a direct revelation from\nChrist himself--he regarded himself as one of the apostles, and acted as\nsuch, to the enormous advantage of the Christians. The immense dangers\noccasioned by his haughty and arrogant spirit were compensated a\nthousand times over by his boldness and originality, which would not\nallow the Christian idea to remain within the bounds of a small\nassociation of people \u201cpoor in spirit,\u201d who would have let it die out\nlike Hellenism, but, so to speak, steered boldly out to sea with it. At\nAntioch he had a hallucination similar to that of Mahomet at a later\nperiod; he felt himself rapt into the third heaven, where he heard\nunspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter.\n\nAnomalies are also observable in his writings. \u201cHe lets himself be\nguided by words rather than ideas; some one word which he has in his\nmind overpowers him and draws him off into a series of ideas very far\nremoved from his main subject. His digressions are abrupt, the\ndevelopment of his ideas is suddenly cut short, his sentences are often\nunfinished. No writer was ever so unequal; no literature in the world\npresents a sublime passage like 1 Corinthians xiii., side by side with\nfutile arguments and wearisome detail.\u201d[472]\n\nEpilepsy in men of genius, therefore, is not an accidental phenomenon,\nbut a true _morbus totius substanti\u00e6_, to express it in medical\nlanguage. Hence we gather a fresh indication of the epileptoid nature of\ngenius.\n\nIf, as seems certain, Dosto\u00efeffsky described himself in the _Idiot_, we\nhave another example of an epileptic genius, whose whole course of life\nis determined by the psychology peculiar to the epileptic--impulsivity,\ndouble personality, childishness, which goes back even to the earliest\nperiods of human life, and alternates with a prophetic penetration, and\nwith morbid altruism and the exaggerated affectivity of the saint. This\nlast fact is most important, as bearing on the objection that the usual\nimmorality of the epileptic would forbid us to connect this type with\nthat of the saintly character. This objection, however, has been partly\neliminated by the researches of Bianchi, Tonnini, Filippi, according to\nwhom there are cases, though rare (16 per cent.), of epileptic patients\nof good character, who even manifest an exaggerated altruism, though\naccompanied by excessive emotionalism.[473]\n\nHysteria, which is closely related to epilepsy, and similarly connected\nwith the loss of affectivity, often shows us, side by side with an\nexaggerated egoism, certain bursts of excessive altruism, which, at the\nsame time, have their source in, and depend on, a degree of moral\ninsanity, and show us the morbid phenomenon in excessive charity.\n\n\u201cThere are some ladies,\u201d justly observes Legrand du Saulle,[474] \u201cwho,\nthough remaining in the world, take an ostentatious part in all the good\nworks going on in their parish; they collect for the poor, work for the\norphans, visit the sick, give alms, watch by the dead, ardently solicit\nthe benevolence of others, and do a great deal of really helpful work,\nwhile at the same time neglecting their husbands, children, and\nhousehold affairs.\n\n\u201cThese women ostentatiously and noisily proclaim their benevolence. They\nset on foot a work of charity with as much ardour as bogus\ncompany-promoters launch a financial enterprise which is to result in\nhyperbolical dividends.\n\n\u201cThey go and come, in constantly increasing numbers; they instinctively\nact with a charming tact and delicacy, think of everything necessary to\nbe done, whether in the midst of private mourning or public catastrophe,\nand affect to blush on receiving tributes of admiration from grateful\nsufferers, or deeply moved spectators.... Their ready tact and sympathy\nare surprising, and the greater the trouble, the more admirably do they\nseem to rise to the occasion--while the paroxysm lasts. When their\nfeelings are calmed, the benevolent impulse passes away; being\nessentially mobile and spasmodic, they cannot do good deliberately and\non reflection.\n\n\u201cThe \u2018charitable hysteric\u2019 is capable of achieving feats of courage\nwhich have been quoted and repeated, and even become legendary.\n\n\u201cThey have been known to show extraordinary presence of mind, resource,\nand courage in saving the inmates of a burning house, or in facing an\narmed mob during a riot. If questioned on the following day, these\nheroines will be found in a state of complete prostration; and some of\nthem candidly avow that they do not know what they have done, and were\nat the time unconscious of danger.\n\n\u201cAt a time of cholera epidemic, when fear causes such ill-advised and\nreprehensible derelictions of duty, hysterical women have been known to\nshow an extraordinary devotion; nothing is repugnant to them, nothing\nrevolts their modesty or wearies out their endurance....\n\n\u201cFor such persons, devotion to others has become a need, a necessary\nexpenditure of energy, and, without knowing it, they pathologically play\nthe part of virtue. People in general are taken in by it, and, for the\nsake of example, it is just as well. It was this consideration which\ninduced me to ask and obtain a public acknowledgment of the services of\na hysterical patient--at one time an inmate of a lunatic asylum--whose\ndeeds of charity in the district where she lives are truly touching.\nWhile constantly active in attendance on the sick, and spending\nliberally on their behalf, she confines her personal expenditure to what\nis strictly necessary, her dress being the same at all seasons of the\nyear. Now this lady shows a great variety of hysterical symptoms,\nbecomes intensely excited on the slightest occasion, sleeps very badly,\nand is a serious invalid.\n\n\u201cLastly, in private sorrows, the hysteric patient often departs from the\nnormal manifestations of grief. At the loss of her children, she remains\ncalm, serene, resigned; does not shed a tear, thinks of everything that\nought to be done, gives numerous orders, forgets none of the most\npainful details, imposes on all around her the most dignified attitude,\nand attends the funeral without breaking down. People think that this\nmother is exceptionally gifted, and has a courage superior to others.\nThis is a mistake; she is weaker than they--she is \u2018suffering from\ndisease.\u2019\u201d\n\nIn order fully to grasp the seeming paradoxes contained in these\nconclusions, we must remember that many philanthropists love their\nneighbours, but only at a distance, and nearly always at the expense of\nthe more physiological, more general, affections--love for their family,\ntheir country, &c. We must remember Dosto\u00efeffsky\u2019s remark (in _The\nBrothers Karamanzov_, i. p. 325) that \u201cWhat one can love in one\u2019s fellow\nis a hidden and invisible man; as soon as he shows his face, love\ndisappears. One can love one\u2019s fellow-men in spirit, but only at a\ndistance; never close at hand.\u201d One also recalls Sterne, who was\novercome with emotion at the sight of a dead ass, and deserted his wife\nand his mother.\n\nThe greatest philanthropists--such men as Beccaria and Howard--have been\nharsh fathers and masters; even the Divine Philanthropist was, as we\nhave seen, hard towards his own family.[475]\n\nSt. Paul, before his conversion, distinguished himself by his vehement\nand cruel persecution of the Christians.\n\nIt is well known how, only too often, the man of real and fervent\nreligion has to forget his family and make a duty of celibacy and hatred\nto the other sex. Thus St. Liberata was angry with her husband for\nweeping at parting from their children; and, according to the legend,\nthe mother of Baruch replied to her son when, during his martyrdom, he\nimplored her for water in his anguish, \u201cThou shouldst desire no water\nnow save that of heaven.\u201d[476]\n\nThese cases, moreover, show that, very often, exaggerated altruism is\nitself only a pathological phenomenon, a hypertrophy of sentiment\naccompanied--as always happens in cases of hypertrophy--by loss and\natrophy in other directions.[477]\n\nWe have seen in Juan de Dios, in Lazzaretti, Loyola, and St. Francis, of\nAssisi, saintliness showing itself, in true psychic polarization, as a\nperfect contrast to their former life in which the tendency to evil was\nstrongly pronounced.\n\nIf we add to these phenomena, so frequent in epileptic and hysteric\npatients, all those others, of clairvoyance, thought-transference,\ntransposition of the senses, fakirism, mental vision, temporary\nmanifestations of genius, and monoideism, so frequently observed in\nthese maladies, phenomena so strange that many scientists, unable to\nexplain, endeavour to deny them, we can demonstrate the hysterical\ncharacter of saintliness, even in its least explicable manifestations--those\nof miracles.[478]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nSANE MEN OF GENIUS.\n\nTheir unperceived\ndefects--Richelieu--Sesostris--Foscolo--Michelangelo--Darwin.\n\n\nBut a graver objection is that afforded by those few men of genius who\nhave completed their intellectual orbit without aberration, neither\ndepressed by misfortune nor thrown out of their course by madness.\n\nSuch have been Galileo, Leonardo da Vinci, Voltaire, Machiavelli,\nMichelangelo, Darwin. Each one of these showed, by the ample volume and\nat the same time the symmetrical proportion of the skull, force of\nintellect restrained by the calm of the desires. Not one of them allowed\nhis great passion for truth and beauty to stifle the love of family and\ncountry. They never changed their faith or character, never swerved from\ntheir aim, never left their work half completed. What assurance, what\nfaith, what ability they showed in their undertakings; and, above all,\nwhat moderation and unity of character they preserved in their lives!\nThough they, too, had to experience--after undergoing the sublime\nparoxysm of inspiration--the torture inflicted by ignorant hatred, and\nthe discomfort of uncertainty and exhaustion, they never, on that\naccount, deviated from the straight road. They carried out to the end\nthe one cherished idea which formed the aim and purpose of their lives,\ncalm and serene, never complaining of obstacles, and falling into but a\nfew mistakes--mistakes which, in lesser men, might even have passed for\ndiscoveries.\n\nBut I have already answered, in the opening pages of this book, the\nobjection furnished by these rare exceptions, pointing out that epilepsy\nand moral insanity (which is its first variety) often pass unobserved,\nnot only in distinguished men, the prestige of whose name and work\ndazzles our judgment, and prevents our discerning them, but in those\ncriminals to whom such researches might at least restore self-respect,\nby depriving them of all responsibility.\n\nWho, but for the revelations of some of his intimate friends, would have\nsuspected that Cavour was repeatedly subject to attacks of suicidal\nmania, or thought that Richelieu was epileptic? No one would have paid\nany attention to the morbid impulsiveness of Foscolo, or recorded it as\na symptom, if Davis had not examined his skull after death. Who could\nmake any assertion with regard to the moral sense of Sesostris? Yet, as\nArved Barine justly remarks,[479] his skull completely corresponds to\nthe criminal type. The low and narrow forehead, prominent superciliary\narch, thick eyebrows, eyes set close together, long, narrow, aquiline\nnose, hollow temples, projecting cheek-bones, strong jaws; the\nexpression not intelligent, but animal, fierce, proud, and majestic; the\nhead small in proportion to the body, are all so many indications of the\nmost complete absence of moral sense.\n\nIn all the biographies of Michelangelo we do not discover one spot on\nthat gentle and yet robust soul, who trembled for the sorrows of his\ncountry as at the expression of beauty. But the publication of his\nletters,[480] and the keen researches of Parlagreco,[481] have revealed\nphysical anomalies never before suspected.\n\nOne of the most important is his complete indifference to women. This\nmay be observed in his works, and his masterpieces were all\nmasculine--Moses, Lorenzo, Giuliano de\u2019 Medici, &c. He never used, it\nappears, the living female model, though he made use of corpses; his\nBacchante is a virago with masculine muscles, unformed breasts and no\nfeminine touch. In his many love sonnets, written rather to follow the\nprevailing fashion than from any true inspiration of passion, none bear\nthe mark of being addressed to real women; only fourteen times, it is\nsaid, does the word \u201cdonna\u201d occur. On the other hand, in the Barbera\nCollection, Sonnets xviii. and xii. show a very marked admiration for\nthe male, and Varchi considers that these are addressed to Cavalieri who\nwas of great physical beauty. There are in existence two of his letters\naddressed to Cavalieri (July 28, 1523, and July 28, 1532), which seem to\nbe written to a mistress, and in which, humiliating himself, he swears\nthat, if banished from the other\u2019s heart, he will die. There is a\nsimilar letter written to Angelini.\n\nThis moral anomaly, which he would share with many artists, Cellini,\nSodoma, &c., is not the only one met with. \u201cIn his letters,\u201d writes\nParlagreco, \u201cmay be seen constant contradictions between ideas that are\ngreat and generous, and others that are puerile; between will and\nspeech; between thought and action; extreme irritability, inconstant\naffection, great activity in doing good, sudden sympathies, great\noutbursts of enthusiasm, great fears, sometimes unconsciousness of his\nown actions, marvellous modesty in the field of art, unreasonable vanity\nin the appearances of life--these are the various psychical\nmanifestations in the life of Buonarroti which lead me to believe that\nthe great artist was affected by a neuropathic condition bordering on\nhysteria.\u201d\n\nEvery day in his old age he discovered some sin in his past life, and he\nsent money to Florence for masses to be said and for alms to the poor,\nand to enable poor girls to be married, and, which is stranger, to be\nmade nuns. All this was to gain Paradise (Lett. 187, 214, 240, 330), to\nsave his soul--he who had said: \u201cIt is not strange that the monks should\nspoil a chapel [at the Vatican], since they have known how to spoil the\nwhole world.\u201d\n\nAt some moments he feels that his conscience is clean and then he\ndesires to die, so that he may not fall back into evil; but then his\ndiscouragement returns, and he believes (strange blasphemy), that it was\na sin to have been born an artist.\n\n    \u201c_Conosco di quant\u2019 era d\u2019error carca_\n    _L\u2019affettuosa fantasia_\n    _Che_ l\u2019arte _mi fece idolo e monarca_ ...\n    _Le parole del mondo mi hanno tolto_\n    _Il tempo dato a contemplar Iddio._\u201d\n\nAnd he believes himself destined by God to a long life simply that he\nmay complete the fabric of St. Peter\u2019s.\n\nIn old age he who had shown so little vanity where his work was\nconcerned, and so much modesty in speaking of it, went about studying\nhow he could best exhibit the nobility of his descent, claiming to trace\nit in a direct line from the Counts of Canossa, a claim which, even if\nvalid, would not be worth a finger of his Moses.\n\nMichelangelo tenderly loved his father and brother and nephews, and\nenabled them to live in easy circumstances; yet in his letters to them\nhe frequently shows himself suspicious and treats them unjustly. In\n1544, he fell seriously ill at Rome. His nephew naturally hastened to\nhis bedside. Michelangelo became very angry and wrote: \u201cYou are come to\nkill me and to see what I leave behind.... Know that I have made my will\nand that there is nothing here for you to think about. Therefore, go in\npeace and do not write to me more.\u201d Three months after, he changed his\ntone. \u201cI will not fail in what I have often thought about, that is, in\nhelping you.\u201d He has himself left a confession of his almost morbid\nmelancholy in a letter (97), to Sebastiano del Piombo: \u201cYesterday\nevening I was happy because I escaped from my mad and melancholy\nhumour.\u201d\n\nWithout the recent biographical and autobiographical notes published by\nhis son,[482] no one could have imagined that Darwin, a model father and\ncitizen, so self-controlled and even so free from vanity, was a\nneuropath. His son tells us that for forty years he never enjoyed\ntwenty-four hours of health like other men. Of the eight years devoted\nto the study of the cirripedes, two, as he himself writes, were lost\nthrough illness. Like all neuropaths he could bear neither heat nor\ncold; half an hour of conversation beyond his habitual time was\nsufficient to cause insomnia and hinder his work on the following day.\nHe suffered also from dyspepsia, from spinal an\u00e6mia and giddiness (which\nlast is known to be frequently the equivalent of epilepsy); and he\ncould not work more than three hours a day. He had curious crotchets.\nFinding that eating sweets made him ill, he resolved not to touch them\nagain, but was unable to keep his resolution, unless he had repeated it\naloud. He had a strange passion for paper--writing the rough drafts of\nhis correspondence on the back of proof-sheets, and of the most\nimportant MSS. which were thus rendered difficult to decipher. He often\ninstituted what he himself called \u201cfool\u2019s experiments\u201d--_e.g._, having a\nbassoon played close to the cotyledons of a plant.[483] When about to\nmake an experiment, he seemed to be urged on by some inward force. From\na morbid dislike to novelty, he used the millimetric tables of an old\nbook which he knew to be inaccurate, but to which he was accustomed. He\nwould not change his old chemical balance though aware that it was\nuntrustworthy; he refused to believe in hypnotism, and also, at first,\nin the discovery of prehistoric stone weapons.[484] He frequently, says\nhis daughter, inverted his sentences, both in speaking and writing, and\nhad a difficulty in pronouncing some letters, especially _w_. Like\nSkoda, Rockitanski, and Socrates, he had a short snub nose, and his ears\nwere large and long. Nor were degenerative characteristics wanting among\nhis ancestors. It is true that he reckoned among them several men of\nintellect and almost of genius, such as Robert (1682), a botanist and\nintelligent observer; and Edward, author of a _Gamekeeper\u2019s Manual_,\nfull of acute observations on animals. His father had great powers of\nobservation; but his paternal grandfather, Erasmus--poet and naturalist\nat the same time--had a passionate temper and an impediment in his\nspeech. One of his sons, Charles, a poet and collector, resembled him in\nthis respect. Finally, another uncle, Erasmus, a man of some intellect,\na numismatist and statistician, ended by madness and suicide.\n\nIt might be objected that the fact of such different forms of\npsychosis--melancholy, moral insanity, monomania--being found either\ncomplete or undeveloped in men of genius, excludes the special psychosis\nof genius, and still more that of epilepsy. But it may be answered that\nrecent research, which has enlarged the domain of epilepsy, has also\ndemonstrated that, apart from impulsive and hallucinatory delusions,\nepilepsy may be superadded to any form of mental alienation, especially\nmegalomania and moral insanity. And, as is the case in nearly all\ndegenerative psychoses, undeveloped forms of mental disease, and\nrecurring multiform delusions brought on by the most trivial causes,\nespecially predominate in epilepsy.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\n\n\n\nCONCLUSIONS.\n\n\nBetween the physiology of the man of genius, therefore, and the\npathology of the insane, there are many points of coincidence; there is\neven actual continuity. This fact explains the frequent occurrence of\nmadmen of genius, and men of genius who have become insane, having, it\nis true, characteristics special to themselves, but capable of being\nresolved into exaggerations of those of genius pure and simple. The\nfrequency of delusions in their multiform characters of degenerative\ncharacteristics, of the loss of affectivity, of heredity, more\nparticularly in the children of inebriate, imbecile, idiotic, or\nepileptic parents, and, above all, the peculiar character of\ninspiration, show that genius is a degenerative psychosis of the\nepileptoid group. This supposition is confirmed by the frequency of a\ntemporary manifestation of genius in the insane, and by the new group of\nmattoids to whom disease gives all the semblance of genius, without its\nsubstance.\n\nWhat I have hitherto written may, I hope (while remaining within the\nlimits of psychological observation), afford an experimental\nstarting-point for a criticism of artistic and literary, sometimes also\nof scientific, creations.\n\nThus, in the fine arts, exaggerated minuteness of detail, the abuse of\nsymbols, inscriptions, or accessories, a preference for some one\nparticular colour, an unrestrained passion for mere novelty, may\napproach the morbid symptoms of mattoidism. Just so, in literature and\nscience, a tendency to puns and plays upon words, an excessive fondness\nfor systems, a tendency to speak of one\u2019s self, and substitute epigram\nfor logic, an extreme predilection for the rhythm and assonances of\nverse in prose writing, even an exaggerated degree of originality may be\nconsidered as morbid phenomena. So also is the mania of writing in\nBiblical form, in detached verses, and with special favourite words,\nwhich are underlined, or repeated many times, and a certain graphic\nsymbolism. Here I must acknowledge that, when I see how many of the\norgans which claim to direct public opinion are infected with this\ntendency, and how often young writers undertake to discuss grave social\nproblems in the capricious phraseology of the lunatic asylum, and the\ndisjointed periods of Biblical times, as though our robust lungs were\nunable to cope with the vigorous and manly inspirations of the Latin\nconstruction, I feel grave apprehensions for the future of the rising\ngeneration.\n\nOn the other hand, the analogy of mattoids with genius, whose morbid\nphenomena only are inherited by them, and with sane persons, with whom\nthey have shrewdness and practical sense in common, ought to put\nstudents on their guard against certain systems, springing up by\nhundreds, more particularly in the abstract or inexact sciences, and due\nto the efforts of men incompetent, from a lack either of capacity or\nknowledge of the subject, to deal with them. In these systems\ndeclamation, assonances, paradoxes, and conceptions often original, but\nalways incomplete and contradictory, take the place of calm reasoning\nbased on a minute and unprejudiced study of facts. Such books are nearly\nalways the work of those true though involuntary charlatans, the\nmattoids, who are more widely diffused in the literary world than is\ncommonly supposed.\n\nNor is it only students who should be on their guard against them, but\nespecially politicians. Not that, in an age of free criticism like our\nown, there is any danger that these pretended reformers, who are\nstimulated and guided solely by mental disease, should be taken\nseriously; but the obstacles justly opposed to them may, by irritating,\nsharpen and complete their insanity, transforming a harmless\ndelusion--whether ideological, as in the case of most mattoids, or\nsensorial, as in monomaniacs--into active madness, in which their\ngreater intellectual power, the depth and tenacity of their\nconvictions, and that very excess of altruism which compels them to\noccupy themselves with public affairs, render them more dangerous, and\nmore inclined to rebellion and regicide, than other insane persons.\n\nWhen we reflect that, on the other hand, a genuine lunatic may give\nproof of temporary genius, a phenomenon calculated to inspire the\npopulace with an astonishment which soon produces veneration, we find a\nsolid argument against those jurists and judges who, from the soundness\nand activity of the intellect, infer complete moral responsibility, to\nthe total exclusion of the possibility of insanity. We also see our way\nto an interpretation of the mystery of genius, its contradictions, and\nthose of its mistakes which any ordinary man would have avoided. And we\ncan explain to ourselves how it is that madmen or mattoids, even with\nlittle or no genius (Passanante, Lazzaretti, Drabicius, Fourier, Fox),\nhave been able to excite the populace, and sometimes even to bring about\nserious political revolutions. Better still shall we understand how\nthose who were at once men of genius and insane (Mahomet, Luther,\nSavonarola, Schopenhauer), could--despising and overcoming obstacles\nwhich would have dismayed any cool and deliberate mind--hasten by whole\ncenturies the unfolding of truth; and how such men have originated\nnearly all the religions, and certainly all the sects, which have\nagitated the world.\n\nThe frequency of genius among lunatics and of madmen among men of\ngenius, explains the fact that the destiny of nations has often been in\nthe hands of the insane; and shows how the latter have been able to\ncontribute so much to the progress of mankind.\n\nIn short, by these analogies, and coincidences between the phenomena of\ngenius and mental aberration, it seems as though nature had intended to\nteach us respect for the supreme misfortunes of insanity; and also to\npreserve us from being dazzled by the brilliancy of those men of genius\nwho might well be compared, not to the planets which keep their\nappointed orbits, but to falling stars, lost and dispersed over the\ncrust of the earth.\n\n\n\n\nAPPENDIX.\n\nPOETRY AND THE INSANE.\n\n\nThe following letter was written by a druggist confined in the Asylum of\nSainte-Anne:--\n\nSainte-Anne, le 26 f\u00e9vrier 1880.\n\nMADAME,\n\n    Veuillez agr\u00e9er l\u2019hommage\n    De ce modeste sonnet\n    Et le tenir comme un gage\n    De mon sinc\u00e8re respect.\n\n         SONNET.\n\n    Souvenez-vous, reine des dieux,\n    Vierge des vierges, notre m\u00e8re,\n    Que vous \u00eates sur cette terre\n    L\u2019ange gardien myst\u00e9rieux.[485]\n\nThe same man addressed to M. Magnan a long poem on a dramatic\nrepresentation accompanied by the following graceful _envoi_:--\n\n         V\u00c9N\u00c9R\u00c9 DOCTEUR,\n\n    L\u2019estime et la reconnaissance\n    Sont la seule monnaie du c\u0153ur\n    Dont votre pauvre serviteur\n    Dispose pour la r\u00e9compense\n    Qu\u2019il doit \u00e0 vos soins pleins d\u2019honneur.\n\n    Recevez donc cet humble hommage,\n    Docteur admir\u00e9, r\u00e9v\u00e9r\u00e9,\n    Et j\u2019ajouterai bien-aim\u00e9,\n    Si vous vouliez tenir pour gage\n    Qu\u2019en cela du moins J\u2019AI PAYE.[486]\n\nThe following lines are from a long satirical poem by a writer who\nappears to have cherished much less respect for his physician. He\nbelieved that he had been changed into a beast, and recognised a\ncolleague in every horse or donkey he met. He wished to browse in every\nfield, and only refrained from doing so out of consideration for his\nfriends:--\n\n    Les m\u00e9dicastres sans vergogne\n    Qui changent en sale besogne\n    Le plus sublime des mandats,\n    Ces inf\u00e2mes ali\u00e9nistes,\n    Qui, reconnus pour moralistes,\n    Sont les pires des sc\u00e9l\u00e9rats!\n    Ils d\u00e9truisent les \u00e9critures\n    Pour maintenir les impostures\n    Des ennemis du bien public.\n    Ils prostituent leur justice\n    Pour se gorger du b\u00e9n\u00e9fice\n    De leur satanique trafic.[487]\n\nThe author of the following lines on the same day made an attempt at\nsuicide, and then a homicidal attack on his mother.\n\n         \u00c0 MONSIEUR LE DOCTEUR C.\n\n    \u00c9PITRE (_13 mai 1887_).\n\n    Un docteur \u00e9minent sollicite ma muse.\n    Certes l\u2019honneur est grand; mais le docteur s\u2019amuse,\n    Car, dans ce noir s\u00e9jour, le po\u00e8te attrist\u00e9\n    Par le souffle divin n\u2019est gu\u00e8re visit\u00e9....\n    Faire des vers ici, quelle rude besogne!\n    On pourra m\u2019objecter que jadis, en Gascogne,\n    Les rayons \u00e9clatants d\u2019un soleil du Midi\n    R\u00e9veillaient quelquefois mon esprit engourdi;\n    Il est vrai: dans Bordeaux, cit\u00e9 fi\u00e8re et polie,\n    J\u2019ai f\u00eat\u00e9 le bon vin, j\u2019ai chant\u00e9 la folie,\n    Celle bien entendu qui porte des grelots.\n\n    Mais depuis, un destin fatal \u00e0 mon repos\n    M\u2019exile loin des bords de la belle Gironde,\n    Qu\u2019enrichissent les vins les plus fameux du monde!\n    Aussi plus de chansons, de madrigaux coquets!\n    Plus de sonnets savants, de bacchiques couplets!\n    Ma muse tout en pleurs a repli\u00e9 ses ailes,\n    Comme un ange banni des sph\u00e8res \u00e9ternelles!\n    Dans sa cage enferm\u00e9 l\u2019oiseau n\u2019a plus de voix....\n    H\u00e9las! je ne suis point le rossignol des bois,\n    Pas m\u00eame le pinson, pas m\u00eame la fauvette;\n    Vous me flattez, docteur, en m\u2019appelant po\u00e8te....\n    Je ne suis qu\u2019un m\u00e9chant rimeur, et je ne sais\n    Si ces alexandrins auront un grand succ\u00e8s....\n    Cependant mon d\u00e9sir est de vous satisfaire;\n    Votre estime m\u2019honore et je voudrais vous plaire,\n    Mais P\u00e9gase est r\u00e9tif quand il est encha\u00een\u00e9;\n    D\u2019un captif en naissant le vers meurt condamn\u00e9.\n    Si vous voulez, docteur, que ma muse renaisse,\n    Je ne vous dirai pas: rendez-moi ma jeunesse.\n    Non, mais puisque vos soins m\u2019ont rendu la sant\u00e9,\n    Ne pourriez-vous me rendre aussi la libert\u00e9?\n    Des vers! Pour que le ciel au po\u00e8te en envoie\n    Que faut-il? le grand air, le soleil et la joie!\n    Accordez-moi ces biens: mon luth reconnaissant,\n    Pour vous remercier comme un Dieu bienfaisant,\n    Peut-\u00eatre trouvera, de mon c\u0153ur interpr\u00e8te,\n    Des chants dignes de vous, et dignes d\u2019un po\u00e8te!\n\nThe following lines well express the solitary sadness of the\nmelancholiac:--\n\n         A SE STESSO.\n\n    E con chi l\u2019hai?\n    Con tutti e con nessuno,\n    L\u2019ho con il cielo, che si tinge a bruno,\n    L\u2019ho con il metro, che non rende i lai,\n    Che mi rodono il petto.\n    Nell\u2019odio altrui, nel mal comun mi godo.\n\nAnd these are of marvellous delicacy and truth:--\n\n         TIPO FISICO-MORALE DI P. L.\n\n             QUI RICOVERATO.\n\n    Al primo aspetto\n    Chi ti vede, saria\n    Costretto a dir che a te manca l\u2019affetto;\n    E male s\u2019apporria;\n    Che invece spesse fiate,\n    Sotto ruvido vel, palpitan lene\n    L\u2019anime innamorate\n    Che s\u2019accendon, riscaldansi nel bene.\n    Cos\u00ec rosa dal petalo\n    Invisibile quasi\n    Mette l\u2019effluvio dai raccolti vasi,\n    Come dal gelsomino,\n    E i delicati odor dell\u2019amorino;\n    Nemico a tutti i giuochi,\n    Di Venere, di Bacco indarno i fuochi\n    Ti soffiano; la cute\n    E di tal forza che sembrano mute\n    Le vezzose lusinghe ...\n    E invano a darti il fiato spira l\u2019etra.\n                               M. S.\n\nThe following little piece is a masterpiece of insane poetry:--\n\n         A UN UCCELLO DEL CORTILE.\n\n    Da un virgulto ad uno scoglio\n    Da uno scoglio a una collina,\n    L\u2019ala tua va pellegrina\n    Voli o posi a notte e d\u00ec.\n\n    Noi confitti al nostro orgoglio,\n    Come ruote in ferrei perni,\n    Ci stanchiamo in giri eterni,\n    Sempre erranti e sempre qui!\n              CAVALIERE Y.\n\n\n\n\nINDEX.\n\n\nAlbertus Magnus, 7\n\nAlcoholism in men of genius, 54, 316, 325\n\nAlexander the Great, 6, 54, 146\n\nAlfieri, 20, 22, 23, 27, 28, 103\n\nAmiel, 52-53\n\nAmp\u00e8re, 29, 34, 67, 315\n\nAn\u00e6sthesia of men of genius, 33\n\nAnabaptists, 256\n\nArabesques by insane artists, 200\n\nArgentine men of genius, 313\n\nAristotle, 8, 13\n\nArt in the insane, 179 _et seq._\n\nArtists, distribution of great European, 117 _et seq._\n\nAtavism in literature of the insane, 172\n\n\nBach, 139\n\nBacon, 61\n\nBalzac, 6, 47, 342\n\nBarometrical condition and genius, 101\n\nBaudelaire, 28, 69-72, 316, 325\n\nBeethoven, 34, 61, 146\n\nBerlioz, 27\n\nBernouilli, 141\n\nBlake, W., 6, 56\n\nBolyai, 73\n\nBruno, G., 25, 35, 47, 106, 316\n\nBuffon, 34, 339\n\nBurns, 41\n\nByron, 7, 9, 29, 56, 61, 62, 103, 146\n\n\nCabanis, 17\n\nC\u00e6sar, Julius, 39, 54\n\nCampanella, 285-291\n\nCampbell, T., 6, 38, 146\n\nCardan, 21, 35, 74-77, 145, 314, 323\n\nCarducci, 38\n\nCarlo Dolce, 67\n\nCarlyle, 7, 61\n\nCasanova, 59\n\nCavendish, 14\n\nCavour, 43, 354\n\nCerebral characteristics of men of genius, 8-13, 327\n\nChamfort, 14\n\nCharity, hysterical, 349\n\nCharles V., 13, 146\n\nChateaubriand, 38, 44\n\nChopin, 43, 47, 48\n\nChoreic symptoms in men of genius, 38\n\nCivilization on genius, influence of, 153 _et seq._\n\nClare, J., 165\n\nClarke, Marcus, 8\n\nClimatic influences on genius, 117 _et seq._\n\nCodazzi, 73\n\nColeridge, 22, 44, 55\n\nColeridge, Hartley, 55\n\nColumbus, 56\n\nComte, 15, 60, 73\n\nConcato, 72\n\nConception of men of genius, 149\n\nCowley, 23\n\nCowper, 24\n\nCranial characteristics of men of genius, 8-13, 327\n\nCriminality of genius, 57 _et seq._\n\nCuvier, 11\n\n\nDante, 8, 11, 15, 35, 46, 106\n\nDarwin, 13, 106, 356-357\n\nD\u00e9cadent poets, 230 _et seq._\n\nDescartes, 22\n\nDickens, 23\n\nDiderot, 34\n\nDiscoveries, dates of, 105 _et seq._\n\nDisease on genius, influence of, 151\n\nDomenichino, 17\n\nDonizetti, 9, 11, 62\n\nDosto\u00efeffsky, 8, 321, 339-341\n\nDouble personality of men of genius, 24\n\nDreams, genius working during, 21, 326\n\nDumas _p\u00e8re_, 7, 62\n\nDupuytren, 41\n\n\nEducation on genius, influence of, 159-160\n\nEgoism of men of genius, 318-319\n\nEnfantin, Prosper, 295-296\n\nEpilepsy and genius, 38\n\nEpileptoid nature of genius, 336 _et seq._\n\nErasmus, 6, 8, 13\n\n\nFlaxman, 7\n\nFlaubert, 7, 14, 17, 28, 40, 50, 60, 331, 341\n\nFlorentine genius, 123, 154-155\n\nFoder\u00e0, 91\n\n_Folie du doute_ of men of genius, 48 _et seq._\n\nFontenelle, 62\n\nForgetfulness of men of genius, 33\n\nFoscolo, 9, 11, 18, 20, 29, 31, 104, 106\n\nFrancis of Assisi, 258-260\n\nFrederick II., 62\n\nFrench genius, 127\n\n\nGalvani, 109-110, 114\n\nGambetta, 11, 12\n\nGauss, 12\n\nGenius, Aristotle on, 1;\n  Plato on, 2;\n  Diderot on, 3;\n  Richter on, 19\n\nGenius, a neurosis, 5;\n  distinct from talent, 19, 35;\n  in the insane, 161 _et seq._;\n  in mattoids, 226 _et seq._;\n  its epileptoid nature, 336 _et seq._;\n  in the sane, 353 _et seq._\n\nGenius, characteristics of men of, 6;\n  height, 6;\n  frequency of rickets, 7;\n  pallor, 7;\n  emaciation, 7;\n  cranial and cerebral characteristics, 8-13, 327;\n  stammering, 13;\n  lefthandedness, 13;\n  sterility, 13;\n  unlikeness to parents, 14;\n  physiognomy, 14;\n  precocity, 15, 315;\n  delayed development, 16;\n  misoneism, 17;\n  vagabondage, 18, 316;\n  unconsciousness and instinctiveness, 19;\n  somnambulism, 21;\n  inspiration, 22;\n  double personality, 24;\n  stupidity, 25;\n  hyper\u00e6sthesia, 26;\n  an\u00e6sthesia, 33;\n  forgetfulness, 33;\n  originality, 35, 317-318;\n  fondness for special words, 37;\n  frequency of chorea and epilepsy, 38;\n  melancholy, 40;\n  delusions of grandeur, 45;\n  _folie du doute_, 48 _et seq._;\n  alcoholism, 54, 316;\n  hallucinations, 56;\n  moral insanity, 57;\n  longevity, 64;\n  insanity, 66 _et seq._;\n  meteorological influences on, 100 _et seq._;\n  climatic influences on, 117 _et seq._;\n  influence of race, 126, 133;\n  influence of sex, 137;\n  influence of heredity, 139 _et seq._;\n  relation to criminality, 144 _et seq._;\n  age of parents, 149;\n  conception, 149;\n  influence of disease on, 151;\n  influence of civilization on, 153 _et seq._;\n  influence of education, 159-160;\n  characteristics of insane, 314 _et seq._;\n  analogy of sane and insane, 330 _et seq._;\n  in revolutions, 334-335\n\nGiordani, 104\n\nGiusti, 40, 104\n\nGoethe, 7, 15, 21, 40\n\nGogol, 98-99\n\nGoldsmith, 6\n\nGoncourts, the, 28, 331, 339, 342\n\nGrandeur among men of genius, delusions of, 45\n\nGraphomaniacs, 212 _et seq._\n\nGray, 43\n\nGuiteau, 313\n\n\nHaller, 67, 319, 320\n\nHallucinations of men of genius, 56-57\n\nHamilton, Sir W. R., 109\n\nHamlet, 53\n\nHaydn, 19\n\nHead injuries and genius, 8, 151\n\nHeat on genius, influence of, 103 _et seq._\n\nHeight of men of genius, 6\n\nHeine, 6, 103, 152\n\nHoffmann, E. T. A., 90-91\n\nHogarth, 6\n\nHoward, John, 8, 351\n\nHugo, V., 46\n\nHyper\u00e6sthesia of men of genius, 26\n\n\nInsane, art and the, 179 _et seq._\n\nInsane and the weather, 100\n\nInsane among savages, the, 245\n\nInsanity and genius, 66 _et seq._, 13, 143, 145, 148, 161 _et seq._, 314 _et seq._, 332\n\nInsanity, epidemics of religious, 251 _et seq._\n\nInspiration, genius in, 22\n\nInstinctiveness of genius, 19\n\n\nJesus, 45, 63\n\nJewish genius, 133-137\n\nJohnson, Dr., 7, 49, 57\n\n\nKant, 8, 10\n\nKerner, 146\n\nKeshub Chunder Sen, 244\n\nKlaproth, 17\n\nKleist, 23\n\nKnutzen, 244\n\nKr\u00fcdener, Julie de, 257\n\n\nLagrange, 110\n\nLamartine, 20\n\nLamb, C., 6, 13, 67\n\nLamennais, 15\n\nLaplace, 18\n\nLasker, 11\n\nLawsuit mania, 224-226\n\nLazzaretti, 296-308\n\nLee, N., 67\n\nLeibnitz, 22\n\nLefthandedness of men of genius, 13\n\nLenau, 38, 85-87, 315, 316, 321, 325\n\nLesage, 104\n\nLeopardi, 7, 41, 53, 104\n\nLinn\u00e6us, 32\n\nLiterary mattoids, 209 _et seq._\n\nLongevity of men of genius, 64\n\nLovat\u2019s autocrucifixion, 183\n\nLoyola, 257\n\nLuther, 260-261\n\n\nMahomet, 31, 39, 325\n\nMaine de Biran, 50, 101-103, 151\n\nMainl\u00e4nder, 72\n\nMalebranche, 56\n\nMalibran, 27\n\nMallarm\u00e9, 231\n\nMalpighi, 108, 114\n\nManzoni, 49\n\nMatteucci, 111\n\nMattoids, 212 _et seq._;\n  of genius, 226 _et seq._;\n  in art, 239;\n  in politics and religion, 242 _et seq._\n\nMegalomania, 45-48\n\nMelancholy in men of genius, 40-45\n\nMendelssohn, F., 7\n\nMendelssohn, M., 7, 13\n\nMeteorological influences on genius, 100 _et seq._\n\nMeyerbeer, 15\n\nMichelangelo, 13, 15, 354-356\n\nMichelet, 103, 229\n\nMill, J. S., 44\n\nMilton, 8, 13, 104\n\nMisoneism of men of genius, 17\n\nMoli\u00e8re, 39, 42\n\nMonge, 33\n\nMoral insanity in men of genius, 57, 201, 333\n\nMountainous regions and genius, 128 _et seq._\n\nMozart, 20, 42\n\nMusicians, distribution of great Italian, 120 _et seq._\n\nMusset, A. de, 61\n\n\nNapoleon, 18, 38, 49, 61, 103, 342-346\n\nNerval, G\u00e9rard de, 44, 68-69, 164\n\nNewton, 17, 21, 80-81\n\n\n\nObscenity in art of the insane, 200-201\n\nOriginality of men of genius, 35, 317-318;\n  in the insane, 184-186\n\nOrographic influences on men of genius, 122\n\n\nPallor of men of genius, 7\n\nPaganini, 39\n\nParanoia, 173\n\nParents of men of genius, 144 _et seq._\n\nPassanante, 308-313\n\nPascal, 39, 315, 316, 320\n\nPatriotism and genius, 64\n\nPeter the Great, 39\n\nPhilanthropists and moral insanity, 351\n\nPhysiognomy of men of genius, 8, 14\n\nPoe, 318, 320\n\nPoetry and the insane, 363-366\n\nPolitical mattoids, 242 _et seq._\n\nPope, 7\n\nPoushkin, 30, 103, 105\n\nPraga, 326\n\nPrecocity of genius, 15, 315, 330\n\n\nRace on genius, influence of, 117 _et seq._, 133\n\nReligious doubts of men of genius, 318\n\nReligious mattoids, 242 _et seq._\n\nRenan, 50-52, 147\n\nRestif de la Bretonne, 16\n\nRevolutions and men of genius, 334-335\n\nRichelieu, 39\n\nRickets in men of genius, 7\n\nRienzi, Cola da, 263-285\n\nRossini, 22, 35, 42\n\nRouelle, 33, 48\n\nRousseau, J. J., 11, 22, 81-85, 103, 314, 324\n\n\nSaint Paul, 347-348\n\nSand, George, 42\n\nSan Juan de Dios, 291-294\n\nSanity and genius, 353 _et seq._\n\nSavages and the insane, 245\n\nSavonarola, 261-263\n\nSchiller, 7, 10, 15, 22, 23, 41, 105\n\nSchopenhauer, 18, 30, 91-98, 148, 315\n\nSchumann, 9, 11, 68\n\nScotch genius, 154\n\nScott, Walter, 7, 8, 17\n\nSesostris, 354\n\nSex in genius, influence of, 136\n\nSexual abnormalities of men of genius, 316\n\nShelley, 22, 56\n\nSocrates, 8, 21, 33, 38\n\nSomnambulism of men of genius, 21\n\nSpallanzani, 104, 110\n\nSpanish genius, 127\n\nStammering in men of genius, 13\n\nSterility of men of genius, 13\n\nSterne, 7, 8\n\nStupidities of men of genius, 25\n\nSuicide and genius, 41\n\nSwedenborg, 256\n\nSwift, 79-80, 315\n\nSylvester, 104\n\nSymbolism in insane art, 187 _et seq._\n\nSz\u00e9ch\u00e9nyi, 87-90\n\n\nTalent and genius, 9\n\nTasso, 55, 77-79, 314, 316, 321\n\nThackeray, 10\n\nThermometrical influences on genius, 103\n\nTolstoi, 50\n\nTorricelli, 109\n\nTourgueneff, 7, 10\n\n\nUnconsciousness of genius, 19\n\n\nVagabondage of men of genius, 18, 316\n\nVanity of men of genius, 315, 330\n\nVerlaine, 232-237\n\nVillon, 59\n\nVolta, 9, 17, 109\n\nVoltaire, 7, 8, 42\n\n\nWeather on genius, influence of, 100 _et seq._\n\nWhitman, Walt, 7, 318\n\nWords, fondness of men of genius for special, 37\n\nW\u00fclfert, 11\n\n\nXavier, St. Francis, 7\n\n\nZimmermann, 43\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n                        WORKS BY GEORGE MOORE.\n\n                     _Cloth, Crown 8vo, Price 6s._\n\n                        Esther Waters: A Novel\n\n                            BY GEORGE MOORE\n\n\u2018Strong, vivid, sober, yet undaunted in its realism, full to the brim of\nobservation of life and character, _Esther Waters_ is not only\nimmeasurably superior to anything the author has ever written before,\nbut it is one of the most remarkable works that has appeared in print\nthis year, and one which does credit not only to the author, but the\ncountry in which it has been written.\u2019--_The World._\n\n\u2018As we live the book through again in memory, we feel more and more\nconfident that Mr. Moore has once for all vindicated his position among\nthe half-dozen living novelists of whom the historian of English\nliterature will have to take account.\u2019--_Daily Chronicle._\n\n                Crown 8vo, Cloth, 568 pages, Price 6s.\n\n                              Celibates.\n\n\u2018A remarkable book, that adds to the reputation of its\nauthor.\u2019--_Speaker._\n\n\u2018Excessively clever.\u2019--_The Times._\n\n\u2018These studies are amazingly clever.\u2019--_The Daily News._\n\n\u2018A sympathetic and masterly analysis of temperament.\u2019--_The Literary\nWorld._\n\nOther Novels by George Moore\n\n_Crown 8vo, Cloth, 3s. 6d. each._\n\n     =A DRAMA IN MUSLIN.= Seventh Edition.\n\n     =A MODERN LOVER.= New Edition.\n\n     =A MUMMER\u2019S WIFE.= Twentieth Edition.\n\n     =VAIN FORTUNE.= New Revised Edition. With Five Illustrations by\n     MAURICE GREIFFENHAGEN.\n\n     _Second Edition, Crown 8vo, Cloth, 6s._\n\n     =MODERN PAINTING.= By GEORGE MOORE.\n\n     =IMPRESSIONS AND OPINIONS.= By GEORGE MOORE.\n\n\u2018His book is one of the best books about pictures that have come into\nour hands for some years.\u2019--_St. James\u2019s Gazette._\n\n\u2018A more original, a better informed, a more suggestive, and, let us add,\na more amusing work on the art of to-day, we have never read than this\nvolume.\u2019--_Glasgow Herald._\n\nLONDON: WALTER SCOTT, LTD., Paternoster Square.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIbsen\u2019s Prose Dramas\n\nEDITED BY WILLIAM ARCHER\n\n_Complete in Five Vols. Crown 8vo, Cloth, Price 3s. 6d. each._\n\n_Set of Five Vols., in Case, 17s. 6d.; in Half Morocco,\nin Case, 32s. 6d._\n\n\u2018_We seem at last to be shown men and women as they are; and at first it\nis more than we can endure.... All Ibsen\u2019s characters speak and act as\nif they were hypnotised, and under their creator\u2019s imperious demand to\nreveal themselves. There never was such a mirror held up to nature\nbefore; it is too terrible.... Yet we must return to Ibsen, with his\nremorseless surgery, his remorseless electric-light, until we, too, have\ngrown strong and learned to face the naked--if necessary, the flayed and\nbleeding--reality._\u2019--SPEAKER (London).\n\n     VOL. I. \u2018A DOLL\u2019S HOUSE,\u2019 \u2018THE LEAGUE OF YOUTH,\u2019 and \u2018THE PILLARS\n     OF SOCIETY.\u2019 With Portrait of the Author, and Biographical\n     Introduction by WILLIAM ARCHER.\n\n     VOL. II. \u2018GHOSTS,\u2019 \u2018AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE,\u2019 and \u2018THE WILD DUCK.\u2019\n     With an Introductory Note.\n\n     VOL. III. \u2018LADY INGER OF \u00d6STRAT,\u2019 \u2018THE VIKINGS AT HELGELAND,\u2019 \u2018THE\n     PRETENDERS.\u2019 With an Introductory Note and Portrait of Ibsen.\n\n     VOL. IV. \u2018EMPEROR AND GALILEAN.\u2019 With an Introductory Note by\n     WILLIAM ARCHER.\n\n     VOL. V. \u2018ROSMERSHOLM,\u2019 \u2018THE LADY FROM THE SEA,\u2019 \u2018HEDDA GABLER.\u2019\n     Translated by WILLIAM ARCHER. With an Introductory Note.\n\nThe sequence of the plays _in each volume_ is chronological; the\ncomplete set of volumes comprising the dramas presents them in\nchronological order.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nLONDON: WALTER SCOTT, LTD., Paternoster Square.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nLibrary of Humour\n\n_Cloth Elegant, Large Crown 8vo, Price 3s. 6d. per Vol._\n\n\u2018_The books are delightful in every way, and are notable for the high\nstandard of taste and the excellent judgment that characterise their\nediting, as well as for the brilliancy of the literature that they\ncontain._\u2019--BOSTON (U.S.A) GAZETTE.\n\n_VOLUMES ALREADY ISSUED._\n\n     THE HUMOUR OF FRANCE. Translated, with an Introduction and Notes,\n     by ELIZABETH LEE. With numerous Illustrations by PAUL FR\u00c9NZENY.\n\n     THE HUMOUR OF GERMANY. Translated, with an Introduction and Notes,\n     by HANS M\u00dcLLER-CASENOV. With numerous Illustrations by C. E. BROCK.\n\n     THE HUMOUR OF ITALY. Translated, with an Introduction and Notes, by\n     A. WERNER. With 50 Illustrations and a Frontispiece by ARTURO\n     FALDI.\n\n     THE HUMOUR OF AMERICA. Selected with a copious Biographical Index\n     of American Humorists, by JAMES BARR.\n\n     THE HUMOUR OF HOLLAND. Translated, with an Introduction and Notes,\n     by A. WERNER. With numerous Illustrations by DUDLEY HARDY.\n\n     THE HUMOUR OF IRELAND. Selected by D. J. O\u2019DONOGHUE. With numerous\n     Illustrations by OLIVER PAQUE.\n\n     THE HUMOUR OF SPAIN. Translated, with an Introduction and Notes, by\n     SUSETTE M. TAYLOR. With numerous Illustrations by H. R. MILLAR.\n\n     THE HUMOUR OF RUSSIA. Translated, with Notes, by E. L. BOOLE, and\n     an Introduction by STEPNIAK. With 50 Illustrations by PAUL\n     FR\u00c9NZENY.\n\n     THE HUMOUR OF JAPAN. Translated, with an Introduction by A. M. With\n     Illustrations by GEORGE BIGOT (from drawings made in Japan). [_In\n     preparation._\n\nLONDON: WALTER SCOTT, LTD., Paternoster Square.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nGreat Writers\n\nA NEW SERIES OF CRITICAL BIOGRAPHIES.\n\nEDITED BY ERIC ROBERTSON AND FRANK T. MARZIALS.\n\nA Complete Bibliography to each Volume, by J. P. ANDERSON, British\nMuseum, London.\n\n_Cloth, Uncut Edges, Gilt Top. Price 1s. 6d._\n\n\n_VOLUMES ALREADY ISSUED._\n\n  LIFE OF LONGFELLOW. By Professor ERIC S. ROBERTSON.\n  LIFE OF COLERIDGE. By HALL CAINE.\n  LIFE OF DICKENS. By FRANK T. MARZIALS.\n  LIFE OF DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. By J. KNIGHT.\n  LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON. By Colonel F. GRANT.\n  LIFE OF DARWIN. By G. T. BETTANY.\n  LIFE OF CHARLOTTE BRONT\u00cb. By A. BIRRELL.\n  LIFE OF THOMAS CARLYLE. By R. GARNETT, LL.D.\n  LIFE OF ADAM SMITH. By R. B. HALDANE, M.P.\n  LIFE OF KEATS. By W. M. ROSSETTI.\n  LIFE OF SHELLEY. By WILLIAM SHARP.\n  LIFE OF SMOLLETT. By DAVID HANNAY.\n  LIFE OF GOLDSMITH. By AUSTIN DOBSON.\n  LIFE OF SCOTT. By Professor YONGE.\n  LIFE OF BURNS. By Professor BLACKIE.\n  LIFE OF VICTOR HUGO. By FRANK T. MARZIALS.\n  LIFE OF EMERSON. By RICHARD GARNETT, LL.D.\n  LIFE OF GOETHE. By JAMES SIME.\n  LIFE OF CONGREVE. By EDMUND GOSSE.\n  LIFE OF BUNYAN. By Canon VENABLES.\n  LIFE OF CRABBE. By T. E. KEBBEL.\n  LIFE OF HEINE. By WILLIAM SHARP.\n  LIFE OF MILL. By W. L. COURTNEY.\n  LIFE OF SCHILLER. By HENRY W. NEVINSON.\n  LIFE OF CAPTAIN MARRYAT. By DAVID HANNAY.\n  LIFE OF LESSING. By T. W. ROLLESTON.\n  LIFE OF MILTON. By R. GARNETT, LL.D.\n  LIFE OF BALZAC. By FREDERICK WEDMORE.\n  LIFE OF GEORGE ELIOT. By OSCAR BROWNING.\n  LIFE OF JANE AUSTEN. By GOLDWIN SMITH.\n  LIFE OF BROWNING. By WILLIAM SHARP.\n  LIFE OF BYRON. By Hon. RODEN NOEL.\n  LIFE OF HAWTHORNE. By MONCURE D. CONWAY.\n  LIFE OF SCHOPENHAUER. By Professor WALLACE.\n  LIFE OF SHERIDAN. By LLOYD SANDERS.\n  LIFE OF THACKERAY.   By HERMAN MERIVALE and FRANK T. MARZIALS.\n  LIFE OF CERVANTES. By H. E. WATTS.\n  LIFE OF VOLTAIRE. By FRANCIS ESPINASSE.\n  LIFE OF LEIGH HUNT. By COSMO MONKHOUSE.\n  LIFE OF WHITTIER By W. J. LINTON.\n  LIFE OF RENAN. By FRANCIS ESPINASSE.\n  LIFE OF THOREAU.   By H. S. SALT.\n\n\nLIBRARY EDITION OF \u2018GREAT WRITERS,\u2019 Demy 8vo, 2s. 6d.\n\nLONDON: WALTER SCOTT, LTD., Paternoster Square.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nCrown 8vo, Cloth Elegant, in Box, Price 2s. 6d.\n\nTHE\n\nCULT OF BEAUTY:\n\n_A MANUAL OF PERSONAL HYGIENE_.\n\nBY C. J. S. THOMPSON.\n\n[EXTRACT FROM PREFACE.]\n\n_Too much care cannot be taken of the exterior of the human body, on\nwhich the general health so largely depends. The most recent discoveries\nin science go to prove that cleanliness, with proper attention to bodily\nexercise, is the greatest enemy to disease and decay. Quackery has never\nbeen more rampant than it is to-day, and advertised secret preparations\nfor beautifying the person meet us at every turn. It is with the object\nof showing how Beauty may be preserved and aided on purely hygienic\nprinciples, that this work has been written, the greatest secret of\nBeauty being Health._\n\n\n_CONTENTS_--\n\n  CHAPTER I.--THE SKIN.\n  CHAPTER II.--THE HANDS.\n  CHAPTER III.--THE FEET.\n  CHAPTER IV.--THE HAIR.\n  CHAPTER V.--THE TEETH.\n  CHAPTER VI.--THE NOSE.\n  CHAPTER VII.--THE EYE.\n  CHAPTER VIII.--THE EAR.\n\n     \u201c\u2018Quackery,\u2019 says Mr. Thompson, \u2018was never more rampant than it is\n     to-day\u2019 with regard to \u2018aids in beautifying the person.\u2019 His little\n     book is based on purely hygienic principles, and comprises recipes\n     for toilet purposes which he warrants are \u2018practical and harmless.\u2019\n     These are virtues in any book of health and beauty, and Mr.\n     Thompson\u2019s advice and guidance are, we find, not wanting in\n     soundness and common-sense.\u201d--_Saturday Review._\n\nLondon: WALTER SCOTT, LIMITED, Paternoster Square.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n_AUTHORISED VERSION_\n\n_Crown 8vo, Cloth, Price 6s._\n\nPeer Gynt: A Dramatic Poem\n\nBY HENRIK IBSEN\n\nTRANSLATED BY\n\nWILLIAM AND CHARLES ARCHER\n\n_This Translation, though unrhymed, preserves throughout\nthe various rhythms of the Original._\n\n\u2018To English readers this will not merely be a new work of the Norwegian\npoet, dramatist, and satirist, but it will also be a new Ibsen.... Here\nis the imaginative Ibsen, indeed, the Ibsen of such a boisterous,\nirresistible fertility of fancy that one breathes with difficulty as one\nfollows him on his headlong course.... \u201cPeer Gynt\u201d is a fantastical\nsatirical drama of enormous interest, and the present translation of it\nis a masterpiece of fluent, powerful, graceful, and literal\nrendering.\u2019--_The Daily Chronicle._\n\n_Crown 8vo, Cloth 5s._\n\nThe Strike at Arlingford\n\n(PLAY IN THREE ACTS.)\n\nBY GEORGE MOORE\n\n\u2018It has the large simplicity of really great drama, and Mr. Moore, in\nconceiving it, has shown the truest instinct for the art he is for the\nfirst time essaying.\u2019--W. A. in _The World_.\n\nLONDON: WALTER SCOTT, LTD., Paternoster Square.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nNEW ENGLAND LIBRARY.\n\nGRAVURE EDITION.\n\nPRINTED ON ANTIQUE PAPER. 2s. 6d. PER VOL.\n\n_Each Volume with a Frontispiece in Photogravure._\n\nBy NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.\n\n  THE SCARLET LETTER.\n  THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES.\n  THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE.\n  TANGLEWOOD TALES.\n  TWICE-TOLD TALES.\n  A WONDER-BOOK FOR GIRLS AND BOYS.\n  OUR OLD HOME.\n  MOSSES FROM AN OLD MANSE.\n  THE SNOW IMAGE.\n  TRUE STORIES FROM HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY.\n  THE NEW ADAM AND EVE.\n  LEGENDS OF THE PROVINCE HOUSE.\n\nBy OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.\n\n  THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE.\n  THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE.\n  THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE.\n  ELSIE VENNER.\n\nBy HENRY THOREAU.\n\n  ESSAYS AND OTHER WRITINGS.\n  WALDEN; OR, LIFE IN THE WOODS.\n  A WEEK ON THE CONCORD.\n\nLondon: WALTER SCOTT, LIMITED, Paternoster Square.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nCrown 8vo, about 350 pp. each, Cloth Cover, 2/6 per Vol.;\nHalf-Polished Morocco, Gilt Top, 5s.\n\nCount Tolstoy\u2019s Works.\n\nThe following Volumes are already issued--\n\n\n  A RUSSIAN PROPRIETOR.\n  THE COSSACKS.\n  IVAN ILYITCH, AND OTHER STORIES.\n  MY RELIGION.\n  LIFE.\n  MY CONFESSION.\n  CHILDHOOD, BOYHOOD, YOUTH.\n  THE PHYSIOLOGY OF WAR.\n  ANNA KAR\u00c9NINA 3/6.\n  WHAT TO DO?\n  WAR AND PEACE. (4 vols.)\n  THE LONG EXILE, AND OTHER STORIES FOR CHILDREN.\n  SEVASTOPOL.\n  THE KREUTZER SONATA, AND FAMILY HAPPINESS.\n  THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS WITHIN YOU.\n  WORK WHILE YE HAVE THE LIGHT.\n\nUniform with the above--\n\nIMPRESSIONS OF RUSSIA. By Dr. GEORG BRANDES.\n\nPost 4to, Cloth, Price 1s.\n\nPATRIOTISM AND CHRISTIANITY.\n\nTo which is appended a Reply to Criticisms of the Work.\n\nBy COUNT TOLSTOY.\n\n\n1/-Booklets by Count Tolstoy.\n\nBound in White Grained Boards, with Gilt Lettering.\n\n  WHERE LOVE IS, THERE GOD IS ALSO.\n  THE TWO PILGRIMS.\n  WHAT MEN LIVE BY.\n  THE GODSON.\n  IF YOU NEGLECT THE FIRE, YOU DON\u2019T PUT IT OUT.\n  WHAT SHALL IT PROFIT A MAN?\n\n2/-Booklets by Count Tolstoy.\n\nNEW EDITIONS, REVISED.\n\nSmall 12mo, Cloth, with Embossed Design on Cover, each containing\nTwo Stories by Count Tolstoy, and Two Drawings by\nH. R. Millar. In Box, Price 2s. each.\n\n  Volume I. contains--\n\n  WHERE LOVE IS, THERE GOD IS ALSO.\n  THE GODSON.\n\n  Volume II. contains--\n\n  WHAT MEN LIVE BY.\n  WHAT SHALL IT PROFIT A MAN?\n\n  Volume III. contains--\n\n  THE TWO PILGRIMS.\n  IF YOU NEGLECT THE FIRE, YOU DON\u2019T PUT IT OUT.\n\n  Volume IV. contains--\n\n  MASTER AND MAN.\n\n  Volume V. contains--\n\n  TOLSTOY\u2019S PARABLES.\n\nLondon: WALTER SCOTT, LIMITED, Paternoster Square.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\nBOOKS OF FAIRY TALES.\n\n_Crown 8vo, Cloth Elegant, Price 3/6 per Vol._\n\nENGLISH FAIRY AND OTHER\nFOLK TALES.\n\nSelected and Edited, with an Introduction,\n\nBY EDWIN SIDNEY HARTLAND.\n\n_With Twelve Full-Page Illustrations by_ CHARLES E. BROCK.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSCOTTISH FAIRY AND FOLK TALES.\n\nSelected and Edited, with an Introduction,\n\nBY SIR GEORGE DOUGLAS, BART.\n\n_With Twelve Full-Page Illustrations by_ JAMES TORRANCE.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIRISH FAIRY AND FOLK TALES.\n\nSelected and Edited, with an Introduction,\n\nBY W. B. YEATS.\n\n_With Twelve Full-Page Illustrations by_ JAMES TORRANCE.\n\nLondon: WALTER SCOTT, LIMITED, Paternoster Square.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n_COMPACT AND PRACTICAL._\n\n_In Limp Cloth; for the Pocket. Price One Shilling._\n\nTHE EUROPEAN\n\nCONVERSATION BOOKS.\n\n\n  FRENCH\n  ITALIAN\n  SPANISH\n  GERMAN\n  NORWEGIAN\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n_Hints to Travellers--Everyday Expressions--Arriving at and Leaving a\nRailway Station--Custom House Enquiries--In a Train--At a Buffet and\nRestaurant--At an Hotel--Paying an Hotel Bill--Enquiries in a Town--On\nBoard Ship--Embarking and Disembarking--Excursion by Carriage--Enquiries\nas to Diligences--Enquiries as to Boats--Engaging Apartments--Washing\nList and Days of Week--Restaurant Vocabulary--Telegrams and Letters,\netc., etc._\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n     The contents of these little handbooks are so arranged as to permit\n     direct and immediate reference. All dialogues or enquiries not\n     considered absolutely essential have been purposely excluded,\n     nothing being introduced which might confuse the traveller rather\n     than assist him. A few hints are given in the introduction which\n     will be found valuable to those unaccustomed to foreign travel.\n\nLondon: WALTER SCOTT, LIMITED, Paternoster Square\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nNEW EDITION IN NEW BINDING.\n\nIn the new edition there are added about forty reproductions in\nfac-simile of autographs of distinguished singers and instrumentalists,\nincluding Sarasate, Joachim, Sir Charles Hall\u00e9, Stavenhagen, Henschel,\nTrebelli, Miss Macintyre, Jean G\u00e9rardy, etc.\n\n_Quarto, cloth elegant, gilt edges, emblematic design on cover, 6s._\n\n_May also be had in a variety of Fancy Bindings._\n\nThe Music of the Poets:\n\nA MUSICIANS\u2019 BIRTHDAY BOOK.\n\nEDITED BY ELEONORE D\u2019ESTERRE KEELING.\n\nThis is a unique Birthday Book. Against each date are given the names of\nmusicians whose birthday it is, together with a verse-quotation\nappropriate to the character of their different compositions or\nperformances. A special feature of the book consists in the reproduction\nin fac-simile of autographs, and autographic music, of living composers.\nThe selections of verse (from before Chaucer to the present time) have\nbeen made with admirable critical insight. English verse is rich in\nutterances of the poets about music, and merely as a volume of poetry\nabout music this book makes a charming anthology. Three sonnets by Mr.\nTheodore Watts, on the \u201cFausts\u201d of Berlioz, Schumann, and Gounod, have\nbeen written specially for this volume. It is illustrated with designs\nof various musical instruments, etc.; autographs of Rubenstein, Dvor\u00e2k,\nGreig, Mackenzie, Villiers Stanford, etc., etc.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\u201cTo musical amateurs this will certainly prove the most attractive\nbirthday book ever published.\u201d--_Manchester Guardian._\n\nLONDON: WALTER SCOTT, LTD., Paternoster Square.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n_ATTRACTING GREAT ATTENTION._\n\nA NEW SOCIETY NOVEL.\n\n_Foolscap 8vo, in Elegant Paper Cover, 1s. 6d.; cloth, 2s._\n\n  TWO WOMEN\n  AND A MAN:\n\n_A SOCIETY SKETCH OF TO-DAY_.\n\nBY ELLAM FENWICKE-ALLAN\n\n(MRS. CHARLTON-ANNE).\n\n\u201c_We are here introduced to those naughty, naughty society women who\nsmoke cigarettes after dinner, break the bulk of the decalogue, and say\nsweetly-spiteful things to each other while waiting for the men to\nappear. These, however, are by the way. The story really has for its\ntheme the struggle for the soul of Paul Fane between his wife and a very\nseductive bad lot called Lady Maud, the wife of a very wealthy and\nsterling man who never saw further than his nose. Lady Maud is about the\nmost finished study of a female devil we have ever come across, with\npowers of hypocrisy passing belief, and audacity in keeping with her\nhypocrisy. Mrs. Fane is her antithesis, and it is only in keeping with\npoetical justice that the good influence should overrule the bad;\nbesides, Paul was not nearly such a fool as he looked, though it was\ntouch-and-go with him once. If rather abrupt in places and somewhat\nsaddening reading, there is plenty of go about the tale, and if the\nwhole construction is somewhat light, much is atoned for by the two\nsplendidly contrasted characters of Lady Maud and Mrs. Fane._\u201d--GLASGOW\nDAILY MAIL.\n\nLONDON: WALTER SCOTT, LTD., PATERNOSTER SQUARE.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTHE SCOTT LIBRARY.\n\nCloth, Uncut Edges, Gilt Top. Price 1s. 6d. per Volume.\n\nVOLUMES ALREADY ISSUED--\n\n\n  1 ROMANCE OF KING ARTHUR.\n  2 THOREAU\u2019S WALDEN.\n  3 THOREAU\u2019S \u201cWEEK.\u201d\n  4 THOREAU\u2019S ESSAYS.\n  5 ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER.\n  6 LANDOR\u2019S CONVERSATIONS.\n  7 PLUTARCH\u2019S LIVES.\n  8 RELIGIO MEDICI, &c.\n  9 SHELLEY\u2019S LETTERS.\n  10 PROSE WRITINGS OF SWIFT.\n  11 MY STUDY WINDOWS.\n  12 THE ENGLISH POETS.\n  13 THE BIGLOW PAPERS.\n  14 GREAT ENGLISH PAINTERS.\n  15 LORD BYRON\u2019S LETTERS.\n  16 ESSAYS BY LEIGH HUNT.\n  17 LONGFELLOW\u2019S PROSE.\n  18 GREAT MUSICAL COMPOSERS.\n  19 MARCUS AURELIUS.\n  20 TEACHING OF EPICTETUS.\n  21 SENECA\u2019S MORALS.\n  22 SPECIMEN DAYS IN AMERICA.\n  23 DEMOCRATIC VISTAS.\n  24 WHITE\u2019S SELBORNE.\n  25 DEFOE\u2019S SINGLETON.\n  26 MAZZINI\u2019S ESSAYS.\n  27 PROSE WRITINGS OF HEINE.\n  28 REYNOLDS\u2019 DISCOURSES.\n  29 PAPERS OF STEELE AND ADDISON.\n  30 BURNS\u2019S LETTERS.\n  31 VOLSUNGA SAGA.\n  32 SARTOR RESARTUS.\n  33 WRITINGS OF EMERSON.\n  34 LIFE OF LORD HERBERT.\n  35 ENGLISH PROSE.\n  36 IBSEN\u2019S PILLARS OF SOCIETY.\n  37 IRISH FAIRY AND FOLK TALES.\n  38 ESSAYS OF DR. JOHNSON.\n  39 ESSAYS OF WILLIAM HAZLITT.\n  40 LANDOR\u2019S PENTAMERON, &c.\n  41 POE\u2019S TALES AND ESSAYS.\n  42 VICAR OF WAKEFIELD.\n  43 POLITICAL ORATIONS.\n  44 AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE.\n  45 POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE.\n  46 PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE.\n  47 CHESTERFIELD\u2019S LETTERS.\n  48 STORIES FROM CARLETON.\n  49 JANE EYRE.\n  50 ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND.\n  51 WRITINGS OF THOMAS DAVIS.\n  52 SPENCE\u2019S ANECDOTES.\n  53 MORE\u2019S UTOPIA.\n  54 SADI\u2019S GULISTAN.\n  55 ENGLISH FAIRY TALES.\n  56 NORTHERN STUDIES.\n  57 FAMOUS REVIEWS.\n  58 ARISTOTLE\u2019S ETHICS.\n  59 PERICLES AND ASPASIA.\n  60 ANNALS OF TACITUS.\n  61 ESSAYS OF ELIA.\n  62 BALZAC.\n  63 DE MUSSET\u2019S COMEDIES.\n  64 CORAL REEFS.\n  65 SHERIDAN\u2019S PLAYS.\n  66 OUR VILLAGE.\n  67 MASTER HUMPHREY\u2019S CLOCK.\n  68 TALES FROM WONDERLAND.\n  69 JERROLD\u2019S ESSAYS.\n  70 THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN.\n  71 \u201cTHE ATHENIAN ORACLE.\u201d\n  72 ESSAYS OF SAINTE-BEUVE.\n  73 SELECTIONS FROM PLATO.\n  74 HEINE\u2019S TRAVEL SKETCHES.\n  75 MAID OF ORLEANS.\n  76 SYDNEY SMITH.\n  77 THE NEW SPIRIT.\n  78 MALORY\u2019S BOOK OF MARVELLOUS ADVENTURES.\n  79 HELPS\u2019 ESSAYS & APHORISMS.\n  80 ESSAYS OF MONTAIGNE.\n  81 THACKERAY\u2019S BARRY LYNDON.\n  82 SCHILLER\u2019S WILLIAM TELL.\n  83 CARLYLE\u2019S GERMAN ESSAYS.\n  84 LAMB\u2019S ESSAYS.\n  85 WORDSWORTH\u2019S PROSE.\n  86 LEOPARDI\u2019S DIALOGUES.\n  87 THE INSPECTOR-GENERAL.\n  88 BACON\u2019S ESSAYS.\n  89 PROSE OF MILTON.\n  90 PLATO\u2019S REPUBLIC.\n  91 PASSAGES FROM FROISSART.\n  92 PROSE OF COLERIDGE.\n  93 HEINE IN ART AND LETTERS.\n  94 ESSAYS OF DE QUINCEY.\n  95 VASARI\u2019S LIVES OF ITALIAN PAINTERS.\n  96 LESSING\u2019S LAOCOON.\n  97 PLAYS OF MAETERLINCK.\n  98 WALTON\u2019S COMPLETE ANGLER.\n  99 LESSING\u2019S NATHAN THE WISE.\n\nMay be had in the following Bindings:--Cloth, uncut edges, gilt top, 1s.\n6d.; Half-Morocco, gilt top, antique; Red Roan, gilt edges, etc.\n\n\nLondon: WALTER SCOTT, LIMITED, Paternoster Square.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n_WALTER SCOTT\u2019S NEW BOOKS._\n\n\nTHE CANTERBURY POETS.\n\nNEW VOLUME.\n\nSquare 8vo, cloth, 1s.; Gravure edition, with Frontispiece Portrait of\nMATTHEW ARNOLD in Photogravure, price 2s.\n\nTHE STRAYED REVELLER, EMPEDOCLES ON ETNA, AND\nOTHER POEMS.\n\nBy MATTHEW ARNOLD,\n\nWITH AN INTRODUCTION BY WILLIAM SHARP.\n\n     _The text of Arnold\u2019s 1849 Volume_ (THE STRAYED REVELLER) _and of\n     his 1852 Volume_ (EMPEDOCLES ON ETNA) _is reproduced, the original\n     arrangement of the Poems being preserved. To these are added the\n     Poems of Arnold\u2019s 1853 Volume not contained in the two previous\n     Volumes. The_ \u201cCANTERBURY POETS\u201d _edition will thus present a\n     comprehensive collection of the highest literary interest and value\n     of Arnold\u2019s Poems in their original renderings, the early editions\n     being now very rare and almost unprocurable. The interesting\n     Preface which Arnold contributed to the 1853 Edition of his Poems\n     appears as an Appendix to the Volume._\n\nGREAT WRITERS.\n\nCrown 8vo, Cloth, Gilt Top, price 1s. 6d. Library Edition, printed on Large\nPaper of extra quality, in handsome Binding, Demy 8vo, price 2s. 6d.\n\n\nNEW VOLUME.\n\nLIFE OF THOREAU. BY H. S. SALT.\n\nWith a Bibliography by J. P. ANDERSON, of the British Museum.\n\n\nCOMPLETION OF THIRD AND LAST VOLUME.\n\nDRAMATIC ESSAYS.\n\nEDITED BY WILLIAM ARCHER AND ROBERT W. LOWE.\n\nThree Vols., Crown 8vo, Cloth, Price 3s. 6d. per Vol., each with a Frontispiece\nPortrait in Photogravure.\n\nTHE SET SUPPLIED IN CASE TO MATCH, PRICE 10S. 6D.\n\nCrown 8vo, Cloth, 3s. 6d. Third Volume now ready.\n\n\nDRAMATIC ESSAYS.\n\nEdited by William Archer and Robert W. Lowe.\n\nVOL. I. _With a Frontispiece Portrait in Photogravure of Leigh Hunt._\n\n     The First Series contains the criticisms of LEIGH HUNT, both those\n     collected by himself in 1807 (long out of print), and the admirable\n     articles contributed more than twenty years ago to _The Tatler_,\n     and never republished.\n\nVOL. II. _With a Frontispiece Portrait in Photogravure of Hazlitt._\n\n     The Second Series contains the criticisms of WILLIAM HAZLITT.\n     Hazlitt\u2019s Essays on Kean and his contemporaries have long been\n     inaccessible, save to collectors.\n\nVOL. III. _With a Frontispiece Portrait in Photogravure of George Henry\nLewes._\n\n     This Volume contains hitherto uncollected criticisms by JOHN\n     FORSTER, GEORGE HENRY LEWES, and Selections from the writings of\n     WILLIAM ROBSON (The Old Playgoer).\n\n\nEACH VOLUME IS COMPLETE IN ITSELF.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nALL ROUND CYCLING.\n\nFoolscap 8vo, Cloth Gilt, Price 2s. 6d.\n\n_Contributions by G. Lacy Hillier, Sir B. W. Richardson, etc., etc._\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n     Chapter I.--THE MODERN CYCLE. By G. Lacy Hillier, Author of\n     \u201cCycling,\u201d in the Badminton Library.\n\n     Chapter II.--CYCLING AND HEALTH. By Sir B. W. Richardson,\n     President, Society of Cyclists.\n\n     Chapter III.--CYCLING FOR LADIES. By C. Everett-Green, Author of \u201cA\n     Great Indiscretion,\u201d etc.\n\n     Chapter IV.--THE CAMERA AND THE CYCLE. By L. Rivers Vine.\n\n     Chapter V.--RACING. By G. Lacy Hillier.\n\n     Chapter VI.--A CYCLIST\u2019S HOBBIES: FISHING, NATURAL HISTORY,\n     ARCH\u00c6OLOGY. By John Watson, F.L.S., Author of \u201cSylvan Folk,\u201d\n     \u201cNature and Woodcraft,\u201d etc.\n\n     Chapter VII.--A MODEL CYCLING TOUR: 1. THROUGH ENGLAND ON MY CYCLE.\n     By Sir B. W. Richardson.\n\n     Chapter VIII.--A MODEL CYCLING TOUR: 2. IN NORMANDY. By Percy A.\n     Thomas, B.A.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n_TOLSTOY\u2019S GREAT MASTERPIECE._\n\nNEW EDITION OF ANNA KAR\u00c9NINA.\n\nLarge Crown 8vo, Cloth Elegant, with Ten Illustrations by Paul Fr\u00e9nzeny, and a\nFrontispiece Portrait of Count Tolstoy in Photogravure. Price 3s. 6d.\n\n\nANNA KAR\u00c9NINA.\n\nA NOVEL. BY COUNT TOLSTOY.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTHE NEW LAUREATE.\n\nA New Edition, with a Frontispiece Portrait of Mr. Austin in Photogravure, elegantly\nbound in Art Linen, Price 2s., Square 8vo. May also be had in Cloth, Cut Edges,\nPrice 1s. (uniform with the \u201cCanterbury Poets\u201d).\n\n\nDAYS OF THE YEAR.\n\nA POETIC CALENDAR FROM THE WORKS OF\n\nALFRED AUSTIN.\n\nSelected and Edited by A. S. With an Introduction by WILLIAM SHARP.\n\n\n_THIRD YEAR OF ISSUE._\n\nCrown 8vo, Paper Boards, Half-Antique, Price 3s. 6d.\n\nTHE THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1895.\n\nBY WILLIAM ARCHER.\n\nWith a Prefatory Letter by ARTHUR W. PINERO, an Epilogue by WILLIAM\nARCHER, and a Synopsis of Playbills of 1895 by HENRY GEORGE HIBBERT.\n\n_May still be obtained, uniform with the above, Price 3s. 6d. per vol._\n\n     THE THEATRICAL WORLD FOR 1893. By WILLIAM ARCHER, with an Epistle\n     Dedicatory to Robert W. Lowe.\n\n     THE THEATRICAL WORLD OF 1894. By WILLIAM ARCHER, with an\n     Introduction by G. BERNARD SHAW, an Epilogue by the Author, and a\n     Synopsis of Playbills of 1894 by HENRY GEORGE HIBBERT.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTHE CANTERBURY POETS.\n\nEDITED BY WILLIAM SHARP. IN 1/-MONTHLY VOLUMES.\n\nCloth, Cut and Uncut Edges, 1s.; Red Roan, Gilt Edges, 2s. 6d.;\nPad. Morocco, Gilt Edges, 5s.\n\nA SUPERIOR EDITION BOUND IN ART LINEN, WITH\nPHOTOGRAVURE FRONTISPIECE. PRICE 2s.\n\n\n  1 CHRISTIAN YEAR\n  2 COLERIDGE\n  3 LONGFELLOW\n  4 CAMPBELL\n  5 SHELLEY\n  6 WORDSWORTH\n  7 BLAKE\n  8 WHITTIER\n  9 POE\n  10 CHATTERTON\n  11 BURNS. Songs\n  12 BURNS. Poems\n  13 MARLOWE\n  14 KEATS\n  15 HERBERT\n  16 HUGO\n  17 COWPER\n  18 SHAKESPEARE\u2019S POEMS, etc.\n  19 EMERSON\n  20 SONNETS OF THIS CENTURY\n  21 WHITMAN\n  22 SCOTT. Lady of the Lake, etc.\n  23 SCOTT. Marmion, etc.\n  24 PRAED\n  25 HOGG\n  26 GOLDSMITH\n  27 LOVE LETTERS, etc.\n  28 SPENSER\n  29 CHILDREN OF THE POETS\n  30 JONSON\n  31 BYRON. Miscellaneous.\n  32 BYRON. Don Juan.\n  33 THE SONNETS OF EUROPE\n  34 RAMSAY\n  35 DOBELL\n  36 POPE\n  37 HEINE\n  38 BEAUMONT & FLETCHER\n  39 BOWLES, LAMB, etc.\n  40 SEA MUSIC\n  41 EARLY ENGLISH POETRY\n  42 HERRICK\n  43 BALLADES AND RONDEAUS\n  44 IRISH MINSTRELSY\n  45 MILTON\u2019S PARADISE LOST\n  46 JACOBITE BALLADS\n  47 DAYS OF THE YEAR\n  48 AUSTRALIAN BALLADS\n  49 MOORE\n  50 BORDER BALLADS\n  51 SONG-TIDE\n  52 ODES OF HORACE\n  53 OSSIAN\n  54 FAIRY MUSIC\n  55 SOUTHEY\n  56 CHAUCER\n  57 GOLDEN TREASURY\n  58 POEMS OF WILD LIFE\n  59 PARADISE REGAINED\n  60 CRABBE\n  61 DORA GREENWELL\n  62 FAUST\n  63 AMERICAN SONNETS\n  64 LANDOR\u2019S POEMS\n  65 GREEK ANTHOLOGY\n  66 HUNT AND HOOD\n  67 HUMOROUS POEMS\n  68 LYTTON\u2019S PLAYS\n  69 GREAT ODES\n  70 MEREDITH\u2019S POEMS\n  71 IMITATION OF CHRIST\n  72 UNCLE TOBY BIRTHDAY BK\n  73 PAINTER-POETS\n  74 WOMEN POETS\n  75 LOVE LYRICS\n  76 AMERICAN HUMOROUS VERSE.\n  77 MINOR SCOTCH LYRICS\n  78 CAVALIER LYRISTS\n  79 GERMAN BALLADS\n  80 SONGS OF BERANGER\n  81 RODEN NOEL\u2019S POEMS\n  82 SONGS OF FREEDOM\n  83 CANADIAN POEMS\n  84 CONTEMPORARY SCOTTISH VERSE\n  85 POEMS OF NATURE.\n  86 CRADLE SONGS.\n  87 BALLADS OF SPORT.\n  88 MATTHEW ARNOLD.\n\nLondon: WALTER SCOTT, LIMITED, Paternoster Square.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n [1] Magnan, _Annales M\u00e9dico-Psychologiques_, 1887; Lombroso, _Tre\n Tribuni_, pp. 3-9, 16-23, 148-150; Saury, _\u00c9tudes Cliniques sur la\n Folie H\u00e9r\u00e9ditaire_, 1886.\n\n [2] _Psychologie du G\u00e9nie_, 1883.\n\n [3] De Renzis, _L\u2019opera d\u2019un Pazzo_, 1887.\n\n [4] _Revue des Deux Mondes_, 1886.\n\n [5] _De Pronost._, i. p. 7.\n\n [6] _Problemata_, sect. xxx.\n\n [7] Horace, _Ars Poet._, 296-297.\n\n [8] _Observationes in Hom. Affect._, 1641, lib. 10, p. 305. More\n singular examples in Italy were collected by F. Gazoni, in the\n _Hospitale dei folli incurabili_, 1620.\n\n [9] Diderot, _Dictionnaire Encyclop\u00e9dique_.\n\n [10] _I Mattoidi e il Monumente a Vittorio Emanuele_, 1885.\n\n [11] Magnan, _Annales M\u00e9dico-psych._, 1887; D\u00e9jerine, _L\u2019H\u00e9r\u00e9dit\u00e9 dans\n les Maladies Mentales_, 1886; Ireland, _The Blot upon the Brain_, 1885.\n\n [12] _I Caratteri dei Delinquenti_, 1886, Turin.\n\n [13] _M\u00e9d. de l\u2019Esprit_, ii.\n\n [14] Lamartine, _Cours de Litt\u00e9rature_, ii.\n\n [15] _Revue Britannique_, 1884.\n\n [16] Canesterini, _Il Cranio di Fusinieri_, 1875.\n\n [17] Plutarch, _Life of Pericles_, iii.\n\n [18] Kupfer, \u201cDer Sch\u00e4del Kants,\u201d in _Arch. f\u00fcr Anth._, 1881.\n\n [19] Welcker, _Schiller\u2019s Sch\u00e4del_, 1883.\n\n [20] Mantegazza, _Sul Cranio di Foscolo_, Florence, 1880.\n\n [21] Turner, _Quarterly Journal of Science_, 1864.\n\n [22] De Quatrefages, _Crania Ethnica_, Part i. p. 30.\n\n [23] Zoja, _La Testa di Scarpa_, 1880.\n\n [24] _Sul Cranio di Volta_, 1879, Turin.\n\n [25] Welcker, _Schiller\u2019s Sch\u00e4del_, 1883.\n\n [26] _Revue Scientifique_, 1882.\n\n [27] Wagner (_Das Hirngewicht_, 1877) gives these measurements of\n scientific men of Gottingen:--\n\nDirichlet    Mathematician    Age 54    1520 g.\nFuchs        Physician         \u201c  52    1499 g.\nGauss        Mathematician     \u201c  78    1492 g.\nHermann      Philologist       \u201c  51    1358 g.\nHausmann     Mineralogist      \u201c  77    1226 g.\n\n Bischoff (_Hirngewichte bei M\u00fcnchener Gelehrten_) gives the following\n measurements:--\n\nHermann           Geometrician    Age 60    1590 g.\nPfeufer           Physician        \u201c  60    1488 g.\nBischoff          Physician        \u201c  79    1452 g.\nMelchior Meyer    Poet             \u201c  61    1415 g.\nArnoldi           Orientalist      \u201c  85    1730 g.\nThackeray         Novelist         \u201c  52    1660 g.\nAbercrombie       Physician        \u201c  64    1780 g.\nCuvier            Naturalist       \u201c  63    1829 g.\nDoell             Arch\u00e6ologist     \u201c  85    1650 g.\nSchiller          Poet             \u201c  46    1580 g.\nHuber             Philosopher      \u201c  47    1499 g.\nFallmerayer       Historian        \u201c  74    1349 g.\nLiebig            Chemist          \u201c  70    1352 g.\nTiedemann         Physiologist     \u201c  79    1254 g.\nHarless           Chemist          \u201c  40    1238 g.\nD\u00f6llinger         Physiologist     \u201c  71    1207 g.\n\n The measurement of the cerebral area often gives superiority even to\n those men of genius who present a feeble weight. Fuchs had a cerebral\n surface of 22,1005 square c. and Gauss of 21,9588; while with the\n same weight the same surface in an unknown woman was 20,4115 and in a\n workman 18,7672.\n\n [28] _Bulletin de la Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 d\u2019Anthropologie_, 1861.\n\n [29] _Die tiefen Windungen des Menschenhirnes_, 1877.\n\n [30] Mendel, _Centralblatt_, No. 4, 1884.\n\n [31] _Ein Beitrag zur Anatomie der Affenspalte und der Interparietal\n Furche beim Menschen nach Rasse, Geschlecht, und Individualit\u00e4t_, 1886.\n\n [32] _Bulletin de la Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 d\u2019Anthropologie_, 1886, p. 135.\n\n [33] _La Circonvolution de Broca_, Paris, 1888.\n\n [34] _Vorstudien, &c._, 1st Memoir, 1860.\n\n [35] _Le Cerveau et la Pens\u00e9e_, t. ii. p. 46.\n\n [36] Gallichon in _Gazette des Beaux Arts_, 1867.\n\n [37] Lombroso, _Sul Mancinismo motorio e sensorio nei sani e negli\n alienati_, 1885, Turin.\n\n [38] Essay VII., _Of Parents and Children_.\n\n [39] _Lettres \u00e0 Georges Sand_, Paris, 1885.\n\n [40] Destouches, _Philos. Mari\u00e9s_.\n\n [41] Beard, _American Nervousness_, 1887; Cancellieri, _Intorno\n Uomini dotati di gran memoria_, 1715; Klefeker, _Biblioth. eruditorum\n procacium_, Hamburg, 1717; Baillet, _De pr\u00e6cocibus eruditis_, 1715.\n\n [42] Savage, _Moral Insanity_, 1886.\n\n [43] Guy de Maupassant, _\u00c9tude sur Gustave Flaubert_, Paris, 1885.\n\n [44] _Revue des Deux Mondes_, 1883, p. 92.\n\n [45] _Revue Bleue_, 1887, p. 17.\n\n [46] _Darwin\u2019s Life_, 1887.\n\n [47] _Genie und Talent._\n\n [48] Fischer, _\u00c6sthetik_, ii. 1, p. 386.\n\n [49] \u201cI am one who, when Love inspires, attend, and according as he\n speaks within me, so I express myself.\u201d\n\n [50] Schilling, _Psychiat. Briefe_, p. 486.\n\n [51] Ball, _Le\u00e7ons des Maladies Mentales_, 1881.\n\n [52] Radestock, p. 42.\n\n [53] _Apologia._\n\n [54] Letter of April 20, 1752.\n\n [55] Verga, _Lazzaretti_, 1880.\n\n [56] R\u00e9veill\u00e9-Parise, p. 285.\n\n [57] Arago, _\u0152uvres_, iii.\n\n [58] _Kreislauf des Lebens_, Brief. xviii.\n\n [59] Dilthey, _Ueber Einbildungskraft der Dichter_, 1887.\n\n [60] Lazzaretti, _op. cit._, 1880.\n\n [61] _Des Hallucinations_, p. 30. Recent investigations in hypnotism\n show that the hallucination often has the character of real sensation;\n that, for example, visual suggestions may be modified by lenses. See\n my _Nuove Studii sull\u2019 ipnotismo_.\n\n [62] _Studi Critici_, Naples, 1880, p. 95.\n\n [63] _Souvenirs_, p. 73, Paris, 1883.\n\n [64] _Confessions d\u2019un Enfant du Si\u00e8cle_, pp. 218, 251.\n\n [65] Introduction to _Essai sur les M\u0153urs_.\n\n [66] _Si\u00e8cle de Louis XIV._, 1.\n\n [67] _Dictionnaire Philosophique_, art. Climat.\n\n [68] _Tagebuch_, ii. p. 120.\n\n [69] _Paradoxe sur le Com\u00e9dien._\n\n [70] Noise had become an obsession to Jules de Goncourt, says his\n brother Edmund, in a note to the former\u2019s _Lettres_: \u201cIt seemed to\n him that he had \u2018an ear in the pit of his stomach,\u2019 and indeed noise\n had taken, and continued to take as his illness increased, as it\n were in some _f\u00e9erie_ at once absurd and fatal, the character of a\n persecution of the things and surroundings of his life.... During\n the last years of his life he suffered from noise as from a brutal\n physical touch.... This persecution by noise led my brother to sketch\n a gloomy story during his nightly insomnia.... In this story a man\n was eternally pursued by noise, and leaves the rooms he had rented,\n the houses he had bought, the forests in which he had camped, forests\n like Fontainebleau, from which he is driven by the hunter\u2019s horn, the\n interior of the pyramids, in which he was deafened by the crickets,\n always seeking silence, and at last killing himself for the sake of\n the silence of supreme repose, and not finding it then, for the noise\n of the worms in his grave prevented him from sleeping. Oh, noise,\n noise, noise! I can no longer bear to hear the birds. I begin to cry\n to them like D\u00e9bureau to the nightingale, \u2018Will you not be still, vile\n beast?\u2019\u201d (_Lettres de Jules de Goncourt_, Paris, 1885.)\n\n [71] _\u00c9tude sur Gustave Flaubert_, Paris, 1885.\n\n [72] Among the fragments that have been preserved some are of great\n sweetness:--\n\n    \u201c_Quanto fu dolce il giogo e la catena_\n    _De\u2019 suoi candidi bracci al col mio volte,_\n    _Che sciogliendomi io sento mortal pena;_\n    _D\u2019altre cose non dico che son molte,_\n    _Ch\u00e8 soverchia dolcezza a morte mena._\u201d\n\n\n [73] Mantegazza, _Del Nervosismo dei grandi uomini_, 1881.\n\n [74] _Journal des Savants_, Oct., 1863.\n\n [75] _Epistolario_, v. 3, p. 163.\n\n [76] Vicq d\u2019Azir, _Elog._, p. 209.\n\n [77] _Physiologie des G\u00e9nies_, 1875.\n\n [78] _Science et Mat\u00e9rialisme_, 1890, p. 103.\n\n [79] Brewster, _Life_, 1856.\n\n [80] _Revue Scientifique_, 1888.\n\n [81] Michiels, _Le Monde du Comique_, 1886.\n\n [82] R\u00e9veill\u00e9-Parise, _op. cit._\n\n [83] Perez, _L\u2019enfant de trois \u00e0 sept ans_, 1886.\n\n [84] Scherer, _Diderot_, 1880.\n\n [85] _Ueber die Verwandtschaft des Genies mit dem Irrsinn_, 1887.\n\n [86] Bertolotti, _Il Testamento di Cardano_, 1883.\n\n [87] G. Flaubert, _Lettres \u00e0 Georges Sand_, Paris, 1885.\n\n [88] Delepierre, _Histoire Litt\u00e9raire des fous_, Paris, 1860.\n\n [89] R\u00e9veill\u00e9-Parise, _Physiologie et Hygi\u00e8ne des hommes livr\u00e9s aux\n travaux de l\u2019esprit_, Paris, 1856.\n\n [90] Mantegazza, _Physiognomy and Expression_.\n\n [91] Arago, ii. p. 82.\n\n [92] Plutarch, _Life, &c._\n\n [93] Radestock, _op. cit._\n\n [94] Moreau, _op. cit._, p. 523.\n\n [95] _Correspondance_, p. 119, 1887.\n\n [96] _Memorie dell Istituto Lombardo_, 1878.\n\n [97] Letter to Giordani, Aug., 1817.\n\n [98] _Sette Anni di Sodalizio._\n\n [99] B. de Boismont, _op. cit._ p. 265.\n\n [100] Hagen, _Ueber die Verwandtschaft, &c._, 1877.\n\n [101] Roger, _Voltaire Malade_, 1883.\n\n [102] G. Sand, _Histoire de Ma Vie_, 9.\n\n [103] Berti, p. 154.\n\n [104] Berti, _Cavour Avanti il_ 1848, Rome; Mayor, in _Archivo di\n Psichiatria_, vol. iv.\n\n [105] Mayor, _op. cit._\n\n [106] _Autobiography._\n\n [107] _Autobiography_, p. 145.\n\n [108] Von Sedlitz, _Schopenhauer_, 1872.\n\n [109] _Letters_, 1885.\n\n [110] _Histoire de Ma Vie_, v. p. 9.\n\n [111] G. Sand, _op. cit._\n\n [112] _De Immenso et innumerat._, iii.\n\n [113] G. Menke, _De ciarlataneria eruditorum_, 1780.\n\n [114] _Revue des Deux Mondes_, 1883.\n\n [115] _Letters_, p. 62.\n\n [116] _Ibid._, pp. 62, 119, 123.\n\n [117] G. Sforza, _Epistolario di A. Manzoni_, Milan, 1883.\n\n [118] _Epistolario_, 3, p. 163.\n\n [119] _Correspondance_, p. 119. 1887.\n\n [120] _Journal de ma vie intime._\n\n [121] _Souvenirs d\u2019Enfance et de Jeunesse._\n\n [122] Amiel, _Journal Intime_, Geneva, 2nd ed., 1889.\n\n [123] Cl\u00e9ment, _Musiciens c\u00e9l\u00e8bres_, Paris, 1868.\n\n [124] W. Irving, _Life_, 1880.\n\n [125] Verga, _Lazzaretti,&c._, Milan, 1880.\n\n [126] Forbes Winslow, _op. cit._, p. 123.\n\n [127] Forbes Winslow, _op. cit._, p. 126.\n\n [128] _Works_, vol. xxvi. p. 83.\n\n [129] Dendy, _op. cit._, p. 41.\n\n [130] _Correspondance_, vol. ii. letter 9.\n\n [131] _De Factis Dictisque Memorabilibus_, Lib. vi. Cap. 9.\n\n [132] Tertullian, _Apologetica_, p. 46. But see _A. Gellii Noctes\n Attic\u00e6_, x. p. 17.\n\n [133] _Wiederbelebung des Klassisch, Altert._, 1882.\n\n [134] Pouchet, _Histoire des Sciences Naturelles dans le Moyen Age_,\n 1870.\n\n [135] Masi, _La vita ed i tempi di Albergati_, 1882.\n\n [136] Laura had eleven children and Petrarch himself two when he\n dedicated to her 294 sonnets. In politics he turned from Cola di\n Rienzi to his enemy Colonna and from Robert to Charles IV. (_Famil_,\n xix. 1. p. 32). He was too much occupied with himself, says Perrens,\n to be occupied with his country.\n\n [137] _Lettres \u00e0 G. Sand_, 1885.\n\n [138] _Revue Philosophique_, 1887, p. 69.\n\n [139] _Confessions d\u2019un Enfant du Si\u00e8cle_, pp. 250, 251.\n\n [140] Cottrau, _Lettre d\u2019un M\u00e9lomane_, Naples, 1885.\n\n [141] Matthew x. 34-36; Luke xii. 51-53.\n\n [142] Luke xii. 49. See the Greek text.\n\n [143] Luke xviii. 29-30.\n\n [144] Luke xiv. 26.\n\n [145] Matthew x. 37, xvi. 24; Luke v. 23.\n\n [146] Matthew viii. 21; Luke v. 23.\n\n [147] Fiorentino, _La Musica_, Rome, 1884.\n\n [148] _L\u2019Uomo Delinquente_, 1889.\n\n [149] Mastriani, _Sul Genio e la Follia_, Naples, 1881.\n\n [150] _Tra un Sigaro e l\u2019altro_, p. 194.\n\n [151] Max. du Camp, _Souvenirs_, 1884.\n\n [152] Schilling, _Psychiatr. Briefe._, p. 488, 1863.\n\n [153] Zimmermann, _Solitude_.\n\n [154] _Tagebuch_, 1787, Berne.\n\n [155] _Sketches of Bedlam_, 1823.\n\n [156] _Biographie_, by Wasielewski, Dresden, 1858.\n\n [157] Maxime du Camp, _Souvenirs litt\u00e9raires_, 1887.\n\n [158] Bruneti\u00e8re, _Revue des Deux Mondes_, 1887, No. 706. _Revue\n Bleue_, July, 1887.\n\n [159] Maxime du Camp, _Souvenirs litt\u00e9raires_.\n\n [160] \u201cA une Heure du Matin,\u201d in _Petits Po\u00e8mes en Prose_.\n\n [161] Bufalini, _Vita di Concato_, 1884.\n\n [162] _Revue Philosophique_, 1886.\n\n [163] Littr\u00e9, _A. Comte et la Phil. Posit._, 1863.\n\n [164] W. de Fonvielle, _Comment se font les Miracles_, 1879.\n\n [165] _De Vita propria_, ch. 45.\n\n [166] Byron said, also, that intermittent fevers came at last to be\n agreeable to him, on account of the pleasant sensation that followed\n the cessation of pain.\n\n [167] \u201cOne day I thought I heard very sweet harmonies in a dream. I\n awoke, and I found I had resolved the question of fevers: why some\n are lethal and others not--a question which had troubled me for\n twenty-five years\u201d (_De Somniis_, c. iv.).\n\n \u201cIn a dream there came to me the suggestion to write this book,\n divided into exactly twenty-one parts; and I experienced such pleasure\n in my condition and in the subtlety of these reasonings as I had never\n experienced before\u201d (_De Subtilitate_, lib. xviii. p. 915).\n\n [168] \u201cJewels in sleep are symbolical of sons, of unexpected things,\n of joy also; because in Italian _gioire_ means \u2018to enjoy\u2019 (_De\n Somniis_, cap. 21; _De Subtilitate_, p. 338).\n\n [169] Buttrini, _Girolamo Cardano_, Savona, 1884.\n\n [170] Bertolotti (_I Testamenti di Cardano_, 1888) has shown that this\n legend has no foundation.\n\n [171] \u201cI shall live in the midst of my torments, and among the cares\n that are my just furies, wild and wandering; I shall fear dark and\n solitary shades, which will bring before me my first fault; and I\n shall have in horror and disgust the face of the sun which discovered\n my misfortunes; I shall fear myself, and, for ever fleeing from\n myself, I shall never escape.\u201d\n\n [172] Brewster\u2019s _Memoirs of Sir I. Newton_, vol. ii. p. 100.\n\n [173] Brewster\u2019s _Memoirs of Sir I. Newton_, vol. ii. p. 94.\n\n [174] _Dialogues_, i.\n\n [175] _Dialogues_, ii.\n\n [176] Bugeault, _\u00c9tude sur l\u2019\u00e9tat mental de Rousseau_, 1876, p. 123.\n\n [177] _Revue Philosophique_, 1883.\n\n [178] Schurz, _Lenaus Werke_, vol. i. p. 275.\n\n [179] Kecskemetky, _S. Sz\u00e9ch\u00e9nys staatsm\u00e4nn_. _Laufbahn_, &c., Pesth,\n 1866.\n\n [180] Costanzo, _Follia anomale_, Palermo, 1876.\n\n [181] Gwinner, _Schopenhauers Leben_, 1878; Ribot, _La Philosophie de\n Schopenhauer_, 1885; Carl von Sedlitz, _Schopenhauer vom Medizinischen\n Standpunkt_, Dorpat, 1872.\n\n [182] Gwinner, p. 26.\n\n [183] _Memorabilien_, ii. p. 332.\n\n [184] _Parerga_, ii. p. 38.\n\n [185] _Pensiero e Meteore_ in Biblioteca Scientifica Internazionale,\n Milan, 1878; _Azione degli Astri e delle Meteore sulla mente Umana_,\n Milan, 1871.\n\n [186] Quetelet, _Physique Sociale_, Book iv. ch. i.\n\n [187] Mantegazza, _op. cit._\n\n [188] E. Neville, _Maine de Biran, Sa Vie_, &c., p. 129, 1854.\n\n [189] _Revue Bleue_, 1888, No. 9.\n\n [190] _Viaggio in Sicilia_, vol. vii.\n\n [191] _Epistolario_, 1878.\n\n [192] _Nature_, Nov. 1883.\n\n [193] R\u00e9veill\u00e9-Parise, _Physiologie des hommes livr\u00e9s aux travaux de\n l\u2019esprit_, pp. 352-355.\n\n [194] Giussani, _Vita_, &c., p. 188.\n\n [195] _Epistolario_, p. 395.\n\n [196] Lebin, _Sur l\u2019\u00e9poque de la composition de la Vita Nuova_, p. 28.\n\n [197] _Life and Letters_, vol. i. p. 51.\n\n [198] Stopfer, _Vie de Sterne_, Paris, 1870.\n\n [199] Goethe, _Aus Meinem Leben_.\n\n [200] Zanolini, _Rossini_, 1876.\n\n [201] Cl\u00e9ment, _Les Musiciens C\u00e9l\u00e8bres_, Paris, 1878.\n\n [202] Alborghetti, _Vita di Donizetti_, 1876.\n\n [203] D\u2019Este, _Memorie su Canova_, 1864.\n\n [204] Gotti, _Vita di Michelangelo_, Florence, 1873.\n\n [205] Milanesi, _Lettere di Michelangelo_, Florence, 1875.\n\n [206] Amoretti, _Memorie storiche sulla vita e gli studi di Leonardo\n da Vinci_, Milan, 1874.\n\n [207] W. Irving, _Columbus_, vol. i. p. 819; Roselly de Lorque, _Vie\n de Colomb._, 1857.\n\n [208] According to Secchi (_Soleil_, 1875) Scheiner preceded Galileo,\n and was himself preceded by Fabricio, though the discovery of this\n last was not known until a later date.\n\n [209] Galilei, _Opere_, vol. i. p. 69.\n\n [210] Arago, _\u0152uvres_, 1851.\n\n [211] H\u0153fer, _op. cit._\n\n [212] Herschel, _Outlines of Astronomy_, 1874.\n\n [213] Arago, _Notices Biographiques_, 1855.\n\n [214] Atti, _Della Vita di Malpighi_, 1774.\n\n [215] H\u0153fer, _Histoire de la Chimie_, 1869.\n\n [216] _Briefe an Schiller._\n\n [217] Gherardi, _Rapporti sui Manoscritti di Galvani_, 1839.\n\n [218] Schiaparelli, _Intorno Alcune Lettere inedite di Lagrange_, 1877.\n\n [219] Humboldt, _Correspondance_, Paris, 1868.\n\n [220] _Letters from Humboldt to Varnhagen._\n\n [221] Arago, _Notices Biographiques_, 1855.\n\n [222] Whewell, _History of the Inductive Sciences_, 1857.\n\n [223] N. Bianchi, _Vita di Matteucci_, Florence, 1874.\n\n [224] The catalogue of small planets has been drawn from the _Annuaire\n du Bureau des Longitudes_ (Paris, 1877-8). The list of comets has\n been taken from Carl\u2019s _Repertorium der Cometen Astronomie_ (Munich,\n 1864). It begins with the comet discovered by Hevelius in 1672, and\n ends with that found by Donati on the 23rd of July, 1864; Gambart\u2019s\n comets, already separately enumerated, have been excluded. To keep\n the conditions analogous to those of the small planets, all the\n comets to which Carl does not assign a discoverer, have been omitted;\n this includes such as were expected from previous calculations or\n perceived with the naked eye by the general population. All those\n that were discovered simultaneously by several observers, unknown to\n one another, have, however, been included, for it is not a question\n of priority, but of the psychological moment of the discovery. Three\n comets discovered in the months of February, May, and December, were\n found in the southern hemisphere; they must, therefore, with reference\n to season be registered as for August, November, and June, and have so\n been counted.\n\n [225] Atti, _Della Vita ed opere di Malpighi_, Bologna, 1774.\n\n [226] _History of Civilisation_, i.\n\n [227] _\u00c9tudes sur la Selection_, &c., Paris, 1881.\n\n [228] _Biographie Universelle des Musiciens_, Paris, 1868-80.\n\n [229] _Histoire des Musiciens C\u00e9l\u00e8bres_, Paris, 1878.\n\n [230] _Dizionario dei Pittori_, 1858.\n\n [231]\n\nNaples        216\nRome          127\nVenice        124\nMilan          95\nBologna        91\nFlorence       70\nLucca          37\nParma          34\nGenoa          30\nTurin          27\nVerona         24\nBrescia        22\nMantua         19\nModena         19\nCremona        17\nPalermo        17\nNovara         17\nBergamo        16\nBari           16\nFerrara        15\nPadua          15\nPisa           13\nReggio         12\nPiacenza       11\nSiena               10\nRavenna             10\nVicenza             10\nPerugia              9\nPesaro               9\nAlessandria          8\nTreviso              8\nCatania              7\nArezzo               6\nLecce                6\nComo                 5\nAncona               5\nUdine                5\nMacerata             5\nCaserta              4\nLivorno              3\nForl\u00ec                3\nMessina              3\nRovigo               3\nChieti               3\nFoggia               2\nCuneo                2\nPavia                2\nMassa                2\nTeramo               2\nSiracusa             2\nAscoli               2\nCampobasso           2\nBelluno              1\nCatanzaro            1\nAvellino             1\nPotenza              1\nReggio-Calabria      1\nCaltanisetta         1\n\n\n [232] _La Scuola Musicale di Napoli_, 1883.\n\n [233] See my _Pensiero e Meteore_, 1872, and _Archivio di\n Psichiatria_, 1880, p. 157.\n\n [234]\n\nBologna         262\nFlorence        252\nVenice          138\nMilan           127\nRome            100\nGenoa           100\nNaples           95\nFerrara          85\nVerona           83\nSiena            73\nPerugia          68\nCremona          65\nModena           61\nPesaro           61\nBrescia          50\nTurin            46\nMessina          43\nPadua            40\nParma            39\nVicenza          39\nLucca            38\nBergamo          37\nUdine            36\nArezzo           33\nRavenna          30\nReggio           29\nPisa             29\nTreviso          24\nAscoli           23\nNovara           22\nPavia            20\nMantua           19\nForl\u00ec            19\nComo             17\nAncona           16\nAlessandria      15\nBelluno          13\nMacerata         13\nPiacenza          6\nCaserta           6\nRovigo            5\nPalermo           4\nSalerno           3\nLecce             3\nCuneo             3\nMassa             3\nCatania           2\nLivorno           1\nAquila            1\nSiracusa          1\n\n\n [235] The difference with reference to painters is caused by the\n numerical weakness of Udine and the superiority of Catania and Palermo.\n\n [236] _Il Censimento dei Poeti Veronesi_, Dec. 31, 1881.\n\n [237] _American Nervousness._\n\n [238] See Sternberg, _Archivio di Psichiatria_, vol. x. 1889, p. 389.\n\n [239] _Statura degli Italiani_, 1874; _Della Influenza orografica\n nella Statura_, 1878.\n\n [240] _\u00c9tude sur la Taille._\n\n [241] _D\u00e9mographie de la France_, 1878.\n\n [242] Inhabitants to the square _kilom\u00e8tre_:--\n\nSeine               3636.56\nRh\u00f4ne                224.40\nNord                 213.40\nHaut-Rhin            123.00\nPas-de-Calais        108.60\nLoire                106.38\nManche               100.20\nBouches-du-Rh\u00f4ne      92.27\nLandes                33.80\nLoz\u00e8re                27.39\nHautes-Alpes          23.40\nBasses-Alpes          21.90\n\n\n [243] \u201cLes Antiquit\u00e9s \u00c9gyptiennes,\u201d in _Revue des Deux Mondes_, April,\n 1865.\n\n [244] _Archivio di Psichiatria_, vol. viii. fasc. 3.\n\n [245] Libri, _Histoire des Math\u00e9matiques_, vol. iii.\n\n [246] De Candolle, _Histoire des Sciences_, 1873.\n\n [247] Joseph Jacobs, \u201cThe Comparative Distribution of Jewish Ability,\u201d\n _Journal of Anthropological Institute of Great Britain_, 1886, pp.\n 351-379.\n\n [248] _Gli Israeliti di Europa_, 1872.\n\n [249] _Archivio di Statistica_, Rome, 1880.\n\n [250] _Die Verbreit, der Blind,_ &c., 1872.\n\n [251] Renan in his _Souvenirs de Jeunesse_ remarks that since Germany\n has given herself up to militarism she would have no men of genius, if\n it were not for the Jews, to whom she should be at least grateful. But\n he forgets Haeckel, Virchow, and Wagner.\n\n [252] One case is known in which parents zealously sought to educate\n and favour by every means poetic genius in their son. The outcome of\n their fervent efforts was Chapelain, the too famous singer of the\n _Pucelle_.\n\n [253] _Hereditary Genius_, 1868.\n\n [254] _L\u2019H\u00e9r\u00e9dit\u00e9 Psychologique_, 1878.\n\n [255] _Biographie Universelle des Musiciens._\n\n [256] Ribot in his _L\u2019H\u00e9r\u00e9dit\u00e9 Psychologique_ refers to French\n statistics of 1861 according to which in 1000 lunatics of each sex,\n there was hereditary influence in 264 men and in 266 women.\n\n [257] Galton himself remarks that of 31 great families of lawyers\n raised to the peerage before the end of the reign of George IV.,\n twelve are extinct, especially those which contracted alliances with\n heiresses. Out of 487 families admitted to citizenship at Berne from\n 1583 to 1654 only 168 remained in 1783. \u201cWhen a grandee of Spain is\n announced we expect to see an abortion\u201d (Ribot, _De l\u2019H\u00e9r\u00e9dit\u00e9_, p.\n 820). The French and Italian nobility to-day has become for the most\n part an inert instrument in the hands of the clergy. And how many of\n the sovereigns of Europe yet preserve those ancestral virtues to the\n presumed transmission of which they owe in large part their throne and\n _prestige_?\n\n [258] Dante, _Purgatorio_, canto vii.\n\n [259] Lucas, _De l\u2019H\u00e9r\u00e9dit\u00e9_.\n\n [260] Ribot, _L\u2019H\u00e9r\u00e9dit\u00e9 Psychologique_.\n\n [261] Dugdale, _The Jukes_.\n\n [262] _Acad\u00e9mie des Sciences_, 1871. Five cases of epilepsy, and\n of insanity, two of general paralysis, one of idiocy and several\n of microcephaly were observed under these circumstances. The\n microcephalic condition which so often appears among the hereditary\n results of alcoholism may be understood when we recall the atrophies,\n the cerebral scleroses (a kind of histologic microcephaly) which are\n so constantly found in the drunkard himself.\n\n [263] Bertolotti, _Testamenti di Cardano_, 1882.\n\n [264] _De Vita Propria._\n\n [265] _Famil_ XIII. 2, XXIII. 12.\n\n [266] Ireland, _The Blot upon the Brain_, 1885, p. 147; D\u00e9jerine,\n _L\u2019H\u00e9r\u00e9dit\u00e9 dans les Maladies_, 1886.\n\n [267] _Bilder aus mein. Knabenzeit_, 1837.\n\n [268] _Memorie_, p. 341. _I.e._, \u201cThe heads of the Taparelli are not\n in the right place.\u201d Taparelli was a family name of D\u2019Azeglio.\n\n [269] _Souvenirs d\u2019Enfance_, p. 20.\n\n [270] Meynert, _Jahresber. f\u00fcr Psychiatr._, Vienna, 1880.\n\n [271] Ribot, _L\u2019H\u00e9r\u00e9dit\u00e9 Psychologique_, p. 171.\n\n [272] The same kind of influence may be traced among the insane and\n degenerate. A son of Louis XIV. and Madame de Montespan, conceived\n during a crisis of remorse and grief, at the epoch of the Jubilee,\n was called \u201c_l\u2019enfant du jubil\u00e9_,\u201d on account of his condition of\n permanent melancholy. A man of talent, subject to attacks of mental\n exaltation, had several children, of whom two, conceived during these\n attacks, were insane. D\u00e9jerine, _L\u2019H\u00e9r\u00e9dit\u00e9 dans les Maladies du\n Syst\u00e8me Nerveux_, 1886.\n\n [273] _Nature_, Nov., 1883.\n\n [274] _Physiologie du Cerveau_, p. 21.\n\n [275] _Journal of Mental Science_, 1872.\n\n [276] _Correspondance In\u00e9dite_, Paris, 1877.\n\n [277] _Revue Scientifique_, April, 1888.\n\n [278] Taine, _Les origines de la France Contemporaine_, Paris 1885.\n\n [279] _Atlantic Monthly_, 1881.\n\n [280]\n\n    \u201c_A cui natura non lo volle dire_\n     _Nol dirian mille At\u0113ne e mille Rome._\u201d\n\n\n [281] E. Fournier, _Le Vieux-Neuf_, Paris, 1887.\n\n [282] Ch. Nodier, _Les Bas bleus_, 1846, p. 217.\n\n [283] _Voyage en Italie_, Paris, 1880.\n\n [284] Tr\u00e9lat, _Recherches historiques sur la folie_, p. 81. Paris,\n 1839.\n\n [285] Moreau, _Psychologie morbide_, Paris, 1859.\n\n [286] Marc\u00e9, \u201cDe la valeur des \u00e9crits des ali\u00e9n\u00e9s\u201d; _Journal de\n m\u00e9decine mentale_, 1864.\n\n [287] Leuret, _Fragments psychologiques sur la folie_.\n\n [288] _Annales m\u00e9dico-psychologiques_, tome iii. p. 93, 1864.\n\n [289] _Annales m\u00e9dico-psychologiques_, 1850, p. 48; Parchappe,\n _Symptomatologie de la folie_.\n\n [290] Tissot, _Des nerfs et de leurs maladies_, p. 133.\n\n [291] _M\u00e9decine de l\u2019esprit_, vol. ii. p. 32.\n\n [292] _Symptomotalogie de la folie._\n\n [293] J. Frank, _Pathologie interne; Manie fantastique_.\n\n [294] _Trait\u00e9 des maladies mentales_, 1858.\n\n [295] _Revue Philosophique_, 1888.\n\n [296] Esquiros, _Paris au dix-neuvi\u00e8me si\u00e8cle--Les maisons de fous_,\n tome ii. p. 163.\n\n [297] See Appendix. I regret that in the English edition of my work\n it has not been found possible to give a more copious selection from\n the poems by the insane which I have at my disposal. For these I must\n refer the reader to the original Italian or to the French edition.\n\n [298] See my _L\u2019Uomo Delinquente_.\n\n [299] _Les prisons de Paris_, 1881.\n\n [300] _Diario del Manicomio di Pesaro_, 1879.\n\n [301] Prescott, _Conquest of Peru_, i.\n\n [302] Lieut.-Col. Mark Wilks, _Historical Sketch of the South of\n India_.\n\n [303] Mungo Park, _Travels_, i.\n\n [304] Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, vol. iv. p. 462, 1834.\n\n [305] _La Paranoia_, 1886.\n\n [306] Ludwig II.\n\n [307] P. Regnard, _Les maladies \u00e9pid\u00e9miques de l\u2019esprit_, p. 370.\n\n [308] Regnard, _Les maladies, &c._, p. 390.\n\n [309] Quoted by M. Luys, _Actions r\u00e9flexes du cerveau_, p. 170\n\n [310] _Revue Philosophique_, 1888, No. 8.\n\n [311] _Annales Med. Psych._, 1876.\n\n [312] Regnard has also touched upon the subject, but without going\n into it deeply, in his _Sorcellerie_, Paris, 1887.\n\n [313] _Gazzetta del Manicomio di Reggio_, 1867.\n\n [314] O. Delepierre, _Histoire litt\u00e9raire des fous_, Paris, 1860.\n\n [315] Regnard, _op. cit._\n\n [316] Ruggieri, _Histoire du crucifiement op\u00e9r\u00e9 sur sa propre personne\n par M. Lovat_, Venice, 1806.\n\n [317] Frigerio, Letter of November 2, 1887.\n\n [318] _Diario del Manicomio di Pesaro_, 1879.\n\n [319] De Renzis, _L\u2019opera d\u2019un pazzo_, Rome, 1887.\n\n [320] Simon, _Ann. Med. Psych._, 1876.\n\n [321] _Archivio di Psichiatria_, 1880.\n\n [322] Steinthal, _Entwicklung der Schrift_, 1852.\n\n [323] Boddart, _Pal\u00e6ography of America_, London, 1865.\n\n [324] Lombroso, _Uomo bianco ed uomo di colore_, 1871.\n\n [325] _Archivio di Psichiatria_, 1881, fasc. iii.\n\n [326]\n\n    \u201c_Un veleno ho preparato_\n    _Due pugnali tengo in seno:_\n    _Questo viver disgraziato_\n    _Finir\u00e0 una volta almeno_\n              _T\u2019amer\u00f2 fino alla tomba_\n              _E anche morto t\u2019amer\u00f2._\n\n    _La campana lamentosa_\n    _Soner\u00e0 la morte mia,_\n    _Ed allor tu udrai curiosa_\n    _Quella funebre armonia._\n              _T\u2019amer\u00f2, ecc. ecc._\n\n    _Una lunga e mesta croce_\n    _Nella via vedrai passar;_\n    _Ed un prete sulla forca_\n    _Miserere recitar_.\n              _T\u2019amer\u00f2, ecc. ecc._\u201d\n\n \u201cI have prepared a poison; I have two daggers in my bosom; this\n unhappy life, at least, shall end one day. I will love thee to my\n grave, and even when dead, I will love thee still.\n\n \u201cThe mournful bell shall sound for my death, and thou shall listen\n wonderingly to that funereal harmony.--I will love thee, &c.\n\n \u201cA long and sad _cross_ (_i.e._, procession) thou shalt see passing\n along the road, and a priest standing by the gallows, reciting the\n Miserere.--I will love thee, &c.\u201d\n\n [327] \u201cParanoia: A Study of the Evolution of Systematized Delusions of\n Grandeur,\u201d in _American Journal of Psychology_, May, 1888, and May,\n 1889.\n\n [328] H\u00e9cart, _op. cit._\n\n [329] Magnan.\n\n [330] Simon.\n\n [331] Delepierre.\n\n [332] Vasari, _Vite dei pittori celebri_.\n\n [333] Cl\u00e9ment, _Les musiciens c\u00e9l\u00e8bres_, Paris, 1878.\n\n [334] \u201c_Voci alte e fioche e suon di man con elle_\u201d (Dante, _Inf._\n iii. 27.)\n\n [335] Cato, _De Re Rustica_.\n\n [336] _Essays_, vol. ii. pp. 401, &c.\n\n [337] My attention was called many years ago to the frequent\n occurrence of insanity among great musicians by Dr. Arnaldo Bargoni,\n and afterwards by Mastriani, of Naples, in an excellent article in\n _Roma_, 1881.\n\n [338] Jasnot, _V\u00e9rit\u00e9s positives_, 1854.\n\n [339] _Les fous litt\u00e9raires_, p. 51.\n\n [340] See _Tre Tribuni_, 1887.\n\n [341]\n\n    \u201cAlways mistress or slave--a foe to thine own children.\u201d\n\n\n [342] \u201c_Il se trouvait l\u00e0 des philosophes plus forts que Leibnitz,\n mais sourdsmuets de naissance, ne pouvant produire que les gestes\n de leurs id\u00e9es et pousser des arguments inarticul\u00e9s; des peintres\n tourment\u00e9s de faire grand, mais qui posaient si singuli\u00e8rement un\n homme sur ses pieds, un arbre sur ses racines, que toits leurs\n tableaux ressemblaient \u00e0 des vues de tremblements de terre ou \u00e0 des\n int\u00e9rieurs de paquebots un jour de temp\u00eate. Des musiciens inventeurs\n de claviers interm\u00e9diaires, des savants \u00e0 la fa\u00e7on du docteur Hitisch,\n de ces cervelles bric-\u00e0-brac, o\u00f9 il y a de tout mais o\u00f9 l\u2019on ne trouve\n rien, \u00e0 cause du d\u00e9sordre, de la poussi\u00e8re, et aussi parceque tous\n les objets sont cass\u00e9s, incomplets, incapables du moindre service_\u201d\n (Daudet, _Jack_).\n\n [343] Delepierre, _Litt\u00e9rateur des fous_.\n\n [344]\n\n    _Staccar potessi i due concetti uniti_\n     _Di me ed empio. Io giusto. Empio \u00e8 Satana._\n\n\n [345] Delepierre, _op. cit._\n\n [346] \u201c_L\u00e8ve ce chef d\u2019ici, je crains que ce chef prive de chef les\n miens par un nouveau m\u00e9chef._\u201d\n\n [347] Philomneste, _Les fous litt\u00e9raires_, 1881.\n\n [348] \u201cHave you ever noticed,\u201d writes Daudet (_Jack_, ii. 58),\n speaking of mattoids, whom he called _les rat\u00e9s_, \u201chow these people\n seek each other in Paris, how they are attracted to each other, how\n they group themselves with their grievances, their demands, their idle\n and barren vanities? While, in reality, full of mutual contempt, they\n form a Mutual Admiration Society, outside which the world is a blank\n to them.\u201d\n\n [349] \u201c_Mais parmi ces groupes tapageurs qui s\u2019en allaient fr\u00e9donnant,\n d\u00e9clamant, discutant encore, personne ne prenait garde au froid\n sinistre de la nuit ni au brouillard humide qui tombait. A l\u2019entr\u00e9e\n de l\u2019avenue, on s\u2019aper\u00e7ut que l\u2019heure des omnibus \u00e9tait pass\u00e9e. Tous\n ces pauvres diables en prirent bravement leur parti. La chim\u00e9re\n aux \u00e9cailles d\u2019or \u00e9clairait et abr\u00e9geait leur route, l\u2019illusion\n leur tenait chaud, et r\u00e9pandus dans Paris d\u00e9sert, ils se tournaient\n courageusement aux mis\u00e8res obscures de la vie._\n\n \u201c_L\u2019art est un si grand magicien! Il cr\u00e9e un soleil qui luit pour tous\n comme l\u2019autre, et ceux qui s\u2019en approchent, m\u00eame les pauvres, m\u00eame\n les laides, m\u00eame les grotesques, emportent un peu de sa chaleur et\n de son rayonnement. Ce feu du ciel imprudemment ravi, que les rat\u00e9s\n gardent au fond de leurs prunelles, les rend quelquefois redoutables,\n le plus souvent ridicules, mais leur existence en re\u00e7oit une s\u00e9r\u00e9nit\u00e9\n grandiose, un m\u00e9pris du mal, une gr\u00e2ce \u00e0 souffrir que les autres\n mis\u00e8res ne connaissent pas_\u201d (Daudet, _Jack_, i. p. 3).\n\n [350] \u201c_Toute une litt\u00e9rature est n\u00e9e de mon_ Insecte _et de mon_\n Oiseau.--_L_\u2019Amour _et la_ Femme _restent et resteront, comme ayant\n deux bases, l\u2019une scientifique, la nature m\u00eame,--l\u2019autre morale, le\n c\u0153ur des citoyens_....\n\n \u201c_J\u2019ai d\u00e9fini l\u2019histoire une r\u00e9surrection.--C\u2019est le titre le plus\n appropri\u00e9 \u00e0 mon 4 volumes...._\n\n \u201c_En 1870, dans le silence universel, seul, je parlai. Mon livre fait\n en 40 jours fut la seule d\u00e9fense de la patrie...._\u201d\n\n [351] He studies, as an important document, the journal of Louis\n XIV.\u2019s digestion, and divides his reign into two periods--before and\n after the fistula. In the same way Francis I.\u2019s reign is divided into\n the periods before and after the abscess. Conclusions of the following\n kind abound:--\n\n \u201c_De toute l\u2019ancienne monarchie, il ne reste \u00e0 la France qu\u2019un nom,\n Henri IV.; et deux chansons_ Gabrielle _et_ Marlborough.\u201d\n\n [352] Pp. 119, 120, 121.\n\n [353] Sbarbaro, _e.g._, in the midst of numberless absurdities, wrote:\n \u201cThe man who feels no hatred for the foul and unjust things which\n cumber our social life is the false phantom of a citizen, a eunuch in\n heart and mind\u201d (Forche, 21).\n\n \u201cParliamentary systems do not work well, since they do not allow of\n the best being at the top, and nonentities at the bottom\u201d (Forche, 3).\n This, however, is borrowed from Machiavelli\u2019s _Decades_.\n\n \u201cIf you call me a malcontent,\u201d he said to the Council of Public\n Instruction, \u201cyou do me honour: progress is due to rebels and\n malcontents. Christ Himself was a rebel and an agitator.\u201d\n\n [354] _Revue politique et litt\u00e9raire_, 1888, No. 1.\n\n [355] We have seen that a love of symbolism is one of the\n characteristics of monomaniacs.\n\n [356] M. Jules Tellier has not inaptly called him, in Victor Hugo\u2019s\n style, \u201c_l\u2019homme-frisson_.\u201d\n\n [357] _Responsibility in Mental Disease_, p. 47.\n\n [358] Knutzen, of Schleswig, in 1674, preached that there was\n neither God nor devil, that priests and magistrates were useless and\n pernicious, that marriage was unnecessary, that man ended with death,\n and that every one ought to be guided by his own inner consciousness\n of right. For this reason he gave to his disciples the name of the\n _Conscientarii_, garnishing his discourses with grotesque quotations.\n He went about begging and preaching in strange garments. It is not\n known what became of him after 1674. His writings are _Epistola amici\n ad amicum_, _Schediasma de lacrimis Christi_, &c.\n\n [359] _Responsibility_, p. 53.\n\n [360] _Revue des Deux Mondes_, 1880.\n\n [361] Dubois, _People of India_, p. 360.\n\n [362] 1 Samuel xxi. 14, 15.\n\n [363] Ibid., xix. 9, 10, 23.\n\n [364] Ibid., xix. 24.\n\n [365] Berbrugger, _Exploration Scientifique de l\u2019Alg\u00e9rie_, 1855.\n\n [366] _Western Barbary_, p. 60.\n\n [367] _Travels_, p. 133.\n\n [368] Beck, _Allegemeine Schilderung des Othom. Reiches._, p. 177.\n\n [369] Ibid., p. 529.\n\n [370] Ida Pfeiffer, _Voyage_, vols. v., vi.\n\n [371] Medhurst, _State and Prospects_, London, 1838, p. 75.\n\n [372] Cook, _Voyages_, vol. ii. p. 19.\n\n [373] Vol. iv. p. 49.\n\n [374] D\u2019Orbigny, _L\u2019Homme Am\u00e9ricain_, ii. p. 92.\n\n [375] M\u00fcller, _Geschichte der Urreligion_, Basle, 1853.\n\n [376] _Revue Scientifique_, 1887.\n\n [377] See my _Tre Tribuni_, 1887.\n\n [378] Ideler, _Versuch einer Theorie des Wahnsinnes_, p. 236 (1842).\n\n [379] Hecker, _Tanzmanie_, Berlin, 1834, p. 120. Traces exist even\n to-day, as at Echternach, in Luxembourg.\n\n [380] _Pensiero e Meteore_, 1878, p. 129.\n\n [381] _Archivio di Psichiatria_, 1880, Fasc. ii.\n\n [382] Nasse, _Zeitschrift_, 1814, i. p. 255.\n\n [383] _Versuch_, i. p. 274.\n\n [384] _Swedenborg_, by M. de Beaumont-Vassy, 1842; Mattei, _Em. de\n Swedenborg, sa vie_, 1863.\n\n [385] Mayor, _Madame de Kr\u00fcdener_, Turin, 1884.\n\n [386] See Macaulay, _History_, vol. ii.\n\n [387] Bonghi, _Vita di S. F. d\u2019Assisi_, 1885.\n\n [388] Bonghi.\n\n [389] _Archiv f\u00fcr Psychiatrie_, 1881.\n\n [390] Villari, _Vita di Savonarola_, pp. 11, 304.\n\n [391] _De Veritate Prophetica_, 1497.\n\n [392] Villari, p. 406.\n\n [393] Villari, ii. p. 408.\n\n [394] See Perrens, _E. Marcel_, 1880; _D\u00e9mocratie en France dans le\n Moyen Age_, 1875.\n\n [395] Letter to Charles IV. Document 33 in Papencordt.\n\n [396] \u201c_Invidia e fuoco._\u201d Thus the anonymous historian, and Zeffirino\n Re. Muratori reads _juoco_, \u201cgaming,\u201d but not even thus can the\n sentence be explained; for it was certainly other vices than envy and\n gambling that were consuming the nobility of those days.\n\n [397] Even after the first _pl\u00e9biscite_, Stefano Colonna, in opposing\n him, said, \u201cIf this madman makes me angry, I will have him thrown from\n the Capitol\u201d (p. 349).\n\n [398] See Papencordt, _Cola di Rienzi_, 1844; Gregorovius, _Geschichte\n der Stadt Rom_, vi. p. 267.\n\n [399] Papencordt.\n\n [400] _Life_, i. 32.\n\n [401] _Ibid._, i. 17.\n\n [402] Papencordt, doc. 83.\n\n [403] See letter to Fra Michele.\n\n [404] Hoxemio, _De actis pontif._, vols. ii. and iii.\n\n [405] Muratori, _Cronaca Estense_, xviii. p. 409.\n\n [406] Chronaca, p. 140.\n\n [407] Book x.\n\n [408] Gregorovius, vol. vi. p. 294.\n\n [409] \u201cHe said that they had bewitched him in prison\u201d (Anonimo).\n\n [410] Even within a few months from his first assumption of the\n tribunate he became \u201caddicted to rich food, and began to multiply\n suppers, banquets, and revels of divers meats and wines. About the end\n of December he began to grow stout and ruddy, and eat with a better\n appetite\u201d (Anonimo, p. 92).\n\n [411] Gaye, _Carteggio inedito d\u2019artisti_, Florence, 1839; Hoxemio,\n _Qui Gesta Pontificum_, &c., &c., Leodii, 1822, ii. pp. 272-514;\n Papencordt, _Cola di Rienzi_, Hamburg, 1847; Hobhouse, _Historic\n Illustrations of Childe Harold_, 1818; De Sade, _M\u00e9moires de\n P\u00e9trarque_, iii.\n\n [412] Even in the autograph MSS. we find _cotidie_ for _quotidie_;\n _Capitalo_ for _Capitolis_; _patrabantur_ for _perpetrabantur_;\n _speraverim_ for _spreverim_; _michi_ for _mihi_. I have already noted\n the strange blunder of explaining the _Pom\u00e6rium_--the district between\n the inner and outer walls of Rome--by \u201cthe _garden of Italy_.\u201d All\n this indicates a scholarship which was neither very full nor very\n accurate. As to his caligraphy, there is nothing particular to remark.\n\n [413] Among his vagaries, we have already noted that of crowning\n himself with seven crowns. In his seals there were seven stars and\n seven rays, which, under the second Tribunate, became eight.\n\n [414] Monomaniacs while remaining constant to a fixed erroneous idea,\n vary, to a degree which amounts to contradiction, in the accessory\n details. It is thus that I explain the fact that, in his second\n tribunate he claimed to be the son, not of the emperor, but of a\n bastard of his. There has been found, near the Ponte Senatorio, in\n excavating the ruins of a building, restored apparently by Rienzi,\n this inscription dictated by him--according to Gabrini--in order to\n publish to the world his disgraceful delusion: \u201cNicolaus, Tribunus,\n Severus, Clemens, Laurentii, Teutonici filius, Gabrinius, Romae\n Senator,\u201d with a timid allusion to a German, who was not Henry, but an\n illegitimate son of his (Gabrini, _Osservazioni storico-critiche sulla\n Vita di Rienzi_, 1706, p. 96).\n\n [415] Anonimo, p. 92.\n\n [416] See for other proofs my _Tre Tribuni_, 1887.\n\n [417] P. C. Falletti, _Del carattere di Fra Tommaso Campanella_,\n Turin, 1889; _Rivista Storica Italiana_, vol. vi. fasciculo 2;\n Amabile, _Fra T. Campanella e la sua congiura_, Naples, 1882; _Fra T.\n C. nei Castelli di Napoli_, &c., vol. ii.; _Fra T. Pignatelli e la\n sua congiura_, 1887; Berti, _Lettere inedite di T. Campanella_, 1878;\n Idem, _Nuovi documenti su Campanella_, 1881.\n\n [418] Abb\u00e9 Saglier, _Vie de Saint Jean de Dios_; M. duCamp, _La\n Charit\u00e9 \u00e0 Paris_, 1885.\n\n [419] It is a curious point, that all these saints (Lazzaretti,\n Loyola, &c.) began by leading a wild life.\n\n [420] Maxime du Camp, _Souvenirs Litt\u00e9raires_, 1882 (2nd ed.)\n\n [421] See the paper on David Lazzaretti, by Nocito and Lombroso, in\n the _Archivio di Psichiatria_, 1881, vol. i. fasc. ii. iii.; Verga,\n _Lazzaretti e la pazzia sensoria_, Milan, 1880; Caravaggio, _Inchiesta\n e Relazione su Arcidosso_, 1878, _Gazzetta Ufficiale_, for October 1,\n No. 321.\n\n [422] _Signes physiques des manies raisonnantes_, 1876.\n\n [423] Verga, _Lazzaretti_, 1880.\n\n [424] At Pesaro I had under my care several nuns from Roman convents,\n whose language I never heard surpassed in obscene blasphemy. I have\n also attended exceedingly devout Jews, whose first symptom was the\n wish to be baptised, and who, immediately after their recovery, became\n more orthodox than before.\n\n [425] Deposition of the witness Vichi.\n\n [426] His first arrest took place in the island of Monte Cristo, for\n preaching sedition among the fishermen. Thence, he was transferred to\n Orbetello (see Verga, _Su Lazzaretti e la follia sensoria_, 1880).\n\n [427] Nocito and Lombroso, Davide Lazzaretti (_Archivio di\n Psichiatria_, 1880, ii. Turin). In this article are detailed the\n causes of the error into which the experts fell--an error which cost\n the country an enormous expenditure and several human lives.\n\n [428] _Lo Statute Civile del Regno Pontificio in Italia._\n\n [429] See Lombroso, _Remarks on the Passanante Trial_, 1876, pp. 16,\n 17.\n\n [430] Esquirol mentions a madwoman who said to him, \u201cI have not the\n courage to kill myself; I must kill some one else, so that I can die.\u201d\n She attempted the life of her daughter.\n\n [431] In spite of all this, six Italian mental specialists have\n declared Passanante free from all suspicion of insanity; and he is\n still confined in a convict prison.\n\n [432] See, for further details, _Archivio di Psichiatria_, vol. iv.\n\n [433] _Las Neurosis de los Hombres celebres en la Historia Argentina_,\n by Jos\u00e9 Maria Ramon Mejia, Buenos Ayres, 1878.\n\n [434] _De Vita Propria._\n\n [435] Schurz, ii.\n\n [436] _Ibid._, p. 283.\n\n [437] January, 1765.\n\n [438] Of 45 insane writers referred to by Philomneste (_op. cit._)\n there were--15 who devoted themselves to poetry, 12 to theology, 5 to\n prophecy, 3 to autobiography, 2 to mathematics, 2 to mental pathology,\n 2 to politics. Poetry predominates for the reason above given, while,\n on the other hand, theology, philosophy, and the like are more\n prominent in the mattoids.\n\n [439] Page 200.\n\n [440] He declares that musk reminds him of scarlet and gold, and\n describes \u201cperfumes which have the smell of infants\u2019 flesh, or of the\n dawn,\u201d &c., &c.\n\n [441] Manso, _Vita_, p. 249.\n\n [442] Du Vin, i. 1880.\n\n [443] Schurz, i. 328.\n\n [444] _Kreisler_ is, like himself, full of strange ideals, always at\n war with reality, and ends by becoming insane.\n\n [445]\n\n    \u201c_Francesco, inferma, entro le membra inferme_\n    _Ho l\u2019anima._\u201d\n\n\n [446] _Epistolario_, iii. 1.\n\n [447] \u201cMad Nat Lee,\u201d who was for a long time an inmate of Bedlam,\n minutely describes the insanity of genius in his poems; _e.g._, in\n _C\u00e6sar Borgia_:--\n\n    \u201cLike a poor lunatic that makes his moan,\n     And, for a while, beguiles his lookers-on,\n     He reasons well. His eyes their wildness lose,\n     He vows his keepers his wronged sense abuse,\n     But if you hit the cause that hurts his brain,\n     Then his teeth gnash, he foams, he shakes his chain.\u201d\n\n See Winslow, _Obscure Diseases of the Brain_, p. 210, London, 1863.\n See also the chapter \u201cOn the Art of Insanity,\u201d for proofs of a like\n tendency on the part of insane painters.\n\n [448]\n\n    \u201c_Vi son dei giorni che il mio cor vien meno_\n     _E il fango mi conquista._\u201d\n\n\n [449]\n\n    \u201c_Venga l\u2019obbrobrio--dell\u2019uomo sobrio;_\n    _Venga il disprezzo del genere umano;_\n    _Venga l\u2019inferno--del Padre Eterno;_\n    _Vi scender\u00f2 col mio bicchiere in mano._\u201d\n\n\n [450] See Dilthey, _Dichterische Einbildungskraft und Wahnsinn_,\n Leipzig, 1886.\n\n [451] Letter from Edmond de Goncourt to Emile Zola (_Lettres de Jules\n de Goncourt_, Paris, 1885).\n\n [452] D\u00e9jerine, _De l\u2019H\u00e9r\u00e9dit\u00e9 dans les Maladies_, 1886; Ribot, _De\n l\u2019H\u00e9r\u00e9dit\u00e9_, 1878; Ireland, _The Blot upon the Brain_, 1885.\n\n [453] See Part II., pp. 126-132. I must rectify a mistake I have made\n in not assigning sufficient importance to the influence of race in\n France. In fact, in revising my studies on a large scale, I find that\n the departments peopled by the Belgio-Germanic race yield the maximum\n proportion of geniuses as 40 per cent., while the Celtic departments\n yielded only 13\u00b75 per cent., and the Iberian 20 per cent.\n\n [454] T. Gautier, according to the Goncourts, often declared that\n he could not--on account of his youth--convince himself that he was\n really the father of his daughter (_Journal des Goncourt_, 1888). \u201cLa\n Fontaine was not far removed from a bad man,\u201d says Bourget. \u201cWhat are\n we to think of a husband who deserts his young wife and his child,\n without any motive whatever?\u201d Stendhal (Beyle) hated his father and\n was hated by him; he always declared his invincible repugnance towards\n compulsory family affection (Bourget, _Essais de Psychologie_, p.\n 310). \u201cI consecrated myself to grief for her,\u201d wrote Chateaubriand of\n Pauline de Baumont. \u201c ... She had not been dead six months, when her\n place was filled in my heart\u201d (_Ibid._).\n\n [455] _Revue Litt\u00e9raire_, Aug. 15, 1887, No. 3.\n\n [456] Lombroso, _Delitti politici_, 1890.\n\n [457] _Correspondance_, 1889, p. 538.\n\n [458] Feeri, _Nuova Antologia_, 1889.\n\n [459] See _Archivio di Psichiatria_, vol. ii.; _L\u2019Uomo Delinquente_,\n part iii.\n\n [460] _Enc\u00e9phale_, No. 5, 1887.\n\n [461] See the table in D\u00e9jerine, _op. cit._\n\n [462] Mahomet had a strange fondness for his monkey; Richelieu for\n his squirrel; Cr\u00e9billon, Helvetius, Bentham, Erskine, for cats--the\n latter also for a leech. Schopenhauer was very fond of dogs, and named\n them his heirs; and Byron had a regular menagerie of ten horses, eight\n dogs, three monkeys, five cats, five peacocks, an eagle, and a bear.\n Alfieri had a passion for horses. (Smiles, _op. cit._)\n\n [463] _Le Epilessie_, p. 19, Turin, 1880.\n\n [464] Shenstone, Darwin, Swift, and Walter Scott were subject to\n giddiness (Smiles).\n\n [465] See _L\u2019Uomo Delinquente_, part iii. p. 623.\n\n [466] \u201cThere is a fatality,\u201d says Goncourt, \u201cin the first chance which\n suggests your idea. Then there is an _unknown force_, _a superior\n will_, a sort of necessity of writing which command your work and\n guide your pen; so much so, that sometimes the book which leaves your\n hands does not seem to have come out of yourself; it astonishes you,\n like something which was in you, and of which you were unconscious.\n That is the impression which _S\u0153ur Philom\u00e8ne_ gives me\u201d (_Journal des\n Goncourt_, Paris, 1888). Even Buffon, who had said that invention\n depends on patience, adds, \u201cOne must look at one\u2019s subject for a long\n time; then it gradually unfolds and develops itself; you feel a slight\n electric shock strike your head and at the same time seize you at the\n heart; that is the moment of genius.\u201d\n\n [467] Evidently the author himself.\n\n [468] Dosto\u00efeffsky, _Besi_, Paris.\n\n [469] _Archivio di Psichiatria_, ix. 1., p. 89.\n\n [470] Taine, _Revue des Deux Mondes_--Dec. 1886, and Jan. 1887.\n\n [471] Renan, in _Les Ap\u00f4tres_.\n\n [472] Renan.\n\n [473] Tonnini, _Epilessie_, 1886; _Archivio di Psichiatria_, 1886.\n\n [474] _Les Hyst\u00e9riques_, Paris, 1883.\n\n [475] Vinson, _Les religions actuelles_, 1884; Luke ii. 49; Matt. xii.\n 48; Mark iii. 33.\n\n [476] Anfosso, _La L\u00e9gende religieuse au moyen-\u00e2ge_, 1887.\n\n [477] On altruism in moral insanity and epilepsy, see _L\u2019Uomo\n Delinquente_, pp. 556, 557. We have seen St. Francis love even the\n stars, the water, the fire, &c., and--abandon his family!\n\n [478] Lombroso, _Studii sull\u2019ipnotismo_, 3rd ed.; Azam, _Hypnotisme,\n Double Conscience_; Beaunis, _Le somnambulisme provoqu\u00e9, La suggestion\n mentale_; Drs. H. Bourru and P. Burot, Dugay, Richet, Janet, _Revue\n Philosophique_, 1884-89; Krafft-Ebing, _Ueber den Hypnotismus_,\n 1889; Jendrassik, _Ueber die Suggestion_, 1887; Binet and Fer\u00e9, _La\n Polarisation_, 1885; Ibid., _Le magn\u00e9tisme animal_; Beard, _Nature and\n Phenomena of Trance_, New York, 1880; Lombroso and Ottolenghi, _Nuovi\n Studii sull\u2019ipnotismo_, 1890, and _Sulla Transmissione del Pensiero_,\n 1891.\n\n [479] _Revue Litt\u00e9raire_, 1887.\n\n [480] _Michelangelo Buonarroti; Epistolario, publicato da G.\n Milanese._ 1888.\n\n [481] _Michelangelo Buonarroti, di F. Parlagreco_, 1888.\n\n [482] _Life and Letters of Charles Darwin_, 1888.\n\n [483] _Life and Letters of Charles Darwin_, vol. i. p. 149.\n\n [484] _Letters_, vol. i.\n\n [485] Quoted by Parant. Regnard, _Sorcellerie_, 1887.\n\n [486] Regnard, _Sorcellerie_, 1887.\n\n [487] _Ibid._","title":"The Man of Genius","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":132369}