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The  Contemporary  Science  Series. 

Edited  by   Havelock   Ellis. 

I.  THE  EVOLUTION  OF  SEX.     By  Prof.  PATRICK  GEDDES 

and  J.  A.  THOMSON.     With  90  Illustrations.     Second  Edition. 
"  The  authors  have  brought  to  the  task— as  indeed  their  names  guarantee 
— a  wealth  of  knowledge,  a  lucid  and  attractive  method  of  treatment,  and  a 
rich  vein  of  picturesque  language." — Nature. 

II.  ELECTRICITY    IN    MODERN    LIFE.      By  G.   W.    DE 

TUNZELMANN.     With  88  Illustrations. 

"  A  clearly-written  and  connected  sketch  of  what  is  known  about  elec- 
tricity and  magnetism,  the  more  prominent  modern  applications,  and  the 
principles  on  which  they  are  based." — Saturday  Review. 

III.  THE    ORIGIN    OF   THE    ARYANS.      By     Dr.   ISAAC 

TAYLOR.     Illustrated.     Second  Edition. 

"  Canon  Taylor  is  probably  the  most  encyclopaedic  all-round  scholar  now 
living.  His  new  volume  on  the  Origin  of  the  Aryans  is  a  first-rate  example 
of  the  excellent  account  to  which  he  can  turn  his  exceptionally  wide  and 
varied  information.  .  .  .  Masterly  and  exhaustive." — Pall  Mall  Gazette. 

IV.  PHYSIOGNOMY  AND  EXPRESSION.     By  P.   MANTE- 

GAZZA.     Illustrated. 

"Brings  this  highly  interesting  subject  even  with  the  latest  researches. 
.  ,  .  Professor  Mantegazza  is  a  writer  full  of  life  and  spirit,  and  the  natural 
attractiveness  of  his  subject  is  not  destroyed  by  his  scientific  handling  of  it." 
Liter ary  II 'orld  ( Boston). 

V:   EVOLUTION  AND  DISEASE.     By  J.  B.  SUTTON,  F.R.C.S. 

With  135  Illustrations. 

"The  book  is  as  interesting  a.s  a  novel,  without  sacrifice  of  accuracy  or 
system,  and  is  calculated  to  give  an  appreciation  of  the  fundamentals  of 
pathology  to  the  lay  reader,  while  forming  a  useful  collection  of  illustrations 
of  disease  for  medical  reference."— -Journal  of  Mental  Science. 

VI.  THE    VILLAGE    COMMUNITY.      i:y   G.     L.    COM  ME. 

Illustrated. 

"The  fruit  of  some  years  of  investigation  on  a  subject  which  has  of  late 
attracted  much  attention,  and  is  of  much  importance,  inasmuch  as  it  lies  at 
the  basis  of  our  society." — Antiquary. 

VII.  THE  CRIMINAL.     By  HAVELOCK  ELLIS.     Illustrated. 

"An  ably  written,  an  instructive,  and  a  most  entertaining  book." — Law 
Quarterly  Review. 

"  The  sociologist,  the  philosopher,  the  philanthropist,  the  novelist — 
all,  indeed,  for  whom  the  study  of  human  nature  has  any  attraction — will 
find  Mr.  Ellis  full  of  interest  and  suggestiveness." — Aca^itmy. 


VIII.  SANITY  AND  INSANITY.     By  Dr.  CHARLES  MERCIER. 
Illustrated. 

"  He  has  laid  down  the  institutes  of  insanity."— Mind. 
"Taken  as  a  whole,  it  is  the  brightest  book  on  the  physical  side  of 
mental  science  published  in  our  time." — Pall  Mall  Gazette. 

IX.  HYPNOTISM.     By  Dr.  ALBERT  MOLL.     Second  Edition. 
"  Marks  a  step  of  some  importance  in  the  study  of  some  difficult  physio- 
logical and  psychological   problems  which  have  not   yet   received   much 
attention  in  the  scientific  world  of  England." — Nature. 

X.  MANUAL  TRAINING.    By  Dr.  C.  M.  WOODWARD,  Director 

of  the  Manual  Training  School,  St.  Louis.     Illustrated. 
"  There  is  no  greater  authority  on  the  subject  than  Professor  Woodward." 
— Manchester  Guardian. 

XI.  THE   SCIENCE   OF  FAIRY  TALES.      By  E.   SIDNEY 

HARTLAND. 

-..  "  Mr.  Hartland's  book  will  win  the  sympathy  of  all  earnest  students, 
both  by  the  knowledge  it  displays,  and  by  a  thorough  love  and  appreciation 
of  his  subject,  which  is  evident  throughout. " — Spectator. 

XII.  PRIMITIVE   FOLK.     By  ELIE  RECLUS. 

"  An  attractive  and  useful  introduction  to  the  study  of  some  aspects  of 
ethnograpy. " — Nature, 

"  For  an  introduction  to  the  study  of  the  questions  of  property,  marriage, 
government,  religion, — in  a  word,  to  the  evolution  of  society, — this  little 
volume  will  be  found  most  convenient." — Scottish  Leader. 

XIII.  THE  EVOLUTION   OF   MARRIAGE.     By  Professor 
LETOURNEAU. 

"Among  the  distinguished  French  students  of  sociology,  Professor  Letour- 
neau  has  long  stood  in  the  first  rank.  He  approaches  the  great  study  of 
man  free  from  bias  and  shy  of  generalisations.  To  collect,  scrutinise,  and 
appraise  facts  is  his  chief  business.  In  the  volume  before  us  he  shows  these 
qualities  in  an  admirable  degree.  ...  At  the  close  of  his  attractive  pages 
he  ventures  to  forecast  the  future  of  the  institution  of  marriage." — Science. 

XIV.  BACTERIA  AND   THEIR  PRODUCTS.      By  Dr.  G. 

SlMS  WOODHEAD.     Illustrated. 

"  An  excellent  summary  of  the  present  state  of  knowledge  of  the  subject." 
— Lancet. 

XV.  EDUCATION   AND   HEREDITY.      By  J.    M.   GUYAU. 
"It  is  at  once  a  treatise  on  sociology,  ethics,  and  psedagogics.     It  is 

doubtful  whether  among  all  the  ardent  evolutionists  who  have  had  their  say 
on  the  moral  and  the  educational  question  any  one  has  carried  forward  the 
new  doctrine  so  boldly  to  its  extreme  logical  consequence." — Professor 
SULLY  in  Mind. 

XVI.  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS.     By  Prof.  LOMBROSO      Illus- 
trated. 

"By  far  the  most  comprehensive  and  fascinating  collection  of  facts  and 
generalizations  concerning  genius  which  has  yet  been  brought  together." 
—Journal  of  Mental  Science. 


XVII.  THE   GRAMMAR   OF    SCIENCE.     By    Prof.    KARL 
PEARSON.     Illustrated. 

"  The  problems  discussed  with  great  ability  and  lucidity,  and  often  in  a 
most  suggestive  manner,  by  Prof.  Pearson,  are  such  as  should  interest  all 
students  of  natural  science." — Natural  Science. 

XVIII.  PROPERTY:  ITS  ORIGIN  AND  DEVELOPMENT. 

By  CH.  LETOURNEAU,  General  Secretary  to  the  Anthropo- 
logical Society,  Paris,  and  Professor  in  the  School  of  Anthropo- 
logy, Paris. 
"M.   Letourneau  has  read  a  great  deal,  and  he  seems  to  us  to   have 

selected  and  interpreted  his  facts  with  considerable  judgment  and  learning." 

—  Westminster  Review. 

XIX.  VOLCANOES,    PAST    AND    PRESENT.       By    Prof. 
EDWARD  HULL,  LL.D.,  F.R.S. 

"  A  very  readable  account  of  the  phenomena  of  volcanoes  and  earth- 
quakes."— Nature. 

XX.  PUBLIC    HEALTH.      By    Dr.    J.    F.    J.    SYKES.     With 

numerous  Illustrations. 

"Not  by  any  means  a  mere  compilation  or  a  dry  record  of  details  and 
statistics,  but  it  takes  up  essential  points  in  evolution,  environment,  prophy- 
laxis, and  sanitation  bearing  upon  the  preservation  of  public  health. "- 
Lancet. 

XXI.  MODERN  METEOROLOGY.      AN  ACCOUNT  OF  THE 
GROWTH  AND  PRESENT  CONDITION  OF  SOME  BRANCHES 
OF  METEOROLOGICAL  SCIENCE.    By  FRANK  WALDO,  PH.D., 
Member  of  the  German  and  Austrian  Meteorological  Societies, 
etc.;  late  Junior  Professor,  Signal  Service,  U.S.A.     With  112 
Illustrations. 

"The  present  volume  is  the  best  on  the  subject  for  general  use  that  we 
have  seen."— Daily  Telegraph 

IMPORTANT  ADDITION  TO  THE  SERIES. 

XXII.  THE  GERM-PLASM:  A   THEORY  OF  HERE- 
DITY.    By  August  Weismann,  Professor  in  the  University 
of  Freiburg-in-Breisgau.      With  24  Illustrations. 

"  There  has  been  no  work  published  since  Darwin's  own  books  which 
has  so  thoroughly  handled  the  matter  treated  by  him,  or  has  done  so  much  to 
place  in  order  and  clearness  the  immense  complexity  of  the  factors  of  heredity, 
cr,  lastly,  has  brought  to  light  so  many  new  facts  and  considerations  bearing 
on  the  subject." — British  Medical  Journal. 

XXIII.  INDUSTRIES    OF    ANIMALS.      By   F.    HOUSSAY. 
With  numerous  Illustrations. 

"  His  accuracy  is  undoubted,  yet  his  facts  out-marvel  all  romance.  These 
facts  are  here  made  use  of  as  materials  wherewith  to  form  the  mighty  fabric  of 
evolution.  "—Manchester  Guardian. 


XXIV.  MAN  AND  WOMAN.      By  HAVELOCK  ELLIS.     Illus- 
trated. 

"Altogether  we  must  congratulate  Mr.  Ellis  upon  having  produced  a 
book  which,  apart  from  its  high  scientific  claims,  will,  by  its  straightforward 
simplicity  upon  points  of  delicacy,  appeal  strongly  to  all  those  readers  outside 
purely  scientific  circles  who  may  be  curious  in  these  matters." — Pall  Mall 
Gazette. 

"This  striking  and  important  volume  .  .  .  should  place  Mr.  Havelock 
Ellis  in  the  front  rank  of  scientific  thinkers  of  the  time." — Westminster 
Review. 

XXV.  THE    EVOLUTION  OF    MODERN  CAPITALISM. 

By  JOHN  A.  HOBSON,  M.A. 

"  Every  page  affords  evidence  of  wide  and  minute  study,  a  weighing  of 
facts  as  conscientious  as  it  is  acute,  a  keen  sense  of  the  importance  of  certain 
points  as  to  which  economists  of  all  schools  have  hitherto  been  confused  and 
careless,  and  an  impartiality  generally  so  great  as  to  give  no  indication  of  his 
[Mr.  Hobson's]  personal  sympathies." — Pall  Mall  Gazette. 

XXVI.  APPARITIONS     AND     THOUGHT-TRANSFER- 
ENCE.   By  FRANK  PODMORE,  M.A. 

"  A  very  sober  and  interesting  little  book.  .  .  .  That  thought-transference 
is  a  real  thing,  though  not  perhaps  a  very  common  thing,  he  certainly 
shows. " — Spectator. 

XXVII.  AN    INTRODUCTION    TO     COMPARATIVE 
PSYCHOLOGY.    By  Professor  C.  LLOYD  MORGAN.    With 
Diagrams. 

"  A  strong  and  complete  exposition  of  Psychology,  as  it  takes  shape  in  a 
mind  previously  informed  with  biological  science.  .  .  .  Well  written,  ex- 
tremely entertaining,  and  intrinsically  valuable." — Saturday  Review. 

XXVIII.  THE  ORIGINS  OF  INVENTION :    A  STUDY  OF 
INDUSTRY  AMONG  PRIMITIVE  PEOPLES.    By  OTIS  T.  MASON, 
Curator  of  the  Department  of  Ethnology  in  the  United  States 
National  Museum. 

"A  valuable  history  of  the   development  of  the  inventive  faculty."- 
Nature. 

XXIX.  THE   GROWTH  OF   THE  BRAIN:   A  STUDY  OF 
THE  NERVOUS  SYSTEM  IN  RELATION  TO  EDUCATION.    By 
HENRY  HERBERT  DONALDSON,  Professor  of  Neurology  in 
the  University  of  Chicago. 

"We  can  say  with  confidence  that  Professor  Donaldson  has  executed 
work  with  much  care,  judgment,  and  discrimination." — The  Lancet. 

XXX.  EVOLUTION    IN   ART:    As    ILLUSTRATED    BY   THE 
LIFE-HISTORIES    OF    DESIGNS.     By   Professor  ALFRED    C. 
HADDON. 


THE  CONTEMPORAR  Y  SCIENCE  SERIES. 


EDITED  BY  HAVELOCK  ELLIS. 


THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 


PAINTERS. 

Proportion 
to  a  million  inhabitants. 


THE 

MAN  OF  GENIUS. 


BY 

CESARE   LOMBROSO, 

/v/Vvw  c/  Lc&il  Medicine  at  the  University  of  Turin. 


WITH    ILLUSTRATIONS. 


LONDON : 

WALTER   SCOTT, 

24,   WARWICK   LANE,   PATERNOSTER    ROW 
1891. 


•'i.:£ 
AVAILABLE 


o, 


PREFACE. 


IT  has  never  before  happened  that  in  the  latest  edition 
of  a  book  I  have  had  to  disown  so  much  in  preceding 
editions  ;  my  first  imperfect  and  spontaneous  idea  has 
never  before  been  so  modified  and  transformed,  the  final 
form  being,  perhaps,  not  even  yet  altogether  attained. 

The  idea  that  genius  was  a  special  morbid  condition 
had  indeed  often  occurred  to  me,  but  I  IK  d  always  repelled 
it  ;  and  besides,  without  a  sure  experimental  basis,  ideas 
to-day  do  not  -count.  Like  still-born  children,  they 
appear  but  for  a  moment,  to  disappear  at  once.  I  had 
been  enabled  to  discover  in  genius  various  characters  of 
degeneration  which  are  the  foundation  and  the  sign 
of  nearly  all  forms  of  congenital  mental  abnormality, 
but  the  exaggerated  extension  which  was  at  that  time 
given  to  theories  of  degeneration,  and  still  more  the 
vague  and  inexact  character  of  that  conception,  had  re- 
pelled me  ;  so  that  I  accepted  the  facts,  but  not  their 
ultimate  consequences.  How,  in  fact,  can  one  suppress  a 
feeling  of  horror  at  the  thought  of  associating  with  idiots 
and  criminals  those  individuals  who  represent  the  highest 
manifestations  of  the  human  spirit  ? 

But  recent  teratologic  researches,  especially  those  of 
Gegenbauer,  have  shown  that  the  phenomena  of  atavistic 
retrogression  do  not  always  indicate  true  degradation,  but 
that  very  often  they  are  simply  a  compensation  for  con- 
siderable development  and  progress  accomplished  in  other 
directions.  Reptiles  have  more  ribs  than  we  have  ; 
quadrupeds  and  apes  possess  more  muscles  than  we  do, 
and  an  entire  organ,  the  tail,  which  we  lack.  It  has  been 
in  losing  these  advantages  that  we  have  gained  our  intel- 
lectual superiority.  When  this  is  seen,  the  repugnance  to 


,vi  PREFACE. 

the  theory  of  genius  as  degeneration  at  once  disappears. 
Just  as  giants  pay  a  heavy  ransom  for  their  stature  in 
sterility  and  relative  muscular  and  mental  weakness,  so 
the  giants  of  thought  expiate  their  intellectual  force  in 
degeneration  and  psychoses.  Kit  is  thus  that  the  signs  of 
degeneration  are  found  more  frequently  in  men  of  genius 
than  even  in  the  insane. .« 

And  again,  this  theory  has  entered  to-day  on  so  certain 
a  path,  and  agrees  so  entirely  with  my  studies  on  genius, 
that  it  is  impossible  for  me  not  to  accept  it,  and  not  to 
see  in  it  an  indirect  confirmation  of  my  own  ideas.  I  find 
this  confirmation  in  the  characters  of  degeneration  recently 
discovered  ; *  and  still  more  in  the  uncertainty  of  the 
theories  which  were  at  first  advanced  to  explain  the 
problem  of  genius.  Thus  Joly  affirms  in  a  too  convenient 
formula  that  "it  is  not  even  necessary  to  refute  the  theory 
of  insanity  in  genius  ;  "  for,  he  says,  "  strength  is  not 
weakness,  health  is  not  disease,  and  for  the  rest  the  cases 
quoted  in  favour  of  these  hypotheses  are  only  particular 
cases."2  But  the  physician  knows  that  very  often,  in  the 
delirious  and  epileptic,  strength  is  precisely  an  index  of 
disease.  As  to  the  second  objection,  it  falls  to  the  ground 
as  facts  accumulate.  It  is  certain  that  there  have  been 
men  of  genius  presenting  a  complete  equilibrium  of  the 
intellectual  faculties  ;  but  they  have  presented  defects  of 
affectivity  and  feeling  ;  though  no  one  may  have  per- 
ceived it,  or,  rather,  recorded  it.  Up  to  recent  years, 
historians,  being  chroniclers  rather  than  psychologists, 
very  careful  to  transmit  to  us  the  adventures  and  pagean- 
tries of  princes  and  peoples,  and  the  wars  which  have  so 
much  importance  in  the  eyes  of  the  multitude,  have 
neglected  everything  which  concerns  the  psychology  of 
thought.  They  have  very  seldom  informed  us  concerning 
the  disorders  and  degenerative  characters  which  exist  in 
men  of  genius  and  their  families  ;  while  vanity,  which  is 
extreme  in  men  of  genius,  has  never  allowed  them,  save 
in  rare  instances  (such  as  Cardan,  Rousseau,  J.  S.  Mill, 
Renan),  to  yield  spontaneous  revelations  of  themselves. 

1  Magnan,  Annales  Medico- Psychologiques,  1887  ;  Lombroso,  Tre 
Tribimi,  pp.  3-9,  16-23,  148-150;  Saury,  Etudes  Cliniqites  sur  la 
Folie  Hereditaire,  1886.  2  Psychologic  du  Genie,  1883. 


PREFACE.  vii 

If  Richelieu  had  not  on  one  single  occasion  been  caught 
in  an  epileptic  fit,  who  could  ever  have  guessed  it  ?  If  it 
had  not  been  for  the  recent  works  of  Berti  and  Mayor, 
who  would  have  believed  that  Cavour  twice  attempted  to 
kill  himself?  If  Taine  had  not  been  one  of  those  rare 
writers  who  understand  what  help  psychiatry  can  give  in 
the  study  of  history,  he  would  never  have  been  able  to 
surprise  those  characteristics  which  make  Napoleon's 
moral  insanity  manifest  to  all.  Carlyle's  wife  wrote  the 
narration  of  her  tortures  ;  few  wives  do  as  much,  and,  to 
tell  the  truth,  few  husbands  are  anxious  to  publish  such 
narratives.  Many  persons  still  regard  as  an  angelic  being 
thecelebrated  painter  Aiwosowski,  who  succoured  hundreds 
of  poor  persons  and  left  his  own  wife  and  children  to 
die  of  hunger. 

It  must  be  added  that  moral  insanity  and  epilepsy 
which  are  so  often  found  in  association  with  genius  are 
among  the  forms  of  mental  alienation  which  are  most 
difficult  to  verify,  so  that  they  are  often  denied,  even 
during  life,  although  quite  evident  to  the  alienist.  There 
are  still  many  estimable  persons  who  doubt  the  insanity 
of  King  Ludwig  of  Bavaria,  and  even  openly  deny  it.1 

There  are,  also,  no  individual  cases  in  nature  ;  all 
particular  cases  are  the  expression  and  effect  of  a  law. 
And  the  fact,  now  unquestioned,;  that  certain  great  men 
of  genius  have  been  insane7)permits  us  to  presume  the 
existence  of  a  lesser  degree  of  psychosis  in  other  men  of 
genius. 

But,  adds  Joly,  genius  is  often  precocious  ;  as  Raphael 
at  fourteen  years  of  age,  Mozart  at  six,  Michelangelo  at 
sixteen  ;  and  sometimes  it  is  tardy,  with  special  character- 
istics, as  in  Alfieri.  This  is  true  ;  precocious  originality 
is  one  of  the  characteristics  of  genius  ;  but  precisely  because 
genius  is  a  neurosis,  an  accidental  circumstance  may  pro- 
voke it  even  at  a  comparatively  late  age,  and  like  every 
neurosis  which  depends  on  irritation  of  the  cerebral  cortex 
it  may  take  on  different  aspects,  according  to  the  spot 
attacked,  while  preserving  the  same  nature. 

Hailes,  in  a  much  praised  essay  on  genius  in  art,  main- 
tains that  genius  is  a  continuation  of  the  conditions  of 
1  De  Renzis,  IJ opera  ifwi  Pazzo,  1887. 


viii  PREFACE. 

ordinary  life  ;  thus,  as  we  all  write  prose  we  must  all  have 
a  little  genius.  But  how  then  does  it  happen,  Brunetiere 
rightly  objects,1  that  one  individual  alone  becomes  a 
great  painter  or  a  great  poet  ?  And  how  is  it  that  so 
many  philosophers  affirm,  and  quite  truly,  that  genius 
consists  in  an  exaggerated  development  of  one  faculty  at 
the  expense  of  others  ? 

The  man  of  genius  is  a  monster,  say  others.  Very 
well,  but  even  monsters  follow  well-defined  teratologic 
laws. 

Brunetiere  remarks  that  there  have  been  men  of  talent, 
like  Addison  and  Pope,  who  were  lacking  in  genius  ;  and 
men  of  genius,  like  Sterne,  who  were  lacking  in  talent. 
These  two  facts,  however,  are  not  contradictory  ;  to  be 
lacking  in  talent,  or  rather  in  good  sense  or  common  sense, 
is  one  of  those  characters  of  genius  which  witness  to  the 
presence  of  neurosis,  and  indicate  that  hypertrophy  of 
certain  psychic  centres  is  compensated  by  the  partial 
atrophy  of  other  centres.  As  to  the  first  assertion,  it 
confirms  rather  than  destroys  my  conclusions.  Certainly 
talent  is  not  genius,  just  as  vice  is  not  crime,  but  there  is 
a  transition  from  one  to  the  other  in  virtue  of  that  law  of 
continuity  which  may  be  observed  in  all  natural 
phenomena.  Natura  nonfacit  saltus. 

I  must  confess  here  that  very  often  in  this  book  I  have 
had  to  confound  genius  with  talent ;  not  because  they  are 
not  quite  distinct,  but  because  the  line  that  separates  them, 
like  that  which  separates  vice  from  crime,  is  very  difficult 
to  define.  A  man  of  scientific  genius,  lacking  in  education 
and  opportunities — a  Gorini,  for  example — will  appear 
more  sterile  than  a  man  of  talent,  who  has  been  favoured 
by  circumstances  from  the  first. 

For  the  rest — and  this  is  the  point  which  concerns  us 
most — the  morbid  effects  and  analogies  are  the  same  in 
both,  since  the  man  of  talent,  even  without  genius, 
presents  various  slight  but  real  abnormalities^r[A  man  of 
even  ordinary  talent  may  be  so  exhausted  as  to  exhibit 
the  pathological  central  reactions  of  the  most  powerful 
genius,  and  to  leave  traces  of  degeneration  in  his  offspring  ; 
and,  although  it  is  rare,  it  is  not  impossible  for  the  man  ofl 
1  Revue  des  Deux  Maudes,  1886. 


PREFACE.  ix 

talent  to  descend  from  the  neurotic  and  insane.  This  may 
easily  be  explained  :  talent,  like  genius,  is  accompanied 
by  cortical  excitation,  only  in  a  less  degree  and  in  a 
smaller  brain.  The  true  normal  man  is  not  the  man  of 
letters  or  of  learning,  but  the  man  who  works  and  eats — 
frugcs  consumcre  natus. 

But  our  nature,  it  is  customary  to  say,  revolts  against  a 
conception  which  tends  to  lower  the  most  sublime  mani- 
festation of  humanity  to  the  level  of  the  sorrowfully 
degenerate,  to  idiocy  and  insanity.  It  is  sad,  I  do  not 
deny,  but  has  not  nature  caused  to  grow  from  similar  germs, 
and  on  the  same  clod  of  earth,  the  nettle  and  the  jasmine, 
the  aconite  and  the  rose  ?  The  botanist  cannot  be  blamed 
for  these  coincidences  ;  and  since  they  exist  it  is  not  a 
crime  that  he  should  record  them  as  he  finds  them. 
Repugnance  also  is  a  sentiment,  not  a  reason j  and  a 
sentiment,  moreover,  which  has  not  been  shared  by  the 
race  generally,  who  long  ago  reached  conclusions — 
repugnant  to  the  academic  world,  which  sometimes  closes 
its  eyes  in  order  not  to  see — entirely  in  harmony  with  the 
results  here  presented.  We  may  see  this  in  the  most 
ancient  etymologies  ;  in  Hebrew  as  well  as  in  Sanscrit  the 
lunatic  is  synonymous  with  the  prophet.  We  may  see  it, 
too,  in  proverbs:  "/  matti  cd  i  fancialli  indf>Tiiiano  •  " 
"Kinder  und Narrcn  sprcchcn  die  Wahr licit ;"  "Unfol 
advise  bicn  un  sage  ; "  "  Scvpe  cm  in  cst  morio  valde 
opportune  Iocutns."\The  lunatic,  again,  among  barbarous 
people  is  feared  and  adored  by  the  masses  who  often 
confide  to  him  supreme  authority. 

In  modern  times  the  same  conviction  has  been  preserved, 
but  in  a  form,  it  must  be  confessed,  altogether  disadvan- 
tageous to  genius.  Not  only  is  fame  (and  until  recent 
years  even  liberty),  denied  to  men  of  genius  during  their 
lives,  but  even  the  means  of  subsistence.  After  death 
they  receive  monuments  and  rhetoric  by  way  of  compen- 
sation. And  why  is  this  ?  Neither  the  jealousy  of  rivals 
nor  the  envy  of  mediocre  men  is  enough  to  explain  it. 
The  reason  is  that  if  we  leave  out  certain  great  statesmen 
(though  there  are  exceptions — Bismarck,  for  example), 
men  of  genius  are  lacking  in  tact,  in  moderation,  in  the 
sense  of  practical  life,  in  the  virtues  which  are  alone 


x  PREFACE, 

recognized  as  real  by  the  masses,  and  which  alone  are 
useful  in  social  affairs.  "  Le  bon  sens  vaut  micux  que  le 
genie"  says  an  old  French  adage.  And  as  Mirabeau  said, 
"  Good  sense  is  the  absence  of  every  strong  passion,  and 
only  men  of  strong  passions  can  be  great. "^  Good  sense 
travels  on  the  well-worn  paths  ;  genius,  never.  And  that 
is  why  the  crowd,  not  altogether  without  reason,  is  so 
ready  to  treat  great  men  as  lunatics,)  while  the  lettered 
crowd  cry  out  when — as  I  have  attempted  to  do  here — 
this  general  opinion  is  attached  to  a  theory. 

By  some  of  those  persons  who  have  too  much  good 
sense — and  who  do  not  know  that  that  destroys  every 
great  truth,  because  we  reach  truth  more  by  remote  paths 
.  than  by  smooth  and  ordinary  roads — it  has  been  objected  : 
1  "  Many  of  these  defects  that  you  find  in  great  men  may 
be  found  also  in  those  who  are  not  men  of  genius."!  This 
is  very  true,  but  it  is  by  the  quality  and  quantity  that  the 
abnormal  character  is  marked  ;  and,  above  all,  by  the  contra- 
diction with  the  whole  of  the  other  characters  of  their 
personality,  that  the  abnormality  appears.  Cooks  are 
vain,  but  in  those  matters  which  refer  to  their  occupation 
they  are  not  so  vain  as  to  believe  themselves  gods.  The 
nobleman  will  boast  of  descent  from  a  mediaeval  hero,  but 
not  of  being  a  sculptor.  We  are  all  forgetful  sometimes, 
but  not  so  far  forgetful  that  we  cannot  recall  our  own 
names  while  at  the  same  time  we  have  an  extraordinary 
memory  for  our  own  discoveries.  Many  have  said  what 
Michelangelo  said  of  monks,  but  they  have  ^iot  afterwards 
spent  large  sums  in  fattening  monasteries.  In  short,  it  is 
the  doubling  and  contradiction  of  personality  in  genius 
which  reveals  the  abnormality.! 

It  has  again  been  objected  to  me  that  these  studies  are 
deficient  in  utility.  To  this  I  might  reply  with  Taine 
that  it  is  not  always  necessary  that  the  true  should  be 
useful.  Yet  numerous  practical  applications  arise  out  of 
these  researches  ;  they  furnish  us  with  explanations  of 
those  strange  religious  insanities  which  become  the 
nucleus  of  great  historical  events.  The  examination  of 
the  productions  of  the  insane  supply  us  with  new  sources 
of  analysis  and  criticism  for  the  study  of  genius  in  art  and 
literature  ;  and,  above  all,  these  data  bring  an  important 


PREFACE.  xi 

element  to  the  solution  of  penal  questions,  for  they  over- 
throw for  ever  that  prejudice  by  virtue  of  which  only  those 
are  declared  insane,  and  therefore  irresponsible,  whose 
reason  has  entirely  departed,  a  prejudice  which  has  handed 
thousands  of  irresponsible  creatures  to  the  executioner. 
They  showfus,  lastly,  that  literary  madness  is  not  only  a 
curious  psychiatric  singularity,  but  a  special  form  of 
insanity,  which  hides  impulses  the  more  dangerous,  because 
not  easy  to  perceive,  a  form  of  insanity,  which,  like 
religious  insanity,  may  be  transformed  into  a  historical 
event. 

C.   LOMBROSO. 


CONTENTS. 

PART     I. 

Till':    CHARACTERISTICS    OF   GENIUS. 
CHAPTER    I. 

I'AGE 

HISTORY  OF  THE  PROHI.KM  -  1-4 

Aristotle  —  Plato  —  Democritus  —  Felix  Pinter  —  Pascal  — 
Diderot —Modern  writers  on  genius. 

UIAPTKK    II. 

GENIUS  AND  DK<;KNKI;.VI  n  >N  -         5  37 

The  signs  of  degeneration  —  Height —Rickets — Pallor— Ema- 
ciation— Physiognomy — Cranium  and  Brain — Stammering 
— Lefthandedness  Sterility— Unlikeness  to  Parents  — 
Precocity — Delayed  development — Misoneism — Vagabon- 
dage —  Unconsciousness  —  Instinctiveness  —  Somnambu- 
lism— The  Inspiration  of  Genius — Contrast — Intermit* 
tence — Double  Personality — Stupidity — Hypera-sthesia — 
Pane^theMa  Amnesia  -  -  Originality  Fondness  for 
special  words. 

CHAPTER    III. 

LAI  KM    FORMS  OF  NEUROSIS  AND  INSANITY  IN  GENII'S-       38-65 

Chorea  and  Epilepsy — Melancholy — Megalomania — Folie  du 
doitic  —  Alcoholism  -Hallucinations —Moral  Insanity  — 

Longevity. 

CHAPTER    IV. 

UUS  AND  INSANITY  -      66-99 

Resemblance  1»  turen  genius  and  insanity — Men  and  women 

of  genius  who  have  been  ius:ine — Montanus — Harrington 

Haller— Schumann     Gerard  de  Nerval — Baudelaire — 


xiv  CONTENTS. 

I'AGK 

Concato  —  Mainlander  —  Comte  —  Codazzi  —  Bolyai  — 
Cardan — Tasso — Swift  —  Newton  —  Rousseau— Lenau  — 
Szechenyi — Hoffmann — Fodera — Schopenhauer — Gogol. 

PART     II. 

THE   CAUSES  OF  GENIUS. 
CHAPTER  I. 

METEOROLOGICAL  INFLUENCES  ON  GENIUS  •  -  100-116 

The  influence  of  weather  on  the  insane — Sensitiveness  of  men 
of  genius  to  barometrical  conditions — Sensitiveness  to 
thermometrical  conditions. 

CHAPTER  II. 

CLIMATIC  INFLUENCES  ON  GENIUS  -  -  117-132 

Influence  of  great  cjyitres — Race  and  hot  climate— The  dis- 
tribution of  great  masters — Orographic  influences — Influ- 
ence of  healthy  race — Parallelism  of  high  stature  and 
genius — Explanations. 

CHAPTER  III. 

THE  INFLUENCE  OF  RACE  AND  HEREDITY  ON   GENIUS 

AND  INSANITY     -  .  -  133-150 

Race — Insanity — The  influence  of  sex — The  heredity  of  genius 
— Criminal  and  insane  parentage  and  descent  of  genius — 
Age  of  parents — Conception. 

CHAPTER  IV. 

THE  INFLUENCE  OF  DISEASE  ON  GENIUS  -  -  151-152 

Spinal  diseases — Fevers — Injuries  to  the  head  and  their  rela- 
tion to  genius. 

CHAPTER  V. 

THE  INFLUENCE  OF  CIVILIZATION  AND  OF  OPPORTUNITY  153-160 

Large  Towns — Large  Schools — Accidents — Misery — Power — 
Education. 


CONTENTS.  xv 

PART    III. 

GENIUS  IN  THE  INSANE. 
CHAPTER  I. 

I'AG 

INSANE  GENIUS  IN  LITERATURE      -  •  •  161-178 

Periodicals  published  in  lunatic  asylums — Synthesis— Passion 
— Atavism — Conclusion. 

CHAPTER  II. 

ART  IN  THE  INSANE-  -  179-208 

Geographical  distribution — Profession — Influence  of  the  special 
form  of  alienation— Originality — Eccentricity — Symbol- 
ism—Obscenity— Criminality  and  moral  insanity— Use- 
lessness — Insanity  as  a  subject — Absurdity — Uniformity — 
Summary — Music  among  the  insane. 

CHAPTER  III. 

LITERARY  AND  ARTISTIC  MATTOIDS  '    -  209-241 

Definition  —  Physical  and  psychical  characteristics  —  Their 
literary  activity — Examples — Lawsuit  mania — Mattoids 
of  genius — Bosisio — The  decadent  poets — Verlaine — Mat- 
toids in  art. 

CHAPTER  IV. 

POLITICAL  AND  RELIGIOUS  LUNATICS  AND  MATTOIDS      -  242-313 

Part  played  by  the  insane  in  the  progressive  movements  of 
humanity — Examples — Probable  causes — Religious  epi- 
demics of  the  Middle  Ages — Francis  of  Assisi — Luther — 
Savonarola — Cola  da  Rienzi — San  Juan  de  Dios — Campa- 
nella  —  Prosper  Enfantin  —  Lazzaretti  —  Passanante  — 
(iuiteau — South  Americans. 


PART     IV. 

SYNTHESIS.     THE  DEGENERATIVE  PSYCHOSIS 
OF  GENIUS. 

CHAPTER    I. 

CHARACTERISTICS  OF  INSANE  MEN  OF  GENIUS      •  •  314-329 

Characterlessness  —  Vanity  — Precocity — Alcoholism — Vaga- 
bondage —  Versatility  —  Originality  —  Style  • —  Religious 


xvi  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

doubts— Sexual     abnormalities— Egoism-  Eccentricity  - 
Inspiration. 

CHAPTER  II. 

ANALOGY  OF  SANE  TO  INSANE  GENIUS      -  .  330-335 

Want  of  character— Pride— Precocity— Alcoholism— Degene- 
rative signs —Obsession — Men  of  genius  in  revolutions. 

CHAPTER  III. 

THE  EPILEPTOID  NATURE  OF  GENIUS  -  336-352 

Etiology— Symptoms— Confessions   of    men   of   genius — The 

life  of  a  great   epileptic— Napoleon — Saint   Paul— The 

saints — Philanthropic  hysteria. 

CHAPTER  IV. 

SANE  MEN  OF  GENIUS  .  353-358 

Their  unperceivecl   defects— -Richelieu— Sesostris— Foscolo— 

Michelangelo —Darwin. 

CHAPTER  V. 
CONCLUSIONS   -  .  359-361 

APPENDIX  .  363-366 

INDEX  .  .        _ 


THE   MAN   OF   GENIUS. 

PART    I. 

THE   CHARACTERISTICS    OF  GENIUS, 

CHAPTER    I. 
HISTORY  OF  THE  PROBLEM. 

Aristotle — Plato — Dcmocritus — Felix  Plater — Pascal — Diderot — 
Modern  writers  on  genius. 

IT  is  a  sad  mission  to  cut  through  and  destroy  with  the 
scissors  of  analysis  the  delicate  and  iridescent  veils 
with  which  our  proud  mediocrity  clothes  itself.  Very 
terrible  is  the  religion  of  truth.  The  physiologist  is  not 
afraid  to  reduce  love  to  a  play  of  stamens  and  pistils,  and 
thought  to  a  molecular  movement.  Even  genius,  the 
one  human  power  before  which  we  may  bow  the  knee 
without  shame,  has  been  classed  by  not  a  few  alienists  as 
on  the  confines  of  criminality,  one  of  the  teratologic 
forms  of  the  human  mind,  a  variety  of  insanity. 

This  impious  profanation  is  not,  however,  altogether 
the  work  of  doctors,  nor  is  it  the  fruit  of  modern  sceptic- 
ism. The  great  Aristotle,  once  the  father,  and  still  the 
friend,  of  philosophers,  observed  that,  under  the  influence 
of  congestion  of  the  head,  "  many  persons  become  poets, 
prophets,  and  sybils,  and,  like  Marcus  the  Syracusan,  are 

2 


2  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

pretty  good  poets  while  they  are  maniacal  ;  but  when 
cured  can  no  longer  write  verse."1  And  again,  "Men 
illustrious  in  poetry,  politics,  and  arts,  have  often  been 
melancholic  and  mad,  like  Ajax,  or  misanthropic,  like 
Bellerophon.  Even  in  modern  times  such  characters 
have  been  noted  in  Socrates,  Empedocles,  Plato,  and  in 
many  others,  especially  poets."2 

In  the  Pluvdo,  Plato  affirms  that  u  delirium  is  by  no 
means  an  evil,  but,  on  the  contrary,  when  it  comes  by 
the  gift  of  the  gods,  a  very  great  benefit.  In  delirium, 
the  prophetesses  of  Delphi  and  Dodona  performed  a 
thousand  services  for  the  citizens  of  Greece  ;  while  in 
cold  blood  they  were  of  little  use,  or  rather  of  none.  It 
often  happened  that,  when  the  gods  afflicted  men  with 
fatal  epidemics,  a  sacred  delirium  took  possession  of 
some  mortal,  and  inspired  him  with  a  remedy  for  those 
misfortunes.  Another  kind  of  delirium,  that  inspired  by 
the  Muses,  when  a  simple  and  pure  soul  is  excited  to 
glorify  with  poetry  the  deeds  of  heroes,  serves  for  the  in- 
struction of  future  generations." 

Democritus  was  more  explicit,  and  would  not  believe 
that  there  could  be  a  good  poet  who  was  not  out  of  his 
mind  :  — 


sa/ios  Hdiconc  poctas 
Dcnioct'itus"  3 

It  was,  evidently,  the  observation  of  these  facts,  wrongly 
interpreted  and,  according  to  a  common  habit,  transformed 
into  superstitions,  which  caused  ancient  nations  to  venerate 
the  insane  as  beings  inspired  from  on  high.  We  possess 
not  only  the  witness  of  history  to  this  effect,  but  also  that 
of  the  words  navi  and  mcsugan  in  Hebrew  and  nigrata 
in  Sanscrit,  in  which  the  ideas  of  insanity  and  prophecy 
are  confused  and  assimilated. 

Felix  Plater  affirmed  that  he  had  known  persons  who, 
although  they  excelled  in  certain  arts,  were  yet  mad,  and 
betrayed  their  infirmity  by  a  curious  seeking  for  praise, 
and  by  strange  and  indecent  acts.  He  had  known  at 

1  DC  Pi  Olios!,.,  i.  p.  7.  -  Problnnata,  sect.  xxx. 

3  Horace,  Ais  Fo.t.  ,  296-297. 


PIISTOR  Y  OF  THE  PROBLEM.  3 

Court  an  architect,  a  celebrated  sculptor,  and  a  distin- 
guished musician,  who  were  mad.1 

Pascal,  later  on,  repeated  that  extreme  intelligence  was 
very  near  to  extreme  madness,  and  himself  offered  an 
example  of  it.  Diderot  wrote  :  "  I  conjecture  that  these 
men  of  sombre  and  melancholy  temperament  only  owed 
that  extraordinary  and  almost  Divine  penetration  which 
they  possessed  at  intervals,  and  which  led  them  to  ideas, 
sometimes  so  mad  and  sometimes  so  sublime,  to  a 
periodical  derangement  of  the  organism.  They  then 
believed  themselves  inspired,  and  were  insane.  Their 
attacks  were  preceded  by  a  kind  of  brutish  apathy,  which 
they  regarded  as  the  natural  condition  of  fallen  man. 
Lifted  out  of  this  lethargy  by  the  tumult  within  them, 
they  imagined  that  it  was  Divinity,  which  came  down  to 
visit  and  exercise  them.  .  .  .  Oh  !  how  near  are  genius 
and  madness  !  Those  whom  heaven  has  branded  for 
evil  or  for  good  are  more  or  less  subject  to  these 
symptoms  ;  they  reveal  them  more  or  less  frequently, 
more  or  less  violently.  Men  imprison  them  and  chain 
them,  or  raise  statues  to  them." 2 

Many  examples  of  men  who  were  at  once  mad  and 
highly  intelligent  were  offered  by  Hecart  in  his  Stu/ti- 
tiana,  on  petite  bibliographic  dcs  Fons  dc  Valenciennes, 
par  ini  humme  en  demcncc  ;  by  Delepierre,  an  enthusiastic 
bibliophile,  in  his  curious  Histoirc  litteraire  dcs  Fous 
(1860)  ;  by  Forgues,  in  Revue  de  Paris  (1826)  ;  and  by 
an  anonymous  writer  in  Sketches  of  Bedlam  (London, 

1873). 

On  the  other  hand,  it  was  shown  in  Lelut's  Demon  de 
Socrate  (1836)  and  Amulette  de  1  \iscal  (1846),  in  Verga's 
Lipe  mania  del  Tasso  (1850)  and  in  my  own  Pazzia  di 
Cai'daw)  (1856),  that  there  are  men  of  genius  who  have 
long  been  subject  to  hallucinations,  and  even  to  mono- 
mania. Other  proofs,  the  more  precious  because  im- 
partial, were  supplied  by  Reveille-Parise,  in  his  Physiologic 
ct  Hygiene  dcs  homines  lirres  <nix  travanx  de  V esprit 

1  Observationes  in  Honi.  AjfccL,  1641,  lib.  10,  p.  305.  More  :>in- 
l^ular  examples  in  Italy  were  collected  by  K  Giuoni,  in  the  Hospitale 
dei  Jolli  inciii-abili,  1620. 

-  Diderot,  Dictionnaire  Encychpedique. 


4  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

(1856).  Moreau  (de  Tours),  who  delighted  in  the  least 
verisimilar  aspects  of  truth,  in  his  solid  monograph, 
Psychologic  Morbide  (1859),  an(^  J-  A.  Schilling,  in  his 
Psychiatrischc  Brief e  (1863),  endeavoured  to  show,  by  re- 
searches that  were  very  copious  although  not  very  strict 
in  method,  that  genius  is  always  a  neurosis,  and  often  a 
true  insanity.  Hagen  has  more  recently  sought  to  prove 
a  thesis  which  is  partly  the  same  in  his  Verwandtschaft 
dcs  Genies  mit  demlrrsinn  (Berlin,  1877),  and,  indirectly, 
Jiirgen-Meyer,  in  his  admirable  monograph,  Genie  und 
Talent  (horn  the  Zeitschrift  fur  Volker -psychologic,  1879). 
These  two  writers  have  tried  to  explain  the  physiology 
of  genius,  and,  singularly,  they  have  reached  conclusions 
which  were  reached,  more  by  intuition  than  through  close 
observation,  by  an  Italian  Jesuit,  now  quite  forgotten — 
Bettinelli — in  his  book,  DeW  entusiasmo  nelle  belle  Arti 
(Milan,  1769). 

Radestock,  in  his  Genie  und  Wahnsinn  (Breslau,  1884), 
added  little  to  the  solution  of  the  problem,  as  he  merely 
copied,  for  the  most  part,  from  his  predecessors,  without 
profiting  greatly  by  their  work. 

Among  recent  writers,  I  note  Tarnowski  and  Tchuki- 
nova,  who  to  the  Russian  translation  of  my  book  (St. 
Petersburg,  1885)  have  added  many  new  documents  from 
the  history  of  Russian  literature  ;  Maxime  du  Camp,  who 
in  his  curious  Souvenirs  Litter  air  es  (1887),  has  shown 
how  many  modern  French  writers  have  concealed  within 
them  the  sorrowful  seed  of  insanity  ;  Ramos  Mejia, 
who,  in  his  Neurosis  de  losHombres  Celebrcs  dc  la  Historia 
Argentina  (Buenos  Ayres,  1885),  shows  how  nearly  all 
the  great  men  of  the  South  American  Republics  were 
inebriate,  neurotic,  or  insane  ;  A.  Tebaldi,  who,  in  his 
book  Ragione  e  Pazzia  (Milan,  1884),  brings  fresh  docu- 
ments to  the  literature  of  insanity  ;  and,  finally,  that 
acute  thinker  and  brilliant  writer,  Pisani-Dossi,  who  has 
given  us  a  curious  study,1  which  is  a  monograph  on  mad- 
ness in  art  ;  as  in  my  Tre  Tribtini  (1889)  I  have 
attempted  to  do  with  the  insane  and  semi-insane  in  their 
relation  to  politics. 

1  /  Mattoidi  e  il  Monumente  a  Vittorio  Etnanttele,  1885. 


CHAPTER   II. 

GENIUS  AND  DEGENERATION. 

The  signs  of  degeneration — Height — Rickets — Pallor — Emaciation — • 
Physiognomy — Cranium  and  Brain — Stammering — Lefthandedness 
— Sterility — Unlikeness  to  Parents — Precocity — Delayed  develop- 
ment— Misoneism — Vagabondage — Unconsciousness  —  Instinctive- 
ness — -Somnambulism — The  Inspiration  of  Genius — Contrast — In- 
termittence  —  Double  Personality  —  Stupidity  —  Ilypernesthesia — 
Paroesthesia — Amnesia — Originality — Fondness  for  special  words. 

THE  paradox  that  confounds  genius  with  neurosis,  how- 
ever cruel  and  sad  it  may  seem,  is  found  to  be  not  devoid 
of  solid  foundation  when  examined  from  various  points  of 
view  which  have  escaped  even  recent  observers. 

A  theory,  which  has  for  some  years  flourished  in  the 
psychiatric  world,  admits  that  a  large  proportion  of 
mental  and  physical  affections  are  the  result  of  degenera- 
tion, of  the  action,  that  is,  of  heredity  in  the  children  of 
the  inebriate,  the  syphilitic,  the  insane,  the  consumptive, 
&c.  ;  or  of  accidental  causes,  such  as  lesions  of  the  head 
or  the  action  of  mercury,  which  profoundly  change  the 
tissues,  perpetuate  neuroses  or  other  diseases  in  the  patient , 
and,  which  is  worse,  aggravate  them  in  his  descendants, 
until  the  march  of  degeneration,  constantly  growing  more 
rapid  and  fatal,  is  only  stopped  by  complete  idiocy  or 
sterility. 

Alienists  have  noted  certain  characters  which  very  fre- 
quently, though  not  constantly,  accompany  these  fatal 
degenerations.  Such  are,  on  the  moral  side,  apathy,  loss 
of  moral  sense,  frequent  tendencies  to  impulsiveness  or 
doubt,  psychical  inequalities  owing  to  the  excess  of  some 
faculty  (memory,  aesthetic  taste,  &c.)  or  defect  of  other 
qualities  (calculation,  for  example),  exaggerated  mutism  or 
verbosity,  morbid  vanity,  excessive  originality,  and  exces- 


6  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

sive  prc-occupation  with  self,  the  tendency  to  put  mystical 
interpretations  on  the  simplest  facts,  the  abuse  of  sym- 
bolism and  of  special  words  which  are  used  as  an  almost 
exclusive  mode  of  expression.  Such,  on  the  physical  side, 
are  prominent  ears,  deficiency  of  beard,  irregularity  of 
teeth,  excessive  asymmetry  of  face  and  head,  which  may  be 
very  large  or  very  small,  sexual  precocity,  smallncss  <>r 
disproportion  of  the  body,  lefthandedness,  stammering, 
rickets,  phthisis,  excessive  fecundity,  neutralized  afterwards 
by  abortions  or  complete  sterility,  with  constant  aggrava- 
tion of  abnormalities  in  the  children.1 

Without  doubt  many  alienists  have  here  fallen  into 
exaggerations,  especially  when  they  have  sought  to  deduce 
degeneration  from  a  single  fact.  But,  taken  on  the  whole, 
the  theory  is  irrefutable  ;  every  day  brings  fresh  applica- 
tions and  confirmations.  Among  the  most  curious  are 
those  supplied  by  recent  studies  on  genius.  The  signs  of 
degeneration  in  men  of  genius  they  show  are  sometimes 
more  numerous  than  in  the  insane.  Let  us  examine 
them. 

Height. — First  of  all  it  is  necessary  to  remark  the  fre- 
quency of  physical  signs  of  degeneration,  only  masqued 
by  the  vivacity  of  the  countenance  and  the  prestige  of 
reputation,  which  distracts  us  from  giving  them  due 
importance. 

The  simplest  of  these,  which  struck  our  ancestors  and 
has  passed  into  a  proverb,  is  the  smallness  of  the  body. 

Famous  for  short  stature  as  well  as  for  genius  were  : 
Horace  (leptdissimum  homunculum  diccbat  Augustus)^ 
Philopcemen,  Narses,  Alexander  (Magnus  Alexander  cor- 
pore  parvns  crat),  Aristotle,  Plato,  Epicurus,  Chrysippus, 
Laertes,  Archimedes,  Diogenes,  Attila,  Epictetus,  who  was 
accustomed  to  say,  "  Who  am  I  ?  A  little  man."  Among 
moderns  one  may  name,  Erasmus,  Socinus,  Linnaeus, 
Lipsius,  Gibbon,  Spinoza,  Hairy,  Montaigne,  Mezeray, 
Lalande, Gray ,  John  Hunter  (5ft.  2in.),  Mozart,  Beethoven, 
Goldsmith,  Hogarth,  Thomas  Moore,  Thomas  Campbell, 
Wilberforce,  Heine,  Meissonnier,  Charles  Lamb,  Beccaria, 
Maria  Edgeworth,  Balzac,  De  Quincey,  William  Blake 

1  Magnan,  Annales  Medico-psych. ,  1887  ;  Dejerine,  L'HMditc  dans 
Us  Maladies  Mentahs,  1886  ;  Ireland,  The  Blot  upon  the  Brain,  1885. 


GENIUS  AND  DEGENERATION.  7 

(who  was  scarcely  five  feet  in  height),  Browning,  Ibsen, 
George  Eliot,  Thicrs,  Mrs.  Browning,  Louis  Blanc,  Men- 
delssohn, Swinburne,  Van  Does  (called  the  Drum,  because 
he  was  not  any  taller  than  a  drum),  Peter  van  Laer  (called 
the  Puppet).  Lulli,  Pomponazzi,  Baldini,  were  very 
short  ;  so  also  were  Nicholas  Piccinini,  the  philosopher 
Dati,  and  Baldo,  who  replied  to  the  sarcasm  of  Bartholo, 
u  Minuit  pnrsrii/iti  famti"  with  the  words,  "  Angrhit 
cirtcra  rirlits  ; ''  and  again,  Marsilio  Ficino,  of  whom  it 
was  said,  'l  /V.v  nd  lnmb<>s  viri  stiibat"  Albertus  Mag- 
nus was  of  such  small  size  that  the  Pope,  having  allowed 
him  to  kiss  his  foot,  commanded  him  to  stand  up,  under 
the  impression  that  he  was  still  kneeling.  When  the 
coffin  of  St.  Francis  Xavier  was  opened  at  Goa  in  1890, 
the  body  was  found  to  be  only  four  and  a  half  feet  in 
length. 

Among  great  men  of  tall  stature  I  only  know  Volta, 
Goethe,  Petrarch,  Schiller,  D'Azeglio,  Helmholtz,  Foscolo, 
Charlemagne,  Bismarck,  Moltkc,  Monti,  Mirabeau,  Dumas 
,  Schopenhauer,  Lamartine,  Voltaire,  Peter  the  Great, 

ashington,  Dr.  Johnson,  Sterne,  Arago,  Flaubert, 
Carlyle,  Tourgueneff,  Tennyson,  Whitman. 

Rickets. — Agesilaus,  Tyrta3us,  yEsop,  Giotto,  Aristo- 
menes,  Crates,  Galba,  Brunellcschi,  Magliabccchi,  Parini, 
Scarron,  Pope, Lcopardi,  Talleyrand,  Scott,  Owen,  Gibbon, 
Byron,  Dati,  Baldini,  Moses  Mendelssohn,  Flaxman,  Hooke, 
were  all  either  rachitic,  lame,  hunch-backed,  or  club-footed. 

Pii/lor. — This  has  been  called  the  colour  of  great  men  ; 
"  Puhhrnm  subtitiuutn  rirt>rum  fl<>rcm "  (S.  Gregory, 
Oratioucs  XIl/r.).  It  was  ascertained  byMarro  T  that  this 
is  one  of  the  most  frequent  signs  of  degeneration  in  the 
morally  insane. 

Emaciation. — The  law  of  the  conservation  of  energy 
which  rules  the  whole  organic  world,  explains  to  us  other 
frequent  abnormalities,  such  as  precocious  greyness  and 
baldness,  leanness  of  the  body,  and  weakness  of  sexual 
and  muscular  activity,  which  characterize  the  insane,  and 
are  also  frequently  found  among  great  thinkers.  Leca- 
mus 2  has  said  that  the  greatest  geniuses  have  the  slenderest 

1  /  Carattcri  dd  Delinquent! ,  1886,  Turin. 
-  Mcd.  de  P  Esprit,  ii. 


THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

bodies.  Caesar  feared  the  lean  face  of  Cassius.  Demos- 
thenes, Aristotle,  Cicero,  Giotto,  St.  Bernard,  Erasmus, 
Salmasius,  Kepler,  Sterne,  Walter  Scott,  John  Howard, 
D'Alembert,  Fenelon,  Boileau,  Milton,  Pascal,  Napoleon, 
were  all  extremely  thin  in  the  flower  of  their  age. 

Others  were  weak  and  sickly  in  childhood  ;  such  were 
Demosthenes,  Bacon,  Descartes,  Newton,  Locke,  Adam 
Smith,  Boyle,  Pope,  Flaxman,  Nelson,  Haller,  Korner, 
Pascal,  Wren,  Alfieri,  Renan. 

Segur  wrote  of  Voltaire  that  his  leanness  recalled  his 
labours,  and  that  his  slight  bent  body  was  only  a  thin, 
transparent  veil,  through  which  one  seemed  to  see  his  soul 
and  genius.  Lamennais  was  "  a  small,  almost  imperceptible 
man,  or  rather  a  flame  chased  from  one  point  of  the  room 
to  the  other  by  the  breath  of  his  own  restlessness."  z 

Physiognomy. — Mind,  a  celebrated  painter  of  cats,  had 
a  cretin-like  physiognomy.  So  also  had  Socrates,  Skoda, 
Rembrandt,  DostoiefTsky,  Magliabecchi,  Pope,  Carlyle, 
Darwin,  and,  among  modern  Italians,  Schiaparelli,  who 
holds  so  high  a  rank  in  mathematics. 

Cranium  and  Brain. — Lesions  of  the  head  and  brain 
are  very  frequent  among  men  of  genius.  The  celebrated 
Australian  novelist,  Marcus  Clarke,  when  a  child,  received 
a  blow  from  a  horse's  hoof  which  crushed  his  skull.2  The 
same  is  told  of  Vico,  Gratry,  Clement  VI.,  Malebranche, 
and  Cornelius,  hence  called  a  Lapide.  The  last  three  are 
said  to  have  acquired  their  genius  as  a  result  of  the  accident, 
having  been  unintelligent  before.  Mention  should  also 
be  made  of  the  parietal  fracture  in  Fusinieri's  skull  ; 3  of 
the  cranial  asymmetry  of  Pericles,  who  was  on  this  account 
surnamed  Squill-head  ((mvoK^aXog)  by  the  Greek  comic 
writers  *  ;  of  Romagnosi,  of  Bichat,  of  Kant,s  of  Chenevix,6 
of  Dante,  who  presented  an  abnormal  development  of  the 
left  parietal  bone,  and  two  osteomata  on  the  frontal  bone  ; 
the  plagiocephaly  of  Brunacci  and  of  Machiavelli  ;  the 

1  Lamartine,  Cours  de  Lilterattire,  ii. 

2  Revue  Britannique,  1884. 

3  Canesterini,  //  Cranio  di  Fusinieri,  1875. 

4  Plutarch,  Life  of  Pericles,  iii. 

s  Kupfer,  "  Der  Schadel  Kants,"  in  Arch,  fiir  Anth.,  1881. 
6  Welcker,  Schiller'' s  Schadel,  1883. 


Figs.  1-3.  Kant's  Skull. 
4-  Volta's  Skull. 


Figs.  5-6.  Fusinieri's  Skull. 
,,      7-8.  Foscolo's  Skull. 


GENIUS  AND  DEGENERATION.  9 

extreme  prognathism  of  Foscolo  (68°)  and  his  low  cephalic- 
spinal  and  cephalic-orbital  index  ; x  the  ultra-dolichocephaly 
of  Fusinieri  (index  74),  contrasting  with  the  ultra-brachy- 
cephaly  which  is  characteristic  of  the  Venetians  (82  to  84); 
the  Neanderthaloid  skull  of  Robert  Bruce  ; 2  of  Kay  Lye,3 
of  San  Marsay  (index  69),  and  the  ultra-dolichocephaly  of 
O'Connell  (index  73),  which  contrasts  with  the  mesocephaly 
of  the  Irish  ;  the  median  occipital  fossa  of  Scarpa ;  *  the 
transverse  occipital  suture  of  Kant,  his  ultra-brachycephaly 
(88-5),  platycephaly  (index  of  height  71*1),  the  dispropor- 
tion between  the  superior  portion  of  his  occipital  bone, 
more  developed  by  half,  and  the  inferior  or  cerebellar 
portion.  It  is  the  same  with  the  smallncss  of  the  frontal 
arch  compared  to  the  parietal. 

In  Volta's  skull s  I  have  noted  several  characters  which 
anthropologists  consider  to  belong  to  the  lower  races, 
such  as  prominence  of  the  styloid  apophyses,  simplicity  of 
the  coronal  suture,  traces  of  the  median  frontal  suture, 
obtuse  facial  angle  (73°),  but  especially  the  remarkable 
cranial  sclerosis,  which  at  places  attains  a  thickness  of  16 
millemetres  ;  hence  the  great  weight  of  the  skull  (753 
grammes). 

The  researches  of  other  investigators  have  shown  that 
Manzoni,  Petrarch,  and  Fusinieri  had  receding  fore- 
heads ;  in  Byron,  Massacra  (at  the  age  of  32),  Humboldt, 
Meckel,6  Foscolo,  Ximenes,  and  Donizetti  there  was 
solidification  of  the  sutures  ;  submicrocephaly  in  Rasori, 
Descartes,  Foscolo,  Tissot,  Guido  Reni,  Hoffmann,  and 
Schumann  ;  sclerosis  in  Donizetti  and  Tiedemann  who, 
moreover,  presented  a  bony  crest  between  the  sphenoid 
and  the  basilar  apophysis  ;  hydrocephalus  in  Milton, 
Linnaeus,  Cuvier,  Gibbon,  &c. 

The  capacity  of  the  skull  in  men  of  genius,  as  is  natural, 
is  above  the  average,  by  which  it  approaches  what  is  found 
in  insanity.  (De  Quatrefages  noted  that  the  greatest  degree 
of  macrocephaly  was  found  in  a  lunatic,  the  next  in  a  man 

1  Mantegazza,  Sul  Crania  di  Foscolo,  Florence,  1880. 
3  Turner,  Quarterly  Journal  of  Science,  1864. 

3  De  Quatrefages,  Crania  Ethnica,  Part  i.  p.  30. 

4  Zoja,  La  Testa  di  Scarpa,  1880. 

5  Sul  Crania  di  Volta,  1879,  Turin. 

6  Welcker,  Schiller's  Schadcl,  1883. 


10 


THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 


of  genius.)  There  arc  numerous  exceptions  in  which  it 
descends  below  the  ordinary  average. 

It  is  certain  that  in  Italy,  Volta  (1,860  c.cm.),  Petrarch 
(1,602  c.cm.),  Bordoni  (1,681  c.cm.),  Brunacci  (1,701  c.cm.), 
St.  Ambrose  (1,792  c.cm.),  and  Fusinieri  (1604  c.cm.),  all 
presented  great  cranial  capacity.  The  same  character  is 
found  to  a  still  greater  degree  in  Kant  (1,740  c.cm.), 
Thackeray  (1660  c.cm.),  Cuvier  (1,830  c.cm.),  and  Tour- 
gueneff  (2,012  c.cm.). 

Le  Bon  studied  twenty-six  skulls  of  French  men  of 
genius,  among  whom  were  Boileau,  Descartes,  and  Jour- 
dan.1  He  found  that  the  most  celebrated  had  an  average 
capacity  of  1,732  cubic  centimetres  ;  while  the  ancient 
Parisians  offered  only  1,559  c.cm.  Among  the  Parisians 
of  to-day  scarcely  12  per  cent,  exceed  1,700  c.cm.,  a  figure 
surpassed  by  73  per  cent,  of  the  celebrated  men. 

But  sub-microcephalic  skulls  may  also  be  found  in  men 
of  genius.  Wagner  and  Bischoff,2  examining  twelve 

1  Reviie  Sdentifiquc,  1882. 

~  Wagner  (Das  Hirngcwicht,  1877)  gives  these  measurements  of 
scientific  men  of  Gottingen  : — 

Dirichlet  Mathematician  Age  54  1520  g. 

Fuchs  Physician  „     52  1499  g. 

Gauss  Mathematician  ,,     78  1492  g. 

Hermann  Philologist  ,,     51  1358  g. 

Ilausmann  Mineralogist  ,,     77  1226  g. 

Bischoff  {Hirngewichtc  bci  Aliinclicner  Gdehrten)  gives  the  following 
measurements  : — 


Hermann 

Pfeufer 

Bischoff 

Melchior  Meyer 

Arnold! 

Thackeray 

Abercrombie 

Cuvier 

Doell       • 

Schiller 

Iluber 

Fallmerayer 

Liebig 

Tiedemann 

Harless 

Dollinger 


Geometrician 

Physician 

Physician 

Poet 

Orientalist 

Novelist 

Physician 

Naturalist 

Archoeologist 

Poet 

Philosopher 

Historian 

Chemist 

Physiologist 

Chemist 

Physiologist 


Age  60 


79 
61 

«5 
52 
64 

63 

46 
47 
74 
70 

79 
40 


1590  g- 
1488  g. 


g- 

1730  g- 
1660  g. 
1780  g. 
1829  g. 
1650  g. 
1580  g. 
1499  g. 
1349  g- 
1352  g- 
1254  g- 
1238  g. 
1207  g. 


The  measurement  of  the  cerebral  area  often  gives  superiority  even  to 


GENIUS  AND  DE GENERA  TION.  1 1 

brains  of  celebrated  Germans,  found  the  capacity  very 
great  in  eight,  very  small  in  four.  The  latter  was  the  case 
with  Licbig,  Dollinger,  Hausmann,  in  whose  favour 
advanced  age  may  be  advanced  as  an  excuse  ;  but  this 
reason  does  not  exist  for  Guido  Reni,  Gambetta,  Harless, 
Foscolo  (1426),  Dante  (1403),  Hermann  (1358),  Laskcr 
(1300).  Shelley's  head  was  remarkably  small. 

In  the  face  of  all  these  facts  I  shall  not  be  taxed  with 
temerity  if  I  conclude  that,  as  genius  is  often  expiated  by 
inferiority  in  some  psychic  functions,  it  is  often  associated 
with  anomalies  in  that  organ  which  is  the  source  of  its 
glory. 

Reference  should  here  be  made  to  the  ventricular 
dropsy  in  Rousseau's  brain,1  to  the  meningitis  of  Grossi, 
of  Donizetti,  and  of  Schumann,  to  the  cerebral  cedema  of 
Liebig  and  of  Tiedemann.  In  the  last-named,  besides 
remarkable  thickness  of  the  skull,  especially  at  the  fore- 
head, Bischoff  noted  adherence  of  the  dura  mater  to  the 
bone,  thickening  of  the  arachnoid  and  atrophy  of  the 
brain.  In  the  physician  Fuchs,  Wagner  found  the  fissure 
of  Rolando  interrupted  by  a  superficial  convolution,  an 
anomaly  which  Giacomini  found  only  once  in  356 
cases,  and  Heschl  once  in  63 2. 2  Pascal's  brain  showed 
grave  lesions  of  the  cerebral  hemispheres.  It  has  recently 
been  discovered  that  Cuvier's  voluminous  brain  was 
affected  by  dropsy  ;  in  Lasker's  there  was  softening  of 
the  corpora  striata,  pachymcningitis,  haemorrhage,  and 
endarteritis  deformans  of  the  artery  of  the  fissure  of 
Sylvius. 3 

In  eighteen  brains  of  German  men  of  science  Bischofl 
and  Riidinger  found  congenital  anomalies  of  the  cerebral 
convolutions,  especially  of  the  parietal.4  In  the  brains  of 

those  men  of  genius  who  present  a  feeble  weight.  Fuchs  had  a  cerebral 
surface  of  22,1005  square  c.  and  Gauss  of  21,9588  ;  while  with  the  same 
weight  the  same  surface  in  an  unknown  woman  was  20,4115  and  in  a 
workman  18,7672. 

1  Bulletin  dc  la  SodtttfAnthropologic,  1861, 

2  Die  tiefcn  Windiingcn  dcs  Mensclu-nhirncs,  1877. 

3  Mendel,  Centralblatt,  No.  4,  1884. 

4  Ein  Beitrag  zur  Anatotnie  dcr  Affenspaltc  nnd  dcr  Intcrparictal 
Fiircht  beim  Menschen  nach   Rasse,    Geschhcht,   mid  Indiridnalitat, 
1886. 


1 2  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

Wiilfert  and  Huber,  the  third  left  frontal  convolution 
was  greatly  developed  with  numerous  meanderings.  In 
Gambetta  this  exaggeration  became  a  real  doubling  ;  and 
the  right  quadrilateral  lobule  is  divided  into  two  parts  by 
a  furrow  which  starts  from  the  occipital  fissure  ;  of  these 
two  parts  the  inferior  is  subdivided  by  an  incision  with 
numerous  branches,  arranged  in  the  form  of  stars,  and  the 
occipital  lobe  is  small,  especially  on  the  right.1 

"  The  -comparative  study  of  these  brains,"  writes 
Herve,2  "  shows  that  individual  variations  of  the  cerebral 
convolutions  are  more  numerous  and  more  marked  in 
men  of  genius  than  in  others.  This  is  especially  the  case 
in  regard  to  the  third  frontal  convolution  which  is  not 
only  more  variable  in  men  of  genius,  but  also  more  com- 
plex, especially  on  one  side,  while  in  ordinary  persons  it 
is  very  simple  both  on  the  left  and  on  the  right.  Without 
doubt  the  individual  arrangements  which  may  be  pre- 
sented by  the  brains  of  men  of  remarkable  intelligence 
may  also  be  found  in  ordinary  brains,  but  only  in  rare 
exceptions." 

I  refer  those  who  wish  to  form  an  idea  of  the  develop- 
ment reached  by  Broca's  centre  in  some  of  the  brains  of 
the  Munich  collection  to  Riidinger's  monograph,  and  to 
the  beautiful  plates  which  accompany  it.  One  remarks 
especially.the  enormous  size  and  the  numerous  superficial 
folds  at  the  foot  of  the  left  convolution  in  the  jurist 
Wiilfert,  who  was  remarkable  among  other  qualities  for 
his  great  oratorical  talent.  On  the  other  hand,  the  con- 
volution is  much  reduced  and  very  simple  on  the  left, 
much  developed  in  all  its  parts  on  the  right,  in  the  brain 
of  the  pathologist  Buhl,  a  professor  whose  speech  was 
clear  and  facile,  but  who  was  left-handed,  or  at  all  events 
ambidextrous.  To  these  facts  others  may  be  added,  show- 
ing the  morphological  complexity  of  Broca's  convolution 
in  distinguished  men  ;  in  the  brains,  for  instance,  of  various 
men  of  science,  described  and  figured  by  R.  Wagner.  ^ 
Among  these  was  the  illustrious  geometrician,  Gauss  : 
compared  with  Gauss's  brain  that  of  an  artisan  called 

1  Bulletin  de  la  Societe  (fAnthropologie,  1886,  p.  135. 

2  La  Circonvolution  de  Broca,  Paris,  1888. 

3  Vorstudien^  <JbV.,  1st  Memoir,  1860. 


vie.  i 


Fig.  i.   Gauss's  Erain. 
,,    2.    Frontal  Lobe  of  same. 
,,     3.    Brain  of  a  German  Workman. 


Fig.  4.   Frontal  Lobe  of  same. 
,     5.   Dirichlet's  Brain. 
,,     6.   Hermann's  Brain. 


GENIUS  AND  DEGENERATION.  13 

Krebs  was  much  less  complicated,  and  notably  narrower 
in  the  frontal  region.  The  frontal  convolutions  were  also 
inferior  in  development  to  those  of  Gauss  ;  and  the 
anterior  lobes  were  voluminous  in  another  celebrated 
mathematician,  Professor  De  Morgan,  whose  brain  is  in 
Bastian's  possession.1 

Stammering. — Men  of  genius  frequently  stammer.  I 
will  mention  :  Aristotle,  ^Esop,  Demosthenes,  Alcibiades, 
Cato  of  Utica,  Virgil,  Manzoni,  Erasmus,  Malherbe,  C. 
Lamb,  Turenne,  Erasmus  and  Charles  Darwin,  Moses 
Mendelssohn,  Charles  V.,  Romiti,  Cardan,  Tartaglia. 

Lcfthandcdness. — Many  have  been  left-handed.  Such 
were  :  Tiberius,  Sebastian  del  Piombo,  Michelangelo, 
Flechier,  Nigra,  Buhl,  Raphael  of  Montelupo,  Bertillon. 
Leonardo  da  Vinci  sketched  rapidly  with  his  left  hand 
any  figures  which  struck  him,  and  only  employed  the 
right  hand  for  those  which  were  the  mature  result  of  his 
contemplation  ;  for  this  reason  his  friends  were  persuaded 
that  he  only  wrote  with  the  left  hand.2  Mancinism  or 
leftsidedness  is  to-day  regarded  as  a  character  of  atavism 
and  degeneration.  3 

Sterility. — Many  great  men  have  remained  bachelors  ; 
others,  although  married,  have  had  no  children.  u  The 
noblest  works  and  foundations,"  said  Bacon,*  uhave 
proceeded  from  childless  men,  which  have  sought  to 
express  the  images  of  their  minds,  where  those  of  their 
bodies  have  failed.  So  the  care  of  posterity  is  most 
in  them  that  have  no  posterity."  And  La  Bruyere  said, 
"  These  men  have  neither  ancestors  nor  descendants ; 
they  themselves  form  their  entire  posterity." 

Croker,  in  his  edition  of  Boswell,  remarks  that  all  the 
great  English  poets  had  no  posterity.  He  names  Shakes- 
peare, Ben  Jonson,  Milton,  Otway,  Dryden,  Rowe, 
Addison,  Pope,  Swift,  Gay,  Johnson,  Goldsmith,  Cowper. 
Hobbes,  Camden,  and  many  others,  avoided  marriage  in 
order  to  have  more  time  to  devote  to  study.  Michel- 

1  Le  Cerveau  et  la  Pensee,  t.  ii.  p.  46. 

2  Galiichon  in  Gazette  des  Beaux  Arts,  1867. 

-  Lombroso,   Sul  Mancinismo  motorio  e   sensorio  nci  sani  e  negli 
alienati,  1885,  Turin. 

4  Essay  VII.,  Of  Parents  and^hildren. 


i4  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

angelo  said,  u  I  have  more  than  enough  of  a  wife  in  my 
art."  Among  celibates  may  be  mentioned  also  :  Kant, 
Newton,  Pitt,  Fox,  Fontenelle,  Beethoven,  Gassendi, 
Galileo,  Descartes,  Locke,  Spinoza,  Bayle,  Leibnitz, 
Malebranche,  Gray,  Dalton,  Hume,  Gibbon,  Macaulay, 
Lamb,  iBentham,  Leonardo  da  Vinci,  Copernicus, 
Reynolds,  Handel,  Mendelssohn,  Meyerbeer,  Schopen- 
hauer, Camoens,  Voltaire,  Chateaubriand,  Flaubert, 
Foscolo,  Alfieri,  Cavour,  Pellico,  Mazzini,  Aleardi, 
Guerrazzi.  And  among  women  :  Florence  Nightingale, 
Catherine  Stanley,  Gaetana  Agnesi  (the  mathematician), 
and  Luigia  Laura  Bassi.  A  very  large  number  of  married 
men  of  genius  have  not  been  happy  in  marriage  :  Shake- 
speare, Dante,  Marzolo,  Byron,  Coleridge,  Addison, 
Landor,  Carlyle,  Ary  Scheffer,  Rovani,  A.  Comte,  Haydn, 
Milton,  Sterne,  Dickens,  &c.  St.  Paul  boasted  of 
his  absolute  continence  ;  Cavendish  altogether  lacked 
the  sexual  instinct,  and  had  a  morbid  antipathy  to 
women.  Flaubert  wrote  to  George  Sand  :  "  The  muse, 
however  intractable,  gives  fewer  sorrows  than  woman.  I 
cannot  reconcile  one  with  the  other.  One  must  choose."  l 
Adam  Smith  said  he  reserved  his  gallantry  for  his 
books.  Chamfort,  the  misanthrope,  wrote :  "  If  men 
followed  the  guidance  of  reason  no  one  would  marry  ; 
for  my  own  part,  I  will  have  nothing  to  do  with  it,  lest  I 
should  have  a  son  like  myself."  A  French  poet  has  said  : 

"  Les  grands  csprits,  cTailleurs  tres-estiwables, 
Out  tres  pen  de  talent  pour  former  leurs  setnblables."2 

Unlikencss  to  Parents. — Nearly  all  men  of  genius  have 
differed  as  much  from  their  fathers  as  from  their  mothers 
(Foscolo,  Michelangelo,  Giotto,  Haydn,  &c.).  That  is 
one  of  the  marks  of  degeneration.  For  this  reason  one 
notes  physical  resemblances  between  men  of  genius 
belonging  to  very  different  races  and  epochs  ;  for 
example,  Julius  Caesar,  Napoleon,  and  Giovanni  of  the 
Black  Bands  ;  or  Casti,  Sterne,  and  Voltaire.  They 
often  differ  from  their  national  type.  They  differ  by  the 
possession  of  noble  and  almost  superhuman  characters 
(elevation  of  the  forehead,  notable  development  of  the 

1  Lettresa  Georges  Sand,  Paris,  1885*     2  Des touches,  Philos.  Maries. 


GENIUS  AND  DEGENERATION.  17 

nesia  of  genius.  Many  children  who  become  great  men 
have  been  regarded  at  school  as  bad,  wild,  or  silly  ;  but 
their  intelligence  appeared  as  soon  as  the  occasion  offered, 
or  when  they  found  the  true  path  of  their  genius.  It  was 
thus  with  Thiers,  Pestalozzi,  Wellington,  Du  Guesclin, 
Goldsmith, Burns,  Balzac,  Fresnel,  Dumas/»tw,  Humboldt, 
Sheridan,  Boccaccio,  Pierre  Thomas,  Linnaeus,  Vofta, 
Alfieri.  Thus  Newton,  meditating  on  the  problems  of 
Kepler,  often  forgot  the  orders  and  commissions  given 
him  by  his  mother  ;  and  while  he  was  the  last  in  his  class 
he  was  very  clever  in  making  mechanical  playthings. 
Walter  Scott,  who  also  showed  badly  at  school,  was  a 
wonderful  story-teller.  Klaproth,  the  celebrated  Orien- 
talist, when  following  the  courses  at  Berlin  University, 
was  considered  a  backward  student.  In  examination  once 
a  professor  said  to  him  :  "  But  you  know  nothing,  sir  !  " 
"  Excuse  me,"  he  replied,  "  I  know  Chinese."  It  was 
found  that  he  had  learnt  this  difficult  language  alone, 
almost  in  secret.  Gustave  Flaubert  "  was  the  very  opposite 
of  a  phenomenal  child.  It  was  only  with  extreme  diffi- 
culty that  he  succeeded  in  learning  to  read.  His  mind, 
however,  was  already  working,  for  he  composed  little  plays 
which  he  could  not  write,  but  which  he  represented  alone, 
playing  the  different  personages,  and  improvising  long 
dialogues."  r  Domenichino,  whom  his  comrades  called 
the  great  bullock,  when  accused  of  being  slow  and  not 
learning  so  fast  as  the  other  pupils,  replied  :  "  It  is  because 
I  work  in  myself." 

Sometimes  children  have  only  made  progress  when 
abandoned  to  their  own  impulses.  Thus  Cabanis,  although 
intelligent,  was  regarded  at  school  as  obstinate  and  idle, 
and  was  sent  home.  His  father  then  decided  to  risk  an 
experiment.  He  allowed  his  son,  at  fourteen  years  of  age, 
to  study  according  to  his  own  taste.  The  experiment 
succeeded  completely. 

Misoneism. — The  men  who  create  new  worlds  are  as 
much  enemies  of  novelty  as  ordinary  persons  and  children. 
They  display  extraordinary  energy  in  rejecting  the  dis- 
coveries of  others  ;  whether  it  is  that  the  saturation,  so 

1  Guy  de  Maupassant,  £tudt  sur  G  us  lave  Flaubert,  Paris,  1885. 

3 


1 8  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

to  say,  of  their  brains  prevents  any  new  absorption,  or 
that  they  have  acquired  a  special  sensibility,  alert  only 
to  their  own  ideas,  and  refractory  to  the  ideas  of  others. 
Thus  Schopenhauer,  who  was  a  great  rebel  in  philosophy, 
has  nothing  but  words  of  pity  and  contempt  for  political 
revolutionaries  ;  and  he  bequeathed  his  fortune  to  men 
who  had  contributed  to  repress  by  arms  the  noble  political 
aspirations  of  1848.  Frederick  II.,  who  inaugurated 
German  politics,  and  wished  to  foster  a  national  art  and 
literature,  did  not  suspect  the  worth  of  Herder,  of  Klop- 
stock,  of  Lessing,  of  Goethe  ; x  he  disliked  changing  his 
coats  so  much  that  he  had  only  two  or  three  during  his 
life.  The  same  may  be  said  of  Napoleon  and  his  hats. 
Rossini  could  never  travel  by  rail ;  when  a  friend  at- 
tempted to  accustom  him  to  the  train  he  fell  down 
fainting,  remarking  afterwards  :  "If  I  was  not  like  that 
I  should  never  have  written  the  Barbiere"  Napoleon 
rejected  steam,  and  Richelieu  sent  Salomon  de  Caus,  its 
first  inventor,  to  the  Bicetre.  Bacon  laughed  at  Gilbert 
and  Copernicus  ;  he  did  not  believe  in  the  application  of 
instruments,  or  even  of  mathematics,  to  the  exact  sciences. 
Baudelaire  and  Nodier  detested  freethinkers.2  Laplace 
denied  the  fall  of  meteorites,  for,  he  said,  with  an  argu- 
ment much  approved  by  the  Academicians,  how  can  stones 
fall  from  the  sky  when  there  are  none  there  ?  Biot 
denied  the  undulatory  theory.  Voltaire  denied  fossils. 
Darwin  did  not  believe  in  the  stone  age  nor  in  hypnotism. 3 
Robin  laughed  at  the  Darwinian  theory. 

Vagabondage. — Love  of  wandering  is  frequent  among 
men  of  genius.  I  will  mention  only  Heine,  Alfieri,  Byron, 
Giordano  Bruno,  Leopardi,  Tasso,  Goldsmith,  Sterne, 
Gautier,  Mussei,  Lenau.  "  My  father  left  me  his  wander- 
ing genius  as  a  heritage,"  wrote  Foscolo.  Holderlin,  after 
his  much  loved  wife  had  entered  a  convent,  wandered 
for  forty  years  without  settling  down  anywhere.  Every 
one  knows  of  the  constant  journeys  of  Petrarch,  of 
Paisiello,  of  Lavoisier,  of  Cellini,  of  Cervantes,  at  a  time 
when  travelling  was  beset  by  difficulties  and  dangers. 

1  Revue  des  Deux,  Mondes,  1883,  p.  92. 

2  Revue  Blate,  1887,  p.  17. 

3  Danvirfs  Life,  1887. 


GENIUS  AND  DEGENERATION.  15 

nose  and  of  the  head,  great  vivacity  of  the  eyes) ;  while 
the  cretin,  the  criminal,  and  often  the  lunatic,  differ  by 
the  possession  of  ignoble  features  :  Humboldt,  Virchow, 
Bismarck,  Helmholtz,  and  Holtzendorf,  do  not  show  a 
German  physiognomy.  Byron  was  English  neither  in 
his  face  nor  in  his  character;  Manin  did  not  show  the 
Venetian  type  ;  Alfieri  and  d'Azeglio  had  neither  the 
Piedmontese  character  nor  face.  Carducci's  face  is  not 
Italian.  Nevertheless,  one  finds  very  notable  and  fre- 
quent exceptions.  Michelangelo,  Leonardo  da  Vinci, 
Raphael,  and  Cellini,  presented  the  Italian  type. 

Precocity. — Another  character  common  to  genius  and 
to  insanity,  especially  moral  insanity,  is  precocity. 
Dante,  when  nine  years  of  age,  wrote  a  sonnet  to 
Beatrice  ;  Tasso  wrote  verses  at  ten.  Pascal  and  Comte 
were  great  thinkers  at  the  age  of  thirteen,  Fornier  at 
fifteen,  Niebuhr  at  seven,  Jonathan  Edwards  at  twelve, 
Michelangelo  at  nineteen,  Gassendi,  the  Little  Doctor, 
at  four,  Bossuet  at  twelve,  and  Voltaire  at  thirteen. 
Pico  de  la  Mirandola  knew  Latin,  Greek,  Hebrew, 
Chaldee,  and  Arabic,  in  his  childhood  ;  Goethe  wrote  a 
story  in  seven  languages  when  he  was  scarcely  ten  ; 
Wicland  knew  Latin  at  seven,  meditated  an  epic  poem 
at  thirteen,  and  at  sixteen  published  his  poem,  Die 
Vallkommcustc  Welt.  Lopez  de  la  Vega  composed  hi.s 
first  verses  at  twelve,  Calderon  at  thirteen.  Kotzebue 
was  trying  to  write  comedies  at  seven,  and  at  eighteen 
his  first  tragedy  was  acted.  Schiller  was  only  nineteen 
when  his  epoch-making  Rdubcr  appeared.  Victor  Hugo 
composed  Irtamenc  at  fifteen,  and  at  twenty  had  already 
published  Han  d*  Islandc,  Bug-Jar  gal,  and  the  first 
volume  of  Odes  ct  Ballades;  Lamennais  at  sixteen 
dictated  the  Paroles  d*un  Croyant.  Pope  wrote  his 
ode  to  Solitude  at  twelve  and  his  Pastorals  at  sixteen. 
Byron  wrote  verses  at  twelve,  and  at  eighteen  published 
his  Hours  of  Idleness.  Moore  translated  Anacrcon  at 
thirteen.  Meyerbeer  at  five  played  excellently  on  the 
piano.  Claude  Joseph  Vernet  drew  very  well  at  four, 
and  at  twenty  was  already  a  celebrated  painter.  At 
thirteen  Wren  invented  an  astronomical  instrument  and 
offered  it  to  hi.-,  father  with  a  Latin  dedication.  Ascoli 


1 6  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

at  fifteen  published  a  book  on  the  relation  of  the  dialects 
of  Wallachia  and  Friuli.  Metastasio  improvised  at  ten ; 
Ennius  Quirinus  Visconti  excited  the  admiration  of  all  at 
sixteen  months,  and  preached  when  six  years  old.  At 
fifteen  Fenelon  preached  at  Paris  before  a  select  audience  ; 
Wetton  at  five  could  read  and  translate  Latin,  Greek,  and 
Hebrew,  and  at  ten  knew  Chaldee,  Syriac,  and  Arabic. 
Mirabeau  preached  at  three  and  published  books  at  ten. 
Handel  composed  a  mass  at  thirteen,  at  seventeen 
Corinda  and  Nero,  and  at  nineteen  was  director  of  the 
opera  at  Hamburg.  Raphael  was  famous  at  fourteen. 
Restif  de  la  Bretonne  had  already  read  much  at  four  ;  at 
eleven  he  had  seduced  young  girls,  and  at  fourteen 
had  composed  a  poem  on  his  first  twelve  mistresses. 
Eichorn,  Mozart,  and  Eybler  gave  concerts  at  six.  At 
thirteen  Beethoven  composed  three  sonatas.  Weber  was 
only  fourteen  when  his  first  opera,  Das  Waldmiidchen, 
was  represented.  Cherubini  at  thirteen  wrote  a  mass 
which  filled  his  fellow-citizens  with  enthusiasm.  Bacon 
conceived  the  Novum  Organum  at  fifteen.  Charles  XII. 
manifested  his  great  designs  at  the  age  of  eighteen.1 

This  precocity  is  morbid  and  atavistic  ;  it  may  be  ob- 
served among  all  savages.  The  proverb,  "  A  man  who 
has  genius  at  five  is  mad  at  fifteen  "  is  often  verified  in 
asylums.2  The  children  of  the  insane  are  often  precocious. 
Savage  knew  an  insane  woman  whose  children  could  play 
classical  music  before  the  age  of  six,  and  other  children 
who  at  a  tender  age  displayed  the  passions  of  grown  men. 
Among  the  children  of  the  insane  are  often  revealed 
aptitudes  and  tastes — chiefly  for  music,  the  arts,  and 
mathematics — which  are  not  usually  found  in  other 
children. 

Delayed  Development. — Delay  in  the  development  of 
genius  may  be  explained,  as  Beard  remarks,  by  the  absence 
of  circumstances  favourable  to  its  blossoming,  and  by  the 
ignorance  of  teachers  and  parents  who  see  mental  obtusity, 
or  even  idiocy,  where  there  is  only  the  distraction  or  am- 

1  Beard,  American  Nervousness,  1887  ;  Cancellieri,  Intorno  Uoniini 
dotati  di  gran   memoria,   1715  >    Klefeker,  Biblioth.  eruditormn  pro- 
cacittm,  Hamburg,  1717;  Baillet,  De  pracocilws  erttditis,  1715. 

2  Savage,  Moral  Insanity,  1886. 


GENIUS  AND  DEGENERATION.  19 

Meyerbeer  travelled  for  thirty  years,  composing  his  operas 
in  the  train.  Wagner  travelled  on  foot  from  Riga  to 
Paris.  One  knows  that  sometimes,  at  the  Universities, 
professors  are  seized  by  the  desire  of  change,  and  to  satisfy 
it  forget  all  their  personal  interests. 

Unconsciousness  and  Instinctrveness. — The  coincidence 
of  genius  and  insanity  enables  us  to  understand  the 
astonishing  unconsciousness,  instantaneousness  and  inter- 
mittence  of  the  creations  of  genius,  whence  its  great 
resemblance  to  epilepsy,  the  importance  of  which  we  shall 
see  later,  and  whence  also  a  distinction  between  genius  and 
talent.  "  Talent,"  says  Jiirgen-Meycr,1  u  knows  itself  ;  it 
knows  how  and  why  it  has  reached  a  given  theory  ;  it  is  not 
so  with  genius,  which  is  ignorant  of  the  how  and  the  why. 
Nothing  is  so  involuntary  as  the  conception  of  genius." 
"  One  of  the  characters  of  genius,"  writes  Ilagen,  u  is  irre- 
sistible impulsion.  As  instinct  compels  the  animal  to 
accomplish  certain  acts,  even  at  the  risk  of  life,  so  genius, 
when  it  is  dominated  by  an  idea  is  incapable  of  abandon- 
ing itself  to  any  other  thought.  Napoleon  and  Alexander 
conquered,  not  from  love  of  glory,  but  in  obedience  to  an 
all-powerful  instinct  ;  so  scientific  genius  has  no  rest  ;  its 
activity  may  appear  to  be  the  result  of  a  voluntary  effort, 
but  it  is  not  so.  Genius  creates,  not  because  it  wishes  to, 
but  because  it  must  create."  And  Paul  Richter  writes  : 
"The  man  of  genius  is  in  many  respects  a  real  som- 
nambulist. In  his  lucid  dream  he  sees  farther  than  when 
awake,  and  reaches  the  heights  of  truth  ;  when  the  world 
of  imagination  is  taken  away  from  him  he  is  suddenly 
precipitated  into  reality." 2 

Haydn  attributed  the  conception  of  the  Creation  to  a 
mysterious  grace  from  on  high  :  "  When  my  work  does 
not  advance,"  he  said,  4i  I  retire  into  the  oratory  with  my 
rosary  and  say  an  Arc  ;  immediately  ideas  come  to  me." 
When  our  Milli  produces,  almost  without  knowing  it, 
one  of  her  marvellous  poems,  she  is  agitated,  cries,  sings, 
takes  long  walks,  and  almost  becomes  the  victim  of  an 
epileptic  attack. 

Many  men  of  genius  who  have  studied  themselves,  and 

1  Genie  it  ml  Talent. 

2  Fischer,  sEsthctik,  ii.  I,  p.  386. 


20  THE,  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

who  have  spoken  of  their  inspiration,  have  described  it  as 
a  sweet  and  seductive  fever,  during  which  their  thought 
has  become  rapidly  and  involuntarily  fruitful,  and  has 
burst  forth  like  the  flame  of  a  lighted,  torch.  Such  is  the 
thought  that  Dante  has  engraved  in  three  wonderful 
lines  : — 

* '  r  mi  son  nn  che,  quando 

A  more  spira,  noto  ed  in  quel  modo 

Che  delta  dentro  vo  significando. "  ' 

Napoleon  said  that  the  fate  of  battles  was  the  result  of  an 
instant,  of  a  latent  thought  ;  the  decisive  moment  ap- 
peared ;  the  spark  burst  forth,  and  one  was  victorious. 
(Moreau.)  Kuh's  most  beautiful  poems,  wrote  Bauer, 
were  dictated  in  a  state  between  insanity  and  reason  ; 
at  the  moment  when  his  sublime  thoughts  came  to  him 
he  was  incapable  of  .simple  reasoning.  Foscolo  tells  us  in 
his  Epistolario,  the  finest  monument  of  his  great  soul, 
that  writing  depends  on  a  certain  amiable  fever  of  the 
mind,  and  cannot  be  had  at  will  :  "  I  write  letters,  not 
for  my  country,  nor  for  fame,  but  for  the  secret  joy  which 
arises  from  the  exercise  of  our  faculties  ;  they  have  need 
of  movement,  as  our  legs  of  walking."  Mozart  confessed 
that  musical  ideas  were  aroused  in  him,  even  apart  from 
his  will,  like  dreams.  Hoffmann  often  said  to  his  friends, 
"  When  I  compose  I  sit  down  to  the  piano,  shut  my  eyes, 
and  play  what  I  hear." 2  Lamartine  often  said,  u  It  is  not 
I  who  think ;  my  ideas  think  for  me." 3  Alfieri,  who 
compared  himself  to  a  barometer  on  account  of  the  con- 
tinual changes  in  his  poetic  power,  produced  by  change 
of  season,  had  not  the  strength  in  September  to  resist  a 
new,  or  rather,  renewed,  impulse  which  he  had  felt  for 
several  days  ;  he  declared  himself  vanquished,  and  wrote 
six  comedies.  In  Alfieri,  Goethe,  and  Ariosto  creation 
was  instantaneous,  often  even  being  produced  on 
awaking.-* 

This  domination  of  genius  by  the  unconscious  has  been 

1  "  I  am  one  who,  when  Love  inspires,  attend,  and  according  as  he 
speaks  within  me,  so  I  express  myself." 

2  Schilling,  Psychiat.  Briefe,  p.  486. 

3  Ball,  Lemons  des  Maladies  Mentales,  1881, 

4  Radestock,  p.  42. 


GENIUS  AND  DEGENERATION.  21 

remarked  for  many  centuries.  Socrates  said  that  poets 
create,  not  by  virtue  of  inventive  science,  but,  thanks  to  a 
very  certain  natural  instinct,  just  as  diviners  predict,  say- 
ing beautiful  things,  but  not  having  consciousness  of  what 
they  say.1  "All  the  manifestations  of  genius,"  wrote 
Voltaire  to  Diderot,  u  are  the  effects  of  instinct.  All  the 
philosophers  of  the  world  put  together  would  not  be  able 
to  produce  Quinault's  Armidc^  or  the  Animaux  Maladcs 
de  la  pcstc,  which  La  Fontaine  wrote  without  knowing 
what  he  did.  Corneille  composed  Horace  as  a  bird 
composes  its  nest."  2 

Thus  the  greatest  conceptions  of  thought,  prepared,  so 
to  say,  by  former  sensations,  and  by  exquisite  organic 
sensibility,  suddenly  burst  forth  and  develop  by  uncon- 
scious cerebration.  Thus  also  may  be  explained  the 
profound  convictions  of  prophets,  saints,  and  demoniacs, 
as  well  as  the  impulsive  acts  of  the  insane. 

Somnambulism, — Bettinelli  wrote  :  "  Poetry  may  almost 
be  called  a  dream  which  is  accomplished  in  the  presence 
of  reason,  which  floats  above  it  with  open  eyes."  This 
definition  is  the  more  exact  since  many  poets  have  com- 
posed their  poems  in  a  dream  or  half-dream.  Goethe  often 
said  that  a  certain  cerebral  irritation  is  necessary  to  the 
poet  ;  many  of  his  poems  were,  in  fact,  composed  in  a 
state  bordering  on  somnambulism.  Klopstock  declared 
that  he  had  received  several  inspirations  for  his  poems  in 
dreams.  Voltaire  conceived  during  sleep  one  of  the  books 
of  his  Henriadc  ;  Sardini,  a  theory  on  the  flageolet  ; 
Seckendorf,  his  beautiful  ode  to  imagination,  which  in 
its  harmony  reflects  its  origin.  Newton  and  Cardan 
resolved  mathematical  problems  in  dreams.  Nodier 
composed  Lydia,  together  with  a  complete  theory  of 
future  destiny,  as  the  result  of  dreams  which  "  succeeded 
each  other,"  he  wrote,  "  with  such  redoubled  energy,  from 
night  to  night,  that  the  idea  transformed  itself  into  a 
conviction."  Muratori,  many  years  after  he  had  ceased 
to  write  verse,  improvised  in  a  dream  a  Latin  pentameter. 
It  is  said  that  La  Fontaine  composed  in  a  dream  his  Deux 
Pigeons,  and  that  Condillac  completed  during  sleep  a 

1  Apologia. 

2  Letter  of  April  20,  1752. 


22  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

lesson  interrupted  in  his  waking  hours.1  Coleridge's 
Knbla  Khan  was  composed,  in  ill  health,  during  a  pro- 
round  sleep  produced  by  an  opiate  ;  he  was  only  able  to 
recall  fifty-four  lines.  Holde's  Phantasic  was  composed 
under  somewhat  similar  conditions. 

Genius  in  Inspiration. — It  is  very  true  that  nothing  so 
much  resembles  a  person  attacked  by  madness  as  a  man 
of  genius  when  meditating  and  moulding  his  conceptions. 
Aut  insanit  homo  ant  versus  facit.  According  to  Reveille- 
Parise,  the  man  of  genius  exhibits  a  small  contracted  pulse, 
pale,  cold  skin,  a  hot,  feverish  head,  brilliant,  wild,  injected 
eyes.  After  the  moment  of  composition  it  often  happens 
that  the  author  himself  no  longer  understands  what  he 
wrote  a  short  time  before.  Marini,  when  writing  his 
.Idoiic,  did  not  feel  a  serious  burn  of  the  foot.  Tasso, 
during  composition,  was  like  a  man  possessed.  Lagrange 
felt  his  pulse  become  irregular  while  he  wrote.  Alfieri's 
sight  was  troubled.  Some,  in  order  to  give  themselves 
up  to  meditation,  even  put  themselves  artificially  into  a 
state  of  cerebral  semi-congestion.  Thus  Schiller  plunged 
his  feet  into  ice.  Pitt  and  Fox  prepared  their  speeches 
after  excessive  indulgence  in  porter.  Paisiello  composed 
beneath  a  mountain  of  coverlets.  Descartes  buried  his 
head  in  a  sofa.  Bonnet  retired  into  a  cold  room  with  his 
head  enveloped  in  hot  cloths.  Cujas  worked  lying  prone 
on  the  carpet.  It  was  said  of  Leibnitz  that  he  "  meditated 
horizontally,"  such  being  the  attitude  necessary  to  enable 
him  to  give  himself  up  to  the  labour  of  thought.  Milton 
composed  with  his  head  leaning  over  his  easy-chair.2 
Thomas  and  Rossini  composed  in  their  beds.  Rousseau 
meditated  with  his  head  in  the  full  glare  of  the  sun. 3 
Shelley  lay  on  the  hearthrug  with  his  head  close  to  the 
fire.  All  these  are  instinctive  methods  for  augmenting 
momentarily  the  cerebral  circulation  at  the  expense  of  the 
general  circulation. 

It  is  known  that  very  often  the  great  conceptions  of 
thinkers  have  been  organized,  or  at  all  events  have  taken 
their  start,  in  the  shock  of  a  special  sensation  which  pro- 
duced on  the  intelligence  the  effect  of  a  drop  of  salt 

1  Verga,  Lazzaretti,  1880.  ~  Reveille-Parise,  p.  285. 

3  Arago,  (Euvres,  iii. 


GENIUS  AND  DEGENERATION.  23 

water  on  a  well-prepared  voltaic  pile.  All  great  dis- 
coveries have  been  occasioned,  according  to  Moleschott's 
remark,  by  a  simple  sensation.1  Some  frogs  which  were 
to  furnish  a  medicinal  broth  for  Galvani's  wife  were  the 
origin  of  the  discovery  of  galvanism  ;  the  movement 
of  a  hanging  lamp,  the  fall  of  an  apple,  inspired  the 
great  systems  of  Galileo  and  Newton.  Allied  composed 
or  conceived  his  tragedies  while  listening  to  music,  or 
soon  after.  A  celebrated  cantata  of  Mozart's  Don  Gio- 
vanni came  to  him  on  seeing  an  orange,  which  recalled 
a  popular  Neapolitan  air  heard  five  years  before.  The 
sight  of  a  porter  suggested  to  Leonardo  da  Vinci  his 
celebrated  Qiuda.  The  movements  of  his  model  sug- 
gested to  Thorwaldsen  the  attitude  of  his  Seated  Angel. 
Salvator  Rosa  owed  his  first  grandiose  inspirations  to  the 
scenes  of  Posilipo.  Hogarth  conceived  his  grotesque 
scenes  in  a  Highgate  tavern,  after  his  nose  had  been 
broken  in  a  dispute  with  a  drunkard.  Milton,  Bacon, 
Leonardo  da  Vinci,  liked  to  hear  music  before  beginning 
to  work.  Bourdaloue  tried  an  air  on  the  violin  before 
writing  one  of  his  immortal  sermons.  Reading  one  of 
Spenser's  odes  aroused  the  poetic  vocation  in  Cowley. 
A  boiling  teakettle  suggested  to  Watt  the  idea  of  the 
steam-engine. 

In  the  same  way  a  sensation  is  the  point  of  departure 
of  the  terrible  deeds  produced  by  impulsive  mania. 
Humboldt's  nursemaid  confessed  that  the  sight  of  the 
fresh  and  delicate  flesh  of  his  child  irresistibly  impelled 
her  to  bite  it.  Many  persons,  at  the  sight  of  a  hatchet, 
a  flame,  a  corpse,  have  been  drawn  to  murder,  incen- 
diarism, or  the  profanation  of  cemeteries. 

It  must  be  added  that  inspiration  is  often  transformed 
into  a  real  hallucination  ;  in  fact,  as  Bettinelli  well  says, 
the  man  of  genius  sees  the  objects  which  his  imagination 
presents  to  him.  Dickens  and  Kleist  grieved  over  the 
fates  of  their  heroes.  Kleist  was  found  in  tears  just  after 
finishing  one  of  his  tragedies  :  "  She  is  dead,"  he  said. 
Schiller  was  as  much  moved  by  the  adventures  of  his 
personages  as  by  real  events.2  T.  Grossi  told  Verga  that 

1  Kreislanf  iks  Lcbcns,  Brief,  xviii. 

-  Dilthcy,    Uebcr  Einbildungskraft  dcr  Dichler,  1887. 


24  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

in  describing  the  apparition  of  Prina,  he  saw  the  figure 
come  before  him,  and  was  obliged  to  relight  his  lamp  to 
make  it  disappear.1  Brierre  de  Boismont  tells  us  that  the 
painter  Martina  really  saw  the  pictures  he  imagined. 
One  day,  some  one  having  come  between  him  and  the 
hallucination,  he  asked  this  person  to  move  so  that  he 
might  go  on  with  his  picture.2 

Contrast,  Intcrmittcnce,  Double  Personality. — When 
the  moment  of  inspiration  is  over,  the  man  of  genius 
becomes  an  ordinary  man,  if  he  does  not  descend  lower  ; 
in  the  same  way  personal  inequality,  or,  according  to 
modern  terminology,  double,  or  even  contrary,  personality, 
is  the  one  of  the  characters  of  genius.  Our  greatest 
poets,  Isaac  Disraeli  remarked  (in  Curiosities  of 
Literature],  Shakespeare  and  Dryden,  are  those  who 
have  produced  the  worst  lines.  It  was  said  of  Tintoretto 
that  sometimes  he  surpassed  Tintoretto,  and  sometimes 
was  inferior  to  Caracci.  Great  tragic  actors  are  very 
cheerful  in  society,  and  of  melancholy  humour  at  home. 
The  contrary  is  true  of  genuine  comedians.  "  John 
Gilpin,"  that  masterpiece  of  humour,  was  written  by 
Cowper  between  two  attacks  of  melancholia.  Gaiety 
was  in  him  the  reaction  from  sadness.  It  was  singular, 
he  remarked,  that  his  most  comic  verses  were  written 
in  his  saddest  moments,  without  which  he  would  probably 
never  have  written  them.  A  patient  one  day  presented 
himself  to  Abernethy  ;  after  careful  examination  the 
celebrated  practitioner  said,  u  You  need  amusement  ; 
go  and  hear  Grimaldi ;  he  will  make  you  laugh,  and 
that  will  be  better  for  you  than  any  drugs."  "  My 
God,"  exclaimed  the  invalid,  "  but  I  am  Grimaldi  !  " 
Debureau  in  like  manner  went  to  consult  an  alienist 
about  his  melancholy  ;  he  was  advised  to  go  to  Debu- 
reau. Klopstock  was  questioned  regarding  the  mean- 
ing of  a  passage  in  his  poem.  He  replied,  "  God  and 
I  both  knew  what  it  meant  once ;  now  God  alone 

1  Lazzaretti,  op.  «/.,  1880. 

2  Des  Hallucinations,  p.    30.     Recent  investigations  in  hypnotism 
show  that  the  hallucination  often  has  the  character  of  real  sensation ; 
that,  for  example,  visual  suggestions  may  be  modified  by  lenses.     See 
my  Nuove  Sludii  siilF  ipnotiswo, 


GENIUS  AND  DEGENERATION.  25 

knows."  Giordano  Bruno  said  of  himself  :  u  In  hilan- 
tate  tristis,  in  tristitia  hilaris"  Ovidio  justly  remarked 
concerning  the  contradictions  in  Tasso's  style,  that  "when 
the  inspiration  was  over,  he  lost  his  way  in  his  own 
creations,  and  could  no  longer  appreciate  their  beauty  or 
be  conscious  of  it."  x  Renan  described  himself  as  "  a  tissue 
of  contradictions,  recalling  the  classic  hiroccrf  with  two 
natures.  One  of  my  halves  is  constantly  occupied  in 
demolishing  the  other,  like  the  fabulous  animal  of  Ctesias, 
who  ate  his  paws  without  knowing  it."  2 

"  If  there  are  two  such  different  men  in  you,"  said  his 
mistress  to  Alfred  de  Musset,  "  could  you  not,  when  the 
bad  one  rises,  be  content  to  forget  the  good  one?  "3 
Musset  himself  confesses  that,  with  respect  to  her,  he 
gave  way  to  attacks  of  brutal  anger  and  contempt,  alter- 
nating with  fits  of  extravagant  affection  ;  "  an  exaltation 
carried  to  excess  made  me  treat  my  mistress  like  an  idol, 
like  a  divinity.  A  quarter  of  an  hour  after  having  in- 
sulted her  I  was  at  her  knees  ;  I  left  off  accusing  her  to 
ask  her  pardon  ;  and  passed  from  jesting  to  tears." 

Stupidity, — The  doubling  of  personality,  the  amnesia 
and  the  misoneism  so  common  among  men  of  science,  are 
the  key  to  the  innumerable  stupidities  which  intrude 
into  their  writings  :  quandoque  bonus  dormitat  Homcrus. 
Flaubert  made  a  very  curious  collection  of  these,  and 
called  it  the  "  Dossier  de  la  sottise  hnmainc"  Here  are 
some  examples  :  "  The  wealth  of  a  country  depends  on 
its  general  prosperity  "  (Louis  Napoleon).  "  She  did  not 
know  Latin,  but  understood  it  very  well  "  (Victor  Hugo, 
in  Les  Miser  ables).  "Wherever  they  are,  fleas  throw 
themselves  against  white  colours.  This  instinct  has  been 
given  them  in  order  that  we  may  catch  them  more  easily. 
.  .  .  The  melon  has  been  divided  into  slices  by  nature  in 
order  that  it  may  be  eaten  en  famillc ;  the  pumpkin, 
being  larger,  may  be  eaten  with  neighbours  "  (Bernardin 
de  Saint  Pierre  in  Harmonic  de  la  Nature).  "  It  is  the 
business  of  bishops,  nobles,  and  the  great  officers  of  the 
State  to  be  the  depositaries  and  the  guardians  of  the  con- 

1  Studi  Critici,  Naples,  1 880,  p.  95. 

2  Souvenirs,  p.   73,  Paris,  1883. 

3  Confessions  if  nit  Enfant  du  Stick ',  pp.  218,  251. 


26  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

servative  virtues,  to  teach  nations  what  is  good  and  what 
is  evil,  what  is  true  and  what  is  false,  in  the  moral 
and  spiritual  world.  Others  have  no  right  to  reason 
on  these  matters.  They  may  amuse  themselves  with 
the  natur  alsciences.  What  have  they  to  complain  of  ?  " 
(De  Maistre  in  Soirees  de  St.  Peter  sbourg,  8"  Entre- 
tien,  p.  131).  "When  one  has  crossed  the  bounds 
there  are  no  limits  left  M  (Ponsard).  "  I  have  often 
heard  the  blindness  of  the  council  of  Francis  I.  de- 
plored in  repelling  Christopher  Columbus,  when  he 
proposed  his  expedition  to  the  Indies  "  (Montesquieu, 
in  Esprit  des  Lois,  liv.,  xxi.,  chap.  xxii.  Francis  I. 
ascended  the  throne  in  1515  ;  Columbus  died  in  1506). 
''Bonaparte  was  a  great  gainer  of  battles,  but  beyond 
that  the  least  general  is  more  skilful  than  he.  .  .  . 
It  has  been  believed  that  he  perfected  the  art  of 
war,  and  it  is  certain  that  he  made  it  retrograde 
towards  the  childhood  of  art "  (Chateaubriand,  Les 
Buonaparte  ct  les  Bourbons).  "  Voltaire  is  nowhere  as  a 
philosopher,  without  authority  as  a  critic  and  historian, 
out  of  date  as  a  man  of  science "  (Dupanloup,  Haute 
j&ducation  intcllectuclle}.  "  Grocery  is  respectable.  It  is 
a  branch  of  commerce.  The  army  is  more  respectable 
still,  because  it  is  an  institution,  the  aim  of  which  is  order. 
Grocery  is  useful,  the  army  is  necessary  "  (Jules  Noriac  in 
Les  Nouvcllcs].  Let  us  recall  Pascal,  at  one  time  more 
incredulous  than  Pyrrho,  at  another,  writing  like  a  Father 
of  the  Church  ;  or  Voltaire,  believing  sometimes  in  destiny, 
which  "  causes  the  growth  and  the  ruin  of  States "  ; x 
sometimes  in  fatality  which  "  governs  the  affairs  of  the 
world  "  ; 2  sometimes  in  Providence. 3 

Hypercesthcsia. — If  we  seek,  with  the  aid  of  auto- 
biographies, the  differences  which  separate  a  man  of 
genius  from  an  ordinary  man,  we  find  that  they  consist 
in  very  great  part  in  an  exquisite,  and  sometimes  tfer- 
verted,  sensibility.  * 

The  savage  and  the  idiot  feel  physical  pain  very  feebly  ; 
they  have  few  passions,  and  they  only  attend  to  the  sen- 

1  Introduction  to  Essai  sur  les  Afirurs. 

2  Stick  de  Louis  XIV.,  i. 

3  Diclionnaire  Philosophique^  art.  Climat. 


GENIUS  AND  DEGENERATION.  27 

sations  which  concern  more  directly  the  necessities  of 
existence.  The  higher  we  rise  in  the  moral  scale,  the 
more  sensibility  increases  ;  it  is  highest  in  great  minds, 
and  is  the  source  of  their  misfortunes  as  well  as  of  their 
triumphs.  They  feel  and  notice  more  things,  and  with 
greater  vivacity  and  tenacity  than  other  men  ;  their 
recollections  are  richer  and  their  mental  combinations 
more  fruitful.  Little  things,  accidents  that  ordinary 
people  do  not  see  or  notice,  are  observed  by  them, 
brought  together  in  a  thousand  ways,  which  we  call 
creations^  and  which  are  only  binary  and  quaternary 
combinations  of  sensations. 

Haller  wrote :  "What  remains  to  me  except  sensibility, 
that  powerful  sentiment  which  results  from  a  tempera- 
ment vividly  moved  by  the  impressions  of  love  and  the 
marvels  of  science  ?  Even  to-day  to  read  of  a  generous 
action  calls  tears  from  my  eyes.  This  sensibility  has 
certainly  given  to  my  poems  a  passion  which  is  not  found 
elsewhere."  l  Diderot  said  :  "If  nature  has  ever  made  a 
sensitive  soul  it  is  mine.  Multiply  sensitive  souls,  and 
you  will  augment  good  and  evil  actions."  2 

The  first  time  that  Alfieri  heard  music  he  experienced 
us  it  were  a  dazzling  in  his  eyes  and  ears.  He  passed 
several  days  in  a  strange  but  agreeable  melancholy  ;  there 
was  an  efflorescence  of  fantastic  ideas  ;  at  that  moment 
he  could  have  written  poetry  if  he  had  known  how,  and 
expressed  sentiments  if  he  had  had  any  to  express.  He 
concludes,  with  Sterne,  Rousseau,  and  George  Sand,  that 
"  there  is  nothing  which  agitates  the  soul  with  such 
unconquerable  force  as  musical  sounds."  Berlioz  has 
described  his  emotions  on  hearing  beautiful  music  :  first 
a  sensation  of  voluptuous  ecstasy,  immediately  followed 
by  general  agitation  wjth  palpitation,  oppression,  sobbing, 
trembling,  sometimes  terminating  with  a  kind  of  fainting 
lit.  Malibran,  on  first  hearing  Beethoven's  symphony  in 
C  minor,  had  a  convulsive  attack  and  had  to  be  taken 
out  of  the  hall.  Musset,  Goncourt,  Flaubert,  Carlyle  had 
so  delicate  a  perception  of  sounds  that  the  noises  of  the 
streets  and  bells  were  insupportable  to  them  ;  they  were 

1   Ta^ebtich,  ii.  p.  120.  '  Paradox?  sur  le  Coincdicn. 


28  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

constantly  changing  their  abodes  to  avoid  these  sounds, 
and  at  last  fled  in  despair  to  the  country.1  Schopenhauer 
also  hated  noise. 

Urquiza  fainted  on  breathing  the  odour  of  a  rose. 
Baudelaire  had  a  very  delicate  sense  of  smell  ;  he 
perceived  the  odour  of  women  in  dresses  ;  he  could  not 
live  in  Belgium,  he  said,  because  the  trees  had  no  fra- 
grance. 

Guy  de  Maupassant  says  of  Gustave  Flaubert  :  "  From 
his  early  childhood  the  distinctive  features  of  his  nature 
were  a  great  na'ivete  and  a  horror  of  physical  action.  All 
his  life  he  remained  naif  and  sedentary.  It  exasperated 
him  to  see  people  walking  or  moving  about  him,  and  he 
declared  in  his  mordant,  sonorous,  always  rather  theatrical 
voice,  that  it  was  not  philosophic.  '  One  can  only  think 
and  write  seated,'  he  said."  3  Sterne  wrote  that  intuition 
and  sensibility  are  the  only  instruments  of  genius,  the 
source  of  the  delicious  impressions  which  give  a  more  bril- 
liant colour  to  joy,  and  which  make  us  weep  with  happiness. 
It  is  known  that  Alfieri  and  Foscolo  often  fell  at  the  feet 
of  women  who  were  very  unworthy  of  them.  Alfieri 
could  not  eat  on  the  day  when  his  horse  did  not  neigh. 
Every  one  knows  tl^t  the  "beauty  and  love  of  the  Forna- 


1  Noise  had  become  an  obsession  to  Jules  de  Goncourt,  says   his 
brother  Edmund,  in  a  note  to  the  former's  Lettres :  "  It  seemed  to  him 
that  he  had  'an  ear  in  the  pit  of  his  stomach,'  and  indeed  noise  had 
taken,  and  continued  to  take  as  his  illness  increased,  as  it  were  in  some 

f eerie  at  once  absurd  and  fatal,  the  character  of  a  persecution  of  the 
things  and  surroundings  of  his  life.  .  .  .  During  the  last  years  of  his 
life  he  suffered  from  noise  as  from  a  brutal  physical  touch.  .  .  .  This 
persecution  by  noise  led  my  brother  to  sketch  a  gloomy  story  during 
his  nightly  insomnia.  ...  In  this  story  a  man  was  eternally  pursued 
by  noise,  and  leaves  the  rooms  he  had  rented,  the  houses  he  had 
bought,  the  forests  in  which  he  had  camped,  forests  like  Fontainebleau, 
from  which  he  is  driven  by  the  hunter's  horn,  the  interior  of  the  pyra- 
mids, in  which  he  was  deafened  by  the  crickets,  always  seeking  silence, 
and  at  last  killing  himself  for  the  sake  of  the  silence  of  supreme  repose, 
and  not  finding  it  then,  for  the  noise  of  the  worms  in  his  grave  pre- 
vented him  from  sleeping.  Oh,  noise,  noise,  noise  !  I  can  no  longer 
bear  to  hear  the  birds.  I  begin  to  cry  to  them  like  Debureau  to  the 
nightingale,  'Will  you  not  be  still,  vile  beast?'"  (Lettres  de  Jules  de 
Goncourt)  Paris,  1885.) 

2  Etude  sur  Gustave  Flaubert,  Paris,  1885. 


GENIUS  AND  DEGENERATION  29 

rina  inspired  Raphael's  palette,  but  very  few  know  that 
he  also  composed  one  hundred  sonnets  in  her  honour.1 

Dante  and  Alfieri  fell  in  love  at  nine  years  of  age, 
Scarron  at  eight,  Rousseau  at  eleven,  Byron  at  eigrtf. 
At  sixteen  Byron,  hearing  that  his  beloved  was  about 
to  marry,  almost  fell  into  convulsions  ;  he  was  almost 
suffocated  and,  although  he  had  no  idea  of  sex,  he 
doubted  if  he  ever  loved  so  truly  in  later  years.  He  had 
a  convulsive  attack,  Moore  tells  us,  on  seeing  Kean  act. 
The  painter  Francia  died  of  joy  on  seeing  one  of  Raphael's 
pictures.  Ampere  was  so  sensitive  to  the  beauties  of 
nature  that  he  thought  he  would  die  of  happiness  on 
seeing  the  magnificent  shores  of  Genoa.  In  one  of  his 
manuscripts  he  had  left  the  journal  of  an  unfortunate 
passion.  Newton  was  so  affected  on  discovering  the 
solution  of  a  problem  that  he  was  unable  to  continue  his 
work.  Gay-Lussac  and  Davy,  after  making  a  discovery, 
danced  about  in  their  slippers. 

It  is  this  exaggerated  sensibility  of  men  of  genius, 
found  in  less  degree  in  men  of  talent  also,  which  causes 
great  part  of  their  real  or  imaginary  misfortunes.  "  This 
precious  gift,"  writes  Mantegazza,  "  this  rare  privilege  of 
genius,  brings  in  its  train  a  morbid  reaction  to  the  smallest 
troubles  from  without  ;  the  slightest  breeze,  the  faintest 
breath  of  the  dog-days,  becomes  for  these  sensitive  persons 
the  rumpled  rose-petal  which  will  not  let  the  unfortunate 
sybarite  sleep."  2  La  Fontaine  perhaps  thought  of  himself 
when  he  wrote  : — 

"  Un  souffle,  une  ombre,  tin  rien  leur  donne  lafimre" 

Offences  which  for  others  are  but  pin-pricks  for  them 
ar^sharpened  daggers.  When  Foscolo  heard  a  mocking 
word  from  one  of  his  friends  he  became  indignant,  and 
said  to  her  :  a  You  wish  to  see  me  dead  ;  I  will  break  my 

1  Among  the  fragments  that  have  been  preserved  some  are  of  great 
sweet  i . 

"  Quanta  fit  dolce  il  giogo  e  la  catena 
De1  sUoi  candidi  bracci  al  col  mio  voile, 
Che  sciogliendomi  io  sento  mortal  pena  ; 
D  'ah 're  cose  non  dico  che  son  molte> 
Che  soverchia  dolcezza  a  morte  mena. " 

2  Mantegazza,  Del  Nevrosismo  del  grandi  uom ini,  1881. 


30  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

skull  at  your  feet  "  ;  so  saying,  he  threw  himself  with 
great  violence  and  lowered  head  against  the  edge  of  the 
marble  mantlepiece  ;  a  charitable  bystander  promptly 
seized  him  by  the  collar  of  his  coat,  and  saved  his  life  by 
throwing  him  on  the  ground.  Boilcau  and  Chateaubriand 
could  not  hear  any  one  praised,  even  their  shoemakers, 
without  a  certain  annoyance.  Hence  the  manifestations 
of  morbid  vanity  which  often  approximate  men  of  genius 
to  ambitious  monomaniacs.  Schopenhauer  was  furious 
and  refused  to  pay  his  debts  to  any  one  who  spelled  his 
name  with  a  double  "  p."  Barthez  could  not  sleep  with 
grief  because  in  the  printing  of  his  Gcnic  the  accent  on 
the  e  was  divided  into  two.  Whiston  said  he  ought  not 
to  have  published  his  refutation  of  Newton's  chronology, 
as  Newton  was  capable  of  killing  him.  Poushkin  was 
seen  one  day  in  the  crowded  theatre,  in  a  fit  of  jealousy, 
to  bite  the  shoulder  of  the  wife  of  the  Governor-General, 
Countess  Z.,  to  whom  he  was  then  paying  attention. 

Any  one  who  has  had  the  rare  fortune  to  live  with 
men  of  genius  is  soon  struck  by  the  facility  with  which 
they  misinterpret  the  acts  of  others,  believe  themselves 
persecuted,  and  find  everywhere  profound  and  infinite 
reasons  for  grief  and  melancholy.  Their  intellectual 
superiority  contributes  to  this  end,  being  equally  adapted 
to  discover  new  aspects  of  truth  and  to  create  imaginary 
ones,  confirming  their  own  painful  illusions.  It  is  true, 
also,  that  their  intellectual  superiority  permits  them  to 
acquire  and  to  express,  regarding  the  nature  of  things, 
convictions  different  from  those  adopted  by  the  majority, 
and  to  manifest  them  with  an  unshakeable  firmness  which 
increases  the  opposition  and  contrast. 

But  the  principal  cause  of  their  melancholy  and  their 
misfortunes  is  the  law  of  dynamism  iwhich  rules  in  the 
nervous  system.  To  an  excessive  expenditure  and  de- 
velopment of  nervous  force  succeeds  reaction  or  enfeeblc- 
ment.  It  is  permitted  to  no  one  to  expend  more  than  a 
certain  quantity  of  force  without  being  severely  punished 
on  the  other  side  ;  that  is  why  men  of  genius  are  so 
unequal  in  their  productions.  Melancholy,  depression, 
timidity,  egoism,  are  the  prices  of  the  sublime  gifts  of 
intellect,  just  as  uterine  catarrhs,  impotence,  and  tabes 


GENIUS  AND  DEGENERATION.  31 

dorsalis  arc  the  prices  of  sexual  abuse,  and  gastritis  of 
abuse  of  appetite. 

Milli,  after  one  of  her  eloquent  improvisations  which 
are  worth  the  whole  existence  of  a  minor  poet,  falls  into 
a  state  of  paralysis  which  lasts  several  days.  Mahomet 
after  prophesying  fell  into  a  state  of  imbecility.  "Three 
surns  of  the  Kortin"  he  said  one  day  to  Abou-Bekr, 
"  have  been  enough  to  whiten  my  hair."  x  In  short,  I  do 
not  believe  there  has  ever  been  a  great  man  who,  even 
at  the  height  of  his  happiness,  has  not  believed  and  pro- 
claimed, even  without  cause,  that  he  was  unfortunate 
and  persecuted,  and  who  has  not  at  some  moment  ex- 
perienced the  painful  modifications  of  sensibility  which 
are  the  foundation  of  melancholia. 

Sometimes  this  sensibility  undergoes  perversion  ;  it 
consumes  itself,  and  is  agitated  around  a  single  point, 
remaining  indifferent  to  all  others.  Certain  series  of 
ideas  or  sensations  acquire,  little  by  little,  the  force  of  a 
special  stimulant  on  the  brain,  and  sometimes  on  the 
entire  organism,  so  that  they  seem  to  survive  life  itself. 
Heine,  who  in  his  letters  declared  himself  incapable  of 
understanding  the  simplest  things,  Heine,  blind  and 
paralytic,  when  advised  to  turn  towards  God,  replied  in 
his  dying  agony  :  "  Dicii  me  pardonnera ;  c*cst  sou 
metier  /"  thus  crowning  with  a  stroke  of  supreme  irony 
the  most  aesthetically  cynical  life  of  our  time.  The  last 
words  of  Arctino  after  extreme  unction  were,  it  is  said, 
"  Keep  me  from  the  rats  now  I  am  anointed."  The 
dying  Rabelais  enveloped  his  head  in  his  (Inminn,  and 
said,  "  Bcati  qui  in  D<>)nino  morinntnr"  Malherbe,  in 
his  last  illness,  reproached  his  nurse  with  the  solecisms 
she  committed,  and  rejected  the  counsel  of  his  confessor 
on  account  of  its  bad  style.  The  last  words  of  Bouhours 
the  grammarian,  were,  "Je  vais  ou  jc  va  nifjiin'r  :  Pun  ct 
Tautre  se  discnt" 

Foscolo  confesses  that  "  very  active  in  some  directions,  he 
was  in  others  inferior  to  a  man,  to  a  woman,  to  a  child." 2  It 
is  known  that  Corneille,  Descartes,  Virgil,  Addison,  La 
Fontaine,  Dryden,  Manzoni,  Newton,  were  almost  incap- 

1  Journal dcs  Savants,  Oct.,  1863. 

2  Epistolario,  v.  3,  p.  163. 


32  THE  MAN  OP  GENIUS. 

able  of  expressing  themselves  in  public.  D'  Alembef  t  and 
Menage,  insensible  to  the  sufferings  of  a  surgical  opera- 
tion, wept  at  a  slight  critical  censure.  Luce  de  Lancival 
smiled  when  his  legs  were  amputated,  but  could  not 
endure  Geoffrey's  criticisms.  Linnaeus,  at  the  age  of 
sixty,  rendered  paralytic  and  insensible  by  an  apoplectic 
stroke,  was  aroused  when  carried  near  to  his  beloved 
herbarium.1  Lagny  was  stretched  out  comatose,  in- 
sensible to  the  strongest  stimulants,  when  it  occurred  to 
some  one  to  ask  him  the  square  of  twelve,  he  replied  im- 
mediately, "  One  hundred  and  forty-four."  Sebouyah, 
the  Arab  grammarian,  died  of  grief  because  the  Khalif 
Haroun-al-Raschid  did  not  agree  with  him  on  some 
grammatical  point. 

It  should  be  observed  here  that  men  of  genius,  at  all 
events,  if  men  of  science,  often  present  that  species  of 
mania  which  Wechniakoff2  and  Letourneau  3  have  called 
jKOnotyptc.  Such  men  occupy  themselves  throughout 
their  whole  lives  with  one  single  problem,  the  first  which 
takes  possession  of  their  brains,  and  which  henceforth 
rules  them.  Otto  Beckmann  was  occupied  during  the 
whole  of  his  life  with  the  pathology  of  the  kidneys  ; 
Fresnel  with  light ;  Meyer  with  ants.  Here  is  a  new 
and  striking  point  of  resemblance  with  monomaniacs. 

On  account  of  this  exaggerated  and  concentrated 
sensibility,  it  becomes  very  difficult  to  persuade  or  dis- 
suade either  men  of  genius  or  the  insane.  In  them  the 
roots  of  error,  as  well  as  those  of  truth,  fix  themselves 
more  deeply  and  multiplexly  than  in  other  men,  for 
whom  opinion  is  a  habit,  an  affair  of  fashion,  or  of  cir- 
cumstance. Hence  the  slight  utility  of  moral  treatment 
as  applied  to  the  insane  ;  hence  also  the  frequent  fallibility 
of  genius. 

In  the  same  way  we  can  explain  why  it  is  that  great 
minds  do  not  seize  ideas  that  the  most  vulgar  intelligence 
can  grasp,  while  at  the  same  time  they  discover  ideas 
which  would  have  seemed  absurd  to  others  :  their  greater 
sensibility  is  associated  with  a  greater  originality  of  con- 
ception. In  exalted  meditation  thought  deserts  the  more 

1  Vicq  d'Azir,  Elog.,  p.  269.         2  Physiologic  des  Ge'w'es,  1875. 
3  Science  et  Materialisme,  1890,  p.  103. 


GENIUS  AND  DEGENERATION.  33 

simple  and  easy  paths  which  no  longer  suit  its  robust 
energy.  Thus  Monge  resolved  the  most  difficult  problems 
of  a  differential  calculus,  and  was  embarrassed  in  seeking 
an  algebraic  root  of  the  second  degree  which  a  schoolboy 
might  have  found.  One  of  Lulli's  friends  used  to  say 
habitually  on  his  behalf :  u  Pay  no  attention  to  him  ;  he 
has  no  common  sense  :  he  is  all  genius." 

Parcesthcsia. — To  the  exhaustion  and  excessive  concen- 
tration of  sensibility  must  be  attributed  all  those  strange 
acts  showing  apparent  or  intermittent  anaesthesia,  and 
analgesia,  which  are  to  be  found  among  men  of  genius  as 
well  as  among  the  insane.  Socrates  presented  a  photo- 
paraesthesia  which  enabled  him  to  gaze  at  the  sun  for  a 
considerable  time  without  experiencing  any  discomfort. 
The  Goncourts,  Flaubert,  Darwin  had  a  kind  of  musical 
daltonism. 

Amnesia, — Forgetfulness  is  another  of  the  characters 
of  genius.  It  is  said  that  Newton  once  rammed  his 
niece's  finger  into  his  pipe  ;  when  he  left  his  room  to 
seek  for  anything  he  usually  returned  without  bringing 
it.1  Rouelle  generally  explained  his  ideas  at  great 
length,  and  when  he  had  finished,  he  added  :  "  But  this 
is  one  of  my  arcana  which  I  tell  to  no  one."  Sometimes 
one  of  his  pupils  rose  and  repeated  in  his  ear  what  he 
had  just  said  aloud  ;  then  Rouelle  believed  that  the  pupil 
had  discovered  the  arcanum  by  his  own  sagacity,  and 
begged  him  not  to  divulge  what  he  had  himself  just  told 
to  two  hundred  persons.  One  day,  when  performing  an 
experiment  during  a  lecture,  he  said  to  his  hearers  :  "  You 
see,  gentlemen,  this  cauldron  over  the  flame?  Well,  if  I 
were  to  leave  off  stirring  it  an  explosion  would  at  once 
occur  which  would  make  us  all  jump."  While  saying 
these  words,  he  did  not  fail  to  forget  to  stir,  and  the  pre- 
diction was  accomplished  ;  the  explosion  took  place  with 
a  fearful  noise  :  the  laboratory  windows  were  all  smashed, 
and  the  audience  fled  to  the  garden.2  Sir  Everard  Home 
relates  that  he  once  suddenly  lost  his  memory  for  half  an 
hour,  and  was  unable  to  recognise  the  house  and  the 
street  in  which  he  lived  ;  he  could  not  recall  the  name 

1  Brewster,  Life,    1856. 

2  Revue  Scientifique,  1888. 

4 


34  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

of  the  street,  and  seemed  to  hear  it  for  the  first  time.  It 
is  told  of  Ampere  that  when  travelling  on  horseback  in 
the  country  he  became  absorbed  in  a  problem  ;  then,  dis- 
mounting, began  to  lead  his  horse,  and  finally  lost  it  ;  but 
he  did  not  discover  his  misadventure  until,  on  arrival, 
it  attracted  the  attention  of  his  friends.  Babinet  hired 
a  country  house,  and  after  making  the  payments  returned 
to  town  ;  then  he  found  that  he  had  entirely  forgotten 
both  the  name  of  the  place  and  from  what  station  he  had 
started.1 

One  day  Buffon,  lost  in  thought,  ascended  a  tower  and 
slid  down  by  the  ropes,  unconscious  of  what  he  was  doing, 
like  a  somnambulist.  Mozart,  in  carving  meat,  so  often 
cut  his  fingers,  accustomed  only  to  the  piano,  that  he  had 
to  give  up  this  duty  to  other  persons.  Of  Bishop  Miinster, 
it  is  said  that,  seeing  at  the  door  of  his  own  ante-chamber 
the  announcement  :  "  The  master  of  the  house  is  out,"  he 
remained  there  awaiting  his  own  return.2  Of  Toucherel,  it 
is  told  by  Arago,  that  he  once  even  forgot  his  own  name. 
Beethoven,  on  returning  from  an  excursion  in  the  forest, 
often  left  his  coat  on  the  grass,  and  often  went  out  hatless. 
Once,  at  Neustadt,  he  was  arrested  in  this  condition,  and 
taken  to  prison  as  a  vagabond  ;  here  he  might  have 
remained,  as  no  one  would  believe  that  he  was  Beethoven, 
if  Herzog,  the  conductor  of  the  orchestra,  had  not  arrived 
to  deliver  him.  Gioia,  in  ;the  excitement  of  composition, 
wrote  a  chapter  on  the  table  of  his  bureau  instead  of  on 
paper.  The  Abbe  Beccaria,  absorbed  in  his  experiments, 
said' during  mass:  "lie!  cxpcricntia  facta  cst"  Saint 
Dominic,  in  the  midst  of  a  princely  repast,  suddenly 
struck  the  table  and  exclaimed  :  "  Conclusum  cst  contra 
Manicheos"  It  is  told  of  Ampere  that  having  written 
a  formula,  with  which  he  was  pre-occupied,  on  the  back 
of  a  cab,  he  started  in  pursuit  as  soon  as  the  cab  went 
off. 3  Diderot  hired  vehicles  which  he  then  left  at  the 
door  and  forgot,  thus  needlessly  paying  coachmen  for 
whole  days.  He  often  forgot  the  hour,  the  day,  the 
month,  and  even  the  person  to  whom  he  was  speak- 

1  Michiels,  Le  Monde  du  Comique,  1886. 

2  Reveille- Parise,0/>.  cit. 

3  Perez,  L 'enfant  de  trois  h  sept  ans,  1886. 


GENIUS  AND  DEGENERATION.  35 

ing  ;  he  would  then  speak  long  monologues  like  a  som- 
nambulist.1 Rossini,  conducting  the  orchestra  at  the 
rehearsal  of  his  Barbierey  which  was  a  fiasco,  did  not  per- 
ceive that  the  public  and  even  the  performers  had  left 
him  alone  in  the  theatre  until  he  reached  the  end  of  an 
act. 

Originality. — Hagen  notes  that  originality  is  the  quality 
that  distinguishes  genius  from  talent.2  And  Jiirgen- 
Meyer  :  "  The  imagination  of  talent  reproduces  the 
stated  fact  ;  the  inspiration  of  genius  makes  it  anew. 
The  first  disengages  or  repeats  ;  the  second  invents  or 
creates.  Talent  aims  at-a  point  which  appears  difficult  to 
reach  ;  genius  aims  at  a  point  which  no  one  perceives. 
The  novelty,  it  must  be  understood,  resides  not  in  the 
elements,  but  in  their  shock."  Novelty  and  grandeur  are 
the  two  chief  characters  which  Bettinelli  attributes  to 
genius  ;  "for  this  reason,"  he  says,  "  poets  call  themselves 
troubadours  or  trouvtres."  Cardan  conceived  the  idea 
of  the  education  of  deaf  mutes  before  Harriot  ;  he  caught 
a  glimpse  of  the  application  of  algebra  to  geometry  and 
geometric  constructions  before  Descartes. 3  Giordano 
Bruno  divined  the  modern  theories  of  cosmology  and  of 
the  origin  of  ideas.  Cola  di  Ricnzi  conceived  Italian 
unity,  with  Rome  as  capital,  four  hundred  years  before 
Cavour  and  Mazzini.  Stoppani  admits  that  the  geological 
theory  of  Dante,  with  regard  to  the  formation  of  seas,  is 
at  all  points  in  accordance  with  the  accepted  ideas  of 
to-day. 

Genius  divines  facts  before  completely  knowing  them  ; 
thus  Goethe  described  Italy  very  well  before  knowing  it  ; 
and  Schiller,  the  land  and  people  of  Switzerland  without 
having  been  there.  And  it  is  on  account  of  those  divina- 
tions which  all  precede  common  observation,  and  because 
genius,  occupied  with  lofty  researches,  does  not  possess  the 
habits  of  the  many,  and  because,  like  the  lunatic  and 
unlike  the  man  of  talent,  he  is  often  disordered,  the  man 
of  genius  is  scorned  and  misunderstood.  Ordinary  persons 
do  not  perceive  the  steps  which  have  led  the  man  of 

1  Schercr,  Diderot,  1880. 

2  Ueber  die  Vcnvandtschaft  des  Genies  mit  dan  frrsinn,  1887. 

3  Bcrtolotti,  //  Testamcnto  di  Cardano,  1883. 


36  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

genius  to  his  creation,  but  they  see  the  difference  between 
his  conclusions  and  those  of  others,  and  the  strangeness 
of  his  conduct.  Rossini's  Barbicre,  and  Beethoven's 
Fidctio  were  received  with  hisses  ;  Boito's  Mcfistofek  and 
Wagner's  Lohengrin  have  been  hissed  at  Milan.  How 
many  academicians  have  smiled  compassionately  at 
Marzolo,  who  has  discovered  a  new  philosophic  world  ! 
Bolyai,  for  his  invention  of  the  fourth  dimension  in  anti- 
Euclidian  geometry,  has  been  called  the  geometrician  of 
the  insane,  and  compared  to  a  miller  who  wishes  to  make 
flour  of  sand.  Every  one  knows  the  treatment  accorded 
to  Fulton  and  Columbus  and  Papin,  and,  in  our  own 
days,  to  Piatti  and  Praga  and  Abel,  and  to  Schliemann, 
who  found  Ilium,  where  no  one  else  had  dreamed  of 
looking  for  it,  while  learned  academicians  laughed. 
"  There  never  was  a  liberal  idea,"  wrote  Flaubert,  "  which 
has  not  been  unpopular  ;  never  an  act  of  justice  which 
has  not  caused  scandal  ;  never  a  great  man  who  has  not 
been  pelted  with  potatoes  or  struck  by  knives.  The 
history  of  human  intellect  is  the  history  of  human 
stupidity,  as  M.  de  Voltaire  said."  J 

In  this  persecution,  men  of  genius  have  no  fiercer  or 
more  terrible  enemies  than  the  men  of  academies,  who 
possess  the  weapons  of  talent,  the  stimulus  of  vanity,  and 
the  prestige  by  preference  accorded  to  them  by  the  vulgar, 
and  by  governments  which,  in  large  part,  consist  of  the 
vulgar.  There  are,  indeed,  countries  in  which  the 
ordinary  level  of  intelligence  sinks  so  low  that  the 
inhabitants  come  to  hate  not  only  genius,  but  even 
talent. 

Originality,  though  usually  of  an  aimless  kind,  is 
observed  with  some  frequency  among  the  insane — as 
we  shall  see  later  on — and  especially  among  those  inclined 
to  literature.  They  sometimes  reach  the  divinations  of 
genius  :  thus  Bernardi,  at  the  Florence  Asylum  in  1529, 
wished  to  show  the  existence  of  language  among  apes.2 

In  exchange  for  this  fatal  gift,  both  the  one  and  the 
other  have  the  same  ignorance  of  the  necessities  of  prac- 
tical life  which  always  seems  to  them  less  important  than 

1  G.  Flaubert,  Lettres  a  Georges  Sand,  Paris,  1885. 

2  Delepierre,  Histoire  Litleraire  desfous,  Paris,  1860. 


GENIUS  AND  DEGENERATION.  37 

their  own  dreams,  and  at  the  same  time  they  possess  the 
disordered  habits  which  renders  this  ignorance  dangerous. 
Fondness  far  Special  Words. — This  originality  causes 
men  of  genius,  as  well  as  the  insane,  to  create  special 
words,  marked  with  their  own  imprint,  unintelligible  to 
others,  but  to  which  they  attach  extraordinary  significance 
and  importance.  Such  are  the  digmtb  of  Vico,  the 
individuita  of  Carrara,  the  odio  scrrato  of  Alfieri,  the 
albcro  cpogonico  of  Marzolo,  and  the  immiarsi,  the 
intuarsi,  and  the  entomata  of  Dante. 


CHAPTER  III. 
LATENT  FORMS  OF  NEUROSIS  AND  INSANITY  IN  GENIUS. 

Chorea  and   Epilepsy — Melancholy — Megalomania — Folie  du  doute — 
Alcoholism — Hallucinations — Moral  Insanity — Longevity. 

IT  is  now  possible  to  explain  the  frequency  among  men  of 
genius,  even  when  not  insane,  of  those  forms  of  neurosis 
or  mental  alienation  which  may  be  called  latent,  and 
which  contain  the  germs  and  as  it  were  the  outlines  of 
these  disorders. 

Chorea  and  Epilepsy. — Many  men  of  genius,  like  the 
insane,  are  subject  to  curious  spasmodic  and  choreic 
movements.  Lenau  and  Montesquieu  left  upon  the  floor 
of  their  rooms  the  signs  of  the  movements  by  which 
their  feet  were  convulsively  agitated  during  composition  ; 
Buffon,  Dr.  Johnson,  Santeuil,  Crebillon,  Lombardini, 
exhibited  the  most  remarkable  facial  contortions.1  There 
was  a  constant  quiver  on  Thomas  Campbell's  thin  lips. 
Chateaubriand  was  long  subject  to  convulsive  movements 
of  the  arm.  Napoleon  suffered  from  habitual  spasm  of 
the  right  shoulder  and  of  the  lips  ;  "  My  anger,"  he  said, 
one  day  after  an  altercation  with  Lowe,  "  must  have  been 
fearful,  for  I  felt  the  vibration  of  my  calves,  which  has 
not  happened  to  me  for  a  long  time."  Peter  the  Great 
suffered  from  convulsive  movements  which  horribly  dis- 
torted his  face.  Carducci's  face  at  certain  moments, 
writes  Mantegazza,  is  a  veritable  hurricane  ;  lightnings 
dart  from  his  eyes  and  his  muscles  tremble.2  Ampere 
could  only  express  his  thoughts  while  walking,  and  when 
his  body  was  in  a  state  of  constant  movement.3  Socrates 

1  Reveille  -  Parise,  Physiologic   et  Hygtine  des   homines  litres   aux 
iravanx  de  I' esprit,  Paris,  1856. 

2  Mantegazza,  Physiognomy  and  Expression. 

3  Arago,  ii.  p.  82. 


NEUROSIS  AND  INSANITY  IN  GENIUS.  39 

often  danced  and  jumped  in  the  street  without  reason,  as 
if  by  a  freak. 

Julius  Caesar,  Dostoieffsky,  Petrarch,  Moliere,  Flaubert, 
Charles  V.,  Saint  Paul,  and  Handel,  appear  to  have  been 
all  subject  to  attacks  of  epilepsy.  Twice  upon  the  field 
of  battle  the  epileptic  vertigo  nearly  had  a  serious  in- 
fluence on  Caesar's  fate.  On  another  occasion,  when  the 
Senate  had  decreed  him  extraordinary  honours,  and  had 
gone  out  to  meet  him  with  the  consuls  and  praetors, 
Caesar,  who  at  that  moment  was  seated  at  the  tribune, 
failed  to  rise,  and  received  the  Senators  as  though  they 
were  ordinary  citizens.  They  retired  showing  signs  of 
discontent,  and  Qcsar,  suddenly  returning  to  himself, 
immediately  went  home,  took  off  his  clothes  and  un- 
covering his  neck,  exclaimed  that  he  was  ready  to  deliver 
his  throat  to  any  one  who  wished  to  cut  it.  He  explained 
his  behaviour  to  the  Senate  as  due  to  the  malady  to 
which  he  was  subject  ;  he  said  that  those  who  were 
affected  by  it  were  unable  to  speak  standing,  in  public, 
that  they  soon  felt  shocks  in  their  limbs,  giddiness,  and 
at  last  completely  lost  consciousness.1 

Convulsions  sometimes  hindered  Moliere  from  doing 
any  work  for  a  fortnight  at  a  time.  Mahomet  had 
visions  after  an  epileptic  fit :  u  An  angel  appears  to  me 
in  human  form  ;  he  speaks  to  me.  Often  I  hear  as  it 
were  the  sound  of  cats,  of  rabbits,  of  bells  :  then  I  suffer 
much."  After  these  apparitions  he  was  overcome  with 
sadness  and  howled  like  a  young  camel.  Peter  the  Great 
and  his  son  by  Catherine  were  both  epileptics. 

It  may  be  noted  here  that  artistic  creation  presents  the 
intermittence,  the  instantaneousness,  and  very  often  the 
sudden  absences  of  mind  which  characterize  epilepsy. 
Paganini,  Mozart,  Schiller,  and  Alfieri,  suffered  from 
convulsions.  Paganini  was  even  subject  to  catalepsy.2 
Pascal  from  the  age  of  twenty-four  hud  fits  which  lasted 
for  whole  days.  Handel  had  attacks  of  furious  and 
epileptic  rage.  Newton  and  Swift  were  subject  to 
vertigo,  which  is  related  to  epilepsy.  Richelieu,  in  a  fit, 
believed  he  was  a  horse,  and  neighed  and  jumped  ;  after- 

1  Plutarch,  Life,  &c.  2  Raclcstock,  op.  cit. 


40  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

wards  he  knew  nothing  of  what  had  taken  place.1 
Maudsley  remarks  that  epileptics  often  believe  themselves 
patriarchs  and  prophets.  He  thinks  that  by  mistaking 
their  hallucinations  for  divine  revelations  they  have 
largely  contributed  to  the  foundation  of  religious  beliefs. 
Anne  Lee,  who  founded  the  sect  of  Shakers,  was  an 
epileptic  :  she  saw  Christ  come  to  her  physically  and 
spiritually.  The  vision  which  transformed  Saint  Paul 
from  a  persecutor  into  an  apostle  seems  to  have  been  of 
the  same  order.  The  Siberian  Shamans,  who  profess  to 
have  intercourse  with  spirits,  operate  in  a  state  of  con- 
vulsive exaltation,  and  choose  their  pupils  by  preference 
from  among  epileptic  children. 

Melancholy. — The  tendency  to  melancholy  is  common 
to  the  majority  of  thinkers,  and  depends  on  their  hyper- 
testhesia.  It  is  proverbially  said  that  to  feel  sorrow  more 
than  other  men  constitutes  the  crown  of  thorns  of 
genius.  Aristotle  had  remarked  that  men  of  genius  are  of 
melancholic  temperament,  and  after  him  Jiirgen- Meyer 
has  affirmed  the  same.  "  Tristcs  phifasnbhi  ct  sever  i" 
said  Varro. 

Goethe,  the  impassible  Goethe,  confesses  that  "  my 
character  passes  from  extreme  joy  to  extreme  melan- 
choly ;  "  and  elsewhere  that  "  every  increase  of  knowledge 
is  an  increase  of  sorrow;"  he  could  not  recall  that  in 
all  his  life  he  had  passed  more  than  four  pleasant  weeks. 
"  I  am  not  made  for  enjoyment,"  wrote  Flaubert.2 
Giusti  was  affected  by  hypochondria,  which  reached  to 
delirium  ;  sometimes  he  thought  he  had  hydrophobia. 
Corradi  has  shown3  that  all  the  misfortunes  of  Leopardi, 
as  well  as  his  philosophy,  owe  their  origin  to  an  ex- 
aggerated sensibility,  and  a  hopeless  love  which  he 
experienced  at  the  age  of  eighteen.  In  fact,  his  philo- 
sophy was  more  or  less  sombre  according  as  his  health 
was  better  or  worse,  until  the  tendency  was  transformed 
into  a  habit.  u  Thought,"  he  wrote,  "  has  long  inflicted 
on  me,  and  still  inflicts,  such  martyrdom  as  to  pro- 
duce injurious  effects,  and  it  will  kill  me  if  I  do 

1  Mcreau,  op.  cit.,  p.  523.         2  Correspondauce ,  p.  119,  1887. 
3  Memorie  dtll  Istiluto  Lombardo,  1878, 


NEUROSIS  AND  INSANITY  IN  GENIUS.  41 

not  change  my  manner  of  existence."  x  In  his  poems 
Leopardi  appears  the  most  romantic  and  philanthropic 
of  men.  In  his  letters,  on  the  other  hand,  he  appears 
cold,  indifferent  to  his  parents,  and  still  more  to  his 
native  country.  From  the  publications  of  his  host 
and  protector  Ranieri 2  may  be  seen  how  little  grateful 
he  was  to  his  friends,  and  that  he  was  eccentric  to  the 
verge  of  insanity.  Desiring  death  every  moment  in 
verse,  he  took  exaggerated  pains  to  cling  to  life,  exposing 
himself  to  the  sun  for  hours  together,  sometimes  eating 
only  peaches,  at  other  times  only  flesh,  always  in  ex- 
tremes. No  one  hated  the  country  more  than  he,  who 
so  often  sang  its  praises.  He  hardly  reached  it  before  he 
wished  to  return,  and  stayed  with  difficulty  an  entire  day. 
He  made  day  night,  and  night  day.  He  suspected  every 
one  ;  one  day  he  even  suspected  that  he  had  been  robbed 
of  a  box  in  which  he  preserved  old  combs. 

The  list  of  great  men  who  have  committed  suicide  is 
almost  endless.  It  opens  with  the  names  of  Zeno 
Aristotle  (?),  Hegesippus,  Cleanthes,  Stilpo,  Dionysus  of 
Heraclea,  Lucretius,  Lucan,  and  reaches  to  Chatterton, 
Clive,  Creech,  Blount,  Haydon,  David.  Domenichino  was 
led  to  commit  suicide  by  the  contempt  of  a  rival  ;  Spag- 
noletto  by  the  abduction  of  his  daughter  ;  Nourrit  by 
the  success  of  Dupre  ;  Gros  could  not  survive  the  de- 
cadence of  his  genius.  Robert,  Chateaubriand,  Cowper, 
Rousseau,  Lamartine  on  several  occasions  nearly  put 
an  end  to  their  lives.  Burns  wrote  in  a  letter  :  "  My 
constitution  and  frame  were  ab  wiginc  blasted  with  a 
deep  incurable  taint  of  melancholia  which  poisons  my 
existence."  Schiller  passed  through  a  period  of  melan- 
choly which  caused  him  to  be  suspected  of  insanity. 
In  B.  Constant's  letters  we  read  :  "  If  I  had  had  my  dear 
opium,  it  would  have  been  the  moment,  in  honour  of 
ennui,  to  put  an  end  to  an  excessive  movement  of 
love."  3  Dupuytren  thought  of  suicide  even  when  he 
had  reached  the  climax  of  fame.  Pariset  and  Cavour 
were  only  saved  from  suicide  by  devoted  friends. 
The  latter  twice  attempted  to  kill  himself.  Less- 

1  Letter  to  Giordani,  Aug.,  1817.          2  Sette  Anni  di  Sodalizio* 
•'•   I'.,  de  Boismont,  op.  cit.  p.  265. 


42  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

mann,  the  humorous  writer,  who  wrote  the  Journal 
of  a  Melancholiac,  hanged  himself  in  1835  during  an 
attack  of  melancholia.  So  died,  also,  the  composer  of 
MasamcUo,  Fischer,  Romilly,  Eult  von  Burg,  Hugh 
Miller,  Gohring,  Kuh  (the  friend  of  Mendelssohn),  Jules 
Uberti,  Tannahill,  Prevost  -  Paradol,  Kleist,  who  died 
with  his  mistress,  and  Majlath,  who  drowned  himself  with 
his  daughter. 

George  Sand,  who  seems,  however,  free  from  all 
neurosis,  declared  that  whether  it  was  that  bile  made 
her  melancholy,  or  that  melancholy  made  her  bilious, 
she  had  been  seized  at  moments  of  her  life  by  a  desire 
for  eternal  repose — for  suicide.  She  attributed  this  to 
an  affection  of  the  liver.  "  It  was  an  old  chronic  dis- 
order, experienced  and  fought  with  from  early  youth, 
forgotten  like  an  old  travelling  companion  whom  one 
believes  one  has  left  behind,  but  who  suddenly  presents 
himself.  This  temptation,"  she  continues,  "  was  some- 
times so  strange  that  I  regarded  it  as  a  kind  of  madness. 
It  took  the  form  of  a  fixed  idea  and  bordered  on  mono- 
mania. The  idea  was  aroused  chiefly  by  the  sight  of 
water,  of  a  precipice,  of  phials." 

George  Sand  tells  us  that  Gustave  Planche  was  of 
strangely  melancholy  character.  Edgar  Quinet  suffered 
at  times  from  unreasonable  melancholy,  in  this  taking 
after  his  mother.  Rossini  experienced,  about  1848, 
keen  grief  because  he  had  bought  a  house  at  a  slight 
loss.  He  became  really  insane,  and  took  it  into  his 
head  that  he  was  reduced  to  extreme  misery,  so  that 
he  must  beg.  He  believed  that  he  had  become  an 
idiot.  He  could,  indeed,  neither  compose  nor  even  hear 
music  spoken  of.  The  care  of  Sansone,  of  Ancona, 
gradually  restored  him  to  fame  and  to  his  friends.  The 
great  painter  Van  Leyden  believed  himself  poisoned, 
and  during  his  latter  years  never  rose  from  his  bed. 
Mozart  was  convinced  that  the  Italians  wished  to  poison 
him.  Moliere  had  numerous  attacks  of  melancholia.1 
Voltaire  was  hypochondriacal.2  "  With  respect  to  my 
body,"  he  wrote,  "it  is  moribund.  ...  I  anticipate 

1  Hagen,   Ueber  die   Verwandtschaft,  &f.,  1877. 

2  Roger,  Voltaire  Malade,  1883. 


NEUROSIS  AND  INSANITY  IN  GENIUS.  43 

dropsy.  There  is  no  appearance  of  it,  but  you  know 
that  there  is  nothing  so  dry  as  a  dropsical  person.  .  .  . 
Diseases,  more  cruel  even  than  kings,  are  persecuting 
me.  Doctors  only  are  needed  to  finish  me."  "  All  this  " 
(travels,  pleasures,  &c.),  said  Grimm,  "  did  not  prevent 
him  from  saying  that  he  was  dead  or  dying  ;  he  was  even 
very  angry  when  one  dared  to  assure  him  that  he  was 
still  full  of  strength  and  life."  Zimmennann  was  afraid 
sometimes  of  dying  of  hunger,  sometimes  of  being  arrested  ; 
he  actually  died  of  voluntary  starvation,  the  result  of  a 
fixed  idea  that  he  had  no  money  to  pay  for  food.  The 
poet  Gray,  the  "  melancholy  Gray,"  was  of  a  gloomy  and 
extremely  reserved  character.  Abraham  Lincoln  was  a 
victim  of  constitutional  melancholy,  which  assumed  a 
most  dangerous  form  on  one  or  two  occasions  in  his 
earlier  years. 

Chopin  during  the  last  years  of  his  life  was  possessed 
by  a  melancholy  which  went  as  far  as  insanity.  An 
abandoned  convent  in  Spain  filled  his  imagination  with 
phantoms  and  terrors.  One  day  G.  Sand  and  her  son 
were  late  in  returning  from  a  walk.  Chopin  began  to 
imagine,  and  finally  believed,  that  they  were  dead  ;  then 
he  saw  himself  dead,  drowned  in  a  lake,  and  drops  of 
frozen  water  fell  upon  his  breast.  They  were  real  drops 
of  rain  falling  upon  him  from  the  roof  of  the  ruin,  but 
he  did  not  perceive  this,  even  when  George  Sand  pointed 
it  out.  Some  trifling  annoyance  affected  him  more  than  a 
great  and  real  misfortune.  A  crumpled  petal,  a  fly,  made 
him  weep.1 

Cavour  from  youth  believed  himself  deprived  of 
domestic  affections.  He  saw  no  friends  around  ;  he  saw 
above  him  no  ideal  to  realise;  lie  found  himself  alone.2 
His  condition  reached  such  a  point  that,  to  avoid  greater 
evils  and  to  leave  an  insipid  life,  he  wished  to  kill  himself. 
He  hesitated  only  because  he  was  doubtful  about  the 
morality  of  suicide.  "  But,  while  this  doubt  exists,  it  is  best 
for  me  to  imitate  Hamlet.  I  will  not  kill  myself :  no,  but 
I  will  put  up  earnest  prayers  to  heaven  to  send  me  a 
rapid  consumption  which  may  carry  me  off  to  the  pther 
world."  At  a  very  youthful  age  he  sometimes  gave  him- 
1  G.  Sand,  Ilistoire  dc  Ma  Vic,  9.  -  Ucrti,  p.  154. 


44  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

self  up  to  strange  attacks  of  bad  temper.  One  day,  at 
the  Castle  of  Diluzers,  at  Balangero,  he  threw  himself 
into  so  violent  a  rage  on  being  asked  to  study  that  he 
wished  to  kill  himself  with  a  knife  and  throw  himself 
from  the  window.  These  attacks  were  very  frequent  but 
of  brief  duration.1  When  the  hopes  of  war  raised  by 
the  words  of  Napoleon  III.  to  Baron  Hiibner  seemed 
suddenly  to  give  place  in  the  Emperor's  mind  to 
thoughts  of  peace,  Cavour  was  carried  away  by  such 
agitation  that  some  extreme  resolution  was  apprehended. 
This  is  confirmed  by  Castelli,  who  went  to  his  house  and 
found  him  alone  in  his  room.  He  had  burnt  various 
papers,  and  given  orders  that  no  one  should  be  admitted. 
The  danger  was  plain.  He  looked  fixedly  at  Castelli, 
who  spoke  a  few  calm  words  calculated  to  affect  him, 
and  then  burst  into  tears.  Cavour  rose,  embraced  him 
convulsively,  took  a  few  steps  distractedly  about  the 
room,  and  then  said  slowly  :  "  Be  at  rest  ;  we  will  brave 
everything,  and  always  together."  Castelli  ran  to  re- 
assure his  friends,  but  the  danger  had  been  very  grave.2 

Chateaubriand  relates,  in  his  Memoires  d?  mitre  Tombe, 
that  one  day  as  a  youth  he  charged  an  old  musket, 
which  sometimes  went  off  by  itself,  with  three  balls, 
inserted  the  barrel  in  his  mouth  and  struck  the  stock 
against  the  ground.  The  appearance  of  a  passer-by 
suspended  his  resolution. 

Gerard  de  Nerval  was  never  so  much  inspired  as  in 
those  movements  when,  according  to  the  saying  of 
Aloxandre  Dumas,  his  melancholy  became  his  muse. 
u  Werther,  Rene,  Antony,"  says  Dumas,  "  never  uttered 
more  poignant  complaints,  more  sorrowful  sighs,  tenderer 
words,  or  more  poetic  cries." 

J.  S.  Mill  3  was  seized  during  the  autumn  of  1826,  at  the 
age  of  twenty,  by  an  attack  of  insanity  which  he  himself 
could  only  describe  in  these  words  of  Coleridge's  : 

"  A  grief  without  a  pang,  void,  dark,  and  drear, 
A  drowsy,  stifled,  unimpassioned  grief, 
Which  finds  no  natural  outlet  or  relief 
In  word,  or  sigh,  or  tear." 

1  Berli,  Cavour  Avanti  il  1848,  Rome  ;  Mayor,  in  Archivo  di 
Psiclriatria,  vol.  iv.  2  Mayor,  op.  cit.  3  Autobiography, 


NEUROSIS  AND  INSANITY  IN  GENIUS.  45 

I  quote  these  lines  the  more  willingly  as  they  show  in 
their  extreme  energy  that  Coleridge  himself  was  affected 
by  the  same  malady.  To  this  state  of  mind  succeeded 
another  in  which  Mill  sought  to  cultivate  the  feelings  ; 
among  other  preoccupations  he  feared  the  exhaustion 
of  musical  combinations  :  "  The  octave  consists  only  of 
five  tones  and  two  semi-tones,  which  can  be  put  to- 
gether in  only  a  limited  number  of  ways,  of  which  but 
a  small  proportion  are  beautiful  :  most  of  them,  it  seemed 
to  me,  must  have  been  already  discovered,  and  there 
could  not  be  room  for  a  long  succession  of  Mozarts  and 
Webers  to  strike  out,  as  these  had  done,  entirely  new  and 
surpassingly  rich  veins  of  musical  beauty.  This  source 
of  anxiety  may,  perhaps,  be  thought  to  resemble  that  of 
the  philosophers  of  Laputa,  who  feared  lest  the  sun  should 
be  burnt  out."  * 

Megalomania  (Delusions  rf  grandeur}. — The  delirium 
of  melancholia  alternates  with  that  of  grandiose  mono- 
mania. 

"The  title  'Son  of  David,'"  writes  Renan,  "was  the 
first  which  Jesus  Christ  accepted,  probably  without  taking 
part  in  the  innocent  frauds  by  which  it  was  sought  to 
make  it  certain.  The  family  of  David  had,  in  fact,  long 
been  extinct."  Later  on  he  declared  himself  the  son  of 
God.  "  His  Father  had  given  him  all  power  ;  nature 
obeyed  him  ;  he  could  forgive  sins  ;  he  was  superior  to 
David,  to  Abraham,  to  Solomon,  to  the  prophets.  It  is 
evident,"  ilenan  continues,"  that  the  title  of  Rabbi,  with 
which  he  was  at  first  contented,  no  longer  satisfied  him  ; 
even  the  title  of  Prophet  or  Messenger  from  God  no 
longer  corresponded  to  his  conception.  The  position 
which  he  attributed  to  himself  was  that  of  a  superhuman 
being."  He  declared  that  he  was  come  to  give  sight  to 
the  blind,  and  to  blind  those  who  think  they  see.  One 
day  his  ill  humour  with  the  Temple  called  forth  an  im- 
prudent expression:  "This  Temple,  made  by  human 
hands,"  he  said,  "  I  could,  if  I  liked,  destroy,  and  in  its 
place  build  another,  not  made  by  human  hands.  The 
Queen  of  Sheba,"  he  added,  "  will  rise  up  at  the  Judg- 
ment against  the  men  of  to-day  and  condemn  them, 
1  Autobiography,  p.  145. 


46  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

because  they  came  from  the  ends  of  the  earth  to  hear 
Solomon's  wisdom  ;  yet  a  greater  than  Solomon  is  here. 
The  men  of  Nineveh  will  rise  up  at  the  Judgment 
against  the  men  of  to-day  and  condemn  them,  because 
they  repented  at  the  preaching  of  Jonah  ;  yet  a  greater 
than  Jonah  is  here." 

Dante's  pride,  legitimate  as  it  may  have  been,  is  pro- 
verbial. It  is  well  known  that  he  placed  himself  "  srs/u 
fra  cofdtitu  .sr////o,"  and  declared  himself  superior  to  his 
contemporaries  in  style  and  the  favourite  of  God  : — 

"...  eforsc  e  nato 
Chi  r  uno  c  /'  allro  cacciera  di  nido.  .   .  . 

.  .  .  pcrchc  tanta 
Grazia  in  te  luce  prinia  che  sci  morto.  ..." 

At  the  Institute  Dumas  said  with  truth  of  Hugo  : 
"  Victor  Hugo  was  dominated  by  a  fixed  idea  :  to  be- 
come the  greatest  poet  and  the  greatest  man  of  all 
countries  and  all  ages."  It  is  this,  according  to  Dumas, 
which  explains  the  entire  life  and  all  the  changes  in  Victor 
Hugo,  who  began  by  being  a  Catholic  and  monarchist. 
"  He  could  not  submit  to  be  shut  up  within  a  government 
and  a  religion  where  he  had  not  the  right  to  say  anything 
and  the  chance  to  be  first.  The  glory  of  Napoleon  long- 
haunted  Victor  Hugo.  But  the  day  came  when  he  could 
no  longer  tolerate  that  any  one  should  have  glory  equal  to 
his  own.  The  great  captain  must  give  way  to  the  great 
poet  ;  the  giant  of  action  must  efface  himself  before  the 
giant  of  thought.  Is  not  Homer  greater  than  Achilles  ? 
Victor  Hugo  came  to  believe  himself  superior  to  all 
human  beings.  He  did  not  say,  ( I  am  Genius,'  but  he 
began  to  believe  firmly  that  the  world  would  say  so.  His 
personages  do  not  possess  the  characters  of  reality  nor  the 
proportions  of  man  ;  they  are  always  above  and  beyond 
humanity,  sometimes  reversed,  not  to  say  upside  down  ; 
that  was  because  Nature  had  for  him  aspects  that  were 
seen  by  no  other.  His  eye  enlarged  everything  ;  he  saw 
herbs  as  tall  as  trees  ;  he  saw  insects  as  large  as  eagles." 

Hegel  believed  in  his  own  divinity.    He  began  a  lecture 
with  these  words :   "I  may  say  with  Christ,  that  not  only 
do  I  teach  truth,  but  that  I  am  myself  truth.11  1 
1  Von  Sedlitz,  Schopenhauer,  1872. 


NEUROSIS  AND  INSANITY  IN  GENIUS.  47 

"  Man  is  the  vainest  of  animals,  and  the  poet  is  the 
vainest  of  men,"  wrote  Heine,  who  knew.1  And  in 
another  letter  :  u  Do  not  forget  that  I  am  a  poet,  and,  as 
such,  convinced  that  men  must  forsake  all  and  read  my 
verses." 

"  Every  one  knows,"  wrote  George  Sand  of  her  friend 
Balzac,2  "  how  the  consciousness  of  greatness  overflowed 
in  him,  how  he  loved  to  speak  of  his  works  and  to  narrate 
them.  Genial  and  ingenuous,  he  asked  advice  from 
children,  but  never  waited  for  the  answer,  or  else  op- 
posed it  with  all  the  obstinacy  of  his  superiority.  He 
never  instructed,  but  always  talked  very  well  indeed  of 
himself,  of  himself  alone.  One  evening,  having  on  a 
beautiful  new  dressing-gown,  he  wished  to  go  out,  thus 
clothed,  with  a  lamp  in  his  hand,  to  excite  the  admiration 
of  the  public." 

Chopin  directed  in  his  will  that  he  should  be  buried  in 
a  white  tie,  small  shoes,  and  short  breeches.  He  abandoned 
the  woman  whom  lie  tenderly  loved  because  she  offered  a 
chair  to  some  one  else  before  giving  the  same  invitation 
to  himself. 3 

Giordano  Bruno  declared  himself  illumined  by  superior 
light,  a  messenger  from  (rod,  who  knew  the  essence  of 
things,  a  'Titan  who  would  destroy  Jupiter  :  "And  what 
others  sec  far  ahead  I  leave  behind."  4  And  again  : — 

' '  Nam  me  Dens  alter 
Vertcnlis  svcli  melioris  iwn  mcdiocrcm 
Destinat,  hand  vcluti,  media  dc  plebe,  magistrum" 

The  poet  Lucilius  did  not  rise  when  Julius  Caesar 
entered  the  college  of  poets  because  he  believed  himself 
his  superior  in  the  art  of  verse.  Ariosto,  after  receiving 
the  laurel  from  Charles  V.,  ran  like  a  madman  through 
the  streets. s  The  celebrated  surgeon  Porta  would  not 
suffer  any  medical  paper  to  be  read  at  the  Lombard  Insti- 
tute without  murmuring  and  showing  his  contempt  ;  as 
soon  as  a  mathematical  or  philological  paper  was  brought 
forward  he  became  quiet  and  attentive.  Comte  gave  out 

1  Letters,  1885.  2  Histoire  de  Ma  Vie,  v.  p.  9. 

<  O.  Sand,  op.  cit.  4  De  Immcnso  ct  inmancrat.,  iii. 

1  5  G.  Mcnke,  DC  ciarlataneria  cntditoruin,  1780. 


48  THE  MAN-  OF  GENIUS. 

that  he  was  the  High  Priest  of  Humanity.  Wetzel  in- 
titled  his  works,  Opera  Dei  Wetzclii.  Rouelle,  the  founder 
of  chemistry  in  France,  quarrelled  with  all  his  disciples 
who  wrote  on  chemistry.  They  were,  he  said,  ignorant 
bunglers,  plagiaries  ;  this  latter  term  assumed  so  odious  a 
significance  in  his  mind  that  he  applied  it  to  the  worst 
criminals  ;  for  instance,  to  express  his  horror  of  Damiens 
he  said  he  was  a  plagiary. 

Many  men  of  genius,  while  avoiding  these  excesses, 
nevertheless  believe  that  they  embody  in  themselves 
absolute  truth  ;  they  modify  scientific  conclusions  in  their 
own  interests,  and  in  accordance  with  the  part  they  are 
themselves  able  to  take.  Delacroix,  become  incapable  of 
drawing  beautiful  lines,  declared,  "  Colour  is  everything." 
Ingres  said,  "  Drawing  is  honesty,  drawing  is  honour." 
Chopin  charged  Schubert  and  Shakespeare  with  temerity 
because  in  these  great  men  he  always  sought  a  corres- 
pondence with  his  own  temperament.1  The  Princess 
Conti  having  said  to  Malherbe,  "  I  wish  to  show  you  some 
of  the  most  beautiful  verses  in  the  world,  which  you  have 
not  yet  seen,"  he  replied  immediately  with  emotion, 
"  Pardon  me,  madame,  I  have  seen  them;  for,  since  they 
are  the  most  beautiful  in  the  world,  I  must  have  written 
them  myself." 

Folie  du  doute. — Among  men  of  genius  we  often 
find  the  phenomena  which  characterizes  that  disorder 
termed  by  alienists  foh'e  du  donte,  one  of  the  varieties  of 
melancholia.  In  this  form  of  insanity  the  subject  has 
every  appearance  of  mental  health  ;  he  reasons,  writes, 
and  speaks  like  other  people  ;  everything  goes  well  until 
he  has  to  execute  a  definite  action,  and  in  this  he  finds  all 
sorts  of  imaginary  dangers.  Thus  I  have  treated  a 
woman  who  when  she  had  to  get  up  in  the  morning, 
would  hesitate  for  hours  beside  her  bed,  with  one  arm  in 
the  sleeve  of  her  chemise,  and  the  other  sleeve  hanging 
down,  until  her  husband  came  to  her  help.  Sometimes 
the  husband  was  obliged  to  give  her  a  few  slight  blows  to 
induce  her  to  take  action.  If  she  went  for  a  walk  and 
knocked  against  a  stone,  or  came  across  a  puddle,  she  would 
remain  motionless  ;  her  husband  had  then  to  carry  her 
*  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  1883. 


NEUROSIS  AND  INSANITY  IN  GENIUS.  49 

for  a  few  instants.  In  conversation  she  seemed  the  best 
and  most  sensible  of  mothers,  but  woe  to  the  unfortunate 
person  who  dropped  any  word  she  regarded  with  suspicion, 
such  as  "devil,"  "death,"  "God";  she  immediately 
seized  him  and  cried  out,  until  he  repeated  a  certain 
formula,  declaring  a  dozen  times  that  the  word  had  not 
been  uttered  to  injure  her.  A  peasant,  affected  by  the 
same  disorder,  was  incapable  of  attending  to  his  work, 
unless  some  one  was  there  to  watch  over  him  ;  for,  said 
he,  "  I  cannot  make  up  my  mind  whether  I  ought  to  dig 
or  to  hoe,  to  go  to  the  field  or  to  the  hill,  and  my  uncer- 
tainty is  so  great  that  I  end  by  doing  nothing." 

When  Johnson  walked  along  the  streets  of  London  he 
was  compelled  to  touch  every  post  he  passed  ;  if  he 
omitted  one  he  had  to  return.  He  always  went  in  or 
out  of  a  door  or  passage  in  such  a  way  that  either  his 
right  or  his  left  foot  (Boswell  was  not  certain  which) 
should  be  the  first  to  cross  the  threshold  ;  when  he  made 
any  mistake  in  the  movement,  he  would  return,  and, 
having  satisfactorily  performed  the  feat,  rejoin  his  com- 
panions with  the  air  of  a  man  who  had  got  something 
off  his  mind.  Napoleon  I.  could  not  pass  through  a 
street,  even  at  the  head  of  his  army,  without  count- 
ing and  adding  up  the  rows  of  windows.  Manzoni,  in 
a  letter  (addressed  to  Giorgio  Briano)  which  has  be- 
come famous,  declared  that  he  was  incapable  of  giving 
himself  up  to  politics  bjcausj  he  did  not  know  h  >w  to 
decide  on  anything  ;  he  was  always  in  a  state  of  uncer- 
tainty before  every  resolution,  even  the  most  trifling.  He 
was  afraid  of  drowning  in  the  smallest  puddle,  and  could 
never  resolve  to  go  out  alone ;  he  confessed  on  various 
occasions  that,  from  his  youth  up,  he  had  suffered  from 
melancholy.1  He  passed  whole  days  without  being  able 
to  apply  himself  to  anything,2  so  that  in  a  month  there 
were  five  or  six  useful  days  during  which  he  worked  five 
hours,  and  then  he  became  incapable  of  thinking. 3  Ugo 
Foscolo  said  that  "  very  active  in  regard  to  some  things,  he 
was  in  regard  to  others  less  than  a  man,  less  than  a  woman, 

1  Letters,  p.  62.  2  Ibid.,  pp.  62,    119,    123. 

3  G.  S for/a,  Epistolario  di  A.   Afanzoni,   Milan,   1883. 

5 


50  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

less  than  a  child."  x  Tolstoi  confesses  that  philosophic 
scepticism  had  led  him  into  a  condition  approximating  to 
madness;  let  us  add,  kofoh'e  du  doutc.  "I  imagined,"  he 
said,  "  that  there  existed  nothing  outside  me,  either  living  or 
dead  ;  that  the  objects  were  not  objects,  but  vain  appear- 
ances ;  this  state  reached  such  a  point  that  sometimes  I 
turned  suddenly  round,  and  looked  behind  me  in  the  hope 
of  seeing  iinl/iing  where  I  was  not."  "The  deplorable 
mania  of  doubt  exhausts  me,"  cried  Flaubert,  u  I  doubt 
about  everything,  even  about  my  doubts."2  I  am  em- 
barrassed and  frightened  at  my  own  ideas,"  wrote  Maine 
de  Biran,  "every  expression  stops  me  and  gives  me 
scruples.  I  have  no  confidence  in  anything  that  I  publish, 
and  am  always  tempted  to  withdraw  my  works  when 
they  have  scarcely  appeared,  to  substitute  others  which 
would  certainly  be  worthless.  I  always  call  those  happy 
who  are  tied  down  to  fixed  labour,  who  are  not  submitted 
to  the  torment  of  uncertainty,  to  the  indecision  which 
poisons  men  who  are  masters  of  their  time.  I  am  always 
trying  my  strength  ;  I  commence,  and  recommence  again 
and  again.  It  is  my  fortune  to  be  useless,  to  be  wanting 
in  measure,  never  to  feel  my  existence,  never  to  have 
confidence  in  my  capacity.  I  am  never  happy  wherever  I 
am,  because  I  carry  within  my  own  organism  a  source  of 
affliction  and  unrest.  I  have  only  sufficient  feeling  of  my 
own  personality  to  feel  my  impotence,  which  is  a  great 
torture.  I  am  always  ready  to  do  a  number  of  things 
.  .  .  and  I  do  nothing."  3  The  little  miseries  of  exist- 
ence were  tortures  for  Carlyle  ;  to  have  to  pack  his 
portmanteau  was  a  grave  affair  of  state  ;  the  idea  of 
ordering  coats  or  buying  gloves  crushed  him.  "  I  have 
long  renounced  the  omnibus,"  wrote  Renan  in  his 
Souvenirs  dc  Jcuncsse,  u  the  conductors  refuse  to  regard 
me  as  a  serious  traveller.  At  the  railway  station,  unless 
I  have  the  protection  of  an  inspector,  I  always  obtain 
the  worst  place.  ...  I  see  too  well  that  to  do  a  good 
turn  to  one,  is  usually  to  do  a  bad  one  to  another.  The, 

1  Epistolario,  3,  p.    163. 

2  Correspondance,  p.  119.     1887, 

3  Journal  de  ma  vie  intime. 


NEUROSIS  AND  INSANITY  IN  GENIUS.  51 

vision  of  the  unknown  person  I  am  injuring  stops  short 
my  zeal." 

Reiuin,  indeed,  is  a  most  singular  instance  of  these 
characteristics  in  connection  with  genius,  from  his 
earliest  years.  At  mass  his  childish  eye  wandered  over 
the  roof  of  the  chapel,  and  he  thought  of  the  great 
men  told  of  in  books.  It  was  his  dream  to  write 
books.  "  My  gentleness,"  he  writes,  "  which  often 
arises  from  indifference,  my  indulgence,  which  is  very 
sincere  and  which  depends  on  a  clear  perception  of 
the  injustice  of  men  to  each  other,  the  conscientious 
habits  which  are  a  pleasure  to  me,  the  indefinite  endurance 
of  ennui  which  I  possess — having,  perhaps,  been  inocu- 
lated in  my  youth — may  be  explained  by  my  surroundings, 
and  the  deep  impressions  I  have  received.  The  paradoxi- 
cal vow  to  preserve  the  clerical  virtues  without  the  faith 
which  serves  as  basis  for  them,  and  in  a  world  for  which 
they  are  not  made,  produced,  so  far  as  I  am  concerned, 
the  most  amusing  incidents.  If  ever  a  comic  writer 
wishes  to  amuse  the  public  at  my  expense,  he  needs  but 
my  collaboration  ;  I  could  tell  him  things  far  more 
amusing  than  he  could  invent."  A  layman  and  a  sceptic 
he  preserved,  involuntarily,  the  vow  of  poverty.  "My 
dream  would  be  to  be  housed,  fed,  clothed,  and  warmed, 
without  having  to  think  about  it,  by  some  one  who  would 
take  charge  of  me  and  leave  me  free.  The  competence 
which  I  possess  came  late,  and  in  spite  of  myself.  ...  I 
always  thought  about  writing  ;  it  did  not  occur  to  me  it 
could  bring  me  any  money.  What  was  my  astonishment 
when  I  saw  a  gentleman  of  agreeable  and  intelligent 
appearance  enter  my  garret,  compliment  me  on  some 
articles  I  had  published,  and  offer  to  collect  them  in  a 
volume.  He  brought  a  stamped  paper  stipulating  con- 
ditions I  thought  astonishingly  generous,  so  that  when  he 
asked  me  to  include  all  my  future  writings  in  the  same 
contract,  I  consented.  The  idea  came  to  me  to  make 
some  observations,  but  I  paused  at  sight  of  the  docu- 
ment ;  the  thought  that  that  beautiful  sheet  of  paper 
would  be  lost  stopped  me.  I  did  well  to  stop."  The 
politeness  which  he  wrongly  believes  he  learnt  at  the 
seminary  is  not  the  raw  and  cold  politeness  of  the  priest, 


52  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

but  the  special  and  excessive  timidity  of  genius.  He 
could  not,  he  says,  treat  even  a  dog  with  an  air  of 
authority.  But  authority  is  the  chief  characteristic  of 
priests.  To  imagine  as  he  does  that  men  are  always  good 
and  deserving  could  only  be,  as  he  himself  justly  notes,  a 
continual  danger.  "  Notwithstanding  all  my  efforts  to 
the  contrary,  I  was  predestined  to  be  what  I  am,  a 
romantic  protesting  against  romanticism,  an  Utopian 
preaching  materialistic  politics,  an  idealist  uselessly  giving 
himself  much  trouble  to  appear  bourgeois,  a  tissue  of 
contradictions.  ...  It  is  as  a  great  observer  Challemel- 
Lacour  has  excellently  said,  '  He  thinks  like  a  man,  feels 
like  a  woman,  and  acts  like  a  child.'  I  do  not  complain, 
since  this  moral  constitution  has  procured  me  the  most 
vivid  intellectual  joys  that  may  be  tasted."  x 

But  the  most  striking  example  of  this  permanent 
state  of  doubt  is  supplied  by  another  philosopher,  the 
author  of  a  journal  of  his  own  life,  Amiel.  He  was 
so  tormented  by  doubt  that  the  strength  of  his  genius 
was  only  shown  after  his  death,  when  in  his  journal  he 
revealed  with  absolute  exactness  the  wound  which 
gnawed  him.  Let  us  read  a  few  of  the  most  remark- 
able passages  : — 

"As  life  flees,"  he  says,  "I  mourn  the  loss  of  reality  : 
thought  is  sad  without  action,  and  action  is  sad  without 
thought  :  the  real  is  spoilt  when  the  ideal  has  not  added 
its  perfume  ;  but  the  ideal,  when  not  made  one  with  the 
real,  becomes  a  poison.  I  have  never  learnt  the  art  of 
writing  ;  it  would  have  been  useful  to  me,  but  I  was 
ashamed  of  the  useful  :  on  the  other  hand,  I  have 
acquired  two  opposed  intellectual  habits  :  to  note  imme- 
diately passing  impressions  and  to  analyse  them  scientifi- 
cally. .  .  .  This  journal  will  be  useful  to  no  one,  and  even 
for  me  it  will  serve  rather  to  plan  out  life  than  to  practice 
it  ;  it  is  a  pillow  of  idleness.  .  .  .  And  even  in  style  I  am 
unequal.  Always  energetic  and  correct  :  that  results 
from  my  existence  :  I  see  before  me  several  expressions 
and  I  do  not  know  which  I  ought  to  choose.  The  unique 
expression  is  an  act  of  courage  which  implies  confidence 

1  Souvenirs  d1  Enfance  et  de  feunesse. 


NEUROSIS  AND  INSANITY  IN  GENIUS.  53 

in  oneself.  ...  I  discovered  very  early  that  it  is  easier  to 
give  up  a  wish  than  to  gratify  it.  ...  The  idea  may  be 
modified,  but  not  the  action,  so  I  abhor  it,  for  I  fear  use- 
less remorse  :  I  thrust  aside  the  idea  of  a  family,  because 
every  lost  joy  is  the  stab  of  a  knife,  because  every  hope  is 
an  egg  from  which  may  proceed  a  serpent  as  well  as  a 
dove.  .  .  .  Action  is  my  cross  because  it  would  be  my 
dream  ;  but  to  be  false  to  the  ideal  would  soil  the  con- 
science and  be  an  unpardonable  error.  .  .  .  It  is  my  passion 
to  injure  my  interests.  When  a  thing  attracts  me  I  flee 
from  it."  * 

Every  one  may  see  the  glorious  kinship  to  genius  of 
all  these  forms  of  disease.  And  every  one  will  think  of 
the  great  poet-alienist  who  divined  insanity  in  genius,  and 
left  of  it  a  monumental  portrait  in  Hamlet,  the  man 
afflicted  by  fo/z'e  du  dontc. 

It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  add  that  these  great  dis- 
ordered minds  must  not  be  confused  with  the  poor 
inmates,  without  genius,  of  our  asylums.  Although,  as 
diseased  persons,  they  belong  to  the  same  category,  and 
have  some  of  the  same  characters,  they  must  not  be 
identified  with  them.  While  ordinary  lunatics  are  re- 
duced to  inaction,  or  the  agitation  of  sterile  delirium, 
these  disordered  men  of  genius  are  the  more  active  in 
the  ideal  life  because  the  less  apt  for  practical  life. 
Further,  when  we  analyse  more  delicately  this  form  of 
insanity,  or  rather  of  impotence  for  practical  action,  so 
common  among  men  of  genius,  we  see  that  it  is  distinct 
from  the  other  forms.  In  scientific  work  these  men  do 
not  lack  precision,  or  decision,  or  audacity.  But  by  ex- 
pending their  strength  on  theoretical  problems,  they  end 
by  .ailing  with  reference  to  practical  things.  By  carrying 
tL^ir  glance  above  and  beyond,  these  sublimely  far-sighted 
persons  become,  like  astronomers,  unable  to  perceive 
neighbouring  objects.  The  effects  seem  partly  identical, 
but  the  nature  of  the  phenomena  and  their  causes  are 
absolutely  different. 

In  his  "  Dialogue  of  Nature,"  Leopardi,  after  having 
shown   how  the  excellence  of  genius  involves  a  greater 
intensity  of  life,  and  consequently  a  more  vivid  sense  of 
1  Amid,  Journal  ///./////,-,  (l.-ncva,  2nd  ed.,  1889. 


54  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

individual  misfortune,  makes  Nature  address  him  thus  : 
"  Besides,  the  delicacy  of  your  own  intelligence  and  the 
vivacity  of  your  imagination  will  shut  you  out,  for  a  great 
part,  from  your  empire  of  yourself.  The  brutes  follow 
easily  the  ends  that  they  propose  to  themselves,  with  all 
their  faculties  and  all  their  strength.  But  men  very 
rarely  utilize  all  their  power ;  they  are  usually  stopped  by 
reason  and  imagination,  which  create  for  them  a  thousand 
uncertainties  in  deliberation,  a  thousand  obstacles  in 
execution.  Those  who  are  less  apt  or  less  accustomed  to 
consider  and  balance  motions  are  the  most  prompt  in 
taking  a  resolution,  the  most  powerful  in  action.  But 
those  who  are  like  you,  the  elect  souls,  continually  folded 
on  themselves  and  outrun,  as  it  were,  by  the  greatness  of 
their  own  faculties,  consequently  powerless  to  govern 
themselves,  are  most  often  subjected,  either  in  deliberation 
or  execution,  to  irresolution,  which  is  one  of  the  greatest 
penalties  which  afflict  human  life.  Add  to  this  that  the 
excellence  of  your  aptitudes  will  enable  you  to  surpass, 
easily  and  briefly,  all  other  souls  in  the  most  profound 
sciences  and  the  most  difficult  researches  ;  but,  neverthe- 
less, it  will  always  be  impossible  or  extremely  difficult  for 
you  to  learn  or  to  put  in  practice  a  great  many  things, 
insignificant  in  themselves,  but  absolutely  necessary  in 
your  relations  with  other  men.  And  at  the  same  time 
you  will  find  these  things  learnt  and  easily  applied  by 
minds,  not  only  inferior  to  yours,  but  altogether  con- 
temptible." 

Alcoholism. — Many  men  of  genius  have  abused  alco- 
holic drinks.  Alexander  died,  it  is  said,  after  having 
emptied  ten  times  the  goblet  of  Hercules,  and  it  was 
without  doubt  in  an  alcoholic  attack,  while  pursuing 
naked  the  infamous  Thais,  that  he  killed  his  dearest 
friend.  Csesar  was  often  carried  home  on  the  shoulders 
of  his  soldiers.  Neither  Socrates,  nor  Seneca,  nor  Alci- 
biades,  nor  Cato,  nor  Peter  the  Great  (nor  his  wife, 
Catherine,  nor  his  daughter,  Elizabeth),  were  remarkable 
for  their  abstinence.  One  recalls  Horace's  line  : 

"  Narraltir  et  prisci  Catonis  sffpc  mcro  cahiissc  virtus" 
Tiberius    Nero    was    called   by   the  Romans  Biberius 


NEUROSIS  AND  INSANITY  IN  GENIUS.  55 

Mero.  Scptimius  Scverus  and  Mahomet  II.  succumbed 
to  drunkenness  or  delirium  trcmctis.  Among  confirmed 
drunkards  must  be  counted  the  Constable  de  Bourbon 
and  Avicenna,  who,  it  was  said,  devoted  the  second  half 
of  his  life  to  showing  the  uselessness  of  the  studies  to 
which  he  had  devoted  the  first  half  ;  so  also  have  been 
many  famous  painters,  such  as  the  Caracci,  Jan  SUvn, 
Barbatelli  (on  this  account  nicknamed  Pocelta),  G. 
Morland,  Turner  ;  and  many  poets  and  novelists,  surh 
as  Murger,  Gerard  de  Ncrval,  Alfred  de  Musset,  Klei.-t, 
Poe,  Hoffmann,  Addison,  Stecle,  Carew,  Sheridan, 
Burns,  Charles  Lamb,  James  Thomson,  Majlath,  Hartley 
Coleridge.  Tasso  wrote  in  a  letter  :  "  I  do  not  deny 
that  I  am  mad,  but  I  believe  that  my  madness  is  caused 
by  intoxication  and  love  ;  for  I  know  that  I  drink  too 
much."  Coleridge,  on  account  of  his  lack  of  will,  and 
his  abuse  of  alcoholic  drinks  and  opium,  never  suc- 
ceeded in  executing  any  of  his  gigantic  projects  ;  in 
youth  he  was  offered  thirty  guineas  for  a  poem  he  had 
improvised,  but  he  never  succeeded  in  getting  it  on  to 
paper.  His  son,  Hartley,  a  distinguished  writer,  gave 
himself  up  to  drink  so  entirely  that  he  died  of  it.  It 
was  said  of  him  that  he  u  wrote  like  an  angel  and  drank 
like  a  fish."  Savage,  during  the  last  days  of  his  life 
almost  lived  on  wine  and  died  in  a  Bristol  prison. 
Helius,  a  German  poet  of  the  sixteenth  century,  affirmed 
that  it  was  the  greatest  of  shames  to  be  beaten  in  drink- 
ing. Shenstone  said  of  his  comrade  in  poetry,  Somerville, 
that  he  was  "  forced  to  drink  himself  into  pains  of  the  body, 
in  order  to  get  rid  of  the  pains  of  the  mind."  Madame 
de  Stael  and  De  Quincey  abused  opium  ;  the  latter  has 
left  a  vivid  picture  of  his  excesses  in  the  Confessions  of 
an  Opium  Eater.  Many  musical  composers  were  great 
drinkers  ;  such  were  Dussek,  Handel,  and  Gliick,  who 
used  to  say  that  he  loved  money,  wine,  and  fame  for  an 
excellent  reason  :  the  first  enabled  him  to  obtain  the 
second,  and  the  second,  by  inspiring  him,  procured  him 
fame.  But  besides  wine  he  liked  brandy,  and  one  day  he 
drank  so  much  that  he  died  of  it.1  One  may  say  the 
same  of  Rovani  and  of  Praga. 

1  Clement,  Musiciens  cclcbrcs,  Paris,  1868. 


56  THE  MAN  OP  GENIUS. 

Hallucinations . — We  have  already  seen  that  hallucina- 
tions are  so  closely  connected  witn  artistic  and  genial 
creations  that  Brierre  de  Boismont  associated  them  with 
the  physiology  of  great  men.  Every  one  knows  the 
celebrated  hallucination  of  Cellini  in  his  cell,  those  of 
Brutus,  of  Caesar,  of  Napoleon,  of  Swedenborg,  who 
believed  that  he  had  visited  Heaven,  conversed  with  the 
spirits  of  the  great  dead,  and  seen  the  Eternal  Father  in 
person  ;  Van  Helmont  declared  that  he  had  seen  his  own 
soul  in  the  form  of  a  brilliant  crystal  ;  Kerner  was  visited 
by  a  spectre.  Shelley  thought  he  saw  a  child  rise  from 
the  sea  and  clap  its  hands.  Clare,  after  having  read 
some  historical  episode,  imagined  that  he  was  himself 
spectator  and  actor.  Blake  thought  he  really  perceived 
the  fantastic  images  reproduced  by  his  pencil.  A  cele- 
brated professor  was  often  subject  to  a  similar  illusion, 
and  he  believed  himself  changed  into  Confucius,  Papirius, 
and  Tamerlane.  Hobbes  confessed  that  he  could  not  go 
in  the  dark  without  thinking  that  he  saw  visions  of  the 
dead.1  Bunyan  heard  voices. 

When  Columbus  was  cast  on  the  shores  of  Jamaica  he 
had  an  hallucination  of  hearing.  He  heard  a  voice 
reproaching  him  for  giving  himself  up  to  grief  and  for 
having  but  a  weak  faith  in  God  :  "  What  happens  to 
you  to-day  is  a  deserved  punishment  for  having  served 
the  masters  of  the  world  and  not  God.  All  these 
tribulations  are  engraved  on  marble,  and  are  not  brought 
about  without  reason."  Later,  Columbus  declared  that 
in  him  was  accomplished  an  ancient  prophecy  announcing 
the  end  of  the  world  on  the  day  on  which  the  universal 
diffusion  of  Christianity  would  be  realized.  According  to 
the  same  prophecy,  only  156  years  of  existence  remained 
for  humanity. 2 

Malebranche  declared  that  he  had  distinctly  heard 
within  himself  the  voice  of  God.  Descartes,  after  a  long 
seclusion,  believed  himself  haunted  by  an  invisible  person 
who  charged  him  to  follow  up  the  search  for  truth. 3 
Byron  sometimes  imagined  he  was  haunted  by  a  spectre ; 

1  W.  Irving,  Life,   1880. 

2  Verga,  Lazzarelti,  <SrV.,  Milan,  1880. 

3  Forbes  Winslow,  op.  cit^  p.  123. 


NEUROSIS  AND  INSANITY  IN  GENIUS.  57 

he  afterwards  explained  this  himself  by  the  extreme 
excitability  of  his  brain.1  Dr.  Johnson  distinctly  heard 
his  mother  call  him  "  Samuel !  "  although  she  was  living 
in  a  distant  town.  Pope,  who  suffered  much  from  the 
bowels,  one  day  asked  his  doctor  about  an  arm  which 
seemed  to  protrude  from  the  wall.  Goethe  assures 
us  that  he  one  day  saw  his  own  image  coming  to  meet 
him.2  When  Oliver  Cromwell  was  lying  on  his  bed,  kept 
awake  by  extreme  fatigue,  the  curtain  opened  and  a 
woman  of  gigantic  proportions  appeared  and  announced 
that  he  would  be  the  greatest  man  in  England. 3 

M<>ral  Insanity. — Complete  absence  of  moral  sense 
and  of  sympathy  is  frequently  found  among  men  of 
genius,  as  well  as  among  the  morally  insane.  It  is  an  old 
proverb  that  "  Quo  quisquc  cst  doctior  co  cst  neqw'or" 
Aristotle,  in  reply  to  the  question,  "  Why  the  most  learned 
man  is  of  all  living  beings  the  most  unjust  ?  "  replies  : 
"  Because  he  aims  always  at  pleasures  which  can  only  be 
attained  by  injustice.  And,  besides,  knowledge  resembles 
the  stone  which  is  good  to  sharpen  instruments  on,  but 
may  also  serve  the  murderer's  turn."  And  Philip  of 
Comines  says  :  "  Doctn'na  vcl  mc/iorcs  rcddit  homines 
I'd  pejorcs  pro  cujusque  natural  And  Cardan  :  u  Sd- 
pientcs  cum  calidissimi  natura  stnt,  ac  humidissimi,  nisi 
pJnlosophia  proficiant,  pcssimi  < minium  sunt.  Adtuvnnt 
ad  see/era  pcrpctranda  industria  quam  ex  studiis  acqui- 
sucrunt,  ct  mclancoh'a  qucc  rcsnlutn  liumorc  pinguiore 
gignitur  ex  supcrfluis  studiis,  atquc  vigiliis"  &c. 

"The  older  I  grow,"  wrote  George  Sand,  "the  more  I 
reverence  goodness  because  I  see  that  this  is  the  gift  of 
which  God  is  most  avaricious.  Where  there  is  no  intel- 
ligence, that  which  is  called  goodness  is  merely  stupidity. 
Where  there  is  no  strength  the  pretended  goodness  is 
apathy.  Where  there  is  strength  and  intelligence, 
goodness  can  scarcely  be  found,  because  experience 
and  observation  have  given  birth  to  suspicion  and  hate. 
The  souls  devoted  to  the  noblest  principles  are  often 
the  most  rough  and  bitter,  because  they  have  become 
diseased  through  deceptions.  One  esteems  them,  one 

1  Forbes  Winslow,  op.  <-//.,  p.    126.  2    Works,  vol.  xxvi.  p.  83. 

3  Dendy,  op.  cit.^  p.  41. 


58  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

admires  them  still,  but  one  cannot  love  them.  To  have 
been  unhappy  without  ceasing  to  be  intelligent  and  good 
implies  a  very  powerful  organization,  and  it  is  such  that  I 
seek  and  love.  ...  I  am  sick  of  great  men  (forgive  the 
expression)  ;  I  should  like  to  see  them  all  in  Plutarch. 
There  they  do  not  make  one  suffer  on  the  human  side. 
Let  them  be  cut  in  marble  or  cast  in  bronze,  and  let  them 
be  silent.  So  long  as  they  live  they  are  wicked,  per- 
secuting, fantastic,  despotic,  bitter,  suspicious.  They 
confuse  in  the  same  proud  contempt  the  goats  and  the 
sheep.  They  arc  worse  to  their  friends  than  to  their 
enemies.  God  protect  us  from  them  ;  be  good — stupid  if 
you  will."  ' 

"I  regret,"  said  Valerius  Maximus,2  "  to  speak  of  the 
youth  of  Themistocles,  when  I  see,  on  the  one  hand,  his 
father  disinheriting  him  with  ignominy,  and,  on  the  other, 
his  mother,  from  shame  of  such  a  son,  hanging  herself 
with  grief."  Sallust,  who  wrote  such  beautiful  tirades 
on  virtue,  passed  his  life  in  debauchery.  Speusippus, 
the  disciple  of  Plato,  was  killed  in  the  act  of  adultery.3 
Democritus-  is  said  to  have  blinded  himself  because  he 
could  not  look  at  a  woman  without  desiring  her.  Aris- 
tippus,  under  the  mask  of  austerity,  abandoned  himself 
to  debauchery.  Anaxagoras  denied  a  deposit  confided  Jx> 
him  by  strangers  ;  Aristotle  basely  flattered  Alexander. 
Theognis  wrote  moral  maxims,  particularly  on  a  happy 
death,  and  bequeathed  his  patrimony  to  a  prostitute  (?), 
leaving  his  own  family  destitute.  Euripides,  Juvenal,  and 
Aretino  remarked  that  women  of  letters  were  nearly  always 
licentious.  Thus  Sappho,  Philena,  and  Elephantina  were 
prostitutes,  as  was  Leontion,  philosopher  and  priestess, 
who  gave  herself  to  all  the  philosophers  ;  and  Demophila 
who  told  little  love  stories,  and  put  them  in  practice.  At 
the  Renaissance,  Veronica  Franco,  Tullia  of  Aragon,  and 
other  prostitutes,  were  as  well  known  for  their  licentious- 
ness as  for  their  poetry.  Voigt  considers  that  immorality 
was  a  characteristic  feature  of  the  Renaissance  period/ 

1  Correspondance,  vol.  ii.  letter  9. 

"  DC  Factis  Dictisque  Memorabilibus,  Lib.  vi.  Cap.  9. 

3  Tertullian,  Apologetica,  p.  46.  But  see  A.  Gcllii  Nodes  Attica,  x .  p.  17. 

4  Wiederbddning  dcs  Alassisc/i,  Altcrt.,  1882. 


NEUROSIS  AND  INSANITY  IN  GENIUS.  59 

In  my  Uomo  DcUnqiicntc  I  have  considered  criminal 
genius.  Sallust,  Seneca,  and  Bacon  were  accused  of  pecu- 
lation ;  Crcmani  was  a  forger,  Demmc  a  poisoner.  One 
may  also  refer  to  Casanova,  who  was  declared  to  have 
forfeited  his  nobility  for  a  crime  the  nature  of  which  is 
not  known,  and  Aviccnna,  an  epileptic,  who  in  old  age 
plunged  into  debauchery,  and  took  opium  in  excess,  so 
that  it  was  said  of  him  that  philosophy  had  not  enabled 
him  to  live  honestlv,  n«»r  medicine  to  live  healthily.1 

Among  poets  and  artists  criminality  is,  unfortunately, 
well  marked.  Many  among  them  are  dominated  by 
passion  which  becomes  the  most  powerful  spur  of  their 
activity  ;  they  arc  not  protected  by  the  logical  criticism 
and  judgment  with  which  men  of  science  are  armed. 
This  is  why  we  must  count  among  criminals  Bonfadio, 
Rousseau,  Aretino,  Ceresa,  Brunetto  Latini,  Franco,  Fos- 
colo,  possibly  Byron.  Observe  that  I  leave  out  of  the 
question  ancient  times  and  barbarous  countries  among 
which  brigandage  and  poetry  went  hand  in  hand. 

More  criminal  still  seem  to  have  been  Albergati,  a  comic 
writer  belonging  to  the  highest  aristocracy,  who  killed  his 
wife  through  jealousy  ;2  Muret,  the  humanist,  condemned 
in  France  for  sodomy  ;  and  Casanova,  so  highly  gifted  for 
mathematical  science  and  finance,  who  stained  his  line 
genius  by  a  life  of  swindling  and  turpitude,  giving  us  in 
\nsMemotres  a  complete  and  cynical  picture  of  it.  Villon 
belonged  to  an  honourable  family  ;  he  received  the  name 
by  which  he  is  known  (vtlloii,  rascal,  robber),  when  he 
became  famous  in  scoundrelism,  to  which  he  was  led,  by 
his  own  confession,  by  gaming  and  women.  He  began 
by  stealing  objects  of  little  value  to  give  a  good  dinner  to 
his  mistresses  and  companions  in  idleness  ;  it  was  their 
wine  that  he  stole.  His  chief  robbery  was  inspired  by 
hunger  when  the  woman,  at  whose  expense  he  lived, 
turned  him  out  of  doors  at  night  in  winter.  It  is  to 
this  woman  whom,  in  his  Petit  Testament  he  bequeaths 
his  heart.  He  is  supposed  to  have  joined  a  band  of  armed 
robbers,  who  attacked  travellers  on  the  Rueil  road,  and 

1   I'ouchct,  Hisloire  des  Sciences  NatureUcs  Jans  k  Moycn  //i,r,  1870. 
*   Masi,  La  vi/a  cd  i  tempi  di  Albergati,  1882. 


60  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

being  arrested  a  second  time  he  with  difficulty  escaped  the 
halter. 

It  has  been  said  of  the  man  of  genius,  as  of  the  mad- 
man, that  he  is  born  and  dies  in  isolation,  cold  and 
insensible  to  family  affection  and  social  conventions. 
Men  of  letters,  it  is  true,  make  much  of  the  powerful  cries 
of  pain  in  artists  and  writers  who  have  lost,  or  been 
abandoned  by,  a  loved  person.  But  often,  as  in  Petrarch's 
case,  this  is  only  a  pretext,  an  opportunity  for  literary 
labours.1  Very  often  such  cries  were  sincere  (or  could 
they  have  been  so  powerful  and  effective  ?)  but  they  were 
then  intermittent  explosions,  in  opposition  to  the  habitual 
state  of  these  men,  or  else  temporary  reactions  against 
their  ordinary  apathy,  from  which  they  were  only  drawn 
by  personal  vanity,  and  the  passion  of  aesthetic  and 
scientific  researches. 

Bulwer  Lytton,  from  the  first  days  of  his  marriage  ill- 
treated  his  wife  by  biting  and  insulting  her,  so  that  the 
courier  who  accompanied  them  on  the  honeymoon  refused 
to  proceed  to  the  end.  Later  he  confessed  to  the  wrong 
he  had  done  her,  but  wrote  to  her  that  a  common  life  was 
insupportable,  and  that  he  must  live  in  liberty. 

It  is  curious  to  observe  that  the  writers  who  have  been 
most  chaste  in  their  lives  are  least  so  in  their  writings, 
and  vice  versa.  Flaubert  wrote  in  one  of  his  letters, 
"  Poor  Bouilhet  used  to  say  to  me,  '  There  never  was  so 
moral  a  man  who  loved  immorality  so  much  as  you.' 
There  is  truth  in  that.  Is  it  a  result  of  my  pride,  or  of  a 
certain  perversity?"2  George  Sand  and  Sallust  offer 
the  opposite  phenomenon. 

It  is  not  known  whether  Comte  ever  forgave  an  injury. 
He  certainly  always  preserved  the  rancour  and  the  recol- 
lection of  injuries,  and  pursued,  even  to  the  grave,  the 
memory  of  his  unfaithful  wife.  The  amorous  worship 
which  he  dedicated  to  Clotilde  de  Vaux  was  so  little 

1  Laura  had  eleven  children  and    Petrarch  himself  two  when   he 
dedicated  to   her   294  sonnets.     In  politics   he  turned  from  Cola  di 
Rienzi  to  his  enemy  Colonna  and  from  Robert  to  Charles  IV.  (Fami/, 
xix.  1.  p.  32).     He  was  too  much  occupied  with  himself,  says  Perrens, 
to  be  occupied  with  his  country. 

2  Lett  res  t\  G.  Sand,  1885. 


NE  UROSIS  AND  INSANITY  JN  GENII'S.  61 

sincere  that  he  determined  beforehand  the  month,  day, 
and  hour  when  he  should  shed  tears  over  her  memory.1 

Bacon  employed  all  his  eloquence  for  the  condemnation 
of  the  greatest  of  his  benefactors,  Essex  ;  by  cowardly 
complaisance  to  the  king,  he  introduced  for  the  first  time 
into  the  court  of  justice  an  odious  abuse,  and  submitted 
Peacham  to  torture  so  as  to  be  able  to  condemn  him  ;  he 
sold  justice  at  a  price,  and,  as  Macaulay  concludes,  he  was 
one  of  those  of  whom  we  may  say,  scicntns  tanqitam 
angcli)  cupiditatibus  tunqnam  scrpcntcs. 

"Bridget,"  confesses  A.  de  Musset,  "calumniated,  ex- 
posed (by  her  love)  to  the  insults  of  the  world,  had  to 
endure  all  the  disdain  and  injury  which  an  angry  and 
cruel  libertine  can  heap  on  the  girl  whom  he  pays.  .  .  . 
The  days  passed  on  and  my  fits  of  ill-humour  and  sarcasm 
took  on  a  sombre  and  obstinate  character.''2 

Byron's  intimate  friend,  Hobhquse,  wrote  of  him  that  he 
was  possessed  by  a  diseased  egoism.  Even  when  he  loved 
his  wife  he  refused  to  dine  with  her,  so  as  not  to  give  up 
his  old  habits.  He  afterwards  treated  her  so  badly  that, 
in  good  faith,  and  perhaps  with  reason,  she  consulted 
specialists  as  to  his  mental  condition. 

Napoleon's  conduct  towards  his  wife,  his  brothers,  and 
towards  those  who  trusted  in  him  was  that  of  a  man 
without  moral  sense.  Taine  sums  up  the  diagnosis  in 
one  word  :  he  was  a  C'liid'jtticrc. 

"  A  man's  genius  is  no  sinecure,"  said  Carlyle's  wife,  a 
most  intelligent  and  cultivated  woman,  who,  though 
capable  of  becoming  (as  she  had  hoped  and  been  assured) 
her  husband's  fellow-worker,  was  compelled  to  be  his 
servant.  The  idea  of  travelling  in  a  carriage  with  his  wife 
seemed  to  him  out  of  the  question  ;  he  must  have  his 
brother  with  him  ;  he  neglected  her  for  other  women,  ami 
pretended  that  she  was  indifferent.  Her  chief  duty  was  to 
preserve  him  from  the  most  remote  noises  ;  the  second 
was  to  make  his  bread,  for  he  detested  that  of  the  bakers  ; 
he  obliged  her  to  travel  for  miles  on  horseback  as  his  mes- 
senger, only  saw  her  at  meal-time,  and  for  weeks  together 
never  addressed  a  word  to  her,  although  his  prolonged 

1  Revue  Philosophique,  1887,  p.  69. 

2  Confessions  d'un  Enfant  du  Siccle>  pp.  250,  251. 


62  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

silence  caused  her  agony.  It  was  only  after  her  death, 
accelerated  by  his  conduct,  that,  in  a  literary  form,  he 
showed  his  repentance,  and  narrated  her  history  in  affect- 
ing language,  but,  as  his  biographer  adds,  if  she  had  been 
still  alive  he  would  have  tormented  her  afresh. 

Frederick  II.  said,  like  Lacenaire,  that  vengeance  is  the 
pleasure  of  the  gods,  and  that  he  would  die  happy  if  he 
could  inflict  on  his  enemies  more  evils  than  he  had 
suffered  from  them.  He  experienced  real  delight  in 
morally  tormenting  his  friends,  sometimes  beating  them  ; 
if  a  courtier  liked  to  pomade  himself,  he  soaked  his 
clothes  in  oil  ;  he  bargained  with  Voltaire  over  sugar  and 
chocolate,  and  deprived  him  of  his  money. 

Donizetti  treated  his  family  brutally  ;  it  was  after  a  fit 
of  savage  anger,  in  which  he  had  beaten  his  wife,  that  he 
composed,  sobbing,  the  celebrated  air,  Tu  che  a  Dio 
spiegasti  /W/';1  a  remarkable  instance  of  the  double  nature 
of  personality  in  men  of  genius,  and  at  the  same  time  of 
their  moral  insensibilty. 

Houssaye  narrates  a  similar  scene,  in  which  A.  Dumas 
was  so  carried  away  during  a  quarrel,  as  to  tear  out  his 
wife's  hair.  She,  in  despair,  wished  to  retire  to  a  convent; 
yet  after  some  minutes  he  gaily  wrote  a  comic  scene,  and 
said  to  his  friends  :  "If  tears  were  pearls,  I  would  make 
myself  a  necklace  of  them." 

Byron  used  to  beat  the  Guiccioli,  and  also  his  Venetian 
mistress,  the  gondolier's  wife,  who,  however,  gave  him  as 
good. 

Fontenelle,  seeing  his  companion  at  table  struck  by 
apoplexy,  was  not  disconcerted  ;  he  simply  took  advantage 
of  the  incident  to  change  the  sauce  for  the  asparagus  to 
vinegar  ;  out  of  deference  to  his  friend's  taste  he  had 
previously  ordered  butter. 

It  is  sufficient  to  be  present  at  any  academy,  university, 
faculty,  or  gathering  of  men  who,  without  genius,  possess 
at  least  erudition,  to  perceive  at  once  that  their  dominant 
thought  is  always  disdain  and  hate  of  the  man  who 
possesses,  almost  or  entirely,  the  quality  of  genius.  The 
man  of  genius,  in  his  turn,  has  nothing  but  contempt  for 
others.  He  believes  he  has  all  the  more  right  to  laugh 
1  Cottrau,  Lettre  (fun  Melomane,  Naples,  1885. 


NEUROSIS  AND  INSANITY  IN  GENIUS.  63 

at  others,  from  being  himself  sensitive  to  the  slightest 
criticism  ;  he  is  even  offended  at  praise  given  to  another 
as  blame  directed  to  himself.  That  is  why  at  academical 
gatherings  the  greatest  men  only  agree  in  praising  the 
most  ignorant  person.  We  have  seen  that  Chateau- 
briand was  offended  when  his  shoemaker  was  praised. 
Lisfranc  called  his  colleague,  Dupuytren,  a  brigand,  and 
Roux  and  Velpeau  forgers. 

I  have  been  able  to  observe  men  of  genius  when  they 
had  scarcely  reached  the  age  of  puberty  :  they  did  not 
manifest  the  deep  aversions  of  moral  insanity,  but  I  have 
noted  among  all  a  strange  apathy  for  everything  which 
does  not  concern  them  ;  as  though  plunged  in  the  hyp- 
notic condition,  they  did  not  perceive  the  troubles  of 
others,  or  even  the  most  pressing  needs  of  those  who  were 
dearest  to  them  ;  if  they  observed  them,  they  grew  tender, 
and  even  at  once  hastened  to  attend  to  them  ;  but  it  was 
a  fire  of  straw,  soon  extinguished,  and  it  gave  place  to 
indifference  and  weariness. 

Genius,  said  Schopenhauer,  is  solitary.  (Jenius,  wrote 
(iuetho,  is  only  related  to  its  time  by  its  defects. 

This  emotional  aiuesthesia  may  be  found  even  in  phi- 
lanthropists, who  possess  the  genius  of  sentiment,  and 
have  made  goodness  and  pity  for  the  poor  the  pivot 
of  their  actions.  It  is  difficult  to  explain  otherwise 
some  pages  in  the  Gospel.  "You  think,  perhaps,"  said 
Jesus,  "  that  I  have  come  to  bring  peace  to  the  earth  ? 
No,  I  have  come  to  throw  down  a  sword  there.  ...  In 
a  household  of  five  persons,  three  will  be  against  two,  and 
two  against  three.  I  have  come  to  bring  division  between 
father  and  son,  between  mother  and  daughter,  between 
daughter-in-law  and  mother-in-law.  From  this  time  a 
man's  enemies  will  be  of  his  own  household."  *  "  I  have 
come  to  bring  fire  on  to  the  earth:  if  it  burns  already,  so  much 
thebetter  !  "2  "I  declare  toyou,"  headded,"  whoever  leaves 
house,  wife,  brothers,  and  parents,  will  receive  a  hundred- 
fold in  this  world,  and  in  the  world  to  come  everlasting 
life.  "3  "If  any  one  comes  to  me  and  does  not  hate  his 


x.  34-36;  Luke  xii.  51-53. 

2  Luke  xii.  49.      See  the  Greek  text. 

3  Luke  xviii.  29-30. 


6  64  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

father,  mother,  wife,  children,  brothers,  sisters,  and  even 
his  own  life,  he  cannot  be  my  disciple."1  "  He  who  loves 
his  father  and  his  mother  more  than  me  is  not  worthy 
of  me  ;  he  who  loves  his  son  or  his  daughter  more  than 
me,  is  not  worthy  of  me."2  Jesus  said  to  a  man,  "  Follow 
me."  "Lord;"  this  man  replied,  "let  me  first  go  and 
bury  my  father."  Jesus  answered  :  "  The  dead  may  bury 
their  dead  :  go,  you,  and  preach  the  kingdom  of  God."  3 

Dante,  Goethe,  Leopardi,  Byron,  and  Heine  were  re- 
proached with  hating  their  country.  Tolstoi  disap- 
proves of  patriotism.  Schopenhauer  said,  "In  the  face 
of  death  I  confess  that  I  despise  the  Germans  for  their 
unspeakable  bestiality,  and  am  ashamed  to  belong  to 
them." 

Longevity. — This  diseased  apathy,  this  diminution  of 
affection,  which  furnishes  genius  with  a  breastplate  against 
so  many  assaults,  and  which  rapidly  destroys  fibres  at  once 
so  delicate  and  so  strong,  explains  the  remarkable  longevity 
of  men  of  genius,  in  spite  of  their  hyperaesthesia  in  other 
directions.  I  have  noted  this  character  in  134  cases  out 
of  H3. 

Sophocles,  Humboldt,  Fontenelle,  Brougham,  Xeno- 
phon,  Cato  the  Elder,  Michelangelo,  Petrarch,  Betti- 
nelli,  died  at  90  ;  Passeroni,  Auber,  Manzoni,  Xavier  de 
Maistre  at  89  ;  Hobbes  at  92  ;  Dandolo  at  97  ;  Titian  at  99  ; 
Cassiodorus  and  Mile.  Scudery  at  94  ;  Viennet  and  Diogenes 
at  91  ;  Voltaire,  Franklin,  Watt,  John  of  Bologna,  Vincent 
de  Paul,  Baroccio,  Young,  Talleyrand,  Raspail,  Grimm, 
Herschel,  Metastasio  at  84;  Victor  Hugo,  Donatello,  Goethe, 
Wellington  at  83  ;  Zingarelli,  Metternich,  Theodore  de 
Beza,  Lamarck,  Halley  at  86  ;  Bentham,  Newton,  St. 
Bernard  de  Menthon,  Bodmer,  Luini,  Scarpa,  Bonpland, 
Chiabrera,  Carafa,  Goldoni  at  85  ;  Thiers,  Kant,  Maffei, 
Amyot,  Villemain,  Wieland,  Littre  at  80  ;  Anacreon, 
Mercatori,  Viviani,  Buffon,  Palmerston,  Casti,  J.  Ber- 
nouilli,  Pinel  at  81  ;  Galileo,  Euler,  Schlegel,  Beranger, 
Louis  XIV.,  Corneille,  Cesarotti  at  78  ;  Herodotus, 
Rossini,  Cardan,  Michelet,  Boileau,  Garibaldi,  Archimedes, 
Paisiello,  Saint  Augustine,  at  75  ;  Tacitus  and  B.  Disraeli 

1  Luke  xiv.  26.  2  Matthew  x.  37,  xvi.  24 ;  Luke  v.  23. 

3  Matthew  viii.  21  ;  Luke  v.  23. 


NEUROSIS  AND  INSANITY  IN  GENIUS.  65 

at  76  ;  Pericles  at  70 ;  Thucydides  at  69  ;  Hippocrates,  at 
103  ;  and  Saint  Anthony  at  105. 

According  to  Beard  the  average  life  of  500  men  of 
genius  is  54,  and  that  of  100  modern  men  of  genius  is  70. 
The  average  duration  of  life  of  35  men  of  musical  genius 
was  63  years,  and  8  months.1  But  this  fact  does  not 
exclude  degeneration  when,  as  among  persons  with  moral 
insanity,  it  is  united  with  an  apathy  which  renders  tem- 
peraments otherwise  mobile,  insensible  to  the  strongest 
griefs,  and  I  have  shown  in  another  book 2  that  instinc- 
tive criminals,  living  out  of  prison,  enjoy  great  longevity. 
It  should  be  added  that  longevity  is  not  always  found  in 
genius  ;  many  great  men  of  genius,  such  as  Raphael, 
Pascal,  Burns,  Keats,  Byron,  Mozart,  Felix  Mendelssohn, 
Bellini,  Bichat,  Pico  de  la  Mirandola  died  before  the  age 
of  forty. 

1  Florentine,  La  Jlfttsica,  Rome,  1884. 

2  JJ  Uoino  Delinquents,    1889. 


CHAPTER  IV. 
GENIUS  AND  INSANITY. 

Resemblance  between  genius  and  insanity — Men  and  women  of  genius 
who  have  been  insane — Montanus — Harrington — Haller — Schu- 
mann— Gerard  de  Nerval — Baudelaire — Concato — Mainlander — 
Comte  —  Codazzi  —  Bolyai  —  Cardan  —  Tasso — Swift  —  Newton  — 
Rousseau  —  Lenau — Sze"chenyi —  Hoffmann  —  Fodera  —  Schopen- 
hauer— Gogol. 

THE  resemblance  between  insanity  and  genius,  although 
it  does  not  show  that  these  two  should  be  confounded, 
proves  at  all  events  that  one  does  not  exclude  the  other 
in  the  same  subject. 

In  fact,  without  speaking  of  the  numerous  men  of 
genius  who  at  some  period  of  their  lives  were  subject  to 
hallucinations  or  insanity,  or  of  those  who,  like  Vico, 
terminated  a  great  career  in  dementia,  how  many  great 
thinkers  have  shown  themselves  all  their  lives  subject  to 
monomania  or  hallucinations  ! 

In  recent  times  insanity  has  shown  itself  in  Farini, 
Brougham,  Southey,  Govone,  Gounod,  Gutzkow,  Monge, 
Fourcroy,  Cowper,  Rocchia,  Ricci,  Fenicia,1  Engel,  Pergo- 
lese,  Batjusckoff,  Miirger,  William  Collins,  Techner, 
Holderlen,  Von  der  West,  Gallo,  Spedalieri,  Bellingeri, 
Salieri,  Johannes  Miiller,  Lenz,  Barbara,  Fuseli,  Peter- 
mann,  the  caricaturist  Cham,  Hamilton,  Poe,  Uhlrich. 

In  France,  remarks  Martini,  many  young  and  orginal 
poets  have  died  insane.2  Such  also  seems  to  have  been  the 
fate  of  Briffault,  and  of  Laurent  attacked  by  a  veritable 
mania  of  calumny.3  Among  women  Giinderode,  Stieglitz 

1  Mastriani,  Sul  Genio  e  la  Follia,  Naples,  1881. 

2  Tra  tm  Sigaro  e  Faltro,  p.  194. 

3  Max.  du  Camp,  SottV€tutst  1884. 


GENIUS  AND  INSANITY.  67 

(who   both    committed   suicide  with  great  deliberation), 
Brachmann,  L.  E.  Landon  lived  and  died  insane.1 

Montanus,  a  victim  to  solitude  and  a  disordered  imagi- 
nation, was  convinced  that  he  had  become  a  grain  of 
wheat.  He  refused  to  move  for  fear  of  being  swallowed 
by  birds.2  Harrington  is  said  to  have  imagined  that 
diseases  took  the  form  of  bees  and  flies,  and  for  this 
reason  he  retired  to  a  cabin  armed  with  a  broom  to  dis- 
perse them.  Haller  believed  that  he  was  persecuted  by 
men  and  damned  by  God  on  account  of  the  vileness  of  his 
soul  and  his  heretical  works.  He  could  only  soothe  his 
excessive  terror  by  enormous  doses  of  opium  and  by  con- 
verse with  priests.3  Ampere  burnt  a  treatise  on  the  future 
of  chemistry  believing  he  had  written  it  by  Satanic  sugges- 
tion. The  great  Dutch  artist,  Van  Goes,  thought  he  was 
possessed.  Carlo  Dolce,  a  prey  to  religious  monomania, 
vowed  only  to  paint  religious  pictures.  He  devoted  his 
/pencil  to  Madonnas,  though  his  Madonna,  indeed,  is  the 
^portrait  of  Balduini.  On  his  wedding-day  he  alone  was 
missing  ;  after  some  hours  he  was  found  prostrated  before 
the  altar  of  the  Annunciation.  Nathaniel  Lee,  the 
dramatist,  compc.sjd  thirteen  tragedies  during  the  course 
of  his  disease  ;  one  day  a  feeble  dramatic  colleague  told 
him  that  it  was  easy  to  write  like  a  madman.  "It  is  not 
easy  to  write  like  a  madman,"  he  replied,  "  but  it  is  very 
easy  to  write  like  a  fool."  Thomas  Lloyd,  who  wrote 
excellent  verse,  was  a  strange  mixture  of  malice,  pride, 
genius,  and  insanity .*  If  he  was  not  satisfied  with  his 
verses  he  put  them  in  his  glass  to  polish  them,  as  he  said. 
Everything  that  he  came  across,  even  coal,  paper,  and 
tobacco,  he  was  accustomed  to  mix  with  his  food  for 
hygienic  reasons  ;  the  carbon  purified  it,  stone  imparted 
mineral  virtues,  &c.  Charles  Lamb  in  early  life  had  an 
attack  of  insanity  which  was  hereditary  in  his  family  ; 
writing  of  this  to  Coleridge,  he  said  :  u  At  some  future 
time  I  will  amuse  you  with  an  account,  as  full  as  my 
memory  will  permit,  of  the  strange  turns  my  frenzy  took. 
I  look  back  upon  it  at  times  with  a  gloomy  kind  of  envy, 

1  Schilling,  Psychiatr.  Brief e.,  p.  488,  1863. 

3  Zimmermann,  Solitude.  3  Tagebuch,  1787,  Berne. 

4  Sketches  of  Bedlam ',  1823. 


68  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

for,  while  it  lasted,  I  had  many,  many  hours  of  pure 
happiness.  Dream  not,  Coleridge,  of  having  tasted  all 
the  grandeur  and  wildness  of  fancy  till  you  have  gone 
mad.  All  now  seems  to  me  vapid,  or  comparatively  so." 

Robert  Schumann  (1810-1856),  the  precursor  of  the 
music  of  the  future,  was  the  youngest  son  of  a  well-to-do 
bookseller  in  Zwickau,  and  met  with  no  obstacles  in  the 
pursuit  of  his  cherished  art.  When  a  law  student  he  met 
Clara  Wieck,  the  celebrated  pianist,  and  in  her  found  an 
excellent  and  lovable  companion  ;  but  at  the  age  of 
twenty-three  he  became  subject  to  melancholia  ;  at  forty- 
six  he  was  pursued  by  turning-tables  which  knew  every- 
thing ;  he  heard  sounds  which  developed  into  concords 
and  even  whole  compositions.  For  several  years  he  was 
afraid  of  being  sent  to  a  lunatic  asylum  ;  Beethoven  and 
Mendelssohn  dictated  musical  combinations  to  him  from 
their  tombs.  In  1854  ne  threw  himself  into  the  Rhine  ; 
he  was  saved,  and  died  two  years  later  in  a  private  asylum 
at  Bonn.  The  autopsy  revealed  osteophytes,  thickening 
of  the  cranial  membranes  and  atrophy  of  the  brain.1 

Gerard  de  Nerval  was  subject  to  foh'e  circulaire,  with 
alternate  periods  of  exaltation  and  depression,  each  of 
which  lasted  six  months.  In  his  moments  of  calm  he  was 
a  spiritualist ;  he  heard  the  spirits  of  Adam,  Moses,  and 
Joshua  in  a  piece  of  furniture  ;  and  practised  cabalistic 
exorcisms,  executing  the  dance  of  the  Babylonians.  During 
his  stay  at  an  asylum  he  imagined  that  it  was  the  superin- 
tendent who  was  a  victim  to  insanity.  "  He  believes,"  he 
said,  "  that  he  is  superintending  an  asylum,  but  he  is  him- 
self the  madman  and  we  feign  madness  in  order  to  humour 
him."  With  the  honey  of  flowers  he  traced  on  paper 
symbols  which  radiated  round  a  fantastic  giantess  who 
united  the  characters  of  Diana,  Saint  Rosalie,  and  of  an 
actress  named  Colon  with  whom  he  believed  he  was  in 
love.  In  reality  he  adored  her  from  a  great  distance, 
sending  her  large  bouquets,  and  buying  enormous  opera- 
glasses  in  order  to  see  her,  and  superb  canes  with  which 
to  applaud  her  ;  so  that  it  was  said  of  him  that  he  ruined 
himself  in  orgies  of  opera-glasses  and  debaucheries  of 
canes.  He  had  discovered  a  mediaeval  bed  which  was  to 
1  Biographic,  by  Wasielewski,  Dresden,  1858. 


GENIUS  AND  INSANITY.  69 

serve  for  his  amours,  and  in  order  to  set  it  in  suitable 
surroundings  he  obtained  an  apartment  and  luxurious 
furniture.  In  days  of  poverty  the  furniture  was  sold, 
leaving  the  bed  alone  in  the  room,  then  in  a  barn,  and  at 
last  it  also  disappeared,  and  its  proprietor  passed  his  nights 
in  taverns  and  low  lodging-houses,  or  writing  beneath 
trees  and  porches.  Later,  when  he  had  ceased  to  see 
Colon,  she  became  for  him  a  kind  of  idol  with  which  he 
lived  and  who  in  his  mystic  ideas  became  confounded 
partly  with  the  saints  and  partly  with  the  stars  ;  one  day 
he  declared  that  she  was  an  incarnation  of  Saint  Theresa. 
When  he  heard  that  she  had  declared  she  had  never  loved 
him  and  only  seen  him  once,  which  was  true,  he  said  : 
"  What  good  if  she  had  loved  me  ?  "  and  he  added,  quoting 
a  verse  of  Heine,  "He  who  loves  for  the  second  time  with- 
out hope  is  a  madman.  I  am  that  madman.  The  sky, 
the  sun,  the  stars  laugh  at  it ;  I  also  laugh  at  it,  laugh  at 
it  and  die  of  it." 

One  day,  at  sunset,  he  was  on  the  balcony  of  a  house. 
He  suddenly  saw  a  phantom  and  heard  a  voice  calling 
him.  He  ran  forward,  fell,  and  was  nearly  killed.  That 
was  his  first  attack,  characterised  by  hallucinations  of  sight 
and  hearing. 

Towards  the  end  of  his  life,  at  the  age  of  forty-six,  foh'e 
dcs  grandeurs  developed  in  him  ;  he  spoke  of  his 
chateaux  at  Ermenonville,  of  his  physical  beauty  which 
was  astonishing,  he  said,  to  his  attendants  ;  he  bought  up 
coins  of  Nerva,  not  wishing  that  the  name  of  his  ancestors 
should  circulate  as  money,  yet  Nerval  was  only  a  pseu- 
donym. Sometimes  he  gave  out  that  he  was  a  descendant 
of  Folobello  de  Nerva  whose  history  he  wished  to  write, 
and  all  whose  male  descendants  presented,  according  to 
him,  a  supernatural  sign,  the  tetragramma  of  Solomon,  on 
their  breasts.  Timid  and  cautious  in  his  days  of  calm,  he 
became  bold  and  noisy  when  the  attack  came  on,  and  even 
threatened  his  friends  with  weapons.  In  spite  of  the  low 
temperature  he  refused  to  leave  off  his  summer  clothes. 
"  Cold,"  he  declared,  "  is  a  tonic  and  the  Lapps  are  never 
ill."  A  few  days  after,  he  hanged  himself.1 

Baudelaire  appears  before  us,  in  the  portrait  placed  at 
1  Maxime  du  Camp,  Souvenirs  litttraires,  1887. 


7o 


TIJE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 


the  beginning  of  his  posthumous  works,  as  the  type  of  the 
lunatic  possessed  by  the  Delire  dcs  grandeurs.'1  He  was 
descended  from  a  family  of  insane  and  eccentric  persons. 
It  was  not  necessary  to  be  an  alienist  to  detect  his  insanity. 
In  childhood  he  was  subject  to  hallucinations  ;  and  from 
that  period,  as  he  himself  confessed,  he  experienced 


BAUDELAIRE. 

opposing  sentiments  ;  the  horror  and  the  ecstasy  of  life  ; 
he  was  hyperaesthetic  and  at  the  same  time  apathetic  ;  he 
felt  the  necessity  of  freeing  himself  from  "  an  oasis  of 
horror  in  a  desert  of  ennui"  Before  falling  into  dementia 
he  committed  impulsive  acts  ;  for  instance,  he  threw  pots 
from  his  house  against  shop  windows  for  the  pleasure  of 


1  Brunetiere,  Revue  des  Deux  Mondcs,  1887,  No.  706. 
July,  1887. 


Revue 


GENIUS  AND  INSANITY.  71 

hearing  them  break.  He  changed  his  lodgings  every 
month  ;  asked  the  hospitality  of  a  friend  in  order  to 
complete  work  he  was  engaged  on,  and  wasted  his  time 
in  reading  which  had  no  relation  to  it  whatever.  Having 
lost  his  father,  he  quarrelled  with  his  mother's  second 
husband,  and  one  day,  in  the  presence  of  friends,  attempted 
to  strangle  him.  Sent  out  to  India,  in  order,  it  is  said,  to 
be  put  to  business,  he  lost  everything  and  only  brought 
back  from  his  voyage  a  negress  to  whom  he  dedicated 
exotic  poems.  He  desired  to  be  original  at  all  costs  ;  gave 
himself  to  excess  in  wine  before  high  personages,  dyed  his 
hair  green,  wore  winter  garments  in  summer,  and  vice 
versa.  He  experienced  morbid  passions  in  love.  He 
loved  ugly  and  horrible  women,  negresses,  dwarfs, 
giantesses  ;  to  a  very  beautiful  woman  he  expressed  a 
desire  that  he  might  see  her  suspended  by  the  hands  to 
the  ceiling  that  he  might  kiss  her  feet  ;  and  kissing  the 
naked  foot  appears  in  one  of  his  poems  as  the  equivalent  • 
of  the  sexual  act. 

He  was  constantly  dreaming  of  work,  calculating  the 
hours  and  the  lines  necessary  to  pay  his  debts  :  two 
months  or  more.  But  that  was  all,  and  the  work  was 
never  begun.1 

Proud,  misanthropic,  and  apathetic,  he  said  of  himself : 
"  Discontented  with  others  and  discontented  with  myself, 
I  desire  to  redeem  myself,  to  regard  myself  with  a  little 
pride  in  the  silence  and  solitude  of  the  night.  Souls  of 
those  I  have  loved,  souls  of  those  I  have  sung,  strengthen 
me,  sustain  me,  remove  from  me  the  lies  and  the  cor- 
rupting vapours  of  the  world  ;  and  thou,  O  Lord  my  God, 
grant  me  grace  to  produce  some  fine  lines  which  will 
prove  to  myself  that  I  am  not  the  last  of  men,  that  I  am 
not  inferior  to  those  whom  I  contemn."  2 

And  he  had  need  of  it,  for  he  called  Gustave  Planche 
imbecile,  Dumas  a  farceur,  Sue  stupid,  FeVal  an  idiot, 
George  Sand  a  Veuillot  without  delicacy.  What  he 
attacked  in  all  these  writers  was  the  fame  he  wished  to 
possess  ;  that  is  why  he  made  fun  of  Moliere  and  Voltaire. 

1  Maxime  du  Camp,  Souvenirs  litte'raires. 

2  "  A  une  Heure  du  Matin,"  in  Petit 's  Palmes  en  Prose. 


72  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

With  the  progress  of  insanity  he  used  to  invert  words, 
saying  "  shut "  when  he  meant  to  say  "  open,"  &c.  He 
died  of  progressive  general  paralysis  of  the  insane,  of 
which  his  excessive  ambition  was  already  a  fore-running 
symptom. 

Concato  was  the  son  of  a  poor  tailor,  the  victim  of 
grave  cerebral  affections.  He  himself  presented  certain 
characters  of  degeneration,  such  as  pallor  and  large  cheek 
bones  ;  during  many  years  he  was  subject  to  various 
forms  of  insanity.  At  the  age  of  seventeen  he  was  seized 
by  the  terror  of  sudden  death,  and  provided  himself  with 
nitre  to  prevent  future  cerebral  crises.  At  twenty  he 
resolved  to  become  a  monk,  although  in  childhood  he 
had  been  so  little  devout  that  he  had  fabricated  false  notes 
of  confession.  Afterwards  he  quarrelled  with  an  Austrian 
officer,  and  then  became  afraid  of  all  sentinels  and  soldiers. 
He  would  never  allow  an  officer  to  enter  his  house  with 
his  sword  by  his  side  ;  and  even  in  old  age  trembled  at 
the  sight  of  one  of  the  city  guards.  One  night  he  dreamt 
he  had  committed  a  homicide,  and  for  many  days  he  was 
a  prey  to  strange  terrors.  He  suffered  from  claustro- 
phobia :  woe  to  whomsoever  tried  to  lock  him  up  in  a 
carriage  or  a  room  !  There  were  some  days  during  which 
he  considered  himself  the  lowest  of  men.  He  was  so 
irascible  that  he  used  to  say  that,  to  be  in  good  health, 
one  must  be  angry  at  least  once  a  day.  Yet  he  was  one  of 
the  greatest  of  European  physicians.1 

Mainlander  had  a  grandfather  who,  after  the  death  of 
a  son,  carried  religious  mysticism  to  the  extent  of  insanity, 
and  died  of  inflammation  of  the  brain  at  the  age  of 
thirty-three.  A  brother,  also  insane,  wished  to  embrace 
Buddhism.  As  a  youth,  looking  at  the  sea  at  Sorrento, 
he  felt  impelled  to  throw  himself  in,  merely  attracted  by 
the  purity  of  the  water.  He  educated  himself  and  wrote 
his  celebrated  book,  Die  Philosophic  der  Erlosung,  but 
to  realize  his  theories  entirely,  he  adopted  a  rule  of 
absolute  chastity,  and  on  the  day  on  which  his  book  was 
published  hanged  himself,  the  better  to  confirm  a  passage 
which  said  :  "  In  order  that  man  may  be  redeemed  it  is 

1  Bufalini,  Vita  di  Concato,  1884. 


GENIUS  AND  INSANITY.  73 

necessary  that  he  should  recognize  the  value  of  not-being, 
and  desire  intensely  not  to  be."  x 

The  great  Auguste  Comte,  the  initiator  of  the  positivist 

philosophy,  was  for  ten  years  under  the  care  of  Esquirol, 

the  famous  alienist  ;  he  recovered,  but  only  to  repudiate, 

without  any  cause,  the  wife  who  had  saved  him  ;  later, 

he — who  had  wished  to  abolish  all  priest-craft — believed 

/himself  the  priest  and  apostle  of  a  materialistic  religion. 

/In  his  works,  amidst  stupendous  elucubrations,  genuinely 

V  maniacal  ideas  may  be  found,  as,  for  example,  the  prophecy 

that  one  day  women  will  be  fecundated  without  the  help 

of  the  male.2 

It  is  said  that  mathematicians  are  exempt  from  psychical 
derangements,  but  this  is  not  true  ;  it  is  sufficient  to  recall 
not  only  Newton  and  Enfantin,  of  whom  I  will  speak  at 
length,  but  the  two  famous  distractions  of  Archimedes, 
the  hallucination  of  Pascal,  and  the  vagaries  of  the  mathe- 
matician Codazzi  (not  to  be  confounded  with  Codazza). 
Codazzi  was  sub-microcephalic,  oxycephalic,  alcoholic, 
sordidly  avaricious  ;  to  affective  insensibility  he  added 
vanity  so  great  that  while  still  young  he  set  apart  a  sum 
for  his  own  funeral  monument,  and  refused  the  least  help 
to  his  starving  parents  ;  he  admitted  no  discussion  of  his 
judgment  even  if  it  only  concerned  the  cut  of  a  coat  ;  and 
he  had  taken  it  into  his  head  that  he  could  compose 
melodic  music  with  the  help  of  the  calculus. 

All  mathematicians  admire  the  great  geometer  Bolyai, 
whose  eccentricities  were  of  an  insane  character  ;  thus  he 
provoked  thirteen  officials  to  duels  and  fought  with  them, 
and  between  each  duel  he  played  the  violin,  the  only  piece 
of  furniture  in  his  house  ;  when  pensioned  he  printed  his 
own  funeral  card  with  a  blank  date,  and  constructed  his 
own  coffin — a  vagary  which  I  have  found  in  two  other 
mathematicians  who  died  in  recent  years.  Six  years  later 
he  had  a  similar  funeral  card  printed,  to  substitute  for  the 
other  which  he  had  not  been  able  to  use.  He  imposed  on 
his  heir  the  obligation  to  plant  on  his  grave  an  apple-tree, 
in  remembrance  of  Eve,  of  Paris,  and  of  Newton. 3  Such 
was  the  great  reformer  of  Euclid. 

1  Revue  Philosophique,  1886. 

2  Littre,  A.  Comte  et  la  Phil.  Posit.,  1863. 

3  W.  cle  Fonvielle,  Comment  se  font  les  Miracles,  1879. 


74  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

Cardan,  called  by  his  contemporaries  the  greatest  of 
men  and  the  most  foolish  of  children — Cardan,  who  first 
dared  to  criticise  Galen,  to  exclude  fire  from  the  number 
of  the  elements,  and  to  call  witches  and  saints  insane — 
this  great  Cardan  was  the  son,  cousin,  and  father  of 
lunatics,  and  himself  a  lunatic  all  his  life.  "  A  stammerer, 
impotent,  with  little  memory  or  knowledge,"  he  himself 
wrote,  "  I  have  suffered  since  childhood  from  hypno- 
fantastic  hallucinations."  Sometimes  it  was  a  cock  which 
spoke  to  him  in  a  human  voice  ;  sometimes  Tartarus,  full 
of  bones,  which  displayed  itself  before  him.  Whatever 
he  imagined,  he  could  see  before  him  as  a  real  object. 
From  the  age  of  nineteen  to  that  of  twenty-six,  a  genius, 
similar  to  one  which  already  protected  his  father,  gave  him 
advice  and  revealed  the  future.  When  he  had  reached  the 
age  of  twenty-six  he  was  not  altogether  deprived  of  super- 
natural aid  ;  a  recipe  which  was  not  quite  right  forgot 
one  day  the  laws  of  gravity,  and  rose  to  his  table  to  warn 
him  of  the  error  he  was  about  to  commit.1 

He  was  hypochondriacal,  and  imagined  he  had  con- 
tracted all  the  diseases  that  he  read  of :  palpitation,  sito- 
phobia,  diarrhoea,  enuresis,  podagra,  hernia — all  these 
diseases  vanished  without  treatment,  or  with  a  prayer  to 
the  Virgin.  Sometimes  his  flesh  smelled  of  sulphur,  of 
extinguished  wax  ;  sometimes  he  saw  flames  and  phan- 
toms appear  in  the  midst  of  violent  earthquakes,  while 
his  friends  perceived  nothing.  Persecuted  by  every 
government,  surrounded  by  a  forest  of  enemies,  whom 
he  knew  neither  by  name  nor  by  sight,  but  who,  as  he 
believed,  in  order  to  afflict  and  dishonour  him,  had  con- 
demned his  much-loved  son,  he  ended  by  believing  him- 
self poisoned  by  the  professors  of  the  University  of  Pavia, 
who  had  invited  him  for  this  purpose.  If  he  escapes  from 
their  hands,  he  owes  it  to  the  help  of  St.  Martin  and  of 
the  Virgin.  Yet  such  a  man  in  theology  had  audaciously 
anticipated  Dupuis  and  Renan  ! 

He  declares  himself  inclined  to  all  vices — wine,  gaming, 
lying,  licentiousness,  envy,  cunning,  deception,  calumny, 
'nconstancy  ;  he  observes  that  four  times  during  the  full 

1  De  Vita  propria,  ch.  45. 


GENIUS  AND  INSANITY.  75 

moon  he  found  himself  in  a  state  of  real  mental  aliena- 
tion. His  sensibility  was  so  perverted,  that  he  never  felt 
comfortable  except  under  the  stimulus  of  some  physical 
pain  ;  and  in  the  absence  of  natural  pain,  he  procured  it 
by  artificial  means,  biting  his  lips  or  arms  until  he  fetched 
blood.  "  I  sought  causes  of  pain  to  enjoy  the  pleasure  of 
the  cessation  of  pain,  and  because  I  perceived  that  when 
I  did  not  suffer  I  fell  into  so  grave  and  troublesome  a  con- 
dition, that  it  was  worse  than  any  pain."  This  fact  helps 
us  to  understand  many  strange  tortures  which  madmen 
have  voluptuously  imposed  on  themselves.1  He  had  so 
blind  a  faith  in  the  revelations  of  dreams,  that  he  printed 
a  strange  work  De  Somnns,  conducted  his  medical  con- 
sultations, concluded  his  marriage,  and  began  his  works 
(for  example,  that  on  the  Varicta  dclle  Cose  and  Sulk 
Febbri]  in  accordance  with  dreams.2 

He  was  impotent  up  to  the  age  of  thirty-four.  Virility 
was  given  to  him  in  a  dream,  and  to  this  gift  was  added, 
not  altogether  happily,  the  cause  of  his  troubles — his 
future  wife,  a  brigand's  daughter,  whom,  before  this 
dream,  as  he  asserts,  he  had  never  even  seen.  His  unhappy 
mania  even  led  him  to  regulate  his  medical  consultations 
according  to  his  dreams,  as  he  himself  boasts  of  doing  in 
the  case  of  Borromeo's  son.  It  is  possible  to  cite  other 
examples,  sometimes  comic,  sometimes  strange  or  terrible. 
I  will  quote  one  which  unites  all  these  characters  :  his 
dream  of  the  jewel. 

It  was  in  May,  1560,  when  Cardan  was  fifty-two  years 
of  age.  His  son  had  just  been  publicly  condemned  for 
poisoning.  No  misfortune  could  wound  more  deeply 
Cardan's  already  sensitive  soul.  He  loved  his  son  with 

1  Byron  said,  also,  that  intermittent  fevers  came  at  last  to  be  agree- 
able to  him,  on  account  of  the  plec,>ant  sensation  that  followed  the 
cessation  of  pain. 

2  "  One  day  I  thought  I  heard  very  sweet  harmonies  in  a  dream.     I 
awoke,  and  I  found  I  had  resolved  the  question  of  fevers :  why  some 
are  lethal  and  others  not — a  question  which  had  troubled  me  for  twenty- 
five  years  "  (De  Somniis,  c.  iv.). 

"  In  a  dream  there  came  to  me  the  suggestion  to  write  this  book, 
divided  into  exactly  twenty-one  parts  ;  and  I  experienced  such  pleasure 
in  my  condition  and  in  the  subtlety  of  these  reasonings  as  I  had  never 
experienced  before"  (De  Subtilitate,  lib.  xviii.  p.  915). 


76  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

all  a  father's  tenderness,  as  is  witnessed  by  his  fine  verses, 
De  Morte  Filii,  in  which  there  is  the  imprint  of  real  pas- 
sion. He  hoped  also  for  a  grandson  who  should  resemble 
himself.  Drawn  more  and  more  into  insane  ideas  by 
grief,  he  saw  in  this  condemnation  the  hands  of  perse- 
cutors. "Thus  overwhelmed,!  sought  distraction  in  vain 
in  study  or  in  play.  In  vain  I  bit  myself  and  struck  my 
arms  and  legs.  It  was  my  third  night  of  sleeplessness, 
about  two  hours  before  dawn.  I  saw  that  there  was  nothing 
else  for  me  but  to  die  or  go  mad.  Therefore  I  prayed 
God  to  snatch  me  entirely  away  from  life.  And  then, 
against  my  expectation,  sleep  took  possession  of  me,  and 
at  the  same  time  I  heard  a  person  approaching  me,  whose 
form  I  could  not  see,  but  who  said,  '  Why  grieve  about 
your  son  ?  Put  into  your  mouth  the  precious  stone 
which  you  bear  suspended  from  your  neck,  and  as  long  as 
you  carry  it  there  you  will  not  think  of  your  son.'  On 
waking  up,  I  asked  myself  what  connection  there  could 
be  between  forgetfulness  and  an  emerald  j  but  as  I  had 
no  other  resource,  I  recalled  the  sacred  words,  *  Credidit  et 
reputatum  ei  est  ad  justitiam '/  I  put  the  emerald  into 
my  mouth,  and  then,  against  all  expectation,  everything 
that  recalled  my  son  vanished  from  my  memory.  It  was 
so  for  a  year  and  a  half.  It  was  only  during  my  meals, 
and  at  my  public  lectures,  when  I  was  unable  to  keep 
the  precious  stone  in  my  mouth,  that  I  fell  back  into  my 
old  grief."  This  singular  cure  had  its  pretext  in  the 
double  sense  of  the  Italian  word  gtoia,  which  means 
at  once  " joy  "  and  "jewel."  Cardan  had,  however,  no 
need  of  the  revelation  of  a  genius,  for  in  his  own  works 
he  had  already  recognized  a  consoling  virtue  in  precious 
stones,  due  to  the  bond  of  this  absurd  etymology. x 

A  megalomaniac,  he  called  himself  "the  seventh  physi- 
cian since  the  creation  of  the  world  ; "  he  claimed  to 
know  the  things  which  are  before  and  above  us,  and  those 
which  shall  come  after.2 

Like  Rousseau  and  like  Haller,  Cardan,  during  the  last 

1  "Jewels  in  sleep  are  symbolical  of  sons,  of  unexpected  things,  of  joy 
also  ;  because  -in  Italian  gioire  means  '  to  enjoy '  (De  Somniis,  cap. 
21  ;  De  Subtilitate,  p  338). 

2  But  trim,  Girolamo  Cardano,  Savona,  1884, 


GENIUS  AND  INSANITY,  77 

days  of  his  tormented  existence,  wrote  his  own  life  ;  he 
also  foretold  the  exact  date  of  his  death,  which  he  looked 
for,  and  perhaps  himself  brought  about,  in  order  that  his 
horoscope  should  not  be  made  to  lie.1 

What  shall  we  say  of  Tasso  ?  For  those  who  do  not 
know  Verga's  monograph  (Lipcmam'a  del  Tasso),  it  will 
be  enough  to  quote  the  following  letter  :  "  So  great  is 
my  grief,  that  I  am  considered  by  others  and  by  myself 
as  mad,  when,  powerless  to  keep  my  sorrowful  thoughts 
hidden,  I  give  myself  up  to  long  conversations  with  my- 
self. My  troubles  are  at  once  human  and  diabolical  ;  the 
human  are  cries  of  men,  and  especially  of  women,  and 
also  the  laughter  of  beasts  ;  the  diabolical  are  songs,  &c. 
When  I  take  into  my  hands  a  book  to  give  myself  up  to 
study,  I  hear  voices  sounding  in  my  ear,  and  distinguish 
the  name  of  Paul  Fulvius."  In  his  Messaggicro,  which 
became  with  him,  later  on,  a  real  hallucination,  he  had 
already  made  the  often-repeated  confession  of  his  mad- 
ness, which  he  attributed  to  wine  and  to  women.  I  am 
thus  inclined  to  believe  that  he  described  himself  in  the 
character  of  Thyrsis,  in  that  admirable  stanza  of  the 
Anrinta,  which  another  monomaniac,  Rousseau,  loved  so 
much  : — 

"  Vivrbfra  i  miei  tormenti  e  fra  k  cure, 
Mie  giuste  furie,forsennato,  errante  ; 
Paventerb  r ombre  solinghe  e  scnre 
Che  il  primo  error  mi  recheranno  avante  ; 
E  del  sol  che  scopri  le  mie  svcnture 
A  schivo  ed  hi  orror  avrb  it  se  in  hi  ante  : 
Temerb  me  medesmo,  e  da  me  stesso 
Sempre  fuggendot  avrb  me  sempre  appresso"z 

One  day,  certainly  under  the  influence  of  some  hallu- 
cination, or  in  a  maniacal  attack,  he  drew  a  knife,  and 
was  about  to  attack  a  serving-man  who  entered  the 

1  Bertolotti  (/  Testamenti  di  Cardano,    1888)   has  shown  that  this 
legend  has  no  foundation. 

2  "  I  shall  live  in  the  midst  of  my  torments,  and  among  the  cares 
that  are  my  just  furies,  wild  and  wandering ;  I  shall  fear  dark  and 
solitary  shades,  which  will  bring  before  me  my  first  fault  ;  and  I  shall 
have  in  horror  and  disgust  the  face  of  the  sun  which  discovered  my  mis- 
fortunes ;  I  shall  fear  myself,  and,  for  ever  fleeing  from  myself,  I  shall 
never  escape." 


78  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

ducal  chamber ;  he  was  imprisoned,  says  the  Tuscan 
Ambassador,  more  to  cure  him  than  to  punish  him. 

The  unfortunate  poet  went  from  one  country  to 
another,  but  sorrowful  visions  everywhere  threatened 
him  ;  and  with  them  came  ceaseless  remorse,  suspicions 
of  poison,  and  the  terrors  of  hell  for  the  heresies  of 
which  he  accused  himself  in  three  letters  to  the  "  too- 
indulgent  "  inquisitor. 

"I  am  always  troubled  by  sad  and  wearisome 
thoughts,"  he  confesses  to  the  physician  Cavallaro,  "  by 
figures  and  phantoms  ;  also  by  a  great  weakness  of 
memory,  therefore  I  beg  of  your  lordship  to  think  to 
strengthen  my  memory  in  the  pills  that  you  order  for 
me."  "  I  am  frenzied,"  he  wrote  to  Gonzaga,  "  and  I  am 
surprised  that  they  have  not  written  to  you  of  all  the 
things  that  I  say  in  talking  to  myself :  honours,  the  good 
graces  of  emperors  and  kings  which  I  dream  of,  forming 
and  re-forming  them  according  to  my  fancy."  This 
curious  letter  shows  us  how  sombre  and  sorrowful 
images  alternated  in  him  with  others  that  were  joyous, 
like  subjective  colours  in  the  retina. 

Some  days  later  he  wrote  to  Cattaneo  :  "  I  have  here 
much  more  need  of  the  exorcist  than  of  the  physician, 
for  my  trouble  is  caused  by  magic  art.  I  will  tell  you 
about  my  goblin.  The  little  thief  has  robbed  me  of 
many  crowns  ;  he  puts  all  my  books  upside  down,  opens 
my  chests,  hides  my  keys,  so  that  I  do  not  know  how  to 
protect  myself  against  him.  I  am  always  unhappy,  but 
especially  at  night,  and  I  do  not  know  if  my  trouble 
should  be  attributed  to  frenzy."  In  another  letter  : 
"When  I  am  awake  I  seem  to  see  lights  sparkling  in 
the  air  ;  sometimes  my  eyes  are  inflamed  so  that  I  fear  I 
may  lose  my  sight.  At  other  times  I  hear  horrible 
noises,  hissings,  and  tinklings,  the  sound  of  bells,  and, 
as  it  were,  clocks  all  striking  the  hour  at  the  same  time. 
When  I  am  asleep-  I  seem  to  see  a  horseman  throwing 
himself  on  me  and  casting  me  to  the  earth,  or  else  I 
imagine  that  I  am  covered  by  filthy  beasts.  All  my 
joints  feel  it ;  my  head  becomes  heavy,  and  in  the  midst 
of  so  many  pains  and  terrors  sometimes  there  appears  to 
me  the  image  of  the  Virgin,  beautiful  and  young,  with 


GENIUS  AND  INSANITY.  79 

her  Son,  and  crowned  with  a  rainbow."  Later  he  told 
Cattaneo  how  a  goblin  carried  away  letters  in  which  he 
was  mentioned,  "  and  that  is  one  of  the  miracles  which 
I  saw  myself  at  the  hospital.  Thus  I  possess  the  certainty 
that  these  wonders  must  be  attributed  to  a  magician.  I 
have  numerous  proofs  of  it.  One  day  a  loaf  was  taken 
from  me,  beneath  my  eyes,  towards  three  o'clock." 

When  ill  with  acute  fever  he  was  cured,  thanks  to  an 
apparition  of  the  Virgin,  to  whom  he  testified  his  grati- 
tude in  a  sonnet.  He  wrote  and  spoke  to,  almost 
touched,  his  genius,  who  often  resembled  his  former 
Mcssaggiero,  and  suggested  to  him  ideas  which  he  had  not 
conceived  before. 

Swift,  the  inventor  of  irony  and  humour,  predicted 
even  in  youth  that  he  would  die  insane,  as  had  been  the 
case  with  a  paternal  uncle.  He  was  walking  one  day  in 
a  garden  when  he  saw  an  elm  almost  completely  deprived 
of  foliage  at  the  top.  "  Like  that  tree,"  he  said,  "  I  shall 
die  at  the  top."  Proud  almost  to  monomania  with  the 
great,  he  yet  led  a  wild  and  vicious  life,  and  was  known 
as  the  "  Mad  Parson."  Though  a  clergyman,  he  wrote 
irreligious  books,  and  it  was  said  that  before  making  him 
a  bishop  it  would  be  desirable  to  baptise  him.  His  giddi- 
ness began,  as  he  himself  tells  us,  at  the  age  of  twenty- 
three,  so  that  his  brain  disease  lasted  for  over  fifty  years. 
VeftiginosuS)  inops,  surdus,  male  gratus  amicis,  as  he 
defined  himself,  he  almost  succumbed  to  the  grief  caused 
by  the  death  of  his  beloved  Stella,  and  at  the  same  time 
he  wrote  his  burlesque  Directions  to  Servants.  Some 
months  later  he  lost  his  memory  and  only  preserved  his 
mordant  loquacity  ;  he  remained  for  a  whole  year  without 
speaking  or  reading  or  recognising  any  one  ;  he  would 
walk  for  ten  hours  a  day,  eating  his  meals  standing,  or 
refusing  food,  and  giving  way  to  attacks  of  rage  when 
any  one  entered  his  room.  With  the  development  of 
some  boils  his  condition  seemed  to  improve  ;  he  was 
heard  to  say  several  times  :  "I  am  a  fool  ; "  but  the 
interval  of  lucidity  was  short.  He  fell  back  into  the 
stupor  of  dementia,  although  his  irony  seemed  to  survive 
reason,  and  even,  as  it  were,  life  itself.  He  died  in  1745 
in  a  state  of  complete  dementia,  leaving  by  a  will  made 


So  THE  MAN  OP  GENIUS. 

some  years  previously  a  sum  of  nearly  ^~ii,ooo  to  a 
lunatic  asylum.  A  post-mortem  examination  showed 
softening  of  the  brain  and  extreme  effusion  ;  his  skull 
(examined  in  1855)  showed  great  irregularities  from 
thickening  and  roughening,  signs  of  enlarged  and 
diseased  arteries,  and  an  extremely  small  cerebellar 
region.  In  an  epitaph  which  he  had  written  for  himself 
he  summed  up  the  cruel  tortures  of  his  soul  now  at 
rest,  "  ubi  sceva  indignatio  ulierins  cor  laccrare  nequit" 

Newton,  of  whom  it  was  truly  said  that  his  mind  con- 
quered the  human  race,  was  in  old  age  afflicted  by  mental 
disorder,  though  of  a  less  serious  character  than  that  of 
which  we  have  just  read.  It  was  probably  during  this 
illness  that  he  wrote  his  Chronology,  his  Apocalypse,  and 
the  Letters  to  Bentley,  so  inferior  in  value  to  the  work  of 
his  earlier  years.  In  1693,  after  his  house  had  been  burnt  a 
second  time,  and  after  excess  in  study,  he  is  reported  to 
have  talked  so  strangely  and  incoherently  to  the  arch- 
bishop that  his  friends  were  seriously  alarmed.  At  this 
time  he  wrote  two  letters  which,  in  their  confused  and 
obscure  form,  seem  to  show  that  he  had  been  suffering 
from  delusions  of  persecution.  He  wrote  to  Locke  (1693)  : 
"  Being  of  opinion  that  you  endeavoured  to  embroil  me 
with  women,  and  by  other  means,  I  was  so  much  affected 
with  it,  as  that  when  one  told  me  you  were  sickly  and 
would  not  live,  I  answered,  'twere  better  if  you  were 
dead.  I  desire  you  to  forgive  me  this  uncharitableness  ; 
for  I  am  now  satisfied  that  what  you  have  done  is  just, 
and  I  beg  your  pardon  for  my  having  hard  thoughts  of 
you  for  it,  and  for  representing  that  you  struck  at  the 
root  of  morality,  in  a  principle  you  laid  in  your  book  of 
ideas,  and  designed  to  pursue  in  another  book,  and  that  I 
took  you  for  a  Hobbist.  I  beg  your  pardon  also  for 
saying  or  thinking  that  there  was  a  design  to  sell  me  an 
office  or  to  embroil  me.  I  am  your  most  humble  and 
unfortunate  servant,  Is.  Newton."  *  Locke  replied  kindly, 
and  a  month  later  Newton  again  wrote  to  him  :  "  The 
last  winter,  by  sleeping  too  often  by  my  fire,  I  got  an 
ill  habit  of  sleeping  ;  and  a  distemper,  which  this  summer 

1  Brewster's  Memoirs  of  Sir  I.  Newton,  vol.  ii.  p.  IOO. 


GENIUS  AND  INSANITY.  81 

has  been  epidemical,  put  me  further  out  of  order,  so  that 
when  I  wrote  to  you  I  had  not  slept  an  hour  a  night  for 
a  fortnight  together,  and  for  five  days  together  not  a  wink. 
I  remember  I  wrote  to  you,  but  what  I  said  of  your  book 
I  remember  not."  And  in  a  letter  to  Pepys  he  says  that 
he  has  "  neither  ate  nor  slept  this  twelvemonth,  nor  have 
my  former  consistency  of  mind."  r 

Those  who,  without  frequenting  a  lunatic  asylum,  wish 
to  form  a  fairly  complete  idea  of  the  mental  tortures  of  a 
monomaniac,  have  only  to  look  through  Rousseau's  works, 
especially  his  later  writings,  such  as  the  Confessions,  the 
Dialogues,  and  the  Reveries.  "  I  have  very  ardent 
passions,"  he  writes  in  his  Confessions,  "  and  while  under 
their  influence,  my  impetuosity  knows  no  bounds  ;  I 
think  only  of  the  object  which  occupies  me  ;  the  entire 
universe  besides  is  nothing  to  me  ;  but  this  only  lasts  a 
moment,  and  the  moment  which  follows  throws  me  into 
a  state  of  prostration.  A  single  sheet  of  fine  paper  tempts 
me  more  than  the  money  to  buy  a  ream  of  it.  I  see  the 
thing  and  am  tempted  ;  if  I  only  see  the  means  of  ac- 
quiring it  I  am  not  tempted.  Even  now,  if  I  see  anything 
that  tempts  me,  I  prefer  taking  it  to  asking  for  it." 

This  is  the  distinction  between  the  kleptomaniac  and 
the  thief :  the  former  steals  by  instinct,  to  steal  ;  the 
latter  steals  by  interest,  to  acquire  :  the  first  is  led  away 
by  anything  that  strikes  him  ;  the  second  is  attracted  by 
the  value  of  the  object. 

Dominated  by  his  senses,  Rousseau  never  knew  how  to 
resist  them.  The  most  insignificant  pleasure,  he  says, 
so  long  as  it  was  present,  fascinated  him  more  than  all 
the  joys  of  Paradise.  In  fact,  a  monk's  dinner  (Father 
Pontierre)  led  him  to  apostasy,  and  a  feeling  of  repulsion 
caused  him  to  abandon  cruelly  an  epileptic  friend  on  the 
road. 

It  was  not  only  his  passions  that  were  morbid 
and  violent  ;  his  intelligence  also  was  affected  from 
his  earliest  days,  as  he  shows  in  his  Confessions  : 
"  My  imagination  has  never  been  so  cheerful  as  when  I 
have  been  suffering.  My  mind  cannot  beautify  the  really 

1  JJrewster's  Mctnnrs  of  Sir  I.  Newton,  vol.  ii.  p.  94. 

7 


82  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

pleasant  things  that  happen  to  me,  only  the  imaginary 
ones.  If  I  wish  to  describe  spring  well,  it  must  be  in 
winter.''  Real  evils  had  little  hold  on  Rousseau,  he  tells 
us  ;  imaginary  evils  touched  him  more  nearly.  "  I  can 
adapt  myself  to  what  I  experience,  but  not  to  what  I 
fear."  It  is  thus  that  people  kill  themselves  through 
fear  of  death. 

On  first  reading  medical  books  Rousseau  imagined  that 
he  had  the  diseases  which  he  found  described,  and  was 
astonished,  not  to  find  himself  healthy,  but  to  find  himself 
alive.  He  came  to  the  conclusion  that  he  had  a  polypus 
at  the  heart.  It  was,  as  he  himself  confesses,  a  strange 
notion,  the  overflow  of  an  idle  and  exaggerated  sensibility 
which  had  no  better  channel.  "There  are  times,"  he 
says,  "  in  which  I  am  so  little  like  myself  that  I  might  be 
taken  for  a  man  of  quite  different  character.  In  repose  I 
am  indolence  and  timidity  itself,  and  do  not  know  how  to 
express  myself ;  but  if  I  become  excited  I  immediately 
know  what  to  say." 

This  unfortunate  man  went  through  a  long  series  of 
occupations  from  the  noblest  to  the  most  degrading  ;  he 
was  an  apostate  for  money,  a  watchmaker,  a  charlatan,  a 
music-master,  an  engraver,  a  painter,  a  servant,  an  embryo 
diplomatic  secretary  ;  in  literature  and  science  he  took 
up  medicine,  music,  botany,  theology,  teaching. 

The  abuse  of  intellectual  work,  especially  dangerous  in 
a  thinker  whose  ideas  were  developed  slowly  and  with 
difficulty,  joined  to  the  ever-increasing  stimulus  of 
ambition,  gradually  transformed  the  hypochondriac  into 
a  melancholiac,  and  finally  into  a  maniac.  "  My  agita- 
tions and  anger,"  he  wrote,  "  affected  me  so  much  that  I 
passed  ten  years  in  delirium,  and  am  only  calm  to-day." 
Calm  !  When  disease,  now  become  chronic,  no  longer 
permitted  him  to  distinguish  what  was  real,  what  was 
imaginary  in  his  troubles.  In  fact,  he  bade  farewell  to 
the  world  of  society,  in  which  he  had  never  felt  at  home, 
and  retired  into  solitude  ;  but  even  in  the  country,  people 
from  the  town  zealously  pursued  him,  and  the  tumult  of 
the  world  and  notions  of  amour-propre  veiled  the  fresh- 
ness of  nature.  It  is  in  vain  for  him  to  hide  himself  in 
the  woods,  he  writes  in  his  Reveries  ;  the  crowd  attaches 


GENIUS  AND  INSANITY.  83 

itself  to  him  and  follows  him.  We  think  once  more  of 
Tasso's  lines  : — 

"  e  da  me  stesso 
Semprefuggendo,  avrb  me  senipre  appresso" 

Rousseau  doubtless  alluded  to  these  lines  when  he 
wrote  to  Corancez  that  Tasso  had  been  his  prophet.  He 
wrote  later  that  he  believed  that  Prussia,  England, 
France,  the  King,  women,  priests,  men,  irritated  by  some 
passages  in  his  works,  were  waging  a  terrible  war  against 
him,  with  effects  by  which  he  explained  the  internal 
troubles  from  which  he  suffered. 

In  the  refinement  of  their  cruelty,  he  says  in  the 
Reveries,  his  enemies  only  forgot  one  thing — to  graduate 
their  torments,  so  that  they  could  always  renew  them. 
But  the  chief  artifice  of  his  enemies  was  to  torture  him  by 
overwhelming  him  with  benefits  and  with  praise.  "They 
even  went  so  far  as  to  corrupt  the  greengrocers,  so  that 
they  sold  him  better  and  cheaper  vegetables.  Without 
doubt  his  enemies  thus  wished  to  prove  his  baseness  and 
their  generosity."  '  During  his  stay  in  London  his 
melancholia  was  changed  into  a  real  attack  of  mania. 
He  imagined  that  Choiseul  was  seeking  to  arrest  him, 
abandoned  his  luggage  and  his  money  at  his  hotel,  and 
fled  to  the  coast,  paying  the  innkeepers  with  pieces  of 
silver  spoons.  He  found  the  winds  contrary,  and  in  this 
saw  another  indication  of  the  plot  against  him.  In  his 
exasperation  he  harangued  the  crowd  in  bad  English 
from  the  top  of  a  hill  ;  they  listened  stupefied,  and  he 
believed  he  had  affected  them.  But  on  returning  to 
France  his  invisible  enemies  were  not  appeased.  They 
spied  and  misinterpreted  all  his  acts  ;  if  he  read  a  news- 
paper, they  said  he  was  conspiring  ;  if  he  smelled  the 
perfume  of  a  rose,  they  suspected  he  was  concocting  a 
poison.  Everything  was  a  crime  :  they  stationed  a 
picture-dealer  at  his  door  ;  they  prevented  the  door  from 
shutting  ;  no  visitor  came  whom  they  had  not  prejudiced 
against  him.  They  corrupted  his  coffee-merchant,  his 
hairdresser,  his  landlord  ;  the  shoeblack  had  no  more 

1  Dialogues,  i. 


84  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

blacking  when  Rousseau  needed  him  ;  the  boatman  had 
no  boats  when  this  unfortunate  man  wished  to  cross  the 
Seine.  He  demanded  to  be  put  in  prison — and  even 
that  was  refused  him. 

In  order  to  take  from  him  the  one  weapon  which  he 
possessed,  the  press,  a  publisher,  whom  he  did  not  know, 
was  arrested  and  thrown  into  the  Bastille.  The  custom 
of  burning  a  cardboard  figure  at  the  mi-careme  had  been 
abolished.  It  is  re-established,  certainly  to  make  fun  of 
him  and  to  burn  him  in  effigy  ;  in  fact,  the  clothes  placed 
on  it  resembled  his.1  In  the  country  he  meets  a  child 
who  smiles  at  him  ;  he  turns  to  respond,  and  suddenly 
sees  a  man  whom,  by  his  mournful  face  (note  the  method 
of  recognition),  he  sees  to  be  a  spy  placed  by  his  enemies. 

Under  the  constant  impression  of  this  monomania  of 
persecution  he  wrote  his  Dialogues  sur  Rousseau  juge  par 
Rousseau,  in  which,  in  order  to  appease  his  innumerable 
enemies  he  presented  a  faithful  and  minute  portrait  of  his 
hallucinations.  He  began  to  distribute  his  defence,  in  a 
truly  insane  manner,  by  presenting  a  copy  to  any  passer- 
by whose  face  did  not  appear  prejudiced  against  him  by 
his  enemies.  It  was  dedicated  :  "A  tous  Ics  Francais 
aimant  encore  la  justice  ct  la  ven'te."  In  spite  of  this 
title,  or,  perhaps,  because  of  it,  he  found  no  one  who 
accepted  it  with  pleasure  ;  several  even  refused  it. 

No  longer  able  to  put  trust  in  any  mortal  he  turned, 
like  Pascal,  to  God,  to  whom  he  addressed  a  very  tender 
and  familiar  letter  ;  then  in  order  to  ensure  the  arrival  of 
his  letter  at  its  destination,  he  placed  it  together  with  the 
manuscript  of  the  Dialogues  on  the  altar  of  Notre-Dame 
at  Paris.  Then,  having  found  the  railing  closed,  he  sus- 
pected a  conspiracy  of  Heaven  against  him. 

Dussaulx,  who  saw  him  often  in  the  last  years  of  his 
life,  writes  that  he  even  distrusted  his  dog,  finding  a 
mystery  in  his  frequent  caresses.2  The  delire  des  gran- 
deurs was  never  absent  ;  it  may  be  seen  continually  in 
the  Confessions,  in  which  he  defies  the  human  race  to 
show  a  better  being  than  himself. 

After  all  this  testimony,  it  does  not  seem  to  me  that 

1  Dialogues ,  ii. 

2  Bugeault,  Etude  sur  fetal  mental  d^  Rousseau,  1876,  p.  123. 


GENIUS  AND  INSANITY.  85 

Voltaire  and  Corancez  were  altogether  wrong  in  affirming 
that  Rousseau  had  been  mad,  and  that  he  confessed  it 
himself.  Numerous  passages  in  the  Confessions  and  in 
Grimm's  letters  allude  to  other  affections  such  as  paralysis 
of  the  bladder  and  spermatorrhoea,  which  probably  origi- 
nated in  the  spinal  cord,  and  which  certainly  aggravated 
his  melancholia.  It  must  also  be  remembered  that  from 
childhood,  Rousseau,  like  so  many  other  subjects  of 
degeneration,  showed  sexual  precocity  and  perversion  ;  it 
appears  that  he  had  no  pleasure  in  his  relations  with 
women  unless  they  beat  him  naked,  like  a  child,  or 
th:  atened  to  do  so.1 

Nieolaus  Lenau,  one  of  the  greatest  lyric  poets  of 
times,  ended,  forty  years  ago,  in  the  asylum 
•  »t  Dobling  at  Vienna,  a  life  which  from  childhood  shows 
a  mingling  of  genius  and  insanity. 

He  was  born  in  1802  in  Hungary,  the  son  of  a  proud 
and  vicious  aristocrat,  and  of  a  melancholy,  sensitive,  and 
ascetic  mother.  At  an  early  age  he  manifested  tendencies 
to  sadness,  to  music,  and  to  mysticism.  He  studied  medi- 
cine, law,  agriculture,  and  especially  music.  In  1831 
Kerncr  remarked  in  him  strange  fits  of  sadness  and 
melancholy,  and  noted  that  at  other  times  he  would 
spend  whole  nights  in  the  garden  playing  his  favourite 
violin.  "I  feel  myself,"  he  wrote  to  his  sister,  "gravi- 
tating towards  misfortune  ;  the  demon  of  insanity  riots 
in  my  heart  ;  I  am  mad.  To  you,  sister,  I  say  it,  for 
you  will  love  me  all  the  same."  This  demon  induced 
him  to  go,  almost  aimlessly,  lo  America.  He  returned  to 
find  himself  feted  and  received  with  gladness  by  all  ;  but 
hypochondria,  in  his  own  words,  had  planted  its  teeth 
deep  in  his  heart,  and  everything  was  useless.2  And,  in 
fact,  this  unhappy  heart  had  an  attack  of  pericarditis,  from 
which  it  recovered  only  imperfectly.  From  that  time 
sleep,  once  the  only  medicine  for  his  troubles,  ceased  to 
visit  him  ;  every  night  he  is  surrounded  by  terrible  visions. 
"  One  would  say,"  he  wrote,  in  a  truly  insane  fashion, 
"  that  the  devil  is  hunting  in  my  belly.  I  hear  there  a 

1  Revue  Philosophiqite,  1883. 

2  Schurz,  Lenaus  Wcrke,  vol.  i.   p.  275. 


86  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

perpetual  barking  of  dogs  and  a  funereal  echo  of  hell. 
Without  joking,  it  is  enough  to  make  one  despair." 

That  misanthropy  which  we  have  already  noted  in 
Haller  and  Swift  and  Cardan  and  Rousseau  took  pos- 
session of  Lenau  in  1840  with  all  the  accompaniments  of 
mania.  He  is  afraid  and  ashamed  of  men,  disgusted  with 
them.  Germany  was  preparing  bouquets  and  triumphal 
arches  in  his  honour,  but  he  fled,  and  without  any  cause 
went  to  and  fro  from  one  country  to  another  ;  he  wa^ 
causelessly  angry  and  impatient,  and  felt  himself  incapable 
of  work  ;  non  estfirmum  sinciput,  it  seemed,  as  he  himself 
said  ;  at  the  same  time  his  appetite  became  as  insane  as 
his  brain.  He  returned  with  a  strange  taste  to  the  mysti- 
cism of  his  childhood,  wished  to  study  the  Gnostics,  and 
read  over  again  the  stories  of  sorcerers  which  he  had  found 
so  attractive  in  his  youth,  while  he  drank  coffee  enormously 
and  smoked  excessively.  It  was  incredible,  he  observed, 
how  in  moving  his  body,  in  lighting  or  changing  a  cigar, 
new  ideas  arose  within  him.  He  wrote  during  entire 
nights,  wandered,  journeyed,  meditated  a  marriage,  pro- 
jected great  works,  and  executed  none. 

It  was  the  last  flickering  of  a  great  spirit  ;  in  1844 
Lenau  complained  more  and  more  of  headache,  of  con- 
stant perspiration,  of  extreme  weakness.  His  left  hand 
and  the  muscles  of  the  eyes  and  cheeks  were  paralysed, 
and  he  began  to  write  with  orthographic  errors  and 
quibbles,  as  Wie  gut  es  mir  gut  for  mir  geht ;  or  "  I  am 
not  delirious,  but  lyrical."  Suddenly,  on  the  I2th  of 
October,  he  had  a  violent  attack  of  suicidal  mania.  He 
was  restrained,  and  furiously  struck  and  broke  every- 
thing, burning  his  manuscripts.  Gradually  he  became 
composed  and  intelligent  again,  and  even  analyzed  his 
attack  minutely  in  that  terrible,  chaotic  poem  the 
Traumgewalten.  It  was  a  ray  of  sunlight  in  the  dark 
night  ;  it  was,  as  Schilling  well  said,  genius  for  the  last 
time  dominating  insanity.  In  fact,  his  condition  was 
constantly  getting  worse  ;  another  suicidal  attack  was 
followed  by  that  fatal  comfort,  that  pleasant  excitement 
which  marks  the  commencement  of  general  paralysis. 
"I  enjoy  life,"  he  said;  "I  am  glad  that  the  terrible 
visions  of  old  have  been  succeeded  by  pleasant  and 


GENIUS  AND  INSANITY.  87 

delightful  visions."  He  imagined  that  he  was  in  Wal- 
halla  with  Goethe,  and  that  he  had  become  King  of 
Hungary  and  was  victorious  in  battle  ;  he  made  puns  on 
his  family  name,  Niembsch.  In  1845  he  lost  his  sense  of 
smell,  which  had  previously  been  very  delicate,  and  ceased 
to  care  for  violets,  his  favourite  flowers.  He  no  longer 
recognised  his  old  friends.  Notwithstanding  this  sad 
condition,  he  was  still  able  to  write  a  lyric  marked  by 
extravagant  mysticism,  but  not  without  the  old  beauty. 
One  day  when  conducted  to  Plato's  bust,  he  said  :  "  There 
is  the  man  who  invented  stupid  love."  Another  time, 
hearing  some  one  say,  u  Here  lives  the  great  Lenau,"  the 
unfortunate  man  replied  :  "  Now  Lenau  has  become  very, 
very  small,"  and  he  wept  for  a  long  time.  "  Lenau  is 
unhappy  "  were  his  last  words.  He  died  on  the  2ist  of 
August,  1850.  The  autopsy  only  revealed  a  little  serum 
in  the  ventricles  and  traces  of  progressive  pericarditis. 

In  this  same  asylum  at  Dobling  died  some  years  later 
another  great  man,  Szechenyi,1  the  creator  of  Danubian 
navigation,  the  founder  of  the  Magyar  Academy,  the  pro- 
moter of  the  revolution  of  1848.  At  the  very  apogee  of 
the  revolution,  when  Szechenyi  was  a  minister,  he  was 
heard  one  day  begging  Kossuth,  one  of  his  colleagues  in 
the  Ministry,  not  to  let  him  be  hanged.  It  was  looked 
upon  as  a  joke,  but  it  was  not  so.  He  foresaw  the  mis- 
fortunes which  would  fall  on  his  country,  and  wrongly 
judged  himself  responsible.  The  monomania  of  persecu- 
tion took  possession  of  him,  and  threatened  to  lead  him 
to  suicide.  He  gradually  became  calm,  but  exhibited  a 
morbid  loquacity,  strange  in  a  diplomatist  and  con- 
spirator, and  all  day  long  he  would  stop  the  lunatics  and 
idiots,  and,  what  was  worse,  the  enemies  of  his  country 
whom  he  met  in  prison,  and  narrate  to  them  the  long 
confession  of  his  imaginary  sins.  In  1850  an  old  passion 
for  chess  awoke  in  him,  and  took  an  insane  character. 
It  became  necessary  to  pay  a  poor  student  to  play  with 
him  for  ten  or  twelve  hours  at  a  time.  The  unfortunate 
student  went  mad,  but  Szechenyi  slowly  became  sane. 

1  Kccskemetky,  S.    Szechhiys  staatsmiinn.     Laufbahn,  &c.,  Pcsth, 
1866. 


88  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS, 

At  the  same  time  he  began  to  lose  an  aversion  for  contact 
with  human  beings  which  had  taken  possession  of  him, 
and  which  made  it  impossible  for  him  even  to  see  his 
relations.  There  only  remained  of  his  morbid  habits  a 
certain  repugnance  to  the  bright  country  light,  and  a 
great  objection  to  leave  his  room.  On  certain  days  of  the 
month  he  consented  to  receive  his  much-loved  children  ; 
with  a  gesture  he  led  them  tenderly  to  his  table,  and  read 
what  he  had  written  ;  but  it  required  much  diplomacy  to 
bring  him  out  into  the  park.  His  intelligence  remained 
clear  ;  it  was  even  more  robust  than  ever.  He  kept  him- 
self acquainted  with  the  whole  German  and  Magyar 
literary  movement,  and  he  watched  for  the  smallest  sign 
of  better  fortune  to  come  to  his  country.  When  he  saw 
an  Austrian  intrigue  hindering  the  completion  of  the 
eastern  railway  to  which  he  had  devoted  himself  so 
vigorously  he  wrote  a  letter  to  Zichy,  in  which  he  shows 
all  his  old  power,  as  may  be  seen  from  the  following 
passages  :  "  What  has  existed  once  often  reappears  in 
the  world  under  another  form  and  different  conditions. 
A  broken  bottle  cannot  be  put  together,  yet  those  poor 
fragments  of  glass  are  not  lost ;  they  may  be  thrown  into 
the  furnace  and  become  a  vessel  for  Tokay,  the  king  of 
wines,  to  sparkle  in,  while  the  broken  bottle  may  have 
held  but  a  very  inferior  wine.  .  .  .  The  greatest  praise 
that  can  be  given  to  a  Hungarian  is  to  tell  him  that  he 
has  stood  firm.  You  know,  my  friend,  our  old  proverb  : 
'  Stand  firm,  even  in  the  mire.'  Let  us  apply  that  motto  ; 
distrust  the  reproaches  even  of  our  brothers  to  serve  the 
common  cause.  To  remain  at  one's  post,  in  spite  of  the 
mud  that  fanatical  or  frivolous  patriots  throw  in  the  faces 
of  their  brothers  and  companions  in  arms,  to  remain 
obstinately  there,  even  when  insult  strikes  one  in  the 
face — that  should  be  the  mot  d^ordre  of  the  present 
time." 

In  1858,  when  the  Austrian  Ministry  exerted  pressure 
on  the  Hungarian  Academy  to  abolish  the  articles  of  its 
statutes  which  constituted  the  culture  of  the  Magyar 
language,  its  fundamental  task,  Szeche'nyi  wrote  another 
letter,  which  describes  his  mental  condition  :  "  Can  I  be 
silent  when  I  see  that  noble  seed  crushed  ?  Can  I  forget 


GENIUS  AND  INSANITY.  89 

the  services  which  that  powerful  benefactor  has  rendered 
us  ?  I  ask — I,  whose  misfortune  lies,  not  in  a  vague 
confusion  of  ideas,  but,  on  the  contrary,  in  the  fatal 
gift  of  seeing  too  clearly,  too  distinctly,"  to  make  any 
illusion  possible.  Ought  I  not  to  raise  a  cry  of  alarm, 
seeing  our  dynasty  possessed  by  I  know  not  what  evil 
influence,  fighting  against  the  most  energetic  of  its 
peoples,  against  that  for  whom  the  future  reserves  the 
highest  destiny,  and  not  only  contemning  it  but  stifling 
it,  depriving  it  of  its  proper  character,  shaking  to  its  roots 
the  secular  tree  of  the  empire.  Founder  of  this  Academy, 
it  is  my  duty  to-day  to  speak.  So  long  as  my 
head  is  on  my  shoulders,  so  long  as  my  brain  is 
not  entirely  obscured,  so  long  as  the  light  of  my  eyes 
remains  unveiled  by  eternal  night,  I  shall  retain  my  right 
to  decide  concerning  the  rules.  Our  Emperor  will  sooner 
or  later  understand  that  the  assimilation  of  the  races  of 
the  empire  is  merely  the  Utopia  of  his  ministers  ;  the 
day  will  come  when  all  will  detach  themselves.  Hun- 
gary alone,  which  has  no  racial  affinity  with  the  other 
European  nations,  will  seek  to  accomplish  its  own  destiny 
beneath  the  aegis  of  the  royal  dynasty." 

That  was  in  1858.  In  1859,  even  before  the  outbreak 
of  war,  he  prophesied  defeat,  and  showed  its  results  : 
"  There  are  crises,"  he  said,  "  which  lead  to  cure  when  the 
sick  person  is  not  incurable."  He  published  at  London  a 
book  in  which,  in  a  strange  and  humorous,  but  at  the  same 
time  terrible  way,  he  traced  the  history  of  Hungary's 
sufferings  under  Bach's  iron  rule,  sketched  the  future  of 
his  country,  and  counselled  a  policy  of  concord,  parallel 
but  not  servile  to  that  of  Austria.  "  In  truth,''  he  wrote 
himself,  "  this  book  is  miserable  ;  but  do  you  know  how 
the  Margaret  Island  was  formed  ?  According  to  an  old 
legend,  the  Danube  once  occupied  its  site  ;  some  carrion 
once,  no  one  knows  how,  settled  on  to  a  sand-bank  and 
became  attached  there.  Whatever  the  river  swept  down, 
froth,  leaves,  branches,  trees,  all  were  piled  up  there,  and 
at  last  a  magnificent  island  arose.  My  work  is  something 
like  that  carrion.  Who  knows  what  may  arise  out  of  it 
at  last  ?  " 

A  few  months  later  Hiibner  succeeded  Bach,  and  th3 


QO  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

Liberal  system  was  inaugurated.  Szechenyi  was  wild  with 
joy  ;  from  his  humble  room  he  encouraged  the  minister, 
sent  him  plans  of  reform,  inspired  or  wrote  papers  on 
the  renewal  of  Austria,  not  forgetting  Hungary.  The 
dream  was  soon  dissipated  ;  Hiibner  was  succeeded  by 
Thierry,  a  bad  disciple  of  Bach,  armed  with  the  old  and 
superannuated  systems  of  Austria  ;  all  reform  was  aban- 
doned. The  unfortunate  Szechenyi  resisted  sorrowfully  ; 
he  called  Rechberg,  begged  him  to  inform  the  Emperor 
of  his  mistake  while  there  was  still  time,  and  submitted 
programmes  for  an  Austrian  constitution  and  a  Hun- 
garian constitution,  internal  affairs  to  be  treated  sepa- 
rately, and  external  affairs  conjointly.  Rechberg,  far  less 
foreseeing  than  this  inspired  madman,  said,  shaking  his 
head  :  "  One  can  easily  see  that  this  project  comes  from 
a  lunatic  asylum."  Worse  still,  Thierry,  suspecting  a 
vulgar  conspirator  in  the  great  Magyar,  sent  a  troop  of 
police  to  visit  the  asylum,  threatened  to  imprison  him, 
and  deprived  him  of  his  papers. 

The  unhappy  man,  whose  madness  was  merely  an 
irresistible  need  to  serve  his  country  at  all  costs,  had  only 
one  remorse  ;  he  feared  he  had  not  sufficiently  served 
his  country,  and  henceforth  all  hopes  were  closed.  He 
sought  in  vain  to  stifle  his  poignant  grief  by  playing 
desperately  at  chess.  At  last  he  shot  himself  with  a 
revolver.  That  was  on  the  8th  of  April,  1860.  In  1867, 
Francis  Joseph  was  crowned  King  of  Hungary,  thus 
realizing  the  dreams  of  the  Dobling  lunatic  ;  and  Rech- 
berg, who  had  laughed  at  them,  was  called  upon  to  put 
them  in  practice. 

E.  T.  A.  Hoffmann,  that  strange  poet,  artist,  and 
musician,  whose  drawings  ended  in  caricature,  his  tales 
in  extravagance,  and  his  music  in  a  mere  medley  of 
sound,  but  who  was,  nevertheless,  the  real  creator  of 
fantastic  poetry,  was  a  drunkard.  Many  years  before  his 
death  he  wrote  in  his  journal  :  "  How  is  it  that,  awake 
or  asleep,  my  thoughts  are  always  running,  in  spite  of 
myself,  on  this  miserable  theme  of  madness  ?  Disorderly 
ideas  seem  to  rise  out  of  my  mind  like  blood  from  opened 
veins."  He  was  so  sensitive  to  atmospheric  variations 
that  he  constructed  a  meteorological  scale  out  of  his 


GENIUS  AND  INSANITY.  91 

subjective  emotions.  For  many  years  he  was  subject  to 
a  real  monomania  of  persecution,  with  hallucinations  in 
which  the  fantasies  of  his  stories  were  converted  into 
realities. 

The  famous  Sicilian  physiologist  Fodera  often  declared 
that  he  could  furnish  bread  for  200,000  men  with  a  single 
oven  of  very  simple  construction,  and  that,  with  forty 
soldiers  he  could  overcome  any  army,  even  1,000,000 
strong.  When  about  fifty  years  of  age  he  fell  violently 
in  love  with  a  young  girl  who  lived  opposite  him.  One 
fine  day,  being  in  the  street,  he  gazed  up  rapturously  at 
the  charming  maiden,  who,  to  free  herself  from  her 
wearisome  adorer,  emptied  a  vessel  of  dirty  water  on  his 
head.  Fodera,  however,  regarded  this  act  as  a  manifes- 
tation of  love,  and  returned  home  full  of  joy.  In  the 
courtyard  he  saw  a  fowl,  which,  as  he  declared,  had  an 
extraordinary  resemblance  to  the  beloved  maiden  ;  he 
immediately  bought  it,  covered  it  with  kisses,  allowed 
the  precious  creature  to  do  anything,  to  soil  his  books, 
and  his  clothes,  and  even  to  perch  on  his  bed.1 

The  most  complete  type  of  madness  in  genius  is 
presented  to  us  by  Schopenhauer.3  He  himself  considered 
that  he  inherited  his  intelligence  from  his  mother,  a 
literary  woman  full  of  vivacity,  but  heartless  ;  while  his 
character  came  from  his  father,  a  banker,  who  was  misan- 
thropic and  eccentric  to  monomania.  From  childhood 
his  hearing  was  defective,  and  he  believed — and  it  is  pro- 
bably true — that  he  inherited  his  deafness,  his  very  large 
head,  and  his  brilliant  eyes,  from  his  father.  He  lived 
for  some  time  in  England  under  the  care  of  a  clergyman. 
He  learnt  to  know  the  English  language  and  literature, 
and  also  learnt  to  despise  the  bigotry  of  his  hosts. 
Notwithstanding  constant  change  of  scene  involved  in 
his  travels,  he  was  never  cheerful,  and  gave  free  course 
to  his  discontent  with  himself  and  his  surroundings. 
u  From  my  youth,"  he  says,  "  I  have  always  been 
melancholy.  Once,  when  I  was  perhaps  eighteen,  I 

1  Costanzo,  Follia  anomale^  Palermo,  1876. 

*  Gwinner,  Schopenhauers  Lcben,  1878;  Ribot,  La  Philosophie  de 
Schopenhaiier,  1885;  Carl  von  Sedlitz,  Scliopenhauervom  Maiizinischen 
Standpunkt,  Dor  pat,  1872, 


92  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

thought  to  myself,  in  spite  of  ray  youth,  that  the  world 
could  not  be  the  work  of  a  God,  but  rather  of  a  devil. 
During  my  education  I  certainly  had  to  suffer  too  much 
from  my  father's  temperament."  He  was  frightened  by 
imaginary  diseases.  In  Switzerland  the  Alps  aroused  in 
him  sadness  rather  than  admiration.  His  mother,  like 
all  those  who  came  in  contact  with  him,  experienced  the 
unhappy  effects  of  his  character,  for  when,  in  1807,  he 


SCHOPENHAUER. 


wished/ at  the  age  of  nineteen,  to  come  and  see  her  at 
Weimar,  she  wrote  to  him,  "  I  have  always  told  you  that 
it  would  be  very  difficult  for  me  to  live  with  you  ;  the 
more  nearly  I  observe  you,  the  more  this  difficulty  in- 
creases, so  far  at  least  as  I  am  concerned.  I  do  not  hide 
from  you  that,  so  long  as  you  remain  what  you  are  now, 
I  would  support  any  sacrifice  rather  than  submit  to  it. 
•I  do  not  misunderstand  the  foundation  of  goodness  in 


GENIUS  AND  INSANITY.  93 

you  ;  what  separates  me  from  you  is  not  your  heart,  not 
your  inner,  but  your  outer,  self,  your  views,  your  judg- 
ments, your  manner  of  behaving  ;  in  short,  I  cannot 
harmonize  with  you  in  anything  that  concerns  your 
external  self.  Even  your  ill-humour,  your  lamentations 
over  the  inevitable,  your  sombre  face,  your  extravagant 
opinions,  which  you  give  forth  like  oracles,  and  tolerate 
no  opposition  to,  oppress  me,  shock  my  serenity,  and  are 
no  use  to  yourself.  Your  disagreeable  discussions,  your 
lamentations  over  the  stupidity  of  the  world  and  human 
misery,  give  me  wretched  nights  and  bad  dreams."1 

He  became  more  and  more  estranged  from  his  mother, 
alleging  that  she  had  not  respected  his  father's  memory, 
that  she  had  dissipated  the  common  fortune  by  her  ex- 
travagance, and  had  thus  reduced  him  to  the  necessity 
of  working  for  his  living.  This  effort  was  entirely  repug- 
nant to  his  nature.  In  this  he  yielded  to  a  feeling  of 
anguish,  which,  by  his  own  confession,  bordered  on  mad- 
ness. "  If  there  is  nothing  to  cause  me  misery,  I  am 
tormented  by  the  thought  that  there  must  be  something 
hidden  from  me.  J//.sr;w  cftmiitin  nnstra"  2 

In  1814  Schopenhauer  left  Weimar  to  complete  his 
great  work.  He  was  convinced  that  he  could  and  mast 
open  a  new  and  only  way  to  lead  men  of  mind  and  heart 
to  truth  ;  he  felt  in  himself  something  more  than  mere 
science,  something  demoniacal  (ddmonisches). 

In  1813  he  had  already  said  :  "Beneath  my  hand,  and 
still  more  in  my  head,  a  work,  a  philosophy,  is  ripening, 
which  will  be  at  once  an  ethic  and  a  metaphysic,  hitherto 
so  unreasonably  separated,  just  as  man  has  been  divided 
into  body  and  soul.  The  work  grows,  and  gradually 
becomes  concrete,  like  the  foetus  in  its  mother's  womb. 
I  do  not  know  what  will  appear  at  last.  I  recognize  a 
member,  an  organ,  one  part  after  another.  I  write  with- 
out seeking  for  results,  for  I  know  that  it  all  stands  on 
the  same  foundation,  and  will  thus  compose  a  vital  and 
organic  whole.  I  do  not  understand  the  system  of  the 
work,  just  as  a  mother  does  not  understand  the  foetus 

1  Gwinner,  p.  26. 

-  Memorabilien,  ii.  p.  332. 


94  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

that  develops  in  her  bowels,  but  she  feels  it  tremble 
within  her.  My  mind  draws  its  food  from  the  world  by 
the  medium  of  intelligence  and  thought  ;  this  nourish- 
ment gives  body  to  my  work  ;  and  yet  I  do  not  know 
why  it  should  happen  in  me  and  not  in  others  who 
receive  the  same  food.  O  Chance !  sovereign  of  this 
world,  let  me  live  in  peace  for  a  few  years  yet,  for  I  love 
my  work  as  a  mother  loves  her  child.  When  it  is  ripe 
and  brought  to  the  light,  then  exercise  your  rights,  and 
claim  interest  for  the  delay.  But  if,  in  this  iron  century, 
I  succumb  before  that  hour,  may  these  unripened  prin- 
ciples and  studies  be  received  by  the  world  as  they  are, 
until  perhaps  some  related  mind  appears  who  will  collect 
and  unite  the  members.'' 

All  the  characteristic  symptoms  of  the  various  steps 
that  lead  up  to  insanity,  the  rapid  passage  from  profound 
grief  to  excessive  joy,  may  be  found  in  Schopenhauer.  In 
a  moment  of  tranquil  reflection  on  himself,  in  1814,  after 
having  found  that  men  were  "  a  soup  of  bread  dipped 
in  water  with  a  little  arsenic,"  and  after  having  declared 
that  "  their  egoism  is  like  that  which  binds  the  dog  to 
his  master,"  he  wrote:  "And  now  do  not  except  yourself; 
examine  your  loves  and  your  friendships  ;  observe  if  your 
objective  judgments  are  not  in  great  part  subjective  and 
impure."  And  in  another  page:  "Just  as  the  most 
beautiful  body  contains  within  it  faecal  and  mephitic  gases, 
so  the  noblest  character  offers  traits  of  badness,  and  the 
greatest  genius  presents  traces  of  pettiness  and  excessive 
pride." 

The  same  alternations  may  be  found  throughout  his 
life  ;  sometimes,  a  keen  and  contemptuous  critic,  he 
shows  haughty  presumption  ;  at  other  times  he  descends 
to  the  lowest  literary  platitudes  ;  sometimes  he  wandered 
about  the  delightful  suburbs  of  Dresden  lost  in  the  con- 
templation of  nature  ;  at  other  times  he  wallowed  in 
prosaic  love  adventures,  from  which  distinguished  friends 
were  obliged  to  save  him,  and  this  while  he  was  elabo- 
rating his  great  work,  Die  Welt  ah  Willc  und  Vorstcllung, 
which  was  to  astonish  the  world.  "  He  thus,"  remarks 
Von  Sedlitz,  "  gave  the  example  of  a  mania  puerperii 
spiritualis^  such  as  sometimes  takes  possession  of  pregnant 


GENIUS  AND  INSANITY.  95 

women."  Schopenhauer  himself  told  Frauenstedt  that 
at  the  time  when  he  was  writing  his  great  work  he  must 
have  been  very  strange  in  his  person  and  behaviour,  as 
people  took  him  for  a  madman.  One  day  when  he  was 
walking  in  a  conservatory  at  Dresden,  and,  while  con- 
templating the  plants,  talked  aloud  to  himself  and  gesticu- 
lated, an  attendant  came  up  and  asked  him  who  he  was.  "If 
you  can  tell  me  who  I  am,"  replied  Schopenhauer,  UI  shall 
be  very  much  obliged  to  you."  And  he  walked  away 
leaving  the  astonished  attendant  fully  persuaded  that  he 
was  a  lunatic.  With  such  a  disposition  it  is  not  sur- 
prising that  Schopenhauer,  like  many  prophets,  believed 
that  he  was  impelled  by  a  demon  or  spirit.  "  When  my 
intelligence  had  touched  its  apogee,  and  was,  under 
favourable  conditions,  at  its  point  of  greatest  tension,  it 
was  capable  of  embracing  anything  ;  it  could  suddenly 
bring  forth  revelations  and  give  birth  to  chains  of  thought 
well  worthy  of  preservation."1  In  1816  he  wrote  :  "  It 
happens  to  me  among  men  as  to  Jesus  of  Nazareth  when 
he  had  to  awake  his  disciples  always  asleep."  Even  in 
old  age  he  spoke  of  his  great  work  in  such  a  way  as  to 
exclude  all  doubt  as  to  the  inspiration  which  had  pro- 
duced it,  such  a  work  only  being  possible  under  the 
influence  of  inspiration.  At  that  age  he  gazed  with 
astonishment  at  his  work,  especially  at  the  fourth  book, 
as  at  a  work  written  by  some  other  person.  It  is  worth 
while  recalling  here  the  doubling  of  personality  so  common 
in  men  of  genius. 

After  he  had  handed  his  book  over  to  the  publisher  he 
set  out  for  -Italy,  without  awaiting  its  publication,  with 
the  proud  faith  that  he  had  given  a  revelation  to  the  world. 
His  delire  des  grandeurs  at  this  period  increased,  and  the 
mental  disturbance  he  underwent  revealed  itself  later. 
He  wrote  :  "  In  enchanting  Venice,  Love's  arms  held  me 
long  enfettered,  until  an  inner  voice  bade  me  break  free 
and  lead  my  steps  elsewhere."  And  again  :  "  If  I  could 
only  satisfy  my  desire  to  look  upon  this  race  of  toads  and 
vipers  as  my  equals,  it  would  be  a  consolation  to  me." 
While  oscillating  between  mental  exaltation  and  depres- 
sion he  heard  of  the  collapse  of  his  banking-house.  It  is 
1  Parerga,  ii.  p.  38. 


96  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

easy  to  understand  the  grief  which  this  news  caused  him  ; 
he  was  reduced  to  the^  necessity  of  living  by  philosophy, 
instead  of  for  philosophy,  as  he  had  desired  to  do.  He 
twice  sought  to  become  a  Privatdozcnt  in  Berlin,  but  he 
was  unsuccessful  in  these  attempts.  His  violent  attacks 
on  his  contemporaries  displeased  his  hearers,  and  his 
passionate  disputations,  and  his  tenacity  in  holding  strange 
opinions,  which  he  gave  forth  as  oracles,  rendered  pre- 
carious his  relations  with  friends  and  men  of  learning. 

The  invasion  of  cholera,  at  the  beginning  of  1831, 
completed  his  troubles.  On  the  last  night  of  1830  he  had 
already  had  a  dream,  which  he  looked  upon  as  a  prophecy, 
foretelling  his  death  in  the  new  year.  u  This  dream,"  he 
wrote  in  his  Cogitata,  "influenced  me  in  my  departure 
from  Berlin  immediately  the  cholera  began  in  1831.  I 
had  scarcely  reached  Frankfort-on-the-Main,  when  I  had 
a  very  distinct  vision  of  spirits.  They  were,  as  I  think, 
my  ancestors,  and  they  announced  to  me  that  I  should 
survive  my  mother,  at  that  time  still  living.  My  father, 
who  was  dead,  carried  a  light  in  his  hand."  That  this 
hallucination  was  accompanied  by  real  brain  affection  is 
proved  by  the  fact  that  at  that  time  he  "  fell  into  deep 
melancholy,  not  speaking  to  any  one  for  weeks  together." 
The  doctors  were  alarmed,  and  induced  him  to  go  to  Mann- 
heim for  change  of  scene.  More  than  a  year  later  he 
returned  to  Frankfort,  when  the  acute  period  of  his  illness 
had  apparently  passed.  Signs  of  it  remained,  however, 
in  his  peculiar  bearing,  his  habit  of  gesticulating  and  talk- 
ing aloud  to  himself  as  he  walked  through  the  streets  of 
the  city,  or  sat  at  table  in  the  restaurant,  and  in  his  fury 
against  "  such  philosophasters  as  Hegel,  Schleiermacher, 
and  similar  charlatans,  who  shine  like  so  many  stars  in  the 
firmament  of  philosophy,  and  rule  the  philosophic 
market."  He  accused  them  of  depriving  him  of  the 
praise  and  fame  he  deserved,  by  deliberately  keeping 
silence  concerning  his  Avork.  This  was  a  fixed  idea  with 
him,  like  the  idea  of  his  own  infallibility,  even  after  he 
seemed  to  return  to  a  relatively  normal  condition,  thanks 
to  the  fame  which,  after  a  delay  of  thirty  years,  at  length 
crowned  his  name  and  his  works. 

His  delire  des  grandeurs,  his  melancholy  accompanied 


GENIUS  AND  INSANITY.  97 

by  morbid  rage,  born  of  the  idea  of  persecution,  had  really 
shown  themselves  in  him  from  childhood.  At  six  years 
of  age  he  believed  that  his  parents  wished  to  abandon  him. 
As  a  student  he  was  always  morose.  One  of  the  things 
which  caused  him  most  trouble  was  noise,  especially  when 
produced  by  the  whips  of  drivers.  "To  be  sensitive  to 
noise,"  he  wrote,  u  is  one  of  the  numerous  misfortunes 
which  discount  the  privilege  of  genius."  "  Qui  non  habet 
indignationem"  he  wrote,  "  non  habet  ingcmum"  But 
his  indignation  was  excessive,  a  morbid  rage.  One  day 
when  his  landlady  was  chattering  in  the  anteroom  he 
came  out  and  shook  her  so  violently  that  he  broke  her 
arm,  and  was  fined  for  damages.  He  was  genuinely  hypo- 
chondriacal.  He  was  driven  from  Naples  by  the  fear  of 
small-pox,  from  Verona  by  the  idea  that  he  had  been 
poisoned  by  snuff,  from  Berlin  by  the  dread  of  cholera, 
and  previously  by  the  conscription.  In  1831,  he  had  a 
fresh  attack  of  restlessness  ;  at  the  least  sound  in  the 
street  he  put  his  hand  to  his  sword  ;  his  fear  became  real 
suffering  ;  he  could  not  open  a  letter  without  suspecting 
some  great  misfortune  ;  he  would  not  shave  his  beard,  but 
burnt  it ;  he  hated  women  and  Jews  and  philosophers, 
especially  philosophers,  and  loved  dogs,  remembering 
them  in  his  will.  He  reasoned  about  everything,  how- 
ever unimportant  ;  about  his  great  appetite,  about  the 
moonlight,  which  suggested  quite  illogical  ideas  to  him, 
&c.  He  believed  in  table-turning,  and  that  magnetism 
could  heal  his  dog's  paws  and  restore  his  own  hearing. 
One  night  the  servant  dreamt  that  she  had  to  wipe  some 
ink  stains  ;  in  the  morning  he  spilt  some,  and  the  great 
philosopher  deduced  that  u  everything  happens  neces- 
sarily." 

He  was  contradiction  personified.  He  placed  annihi- 
lation, inrvana,  as  the  final  aim  of  life,  and  predicted 
(which  means  that  he  desired),  one  hundred  years  of  life. 
He  preached  sexual  abstinence  as  a  duty,  but  did  not 
himself  practise  it.  He  who  had  suffered  so  much 
from  the  intolerance  of  others,  insulted  Moleschott  and 
Buchner,  and  rejoiced  when  the  Government  deprived 
them  of  their  professorial  chairs. 

He  lived  on  the  first  storey,  in  case  of  fire  ;  would  not 

* 


98  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

trust  himself  to  his  hairdresser  ;  hid  gold  in  the  ink-pot, 
and  letters  of  change  beneath  the  bed-clothes.  "  When  I 
have  no  troubles,"  he  said  (like  Rousseau),  "it  is  then 
that  I  am  most  afraid."  He  feared  to  touch  a  razor  ;  a 
glass  that  was  not  his  own  might  communicate  some 
disease  ;  he  wrote  business  documents  in  Greek  or  Latin 
or  Sanskrit,  and  disseminated  them  in  books  to  prevent 
unforeseen  and  impossible  curiosity,  which  would  have  been 
much  easier  avoided  by  a  simple  lock  and  key.  Though 
he  regarded  himself  as  the  victim  of  a  vast  conspiracy 
of  professors  of  philosophy,  concerted  at  Gotha,  to  preserve 
silence  concerning  his  books,  he  yet  dreaded  lest  they 
should  speak  of  them  ;  "  I  would  rather  that  worms 
should  gnaw  my  body  than  that  professors  should  gnaw 
my  philosophy."  Lacking  all  affection,  he  even  insulted 
his  mother,  and  drew  from  her  example  conclusions 
against  the  whole  female  sex,  "  long  of  hair  and  short  of 
sense."  Yet,  while  despising  monogamy,  he  recom- 
mended tetragamy,  to  which  he  saw  but  one  objection — 
the  four  mothers-in-law.  The  same  lack  of  affection 
made  him  despise  patriotism,  "  the  passion  of  fools,  and 
the  most  foolish  of  passions  ;  "  he  took  part  with  the 
soldiers  against  the  people,  and  to  the  former  and  to  his 
dog  he  left  his  property.  He  was  always  preoccupied 
with  himself,  not  only  with  the  self  that  was  the  creator 
of  a  new  system,  but  in  hundreds  of  his  letters  he  speaks 
with  strange  complaisance  of  his  photograph,  of  his 
portrait  in  oils  and  of  a  person  who  had  bought  it  "  in 
order  to  place  it  in  a  kind  of  chapel,  like  the  image  of  a 
saint." 

No  one  has,  for  the  rest,  maintained  more  openly  than 
Schopenhauer,  the  relationship  of  genius  to  insanity. 
"  People  of  genius,"  he  wrote,  "  are  not  only  unpleasant 
in  practical  life,  but  weak  in  moral  sense  and  wicked." 
And  elsewhere  :  "  Such  men  can  have  but  few  friends  ; 
solitude  reigns  on  the  summits.  .  .  .  Genius  is  closer  to 
madness  than  to  ordinary  intelligence.  .  .  .  The  lives  of 
men  of  genius  show  how  often,  like  lunatics,  they  are  in 
a  state  of  continual  agitation." 

Nicola'i  Vasilyevitch  Gogol  (born   1809),  after  suffering 


GENIUS  AND  INSANITY.  99 

from  an  unhappy  love  affair,  gave  himself  up  for  many 
years  to  unrestrained  onanism,  and  became  eventually  a 
great  novelist.  Having  known  Poushkin  he  was  attracted 
to  the  short  story,  then  he  fell  under  the  influence  of  the 
Moscow  school,  and  become  a  humourist  of  the  highest 
order.  In  his  Dead  Souls  he  satirises  the  Russian 
bureaucracy  with  so  much  vis  comica  as  to  show  the  need 
of  putting  an  end  to  a  form  of  government  which  is  a 
martyrdom  both  for  the  victims  and  the  executioners. 

On  the  publication  of  his  historical  Cossack  romance, 
Taras  Bulba,  he  reached  the  summit  of  his  fame.  His 
admirers  compared  him  to  Homer  ;  even  the  Govern- 
ment patronized  him.  Then  a  new  idea  began  to  domi- 
nate him  ;  he  thought  that  he  painted  his  country  with 
so  much  crudity  and  realism  that  the  picture  might  incite 
V  to  a  revolution  which  would  not  be  kept  within  reason- 
able limits,  and  might  overturn  society,  religion,  and  the 
family,  leaving  him  the  remorse  of  having  provoked  it. 
This  idea  took  possession  of  his  mind  and  dominated  it,  as 
it  had  formerly  been  dominated  by  love,  by  the  drama, 
and  by  the  novel.  He  then  sought  by  his  writings  to 
combat  western  liberalism,  but  the  antidote  attracted 
fewer  readers  than  the  poison.  Then  he  abandoned 
work,  shut  himself  up  in  his  house,  giving  himself  up  to 
prayer  to  the  saints,  and  supplicating  them  to  obtain 
God's  pardon  for  his  revolutionary  sins.  He  accom- 
plished a  pilgrimage  to  Jerusalem,  from  which  he  re- 
turned  somewhat  consoled,  when  the  revolution  of  1848 
broke  out,  and  his  remorse  was  again  aroused.  He 
was  constantly  pursued  by  visions  of  the  triumph  of 
Nihilism,  and  in  his  alarm  he  called  on  Holy  Russia  to 
overthrow  the  pagan  West,  and  to  found  on  its  ruins  the 
orthodox  Panslavist  empire.  In  1852,  the  great  novelist 
was  found  dead  at  Moscow  of  exhaustion,  or  rather  of  tabes 
dorsalis,  in  front  of  the  shrine  before  which  he  was 
accustomed  to  lie  for  days  in  silent  prayer. 


PART    II. 
THE   CAUSES    OF   GENIUS. 

CHAPTER   I. 
METEOROLOGICAL  INFLUENCES  ON  GENIUS. 

The  influence  of  weather  on  the  insane  —  Sensitiveness  of  men  of 
genius  to  barometrical  conditions— Sensitiveness  to  thermometrical 
conditions. 

The  Influence  of  Weather  on  the  Insane. — A  series  of 
clinical  researches,  which  I  carried  on  for  six  consecutive 
years,  has  shown  me  with  certainty  that  the  mental  con- 
dition of  the  insane  is  modified  in  a  constant  manner  by 
barometrical  and  thermometrical  influences.1  When  the 
temperature  rose  above  25°,  30°,  and  32°  C.,  especially  if 
the  rise  was  sudden,  the  number  of  maniacal  attacks  in- 
creased from  29  to  50.  On  the  days  on  which  the  baro- 
meter showed  sudden  variations,  especially  of  elevation 
— and  more  particularly  two  or  three  days  before  and 
after  the  variation — the  number  of  maniacal  attacks 
rapidly  increased  from  34  to  46.  This  meteoric  sensi- 
bility, as  I  term  it,  increased  in  an  inverse  ratio  to  the 
integrity  of  the  nervous  tissues,  being  very  great  in  idiots 
and  slightest  in  monomaniacs.  The  study  of  23,602 
lunatics  has  shown  me  that  the  development  of  insanity 
generally  coincides  with  the  increase  of  monthly  tempera- 
ture and  with  the  great  barometrical  perturbations  in 
September  and  March  ;  the  onset  of  heat,  acts  more 
efficaciously,  however,  than  the  intense  heat  which 

1  Pensiero  e  Meteore  in  Biblioteca  Scientifica  Internazionale,  Milan, 
1878  ;  Azione  degli  Astri  e  delle  Meteore  sidla  mente  Untana,  Milan, 
1871. 


METEOROLOGICAL  INFLUENCES.       101 


follows  ;  and  the  heat  which  has  become  habitual  in 
August  acts  much  less  harmfully.  The  minimum  num- 
ber of  outbreaks  of  insanity  is  found  in  the  coldest 
months.  (See  Plate.) 

This  coincidence  is  seen  best  in  the  French  lunatics 
studied  by  Esquirol.1  The  French  figures  present  with 
most  clearness  the  effect  of  thermometrical  influences, 
because  in  France  the  entry  of  lunatics  into  asylums, 
being  little  impeded  by  red-tapeism,  follows  closely  on 
the  outbreak. 


INSAKK. 

INSANE. 

TeniDera- 

Tempera- 

ture. 

ture. 

Italy. 

France. 

Italy. 

France. 

June    . 

2,704 

55 

21°  29C. 

October 

,6^7 

44 

i2°77C. 

May    . 

2,642 

58 

i6°75C- 

Sept.  . 

,604 

48 

19°  oo  C. 

July     .         2,614 

52 

23°75C. 

Dec.. 

,529 

35 

i°oiC. 

August 

2,26l 

45 

2I°92C. 

Feb.  .        i    ,420 

40 

5°73C. 

April  . 
March 

2,237 
1,829 

50    ii6°i2C. 
49       6°  60  C. 

[an.    . 

Nov.  . 

,476 
,452 

42 

47 

i°63C. 
7°i7C. 

i 

Now,  a  similar  influence  may  be  noted  in  those  to 
whom  nature,  benevolently  or  malevolently,  has  con- 
ceded the  power  of  intellect  more  generously  than  to 
others.  There  are  few  among  these  who  do  not  confess 
that  their  inspiration  is  strangely  subject  to  the  influence 
of  weather.  Those  who  associate  with  them,  or  who  read 
their  correspondence,  know  that  they  suffer  so  greatly 
from  this  cause  that  they  often  complain  to  every  one, 
and  struggle,  with  the  help  of  various  artifices,  against 
the  malignant  influences  which  impede  the  free  flight  of 
their  thought. 

Sensitiveness  to  Barometrical  Conditions. — Montaigne 

wrote  :  u  Si  la  sante  me  sied  et  la  clarte  d'un  beau  jour,  me 

voila  honnete  homme"     Diderot  wrote,  "  //  me  semble  que 

f  ai  V  esprit  f on  dans  les  grands  vents"     Giordani  foretold 

storms  two  days  beforehand.2     Maine  de  Biran,  a  very 

1  Quetelet,  Physique  Sociale,  Book  iv.  ch.  i. 
3  Mantegazza,  op.  cit. 


102  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

spiritualistic  philosopher,  wrote,  in  }\i?>  Journal  de  ma  Vie 
Intimc,  "  I  do  not  know  how  it  is  that  in  bad  weather  I 
feel  my  intelligence  and  will  so  unlike  what  they  are  in 
fine  weather  ; "  and  again,  "There  are  days  in  which  my 
thought  seems  to  break  through  the  veils  which  surround 
it.  In  some  conditions  of  the  weather  I  feel  delight  in 
good,  and  adore  virtue  ;  at  other  times  I  am  indifferent 
to  everything,  even  to  my  duties.  Are  our  sentiments, 
our  affections,  our  principles,  related  to  the  physical  con- 
dition of  our  organs  ? " x  The  study  of  his  Journal  shows 
us  the  justice  of  his  doubts.  Let  us  take  1818.  In 
April  we  find  two  periods  of  good  inspiration  and  four  of 
bad,  although  the  weather  was  fine  ;  in  May  he  was  con- 
stantly sad,  and  in  November  only  cheerful  during  ten 
days. 

"  1815,  May. — I  am  suffering  from  the  nervous  disposi- 
tion which  I  experience  in  spring  ;  and  though  wishing 
to  do  too  much,  I  do  nothing.  .  .  . 

"23  May. — I  am  happy  because  of  the  air  that  I 
breathe  and  the  birds  that  are  singing  ;  but  inspiration 
passes  away  through  the  senses.  Each  season  has  not 
merely  special  forms  of  sensation,  but  a  certain  way  of 
understanding  life  which  is  peculiar  to  it.  ... 

"17  May. — Irresistible  pleasure  of  thought:  inspira- 
tion. .  .  . 

"4,  16,  17  October. — Empty  of  ideas  ;  sad.  .  .  . 

"  1816,  25  January. — Sad  and  idle.  My  life  is  use- 
less. .  .  . 

"  24  April. — I  am  another  man.  Every  day  seems  a 
feast  day.  At  this  time  of  the  year  something  seems  to 
lift  the  soul  to  another  region,  and  to  give  it  strength  to 
surmount  all  impediments.  .  .  . 

"  1817,  13  April— Excited.  .  .  . 

"  7  May. — Working  on  Condillac.  .  .  . 

"  10,  iftjuly. — Marvellous  activity.  .  .  . 

"  12  October. — Am  transformed ;  thought  turns  to  com- 
monplace triviality.  .  .  . 

"  22,  23,  28  November. — Sterile  agitation.  Alteration 
of  all  my  mental  faculties.  .  .  . 

1  E.  Neville,  Maine  de  Biran,  Sa  Vie,  &c.,  p.  129,  1854. 


METEOROLOGICAL  INFLUENCES.       103 

"  1818,  I  April. — Northerly  wind.  Am  weary,  sad, 
suffering,  stolid.  .  .  . 

"  1820,  31  March. — At  this  time  of  the  year  it  always 
happens  to  me  that  body  and  mind  are  alike  heavy  ;  I 
have  the  consciousness  of  my  degradation.  .  .  . 

"  1821,  May. — All  this  month  I  am  sad,  and  yield  to 
external  causes  like  a  marionette.  .  .  . 

"21  October. — I  feel  myself  newborn.  I  was  return- 
ing to  work,  but  the  weather  has  changed  ;  the  wind  has 
turned  to  the  south  ;  it  is  strong,  and  I  am  another  man. 
I  feel  inert,  with  a  distaste  for  work,  and  inclined  to  those 
sad  and  melancholy  fantasies  which  are  always  so  fatal  to 
me.  .  .  ." 

Alfieri  wrote,  "  I  compare  myself  to  a  barometer.  I 
have  always  experienced  more  or  less  facility  in  writing, 
according  to  the  weight  of  the  air  ;  absolute  stupidity  in 
the  great  solstitial  and  equinoxial  winds,  infinitely  less 
perspicacity  in  the  evening  than  in  the  morning,  and  a 
much  greater  aptness  for  creation  in  the  middle  of  the 
winter  or  of  summer  than  in  the  intermediate  seasons. 
This  has  made  me  humble,  as  I  am  convinced  that  at 
these  times  I  have  had  no  power  to  do  otherwise." 
Monod  says  that  the  phases  of  Michelet's  intellectual  life 
followed  the  course  of  the  seasons.1  Poushkin's  poetic 
inspiration  was  greatest  during  dark  and  stormy  nights. 

We  catch  a  glimpse  in  these  facts  of  an  appreciable 
influence  of  barometrical  conditions  upon  men  of  genius 
as  upon  the  insane. 

Heat. — Thermometrical  influence  is  much  clearer  and 
more  evident.  Napoleon,  who  defined  man  as  "  a  pro- 
duct of  the  physical  atmosphere  and  the  moral  atmo- 
sphere," and  who  suffered  from  the  faintest  wind,  loved 
heat  so  much  that  he  would  have  fires  even  in  July. 
Voltaire  and  Buffon  had  their  studies  warmed  throughout 
the  year.  Rousseau  said  that  the  action  of  the  sun  in  the 
dog-days  aided  him  to  compose,  and  he  allowed  the  rays 
of  the  mid-day  sun  to  fall  on  his  head.  Byron  said  that 
he  feared  cold  as  much  as  a  gazelle.  Heine  wrote  in  one 
of  his  letters,  "It  snows  ;  I  have  little  fire  in  the  room, 

1  Revue  Bleue,  1888,  No.  9. 


104  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

and  my  letter  is  cold."  Spallanzani,  in  the  Ionian  Islands, 
found  himself  able  to  study  for  three  times  as  many  hours 
as  in  misty  Pavia.1  Leopardi  confesses  in  his  letters, 
"  My  temperament  is  inimical  to  cold.  I  wait  and  invoke 
the  reign  of  Ormuzd."  Giusti  wrote  in  the  spring,  "  In- 
spiration is  becoming  favourable.  ...  If  spring  aids  me 
as  in  all  other  things  .  .  ." 2  Paisiello  could  only  compose 
beneath  six  quilts  in  the  summer  and  nine  in  the  winter. 
Similar  facts  are  told  of  Varillas,  Mery,  and  Arnaud. 
Sylvester  tells  how,  when  on  board  the  Invicta,  beneath 
the  vivifying  rays  of  a  powerful  sun,  the  method  of  re- 
solving a  multiple  equation  occurred  to  him,  and  he 
succeeded,  without  pen  or  pencil.3  Lesage,  in  his  old 
age,  became  animated  as  the  sun  advanced  in  the  meridian, 
gradually  gaining  his  imaginative  power,  together  with 
his  cheerfulness  ;  as  the  day  declined,  his  mental  activity 
gradually  diminished,  until  he  fell  into  a  lethargy,  which 
lasted  to  the  following  day.* 

Giordani  could  only  compose  in  the  sun,  or  in  the 
presence  of  abundant  light  and  great  heat.s  Foscolo 
wrote  in  November  :  "  I  keep  near  the  fire  ;  my  friends 
laugh  at  me,  but  I  am  seeking  to  give  my  members  heat 
which  my  heart  will  concentrate  and  sublime  within."  6 
And  in  December  he  writes  :  "  My  natural  infirmity,  the 
fear  of  cold,  has  constrained  me  to  live  near  the  fire,  and 
the  fire  has  inflamed  my  eyelids."  Milton  confessed  in 
his  Latin  elegies  that  in  winter  his  muse  was  sterile  ;  he 
could  only  write  from  the  spring  equinox  to  that  of 
autumn.  In  a  letter  he  complains  of  the  cold  of  1678, 
and  fears  that,  if  it  lasts,  it  will  hinder  the  free  develop- 
ment of  his  imagination.  Dr.  lohnson,  who  tells  us  this 
in  his  Life  of  Milton,  may  be  believed  on  this  point,  for 
imagination  never  smiled  upon  him,  only  the  cold  and 
tranquil  intelligence  of  criticism,  and  he  adds  the  com- 
mentary that  all  this  must  be  the  result  of  eccentricity  of 
character,  he,  Johnson,  never  having  experienced  any 

1   Viaggio  in  Sicilia,  vol.  vii.  *  Epistolario,  1878. 

3  Nature,  Nov.  1883. 

4  R6veille-Parise,  Physiologic  des   hommes   livres  aux  travaux  de 
Vesprit,  pp.  352-355. 

*  Giussani,  Vita,  &c.,  p.  1 88.  6  Epistolario,  p.  395. 


METEOROLOGICAL  INFLUENCES.       105 

effects  from  the  variations  of  the  weather.  Poushkin 
often  said  that  he  found  himself  most  disposed  to 
composition  in  autumn  ;  the  brilliant  spring  sunshine 
produced  on  him  an  impression  of  melancholy.  Salvator 
Rosa  laughed  in  youth,  as  Lady  Morgan  tells  us  in  her 
Life,  at  the  pretended  influence  of  the  weather  on  works 
of  genius  ;  but  in  old  age  he  became  incapable  of  painting 
or  thinking,  almost  of  living,  except  in  the  heat  of  spring. 
In  reading  Schiller's  correspondence  with  Goethe  one  is 
struck  by  the  singular  influence  which  the  gentle  and 
imaginative  poet  attributed  to  the  weather.  In  November, 
1817,  he  wrote  :  "In  these  sad  days,  beneath  this  leaden 
sky,  I  have  need  of  all  my  elasticity  to  feel  alive,  and  do 
not  yet  feel  capable  of  serious  work."  And  in  December  : 
"  I  am  going  back  to  work,  but  the  weather  is  so  dull 
that  it  is  impossible  to  preserve  the  lucidity  of  the  soul." 
In  July,  1818  :  "  Thanks  to  the  fine  weather  I  am  better  ; 
the  lyric  inspiration,  which  obeys  the  will  less  than  any 
other,  does  not  delay."  In  December  he  complains  that 
the  necessity  of  completing  Wallenstein  unfortunately 
coincides  with  an  unfavourable  period  of  the  year,  "  so 
that,"  he  writes,  "  I  am  obliged  to  use  all  my  strength  to 
preserve  mental  clearness."  And  in  May,  1799  :  "  I  hope 
to  make  progress  in  my  work  if  the  weather  continues  fine." 

All  these  examples  allow  us  to  suspect,  with  some 
probability,  that  heat,  with  rare  exceptions,  aids  in  the 
productions  of  genius,  as  it  aids  in  vegetation,  and  also 
aids,  unfortunately,  in  the  stimulation  of  mania. 

If  historians,  who  have  squandered  so  much  time  and 
so  many  volumes  in  detailing  minutely  to  us  the  most 
shameless  exploits  of  kings,  had  sought  with  as  much 
care  the  memorable  epoch  in  which  a  great  discovery 
or  a  masterpiece  of  art  was  conceived,  they  would  no 
doubt  have  found  that  the  hottest  months  and  days  have 
always  been  most  fruitful  for  genius,  as  for  nature  generally. 

Let  us  endeavour  to  find  more  precise  proofs  of  this 
little-suspected  influence. 

Dante  wrote  his  first  sonnet  on  the  I5th  of  June,  1282  ; 
in  the  spring  of  1300  he  wrote  the  Vita  Nuova  ;  on  the 
3rd  of  April  he  began  his  great  poem.1  Darwin  had  the 
1  Lebin,  Sur  fepoque  de  la  composition  de  la  Vita  Nuova ,  p.  28. 


io6  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

earliest  ideas  of  his  great  work  first  in  March,  then  in 
June.1  Petrarch  conceived  the  Africa  in  March,  1338. 
Michelangelo's  great  cartoon,  the  work  which  so  compe- 
tent a  judge  as  Cellini  considered  his  most  wonderful 
masterpiece,  was  imagined  and  executed  between  April 
and  July,  1506.  Manzoni  wrote  his  5  Maggio  in  summer. 
Milton's  great  poem  was  conceived  in  the  spring.  Galileo 
discovered  Saturn's  ring  in  April,  1611.  Balzac  wrote 
La  Cousine  Bette  in  August  and  September,  Pere  Goriot 
in  September,  La  Recherche  de  PAbsolu  in  June  to 
September.  Sterne  began  Tristram  Shandy  in  January, 
the  first  of  his  sermons  in  April,  the  famous  one  on 
errors  of  conscience  in  May.2  Giordano  Bruno  composed 
his  Candelajo  in  July  ;  and  in  his  witty  dedication  he 
attributed  it  to  the  heat  of  the  dog-days.  Voltaire  wrote 
Tancred  in  August.  Byron  wrote  the  fourth  canto  of 
Childe  Harold  in  September,  his  Prophecy  of  Dante  in 
June,  his  Prisoner  of  Chillon  during  the  summer  in 
Switzerland.  Giusti  wrote  of  Gingillino  and  Pero  : 
"  Here  are  the  only  leaves  that  April  has  drawn  out 
of  my  head  after  fourteen  months  of  idleness."  Schiller, 
it  appears  from  his  letters  to  Goethe,  conceived  Don 
Carlos  and  Wallenstcin  in  the  autumn,  as  well  as  Fiesco 
and  Wilhelm  Tell ;  Wallensteins  Lager  and  Letters  on 
^Esthetics  in  September  ;  Kabale  und  Liebe  in  winter  ; 
the  Magician,  the  Glove,  the  Ring  of  Polycrates,  the 
Cranes  of  Ibycus,  and  Nadowessir"1  S  Song  in  June  ;  the 
Jungfrau  von  Orleans  in  July.  Goethe  wrote  Werther  in 
autumn  ;  Mignon  and  other  lyric  poems  in  May  ;  Cellini, 
Alexis,  Euphrosyne,  Metamorphosis  of  Plants,  and  Parnass 
in  June  and  July  ;  the  Xenien,  Hermann  und  Dorothea, 
Westostlichen  Divan,  and  Natiirliche  Tochter  in  winter. 
In  the  first  days  of  March,  1788,  which,  he  wrote,  were 
worth  more  to  him  than  a  whole  month,  he  dictated, 
besides  other  poems,  the  beginning  of  Faust.*  Salorno's 
hymn  to  Liberty  was  written  in  May.  Rossini  composed 
the  Scmiramide  almost  entirely  in  February,  and  in 


1  Life  and  Letters,  vol.  i.  p.  51. 

2  Stopfer,  Vie  de  Sterne,  Paris,  1870. 

3  Goethe,  Aus  Meinem  Leben. 


METEOROLOGICAL  INFLUENCES.       107 

November  the  last  part  of  the  Stabat  Mater.1-  Mozart 
composed  the  Mitridate  in  October ;  Beethoven  his  ninth 
symphony  in  February.2  Donizetti  composed  Lucia  di 
Lammcrmoor,  perhaps  entirely,  in  September  ;  in  any 
case,  the  famous  TIL  chc  a  Dio  spiegasti  Fale  belongs  to 
that  date  ;  the  Figlia  del  Reggimcnto  was  also  composed 
in  autumn  ;  Linda  de  Chamoum'x  in  spring  ;  Rita  in 
summer  ;  Don  Pasqnale  and  the  Miserere  in  winter. 3 
Wagner  composed  Der  Flicgende  Hollander  in  the  spring 
of  1841.  Canova  modelled  his  first  work,  Orpheus  and 
Eurydice,  in  October.-*  Michelangelo  conceived  his  Pieta 
between  September  and  October,  1498,5  the  design  of  the 
Libreria  in  December,  the  model  in  wood  of  the  tomb  of 
Pope  Julius  in  August.6  Leonardo  da  Vinci  conceived 
the  equestrian  statue  of  the  Sforza  and  began  his  book 
Delia  luce  e  delle  Ombre  in  April ;  for  we  find  in  his 
autograph  manuscript  these  words  :  u  On  April  the  23rd, 
1492,  I  commenced  this  book  and  recommenced  the 
horse."  On  the  2nd  of  July,  1491,  he  designed  the 
pavilion  of  the  Duchess's  Bath  ;  on  the  3rd  of  March, 
1509,  St.  Christopher's  Canal. 7  The  first  idea  of  the 
discovery  of  America  came  to  Columbus  between  May 
and  June,  in  1474,  in  the  form  of  a  search  for  the  western 
passage  to  India.8  Galileo  discovered  the  sun's  spots 
contemporaneously  with,  or  before,  Scheiner  in  April, 
i6n;9  in  December,  1610,  and  even  in  September 
(since  he  speaks  of  his  observation  having  been  made 
three  months  previously),  he  discovered  the  analogy 
between  the  phases  of  Venus  and  those  of  the  moon  ;  in 

1  Zanolini,  Rossini,  1876. 

2  Clement,  Les  Musiciens  Celebres^  Paris,  1878. 

3  Alborghetti,  Vita  di  Donizetti,  1876. 

4  D'Este,  Meniorie  su  Canova,  1864. 

5  Gotti,  Vita  di  Michelangelo,  Florence,  1873. 

6  Milanesi,  Letters  di  Michelangelo    Florence,  1875. 

7  Amoretti,  Memorie  storiche  sulla  vita  e  gli  stiidi  di  Leonardo  da 
Vinci,  Milan,  1874. 

8  W.   Irving,  Columns,  vol.  i.  p.  819  ;  Roselly  de  Lorque,  Vie  de 
Colomb.,  1857. 

9  According  to  Secchi  (Soldi,  1875)  .Scheiner  preceded  Galileo,  and 
was  himself  preceded  by  Fabricio,  though  the  discovery  of  this  last  was 
not  known  until  a  later  date. 


io8  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

May,  1609,  he  invented  the  telescope  ; l  in  July,  1610,  he 
discovered  two  stars,  afterwards  found  to  be  the  most 
luminous  points  of  Saturn's  ring,  a  discovery  which, 
according  to  his  custom,  he  expressed  in  verse  : — 

"  Altissimum  planetam  tergeminuni  observavi" 

In  January  he  found  Jupiter's  satellites  ;  in  November, 
1602,  the  isochronism  of  the  oscillations  of  the  pendulum.2 

Kepler  discovered  the  law  which  bears  his  name  in  May, 
1618  ;  the  discovery  of  Zucchi  regarding  Jupiter  took 
place  in  May  ;  that  of  Tycho  Brahe  in  November.  Fab- 
ricius  discovered  the  first  changing  star  in  August,  1546. 
Cassini  discovered  the  spots  which  indicate  the  rotation 
of  Venus  in  October  and  April  (1666-67),  and  in  October, 
December,  and  March  (1671,  1672,  1684)  four  satellites  of 
Saturn.  Herschel  discovered  two  in  March,  1789.  In 
June,  1631,  Hevelius  conceived  the  first  ideas  of  seleno- 
graphy.3  A  satellite  of  Saturn  was  discovered  by  Huy- 
gens  on  the  25th  of  March,  1665  ;  another  by  Dawes  and 
Bond  on  the  night  of  the  i^th  of  September,  1848.  Two 
satellites  of  Uranus  were  discovered  by  Herschel  in  1787  ; 
one  of  them,  considered  as  doubtful  by  Herschel,  was  again 
discovered  by  Struve  and  Lassel  in  October,  1847  ;  the  last, 
Ariel,  was  discovered  by  Lassel  on  the  I4th  of  September, 
1 847  ;  on  the  8th  of  July  in  the  same  year  he  had  also 
seen  Neptune's  satellite  for  the  first  time/  Uranus  was 
discovered  by  Herschel  in  March,  1781.  The  same  as- 
tronomer observed  the  moon's  volcanoes  in  April.  Bradley 
discovered  in  September  (1728)  the  aberration  of  light, 
Enke's  and  Vico's  fine  observations  on  Saturn  took  place 
in  March  and  April  (1735-38).  Of  the  comets  discovered 
by  Gambart,  three  were  in  July,  two  in  March  and  in  May, 
one  in  January,  April,  June,  August,  October,  December. s 
The  last  three  comets  discovered  in  1877  were  perceived 
in  October,  February,  and  September  ;  in  August  Hall 
observed  the  satellites  of  Mars.  Schiaparelli's  discovery 
on  falling  stars  dates  from  August,  1866. 

We  read  in  Malpighi's  journal  that  in  July  he  made 

1  Galilei,  Opere,  vol.  i.  p.  69.  2  Arago,  (Euvres,  1851. 

3  Hoefer,  op.  cit.  4  Herschel,  Outlines  of  Astronomy,  1874. 

5  Arago,  Notices  Biographiques,  1855. 


METEOROLOGICAL  INFLUENCES.       109 

his  great  discoveries  in  the  suprarenal  glands.  It  is 
curious  to  observe  how  some  one  month  predominates 
in  certain  years  :  for  example,  January  in  1788  and  1790, 
and  June  in  1771,  during  which  he  made  thirteen  dis- 
coveries.1 

The  first  idea  of  the  barometer  came  to  Torricelli  in 
May,  1645,  as  may  be  seen  by  his  letters  to  Ricci  ;  in 
March,  1644,  he  had  made  the  discovery,  of  great  moment 
at  that  time,  of  the  best  way  of  making  glasses  for 
spectacles.  The  first  experiments  of  Pascal  on  the  equi- 
librium of  fluids  were  made  in  September,  i645.2  In 
March,  1752,  Franklin  began  his  experiments  with  light- 
ning conductors,  and  concluded  them  in  September. 

Goethe  declared  that  it  was  in  May  that  his  original 
ideas  on  the  theory  of  colours  arose,  and  in  June  that  he 
made  his  fine  observations  on  the  metamorphoses  of 
plants. 3  Hamilton  discovered  the  calculus  of  Quaternions 
on  the  1 6th  of  October,  1843. 

Volta  invented  the  electric  pile  in  the  beginning  of 
winter,  1799-1800.  In  the  spring  of  1775  he  invented 
the  electrophore.  In  the  first  days  of  November,  1784, 
he  discovered  the  production  of  hydrogen  in  organic 
fermentations.  His  invention  of  the  eudiometer  took 
place  in  the  spring,  about  May.  In  April  of  the  same 
year  (1777)  Volta  wrote  to  Barletta  the  famous  letter  in 
which  he  divined  the  electric  telegraph.  In  the  spring  of 
1788  he  constructed  his  great  conductor. 

Luigi  Brugnatelli  found  out  galvanoplasty  in  Novem- 
ber, 1806,  as  is  shown  by  a  letter  which  the  advocate 
Zanino  Volta  found  in  the  correspondence  of  his  grand- 
father. Nicholson  discovered  the  oxydation  of  metals  by 
means  of  the  Voltaic  pile,  in  the  summer  of  1800. 

From  the  examination  of  Galvani's  manuscripts  it 
appears  that  his  studies  on  intestinal  gases  began  in 
December,  1713.  His  first  studies  on  the  action  of  atmos- 
pheric electricity  on  the  nerves  of  cold-blooded  animals 
were  undertaken,  as  he  himself  writes,  "  at  the  2Oth  hour  of 
the  2 6th  of  April,  1776."  In  September,  1786,  he  began  his 

1  Atti,  Delia  Vita  di  Malpighi,  1774. 

2  Hcefer,  Histoire  de  la  Chimie,  1869.  3  Briefe  an  Schiller. 


no  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

experiments  on  the  contractions  of  frogs,  whence  the  origin 
of  galvanism.  In  November,  1780,  he  stated  his  experi- 
ments on  the  contractions  of  frogs  by  artificial  electricity.1 

We  see  by  Lagrange's  manuscripts,  published  by  Bon- 
compagni,  that  he  had  the  first  idea  of  the  Calculus  of 
Variations  on  the  I2th  of  June,  1755  ;  on  the  I9th  of 
May  (1756)  he  conceived  the  idea  of  the  Mecam'que  Ana- 
litique  ;  in  November,  1759,  he  found  a  solution  of  the 
problem  of  vibrating  cords.2 

From  the  manuscripts  of  Spallanzani,  which  I  have  been 
able  to  examine  in  the  Communal  Library  at  Reggio,  it 
appears  that  his  observations  on  moulds  began  on  the  26th 
of  September,  1770.  On  the  8th  of  May,  1780,  Spallan- 
zani started,  to  use  his  own  words,  u  the  study  of  animals 
which  are  torpid  through  the  action  of  cold  ; ''  in  April  and 
May,  1776,  he  discovered  the  parthenogenesis  of  certain 
animals.  The  2nd  of  April,  1780,  was  the  richest  day  in 
experiments,  or  rather  deductions,  on  the  subject  of  ovula- 
tion.  u  It  becomes  clear,"  he  wrote  on  this  same  day, 
after  having  made  forty-three  observations,  "  that  the  ova 
are  not  fecundated  in  the  womb  ;  that  the  sperm  cells 
after  emission  remain  apt  for  fecundation  for  a  certain 
time,  that  the  vesicular  fluid  fecundates  as  well  as  the 
seminal,  that  wine  and  vinegar  are  opposed  to  fecunda- 
tion." "  Impatience,"  adds  this  curious  manuscript,  which 
enables  us  to  assist  at  the  incubation  of  these  wonderful 
experiments,  "  will  not  allow  me  to  draw  any  more  corol- 
laries." On  the  7th  of  May,  1780,  he  discovered  that  an 
infinitely  small  amount  of  semen  sufficed  for  fecundation. 
A  letter  to  Bonnet  shows  that  Spallanzani  had,  during  the 
spring  of  1771,  the  idea  of  studying  the  action  of  the  heart 
on  the  circulation.  In  March,  1773,  he  undertook  his 
studies  on  rotifera,  and  in  his  manuscripts  for  May,  1781, 
may  be  found  a  plan  of  161  new  experiments  on  the 
artificial  fecundation  of  frogs. 

Geoffrey  Saint-Hilaire  had  his  first  ideas  on  the  homo- 
logies  of  organisms  in  February.  Davy  discovered  iodine 
in  December.  Humboldt  made  his  first  observations  on 


1  Gherardi,  Rapporti  sui  Manoscritti  di  Galvani,  1839. 

2  Schiaparelli,  Intorno  Alcune  Lettere  inedite  di  Lagrange^  1877. 


METEOROLOGICAL  INFLUENCES.       in 

the  magnetic  needle  in  November,  1796  ;  in  March,  1793, 
he  observed  the  irritability  of  organic  fibres.1  The  pro- 
legomena of  the  Cosmos  was  dictated  in  October.2  In 
July,  1801,  Gay-Lussac  discovered  fluoric  acid  in  fish- 
bones ;  he  completed  the  analysis  of  alum  in  July.3  In 
September,  1846,  Morton  used  sulphuric  ether  as  an 
anaesthetic  in  surgery.  In  October,  1840,  Armstrong 
invented  the  first  hydro-electric  machine.1* 

Matteucci  made  his  experiments  with  the  galvanoscope  in 
July,  1830  ;  on  torpedoes  in  the  spring  of  1836  ;  on 
electro-motor  muscles  in  July,  1837  ;  on  the  decompo- 
sition of  acids  in  May,  1835  >  ne  determined  in  May, 
1837,  the  influence  of  electricity  on  the  weather  ;  in 
June,  1833,  he  concluded  his  experiments  on  heat  and 
magnetism. s 

The  reader  who  has  had  the  patience  to  follow  this 
wearisome  catalogue  to  the  end,  may  convince  himself 
that  many  men  of  genius  have,  as  it  were,  a  specific 
chronology  ;  that  is  to  say,  a  tendency  to  make  their  most 
numerous  observations,  to  accomplish  their  finest  dis- 
coveries, or  their  best  aesthetic  productions,  at  a  special 
season  or  in  one  month  rather  than  another  :  Spallanzani 
in  the  spring,  Giusti  and  Arcangeli  in  March,  Lanvartine 
in  August,  Carcano,  Byron,  and  Alfieri  in  September, 
Malpighi  and  Schiller  in  June  and  July,  Hugo  in  May, 
BeYanger  in  January,  Belli  in  November,  Melli  in  April, 
Volta  in  November  and  December,  Galvani  in  April, 
Gambart  in  July,  Peters  in  August,  Luther  in  March  and 
April,  Watson  in  September. 

A  more  general  kind  of  specific  chronology,  a  sort  of 
intellectual  calendar,  is  presented  when  we  sum  up  various 
intellectual  creations — poetry,  music,  sculpture,  natural 
discoveries — of  which  the  date  of  conception  can  be 
precisely  fixed.  This  may  be  seen  from  the  following 
table  :— 


1  llumboldt,  Correspondence,  Paris,  1868. 

2  Letters  from  Ilumboldt  to  Varnhagen. 
;1  Arago,  Notices  BiograpJiiques,  1855. 

4  Who  well,  History  of  the  Inductive  Sciences,  1857. 

5  N.  Bianchi,  Vita  di  Matteucci,  Florence,  1874. 


112 


THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 


Literary 

Physical, 
Chemical. 

Month. 

and/ 
Artistic 

Astronomical 
Discoveries.  ' 

and 
Mathema- 

Total. 

Works. 

tical 

Discoveries. 

IOI 

•77 

n8 

February      .... 

82 

21 

I 

1  J° 
104 

March      

104 

45 

5 

154 

April  

I?e 

C2 

IQ2 

May    .     . 

1AQ 

j* 

•ye 

iy.6 

JJ 

1Vj 

J2C 

2A. 

I  C4 

July    .     .     . 

•*J 

IOC 

C2 

lj't 
l62 

August 

III 

J* 
A2 

T  CC 

September    .... 

138 

e\£ 

47 

5 

155 

190 

October  

83 

At 

1  12 

November    .... 
December     .... 

'Si 

42 
27 

5 

2 

1J-6 
150 

"5 

One  observes  at  once  that  the  most  favourable  month 
for  aesthetic  creations  is  May  ;  then  come  September  and 
April ;  the  minimum  is  presented  by  the  months  of  Feb- 
ruary, October,  and  December.  The  same  may  be  observed 
partially  with  astronomical  discoveries  ;  but  here  April 
and  Jufy  predominate,  while  for  physical  discoveries  as 
well  as  for  aesthetic  creations,  the  months  of  May,  April, 
and  September  stand  first.  Thus  the  advantage  belongs 
to  the  months  of  early  heat  more  than  to  the  months  of 

1  The  catalogue  of  small  planets  has  been  drawn  from  the  Anmiaire 
du  Bureau  des  Longitudes  (Paris,  1877-8).  The  list  of  comets  has  been 
taken  from  Carl's  Repertorium  der  Cometen  Astronomie  (Munich,  1864). 
It  begins  with  the  comet  discovered  by  Hevelius  in  1672,  and  ends  with 
that  found  by  Donati  on  the  23rd  of  July,  1864. ;  Gambart's  comets, 
already  separately  enumerated,  have  been  excluded.  To  keep  the 
conditions  analogous  to  those  of  the  small  planets,  all  the  comets  to 
which  Carl  does  not  assign  a  discoverer,  have  been  omitted  ;  this 
includes  such  as  were  expected  from  previous  calculations  or  perceived 
with  the  naked  eye  by  the  general  population.  All  those  that  were 
discovered  simultaneously  by  several  observers,  unknown  to  one  another, 
have,  however,  been  included,  for  it  is  not  a  question  of  priority,  but  of 
the  psychological  moment  of  the  discovery.  Three  comets  discovered 
in  the  months  of  February,  May,  and  December,  were  found  in  the 
southern  hemisphere ;  they  must,  therefore,  with  reference  to  season 
be  registered  as  for  August,  November,  and  June,  and  have  so  been 
counted. 


RELATION    to  average   monthly  temperature  to  admission  of  lunatics 
to  asylum,  and  to  production  of  works  of  genius. 


METEOROLOGICAL  INFLUENCES.       113 

great  heat,  as  with  insanity  also  ;  in  the  same  way  the 
months  of  greatest  barometric  variation  have  an  ad- 
vantage over  very  hot  and  very  cold  months. 

If  we  now  group  these  data  according  to  seasons,  which 
will  allow  us  to  include  other  data  in  which  the  exact 
month  cannot  be  stated,  we  shall  find  that  the  maximum 
of  artistic  and  literary  creation  falls  in  spring,  388  ; 
then  comes  summer,  with  347  ;  then  autumn,  335  ;  and 
lastly,  winter,  with  280. 

The  majority  of  great  physical,  chemical,  and  mathema- 
tical discoveries  took  place  in  spring,  22  ;  then  autumn, 
15  ;  very  few  in  summer,  10  ;  and  only  five  in  winter. 
I  have  separated  astronomical  discoveries  from  physical, 
and  other  discoveries,  because  their  precise  dates  are  less 
doubtful  and  therefore  more  important.  We  find  135  in 
autumn  ;  131  in  spring  ;  120  in  summer  ;  and  only  83  in 
winter.  Taking  these  1,871  great  discoveries  altogether, 
we  find  spring  coming  first,  with  541  ;  then  autumn,  with 
485  ;  with  477  in  summer  ;  and  368  in  winter. 

It  is  evident,  then,  that  the  first  warm  months  distinctly 
predominate  in  the  creations  of  genius,  as  well  as  in 
organic  nature  generally,  although  the  question  cannot 
be  absolutely  resolved  on  account  of  the  scarcity  of 
data,  as  regards  both  quantity  and  quality.  It  was, 
however,  in  the  spring  that  the  discovery  of  America 
was  conceived,  as  well  as  galvanism,  the  barometer, 
the  telescope,  and  the  lightning  conductor  ;  in  the 
spring,  Michelangelo  had  the  idea  of  his  great  car- 
toon, Dante  of  his  Divina  Commcdia,  Leonardo  of  his 
book  on  light,  Goethe  of  his  Fatist ;  it  was  in  the  spring- 
that  Kepler  discovered  his  law,  that  Milton  conceived  his 
great  poem,  Darwin  his  great  theory,  and  Wagner  the 
Fliegende  Hollander,  the  first  of  his  great  music  dramas. 

It  may  be  added  that  in  the  few  cases  in  which  we  may 
follow,  day  by  day,  the  traces  of  the  works  of  great  men, 
we  usually  find  that  their  activity  increases  in  the 
warm  months  and  decreases  in  the  cold  months.  Thus  in 
Spallanzani's  journals,  and  especially  during  the  years 
I777~78  and  1780-81,  in  which  he  was  undertaking  his 
investigations  into  moulds,  digestion,  and  fecundation,  I 
found  50  days  of  observation  in  March,  65  in  April,  143 

9 


H4  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

in  May,  41  in  June,  33  in  August,  24  in  September  ; 
while  there  were  only  17  in  December,  10  in  November, 
1 8  in  January,  1 7  in  July,  and  2  in  February. 

If  we  examine  the  curious  journal  of  his  own  observa- 
tions, which  Malpighi  kept  day  by  day  for  thirty-four 
years,  we  find,  grouping  the  observations  according  to 
months,  July  coming  first  with  71  days,  followed  by  June 
with  66,  May  42,  October  40,  January  36,  September  34, 
April  33,  March  31,  August  28,  November  20,  December 
13.*  Out  of  over  four  hundred  observations  less  than  a 
fifth  took  place  in  the  winter  months. 

It  appears  from  Galvani's  manuscripts,  as  examined  by 
Gherardi,  that  between  the  years  1772  and  1781  his  in- 
vestigations on  irritability,  muscular  movement,  the 
structure  of  the  ear,  the  tympanic  bone,  and  the  organ 
of  hearing,  all  belong  to  the  month  of  April,  while  his 
work  on  cataract  belongs  to  March,  and  that  on  the 
hygiene  of  sight  to  January.  There  seems,  therefore,  to 
be  here  a  remarkable  predominance  for  April,  though 
there  is  less  certainty  than  in  the  preceding  cases. 

I  imagine  the  objections  that  may  be  made  against 
these  conclusions  ;  the  scarcity  of  data,  their  doubtful- 
ness, the  boldness  of  bringing  within  the  narrow  circle  of 
statistics  those  sublime  phenomena  of  intellectual'creation 
which  seem  the  least  susceptible  of  calculation.  Such 
objections  may  have  weight  with  those  who  believe  that 
statistics  can  only  deal  with  large  numbers — perhaps  more 
remarkable  for  quantity  than  for  quality — and  who  thrust 
aside  a  priori  all  reasoning  on  the  data,  as  though  figures 
were  not  facts,  subject  like  all  other  facts  to  synthesis,  and 
had  not  their  true  value  as  materials  for  the  thinker.  The 
facts  I  have  brought  forward,  though  not  large,  are  at  all 
events  to  be  preferred  to  mere  hypotheses,  or  to  the  isolated 
statements  of  authors,  the  more  so  as  they  are  in  harmony 
with  these  latter,  and  may  at  least  serve  as  an  encourage- 
ment to  a  new  series  of  fruitful  psychometeoric  researches. 

It  may  be  said  also  that  the  creations  of  genius  cannot 
furnish  great  columns  of  figures. 

It  is  very  true,  however,  that  in  regard  to  many  of 

Atti,  Delia  Vita  ed  opere  di  Malpighi ,  Bologna,  1774. 


METEOROLOGICAL  INFLUENCES.       115 

them  the  chronological  coincidence  is  connected  with 
accidental  circumstances  entirely,  independent  of  the 
psychic  condition.  Thus  naturalists  have  greater  facili- 
ties for  observation  and  experiment  in  warm  months  ; 
thus,  also,  the  length  and  equability  of  equinoctial  nights, 
the  difficulty  of  making  examinations  on  foggy  days,  the 
weariness  and  discomfort  experienced  on  days  that  are 
very  hot  or  very  cold,  largely  account  for  the  predomi- 
nance of  discoveries  in  spring  and  autumn. 

Yet  these  are  not  the  only  determining  circumstances. 
In  the  case  of  anatomists,  for  example,  bodies  may  be  had 
at  all  seasons,  and  principally  in  winter  ;  and,  again,  the 
long  and  clear  winter  nights,  in  which  the  influence  of 
refraction  is  less,  ought  to  be  as  favourable  to  the  astrono- 
mers of  temperate  climates  as  the  warm  summer  nights 
of  northern  climates  which  give  us,  however,  a  greater 
number  of  astronomical  discoveries. 

It  is  well  known,  also,  that  accidental  circumstances 
influence  even  the  phenomena  of  death,  birth,  murder, 
when  closely  considered  statistically.  If,  however,  all 
these  phenomena  conduce  to  the  same  result,  we  are  led 
to  infer  a  similar  cause  common  to  all,  and  this  can  only 
be  found  in  meteorological  influences. 

I  have  grouped  together  aesthetic  creations  and  scientific 
discoveries  because  they  are  associated  by  that  moment  of 
psychic  excitation  and  extreme  sensibility  which  brings 
together  the  most  remote  facts,  the  fecundating  moment 
which  has  rightly  been  called  generative,  a  moment 
at  which  poets  and  men  of  science  are  nearer  than  is 
generally  supposed.  Was  there  not  an  audacious  imagi- 
nation in  Spallanzani's  experiments,  in  Herschel's  first 
attempts,  in  the  great  discoveries  of  Leverrier  and  Schia- 
parelli,  born  of  hypothesis,  which  calculation  and  ob- 
servation transformed  into  axioms  ?  Littrow,  speaking 
of  the  discovery  of  Vesta,  observes  that  it  was  not  the 
result  of  chance  nor  of  genius  alone,  but  of  genius  favoured 
by  chance.  The  star  discovered  by  Piazzi  had  glimmered 
in  Zach's  eyes,  but  he,  with  less  genius  than  Piazzi,  or  in 
a  moment  of  less  perspicacity,  attached  no  importance  to 
it.  The  discovery  of  the  solar  spots  only  needed  time, 
patience,  and  good  fortune,  remarked  Secchi ;  but  it 


n6  THE  MAN  OF  GEN  JUS. 

needed  genius  to  discover  their  true  theory.  How  many 
learned  natural  philosophers,  observes  Arago,  in  going 
down  a  river  must  have  observed  the  fluttering  of  the 
vane  at  the  mast-head,  without  discovering,  like  Bradley, 
the  law  of  aberration.  And  how  many  artists,  one  might 
add,  must  have  seen  hideous  heads  of  porters,  without 
conceiving  Leonardo's  Judas,  or  oranges  without  creating 
the  cavatina  of  Mozart's  Don  Giovanni. 

There  is,  however,  one  last  objection  which  seems  more 
seriqus.  Nearly  all  great  intellectual  creations,  and  all 
discoveries  of  modern  physics,  are  the  results  of  the  slow 
and  continuous  meditations  of  men  of  science  and  their 
predecessors  ;  so  that  they  form  a  kind  of  compilation, 
the  chronology  of  which  is  not  easy  to  define,  because  the 
date  at  which  we  are  arrested  indicates  the  moment  of 
birth  rather  than  of  conception.  This  objection,  however, 
may  be  applied  to  nearly  all  human  phenomena,  even  the 
most  sudden.  Thus,  fecundation  is  a  phenomenon  which 
depends  on  the  good  nutrition  of  the  organism,  and  on 
heredity  ;  insanity,  death  itself,  though  apparently  pro- 
duced by  sudden,  even  casual,  circumstances,  are  yet 
related  on  one  side  to  the  weather  and  on  the  other  to 
organic  conditions ;  so  that  often,  one  may  say,  the 
precise  date  is  fixed  at  birth. 


CHAPTER   II. 
CLIMATIC  INFLUENCES  ON  GENIUS. 

Influence  of  great  centres — Race  and  hot  climates— The  distribution 
of  great  masters— Orographic  influences— -Influence  of  healthy 
race — Parallelism  of  high  stature  and  genius — Explanations. 

BUCKLE  thought  that  most  artists,  unlike  men  of  science, 
were  produced  in  volcanic  countries.1  Jacoby,  in  an 
excellent  monograph,3  finds  the  greatest  number  of 
superior  intelligences  where  the  urban  population  is 
densest.  It  seems  impossible  to  deny  that  race  (the  Latin 
and  Greek  races,  for  example,  abound  in  great  men),  political 
and  scientific  struggles,  wealth,  literary  centres  have  a 
great  influence  on  the  appearance  of  men  of  genius.  Who 
would  maintain  that  the  political  struggles  and  great 
liberty  of  Athens,  Siena,  and  Florence  have  not  con- 
tributed to  produce  in  ancient  times  a  more  powerful 
display  of  genius  than  at  other  epochs  and  in  other 
countries  ? 

But  when  we  recall  the  preponderating  influence  of 
meteorological  phenomena  on  works  of  genius  it  becomes 
clear  that  a  still  more  important  place  must  be  reserved 
for  atmospheric  and  climatic  conditions. 

The  Influence  of  Great  Centres,  of  Race,  and  of  Hot 
Climates. — It  is  worth  while  to  study  the  distribution  of 
great  artists  in  Europe,  and  especially  in  Italy. 

For  musicians  I  have  used  the  works  of  Fe*tis3  and 
Clement  4  •  for  painters  and  sculptors  I  have  referred  to 
Ticozzi's  two  dictionaries^  Here  are  the  results  :— 

1  History  of  Civilisation,  i. 

-  P. 'tildes  sur  la  Selection,  &c. ,  Paris,  1881. 

<  Jiiogi-aphie  Univcnelle  des  Musicicns,  Paris,  i863-So, 

4  Ilistoire  des  Musiciens  Celebris,  Paris,  1878. 

5  Dizionario  dei  Pit  (on,  1858. 


n8 


THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 


MUSICIANS  IN  EUROPE. 


Country, 

Italy 

Belgium 

Germany 

France 

Holland 

Greece 

Switzerland, 

Denmark     . 

Austria 

England 

Portugal 

Spain 

Ireland 

Russia 

Sweden 


Nujnbcr.    To  one  million  inhabitants. 


1210 

98 

650 

405 

31 

15 

20 

H 
239 
I49 

17 
62 

7 

34 
9 


40.7 

16.7 

13-8 

10.7 

7-7 

7-5 

7.0 

6.6 

6.5 

4.6 

3-6 

3-5 

1.4 

0.4 

0.2 


The  countries  which  have  furnished  the  greatest  number 
of  musicians  after  Italy  are  Belgium,  Germany,  and 
France,  the  countries  which  have  the  greatest  density  of 
population  ;  the  poorest  in  musicians  are  Ireland,  Russia, 
and  Sweden,  with  a  very  slight  density,  especially  the 
two  last.  The  influence  of  volcanic  soil  and  of  Latin 
race  does  not  clearly  appear,  when  one  notes  the  feeble 
proportions  given  by  Spain  and  Greece  compared  to 
Germany. 

If,  however,  we  study  the  distribution  of  musicians 
in  the  various  regions  of  Italy,  we  see  immediately  that 
the  hot  and  non-insular  districts  stand  first  ;  then  Emilia 
and  Venetia  ;  Piedmont,  the  Marches  and  Umbria  stand 
low,  and  Sardinia  is  completely  absent.  We  do  not, 
however,  obtain  a  sufficiently  clear  view  of  the  orographic 
influences  until  we  take  the  provinces  separately.1 


Naples    . . . 

Rome 

Venice 

Milan 

Bologna 

Florence 

Lucca 

Parma 

Genoa 

Turin 

Verona 

Brescia 


216 

Mantua  . 

127 

Modena  . 

124 

Cremona. 

95 

Palermo  . 

9i 

Novara    . 

70 

Bergamo 

37 

Bari 

34 

Ferrara  . 

30 

Padua 

27 

Pisa 

24 

Reggio    . 

22 

Piacenza. 

19 
19 
17 
17 
17 

16 
16 
15 
15 
'3 

12 
II 


CLIMATIC  INFLUENCES  ON  GENIUS.  119 

•We  then  see  in  a  remarkable  manner  how  the  most 
populous  centres  come  to  the  front,  including  nearly  all 
the  provinces  containing  large  towns,  except  Piedmont, 
Sardinia,  and  Sicily.  It  is  sufficient  to  mention  Naples, 
Rome,  Venice,  Milan,  Bologna,  Florence,  Lucca,  Parma, 
and  Genoa.  Here,  evidently,  we  see  the  influence  of 
healthy,  warm,  maritime,  and,  above  all,  elevated 
regions  ;  often  this  influence  even  struggles  against  that 
of  civilization  and  of  great  centres.  Large  cities  prevail 
in  the  proportion  of  7  out  of  9.  In  the  second  line  we 
see  other  important  towns  emerge,  or  great  maritime 
centres,  especially  if  volcanic  :  Palermo,  Bari,  Catania, 
and  especially  mountainous  countries,  Bergamo,  Brescia, 
Verona,  Vicenza,  Perugia,  Siena.  The  racial  influence  is 
not  clear  here  ;  the  Berber  and  Semitic  races  do  not, 
however,  seem  to  favour  art,  especially  in  hot  regions, 
and  we  may  thus  explain  the  paucity  of  musicians  among 
the  Sardinians,  Calabrians,  and  Sicilians.  The  Greco- 
Roman  and  Etruscan  races  seem  better  endowed  on  the 
other  hand,  whence  the  predominance  of  Naples,  Rome, 
Lucca,  and  Bologna.  The  action  of  earthquakes,  which, 
according  to  Buckle,  has  a  large  part  in  artistic  creation, 
is  not  very  apparent.  If  Naples  and  Aversa  are  placed 
in  the  first  rank  (which  could  be  explained  by  race  and 
climate),  it  is  not  so  with  Calabria,  where  earthquakes 
are  so  numerous. 


Siena 
Ravenna... 
Vicenza  ... 
Perugia   . . . 
Pesaro     . . . 
Alessandria 
Treviso   .. 
Catania  .. 
Arezzo     . . 
Lecce 
Conio 
Ancona  .. 
Ucline     .. 
Macerata 
Caserta    . . 
Livorno  .. 
Forli 


10  !    Messina 

10      Rovigo 

10      Chieti 

•        9 

Fpggia 

9 

(  'unco 

8 

Pavia 

8 

Massa 

__ 

7 

Teramo 

6 

Siracusa  . 

6 

Ascoli 

5 

Campobasso 

5 

Belluno  ... 

5 

Catanzaro 

5 

Avellino... 

4 

Potenza  ... 

3 

Reggio-Calabria 

3 

Caltanisetta 

120  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

The  Distribution  of  Great  Masters. — It  must  be 
remarked  that  quantity  does  not  always  correspond 
to  quality  ;  it  is  sufficient  to  see  that  the  regions  that 
produced  a  Bellini  and  a  Rossini  appear  to  be  the  most 
sterile  centres.  Yet  the  appearance  of  a  single  great 
genius  is  more  than  equivalent  to  the  birth  of  a  hundred 
mediocrities. 

If  we  take  account  of  the  proportion  of  great  com- 
posers, we  see  that  the  most  favoured  regions  are  hot  and 
maritime,  especially  Naples,  closely  followed  by  Rome, 
Parma,  Milan,  and  Cremona.  Here  the  influences  of 
density  and  of  the  school  come  in  the  third  line,  after 
that  of  climate. 

Thus,  in  searching  Clement's  book,  and  Florimo's,1 
we  find  that  out  of  118  great  composers,  44,  or  more 
than  a  third,  belong  to  Italy  ;  and  that  among  these  last, 
27,  or  more  than  half,  are  supplied  by  Sicily  (Scarlatti, 
Pacini,  Bellini),  and  by  Naples  and  neighbouring  places, 
especially  Aversa  (Jomelli,  Stradella,  Piccinni,  Leo,  Feo, 
Vinci,  Fenaroli,  the  inventor  of  opera-bouffe,  Speranza, 
Contumaci,  Sala,  Caffaro,  Duni,  Sacchini,  Carafa, 
Paisiello,  Cimarosa,  Zingarelli,  Mercadante,  Durante,  the 
two  Ricci  and  Petrella),  no  doubt  owing  to  the  influence 
of  Greek  race  and  warm  climate.  Of  the  other  17,  a 
few  belong  to  Upper  Italy  :  Donizetti,  Verdi,  Allegri, 
Frescobaldi,  the  two  Monteverdi,  Salieri,  Marcello, 
Paganini  (these  last  three  to  the  sea-coast)  ;  and  all  the 
others  to  Central  Italy  ;  Palestrina  and  Clementi  to 
Rome,  and  Spontini,  Lulli,  and  Pergolese,  to  Perugia 
and  Florence.2 

If  we  compare  the  regions  which  have  produced  the 
greatest  composers  and  relatively  few  minor  masters,  we 
find  that  Pesaro,  Catania,  Arezzo,  and  Alessandria 
come  first.  The  coincidence  of  musical  geniuses  and 
mediocrities,  both  in  large  numbers,  is  found  at  Naples, 
Rome,  Parma,  Florence,  Milan,  Cremona,  and  Venice, 
with  an  evident  influence  here  also  of  warm  maritime 

1  La  Scuola  Musicalc  di  Napoli,  1883. 

2  See  my  Pensiero  e  Meteore,   1872,  and  Archivio  di  Psichiafria, 
1880,  p.  157. 


CL  IMA  TIC  I  NFL  UENCES  ON  GEN/  US.   121 

climate,  of  the  Greco-Etruscan  race  and  of  great  centres 
(5  out  of  7). 

In  painting  we  find  that  the  large  towns  predominate 
both  for  number  and  celebrity,  with  the  exception  of 
Sardinia  and  Sicily.  Bologna,  Florence,  Venice,  and 
Milan  come  first  as  regards  number  ;  Florence,  and  in 
the  second  line  Verona,  Naples,  Rome,  and  Venice,  both 
for  number  and  celebrity  ;  and  we  still  find  that,  after 
large  towns,  mountainous  countries  give  the  highest 
figures  as  regards  number.  It  is  sufficient  to  name 
Perugia,  Arezzo,  Siena,  Udine,  Verona,  Vicenza,  Parma, 
Brescia.1 

Almost  the  same  relations  are  observed  in  regard  to 
sculptors  and  architects.  We  see  the  great  centres  of 
civilization  and  hilly  regions  in  the  first  rank  ;  Florence 
especially,  then  Milan,  Venice,  Naples,  Como,  Siena, 
Verona,  Massa,  and  in  the  third  line  Arezzo,  Perugia, 
Vicenza,  Bergamo,  Macerata,  Catania,  and  Palermo.2 


1  Bologna  ... 

...  262       Reggio   ... 

...     29 

Florence 

...  252 

Pisa         

...     29 

Venice    ... 

...   138 

Treviso    .. 

...     24 

Milan      

...   127 

Ascoli     ... 

...     23 

Rome 

...    IOO 

Novara  ... 

...       22 

Genoa     ... 

...    IOO 

Pa  via      

...       20 

Naples    ... 

•  •  •      Q  ^ 

Mantua  ... 

...       IQ 

Ferrara  ... 

...     85 

Forli       

...       19 

Verona   ... 

...  83 

Como 

...       17 

Siena 

•'•     73 

Ancona  ... 

...     16 

Perugia  ... 

...     68 

Alessandria 

...     15 

Cremona 

...     65 

Belluno  ... 

...     13 

Modena  ... 

...     61 

Macerata 

...     13 

Pesaro    ... 

...     6  1       Piacenza... 

...       6 

Brescia   ... 

..'.     50      Caserta  ... 

...       6 

Turin      

46      Rovigo    ... 

5 

Messina  ... 

•••     43 

Palermo... 

4 

Padua     

...     40 

Salerno  ... 

3 

Parma     ... 

•••     39 

Lecce 

3 

Vicenza  ... 

•••     39 

Cuneo     ... 

3 

Lucca     ... 

...     38 

Massa 

3 

Bergamo 

...     37 

Catania  

2 

Udine     

...     36 

Livorno  ... 

i 

Arezzo    ... 

•••     33 

Aquila    ... 

i 

Ravenna 

...     30 

Siracusa  ... 

i 

3  The  difference  with 
weakness  of  Udine  and 

reference  to  painters  is  caused 
the  superiority  of  Catania  and 

by  the  numerical 
Palermo. 

122  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

To  summarize  :  We  see  that  the  chief  part  is  played 
by  warm  climate,  great  centres  of  civilization,  moun- 
tainous and  maritime  regions  ;  some  influence  must  also 
be  attributed  to  the  influence  of  the  Greek  and  Etruscan 
races.  There  is  no  constant  relation  between  the  regions 
which  have  produced  great  geniuses  and  those  which 
have  yielded  second-rate  geniuses,  with  the  exception  of 
Naples  and  Florence.  For  the  last  city  we  must  bear  in 
mind  the  influence  of  its  commune,  which  excited  and 
nourished  individual  energies,  and  to  this  chief  cause  we 
must  add  artistic  disposition,  race,  and  beauty  of 
climate,  as  with  Athens.  Certainly,  Florence  enjoyed 
unquestioned  supremacy  in  painting  and  sculpture  ;  it  is 
enough  to  recall  the  names  of  Donatello,  Michelangelo, 
Verrochio,  Baldinelli,  Coccini,  Cellini,  Giotto,  Masaccio, 
Andrea  del  Sarto,  Salviati,  Allori,  Bronzino,  Pollaiolo, 
Fra  Angelico. 

Orographic  influence. — After  the  influence  of  heat  and 
of  great  centres,  comes  that  of  the  slighter  pressure  of  the 
air  in  hilly  but  not  too  mountainous  regions. 

This  climatic  influence  alone  can  explain  why 
we  find  so  many  poets,  and  especially  improvv  is  atari, 
even  women,  among  the  shepherds  and  peasants  of  the 
Tuscan  hills,  especially  about  Pistoja,  Buti,  Valdontani. 
It  is  enough  to  recall  the  shepherdess  mentioned  by 
Giuliani  in  his  book  Sulla  Lingua  parlata  in  Toscana, 
and  that  singular  Frediani  family  with  a  father,  grand- 
fathers, and  sons,  who  were  poets  ;  one  of  them  is  still 
alive  and  composes  verses  worthy  of  the  poets  of  ancient 
Tuscany.  Yet  peasants  of  the  same  race,  inhabiting  the 
plain,  so  far  as  I  know,  offer  nothing  similar. 

All  flat  countries  —  Belgium,  Holland,  Egypt  —  are 
deficient  in  men  of  genius  ;  so  also  with  those,  like 
Switzerland  and  Savoy,  which,  being  enclosed  between 
very  high  mountains,  are  endemically  afflicted  with 
cretinism  and  goitre  ;  marshy  countries  are  still  poorer 
in  genius.  The  few  men  of  genius  possessed  by  Switzer- 
land were  born  when  the  race  had  conquered  the 
goitrous  influence  through  admixture  of  French  and 
Italian  immigrants — Bonnet,  Rousseau,  Tronchin,  Tissot, 
De  Candolle,  Burlamagni,  Pestalozzi,  Sismondi.  Urbino 


CLIMATIC  INFLUENCES  ON  GENIUS.  123 

Pesaro,  Forli,  Como,  Parma,  have  produced  men  of 
genius  in  greater  number  and  of  greater  fame  than  Pisa, 
Pa,dua,  and  Pavia,  three  of  the  most  ancient  and 
important  university  towns  of  Italy  ;  it  is  enough  to 
name  Raphael,  Bramante,  Rossini,  Morgagni,  Spallanzani, 
Muratori,  Falloppio,  Volta. 

But,  to  come  to  more  definite  examples,  we  find  that 
Florence,  enjoying  a  mild  temperature  and  in  special 
degree  a  city  of  the  hills,  has  furnished  Italy  with  her 
most  splendid  cohort  of  great  men  :  Dante,  Giotto, 
Machiavelli,  Lulli,  Leonardo,  Brunellesco,  Guicciardini, 
Cellini,  Fra  Angelico,  Andrea  del  Sarto,  Nicolini,  Capponi, 
Vespucci,  Viviani,  Lippi,  Boccaccio,  Alberti,  Dati,  Ala- 
manni,  Rucellai,  Ghirlandajo,  Donati  ;  Pisa,  on  the 
other  hand,  with  scientific  conditions  at  least  as  favour- 
able as  Florence,  being  the  seat  of  a  flourishing  university, 
only  offers  us — if  we  except  a  few  soldiers  and  statesmen 
of  no  great  number  and  worth  who  were  unable,  even 
with  powerful  allies,  to  prevent  her  fall — Pisa  only  offers 
us  Nicola  Pisano,  Giunta,  and  Galileo  who,  although  born 
there,  was  of  Florentine  parentage.  Now  Pisa  only 
differs  from  Florence  by  being  situated  on  a  plain. 

In  Lombardy,  the  regions  of  mountain  and  lake,  like 
Bergamo,  Brescia,  and  Como,  have  produced  mere  great 
men  than  the  flat  regions.  I  will  mention  Bernardo  Tasso, 
Mascheroni,  Donizetti,  Tartaglia,  Ugoni,  Volta,  Parini, 
Appiani,  Mai,  Cagnola  ;  while  Lower  Lombardy  can  only 
bring  forward  Alciato,  Beccaria,  Oriani,  Cavalleri,  Aselli, 
and  Bocaccini.  Verona,  a  town  of  the  hills,  has  produced 
Maffei,  Paolo  Veronese,  Catullus,  Pliny,  Fracastoro, 
Bianchini,  Sammicheli,  Cagnola,  Tiraboschi,  Brusasorsi, 
Lorgna,  Pindemonte  ;  and  not  to  speak  of  artists,  econo- 
mists, and  thinkers  of  the  first  order  (it  is  enough  to  name 
Trezza),  I  note  that,  in  a  very  accurate  document,1  it 
appears  that  in  1881,  there  were  160  poets  at  Verona,  many 
rising  considerably  above  mediocrity.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  wealthy  and  learned  Padua  has  only  given  to  Italy 
Livy,  Cesarotti,  Pietro  d'Abano,  and  a  few  others. 

Genoa  and  Naples,  which  unite  the  advantages  of  a 

1  //  Censiincnto  del  Pocti  Vtroncsi,  Dec.  31,  1881. 


124  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

climate  at  once  warm,  maritime,  and  hilly,  have  produced 
men  of  genius  at  least  as  remarkable  as  those  yielded  by 
Florence,  if  not  in  such  great  number  ;  such  are  Colum- 
bus, Doria,  Mazzini,  Paganini,  Vico,  Caracciolo,  Pergolese, 
Genovesi,  Cirillo,  Filangeri. 

In  Spain,  the  influence  of  a  warm  climate  is  evident. 
The  whole  of  Catalonia,  including  Barcelona,  though 
inhabited  by  a  serious  race,  has  not  produced  artists, 
having  yielded  only  a  single  poet,  an  imitator  of 
Petrarch.  Seville,  on  the  contrary,  has  produced 
Cervantes,  Velasquez  and  Murillo  ;  Cordova  has  yielded 
many  men  of  genius,  such  as  Seneca,  Lucan,  Morales, 
Mina,  Gongora  and  Cespedes,  at  once  painter,  sculptor, 
and  poet. 

In  the  United  States,  Beard  remarks,1  the  influence  of 
a  dry  and  changeable  climate  favours  in  the  North  a  re- 
markable spirit  of  progress,  the  love  of  knowledge,  the 
agitation  of  public  life  and  a  great  desire  for  novelty  ;  while 
in  the  South,  the  moist  and  but  slightly  varying  climate 
develops  eminently  conservative  tendencies,  so  that 
manufacturers  in  Georgia  have  great  difficulty  in  finding 
a  market  there  for  new  stuffs  or  machines  ;  these  are  re- 
fused, not  because  they  are  not  good  or  useful,  but  because 
they  are  new. 

In  Germany  it  has  been  observed  that  regions  enjoying 
a  mild  and  healthy  climate,  by  reason  of  protecting 
mountains,  have  produced  the  greatest  poets  and  in 
greatest  number.  The  regions  of  the  Main  and  the  Neckar 
are  renowned  for  their  mild  climate,  luxuriant  vegetation, 
and  fertility,  and  the  greatest  German  poets  come  from 
these  regions.  The  Main  gave  us  the  greatest  of  German 
poets,  Goethe,  and  many  other  dii  mtnorum  gentium, 
genial  and  noteworthy  poets,  although  beneath  that  giant, 
men  such  as  Klinger,  Borne,  Riickert,  Bettina  von 
Arnim  (nee  Brentano),  &c.  In  the  favoured  region  of  the 
Neckar  were  born  Schiller  and  Victor  von  Scheffel,  and 
throughout  the  Swabian  land,  we  meet  with  many  other 
great  poets  and  thinkers,  such  as  Wieland,  Uhland, 
Justinus  Kerner,  Hauff,  Schubart,  Morike,  G.  Schwab, 

1  Atncri((in  Nwvousness, 


CLIMATIC  INFLUENCES  ON  GENIUS.  125 


1 


Z    u 


126  THE  MAN  OP  GENIUS. 

Schelling,  Muller,  Holderlin,  and  others.  That  hilly 
regions  are  richer  than  others  in  poets  is  shown  in  Ger- 
many by  Hanover  (Klopstock,  Stolberg,  Iffland,  Burger, 
Leisewitz,  Bodenstedt,  Hoffmann  von  Fallersleben,  the  two 
Schlegels,  &c.)  ;  by  the  Rhine  provine  (Heine,  Jacobi,  J. 
Muller,  Brentano) ;  Saxony,  one  of  the  districts  possessing  a 
mild  climate,  which  has  yielded  the  largest  number  of  poets 
(Korner,  Gellert,  Kastner,  Rabener,  and,  above  all,  Les- 
sing)  ;  and  Thuringia  (Kotzebue,  Riickert,  G.  Freytag, 
Heinse,  Musaus,  Gotter).  On  the  other  hand,  the  flat 
regions  of  Germany  or  those  with  a  severe  climate,  have 
produced  few  poets.1  As  exceptions  must  be  mentioned, 
Herder  (Mohrungen  in  East  Prussia), M.  von  Schenkendorf 
(Tilsit),  E.  M.  Arndt  (Rugen),  Luther  (Eisleben),  Paul 
Gerhardt  (Grafenhainichen),  the  two  Humboldts,  Paul 
Heyse,  Tieck,  Gutzkow  (Berlin),  Immermann  (Magde- 
burg), Wilhelm  Muller,  Max  Muller,  Moses  Mendelssohn 
(Dessau).  Westphalia,  again,  is  mountainous,  but  poor  in 
poets. 

The  Influence  of  Healthy  Race  and  High  Stature. — 
The  regions  which  have  furnished  few  artists,  or  none, 
are  those  which  suffer  from  malaria  or  goitre  :  Calabria, 
Sassari,  Grosseto,  Aosta,  Sondrio,  Avellino,  Caltanisetta, 
Chieti,  Syracuse,  Lecce.  If  we  compare  the  distribution 
of  great  artists  in  Italy  with  the  distribution  of  high 
stature,  we  find  a  singular  coincidence  of  maximum  and 
minimum  points.  The  stature  is  very  low  in  the  regions 
I  have  just  mentioned,  and  very  tall  at  Florence,  Lucca, 
Rome,  Venice,  Naples,  Siena,  and  Arezzo,  not  because 
there  is  any  direct  correspondence  of  intelligence  to 
stature,  but  because,  as  I  have  elsewhere  shown,2  although 
stature  reveals  ethnic  influences,  it  is  also  the  surest  index 
of  public  health,  while  mortality  statistics  have  no  exact 
relation  to  health,  because  they  do  not  sufficiently  show 
the  results  of  morbid  influences,  such  as  goitre  and  cre- 
tinism, which,  although  they  arrest  the  physical  and 
mental  growth,  do  not  increase  the  mortality. 

1  See  Sternberg,  Archivio  di  Psichiatria,  vol.  x.  1889,  p.  389. 

2  Statura  degli  Jtaliani,   1874  ;     Delia  Influenza    orografica    nella 
Statura,  1878. 


CLIMATIC  INFLUENCES  ON  GENIUS.  127 

If  we  examine  the  results  furnished  by  the  conscription 
in  Italy,  we  find  that  those  regions  which,  from  the 
excellence  of  their  climate,  and  apart  from  ethnic  in- 
fluences, yield  the  greatest  number  of  individuals  of  high 
stature,  and  the  smallest  number  of  rejected  individuals, 
are  the  most  fruitful  in  men  of  genius  ;  such  are  Tuscany, 
Liguria,  and  Romagna.  On  the  other  hand,  the  regions 
which  are  poorest  in  men  of  high  stature  and  men  fit  for 
military  service — Sardinia,  Basilicata,  and  the  valley  of 
Aosta — yield  a  smaller  number  of  men  of  genius.  It  is 
necessary  to  except  Calabria  and  Valtellina  where  many 
are  found,  notwithstanding  shortness  of  stature,  but  they 
appear  in  parts  of  the  country  which,  from  their  ex- 
posed or  elevated  position,  escape  miasmatic  influences 
and  are  proofs  of  the  rule  rather  than  exceptions  to 
it. 

This  influence  can  be  very  well  shown  in  France  if  we 
compare  the  list  of  men  of  genius  produced  in  the 
eighteenth  century  (as  brought  together  by  Jacoby)  with 
the  statistics  of  stature  given  by  Broca  and  Topinard,1  and 
with  the  mortality  of  each  province  as  furnished  by  Ber- 
tillon.2 

We  observe  at  once  an  evident  parallelism  between 
genius  and  height,  with  only  n  exceptions  out  of  85,  and 
some  of  these  1 1  may  be  explained  by  the  agglomerated 
population  of  great  capitals  (Seine,  Rhone,  Bouches-du- 
Rhone)  which  favour  the  development,  or  rather  the  mani- 
festation, of  genius,  as  we  have  already  seen  to  be  the  case 
in  Italy  ;  thus  the  exceptions  in  Var,  Herault,  Bouches- 
du-Rhone  may  be  explained  by  relatively  great  density  of 
population,  and  by  the  southern  climate,  which  favours 
genius  in  spite  of  miasmatic  influences.  At  the  same  time, 
if  we  may  agree  with  Jacoby  concerning  the  favourable  in- 
fluence of  great  urban  agglomerations,  such  as  Paris,  Lyons, 
Marseilles,  it  must  be  added  that  it  does  not  appear  so 
clearly  in  other  centres  ;  thus  Nord,  Haut-Rhin,  Pas-de- 
Calais,  Loire,  although  possessing  a  dense  population,  do 
not  yield  a  corresponding  number  of  men  of  genius, 

1  ktude  sur  la  Taille. 

2  Demographic  de  la  France,  1878. 


128  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

standing  only  in  the  third  rank,  the  Loire,  indeed,  only 
in  the  fourth.1 

If  we  compare  the  geographical  distribution  of  men  of 
genius  with  that  of  mortality,  we  note  more  numerous 
failures  of  correspondence  (27)  with  the  height  ;  this  is 
because  the  statistics  of  mortality  do  not  indicate  the 
influence  of  cretinism  which  exists  in  Ariege,  the  Basses 
and  Hautes-Alpes,  Puy-de-D6me,  the  Pyrenees,  and  the 
Ardennes,  clearly  showing  itself  in  short  stature  and 
military  exemption  for  goitre,  and,  as  in  Valtellina  in 
Italy,  accompanied  by  a  scarcity  of  intellect.  At  the  same 
time,  all  the  regions  showing  high  mortality,  especially 
such  as  are  malarious — the  Landes,  Sologne,  Morbihan, 
Correze — offer  a  feebler  proportion  of  men  of  genius,  with 
the  exception  of  the  great  centres  ;  the  contrary  is  found 
in  more  healthy  districts. 

Orographic  conditions  appear  to  have  great  influence. 
The  sunny  and  fertile  land  of  Languedoc,  all  mountain- 
ous regions  not  too  much  affected  by  goitre — Doubs, 
Cote-d'Or,  Ardennes — or  those  in  which  it  has  not 
succeeded  in  depressing  the  stature,  that  is  to  say,  has 
been  unable  to  produce  endemic  cretinism  (Jura)  give  us, 
when  we  have  put  aside  all  influence  of  density,  race, 
and  temperature,  a  most  notable  proportion  of  men  of 
genius.  This  may  be  clearly  seen  in  the  table  on  the 
following  page  in  which  the  high  figures  of  goitre, 
stammering,  and  deaf-mutism,  correspond  with  low 
stature  in  Correze,  Puy-de-D6me,  Ardeche,  Ariege, 
the  Basses- Alpes,  and  the  Pyrenees. 

We  have  seen  in  Var,  Vaucluse,  and  Herault  that  a 
southern  climate,  perhaps  on  account  of  its  greater 
fertility,  produces  a  great  number  of  men  of  genius  ; 
but  countries  that  are  cold,  but  at  the  same  time  healthy 
and  mountainous — Jura,  Doubs,  Meurthe — give  still 

1  Inhabitants  to  the  square  kilometre : — 


Seine 
Rhone      ... 
Nord 
Haut-Rhin 
Pas-de-Calais 
Loire 

.     3636-56 
224.40 
213.40 
123.00 
108.60 
106.38 

Manche    ... 
Bouches-du-  Rhone 
Landes     ... 
Lozere 
Hautes-Alpes 
Basses-  Alpes 

100.20 
92.27 
33-8o 
27-39 
23-40 
21.90 

CLIMATIC  INFLUENCES  ON  GENIUS.  129 


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eg 

2.O 

06 

7.O 

Cote-d'Or  

j 

2 

5 

y 

ii 

0.8 

O 

Doubs  

I 

2 

22 

2.9 

0.6 

I.O 

higher  figures,  and  the  same  isothermal  line  passes 
through  the  Seine-Inferieure  and  the  Seine-et-Oise,  both 
rich  in  men  of  genius  ;  and  the  Vosges,  in  which  they  are 
almost  entirely  absent,  the  same  line,  again,  passes 
through  Calvados  and  Ain,  which  are  very  rich  in  genius, 
and  Saone-et-Loire  and  Cher,  which  are  deficient  in 
genius. 

The  nature  of  the  soil  has  no  influence  whatever  in  the 
production  of  genius,  for  we  find  the  highest  figures  in 
the  Cote-d'Or,  the  Meuse,  and  the  Moselle,  where  the 
soil  is  calcareous,  and  the  lowest  figures  in  the  Nord  and 
Deux-Sevres,  where  the  soil  is  of  the  same  character  ; 
other  high  figures  are  the  Doubs,  the  Jura,  and  the 
Meurthe,  where  the  soil  is  Jurassic,  while  the  same  soil 
offers  very  low  figures  in  the  Hautes-Alpes,  the  Charente, 
and  the  Saone-et-Loire. 

The  influence  of  race  is  also  very  slight  ;  the  descen- 
dants of  the  Burgundians  produced  numerous  men  of 

10 


T3o  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

genius  in  the  Jura  and  the  Doubs,  very  few  in  the  Saone- 
et-Loire.  The  Haute-Garonne,  with  the  same  race, 
produces  ten  times  as  many  men  of  genius  as  Ariege, 
twice  as  many  as  Gers,  five  times  as  many  as  the  Landes. 
In  Guienne,  the  Gironde  gives  twice  as  many  as  Lot,  and 
in  Languedoc,  Herault  gives  seven  times  more  than 
Lozere. 

Explanation. — The  relation  that  we  have  found 
between  genius  and  climate  has  been  caught  sight  of 
long  since  by  the  people  and  the  learned,  who  agree  in 
admitting  a  frequency  of  genius  in  regions  which,  being 
hilly,  offer  mild  temperature.  The  Tuscan  proverb  says, 
"  Mountaineers,  great  boots,  and  keen  heads."  Vegetius 
wrote  that  climate  influences  not  only  the  strength  of 
the  body,  but  also  that  of  the  mind.  "  Plaga  cceli  11011 
so/iiui  ad  robur  corporum  scd  ctiam  am'morum  fact't" 
(lib.  i.  cap.  2).  Athens,  the  same  author  remarks,  was 
chosen  by  Minerva  for  its  subtle  air  which  produces  men 
of  sagacity.  Cicero  said  repeatedly  that  the  keen  air  of 
Athens  gave  birth  to  wise  men  ;  the  thick  air  of  Thebes 
only  to  torpid  natures  ;  and  Petrarch,  in  his  Episto- 
larium,  which  is  a  kind  of  summary  of  his  life,  remarks 
with  great  emphasis  that  all  his  chief  works  were  com- 
posed, or  at  all  events  meditated,  among  the  mild  hills  of 
Vaucluse.  Michelangelo  said  to  Vasari  :  "  Giorgio,  if 
anything  good  has  come  out  of  my  brain,  I  owe  it  to 
the  subtle  air  of  your  Arezzo."  Zingarelli,  when  asked 
how  he  had  composed  the  melody  of  Giulictta  e  Romeo, 
replied  :  "  Look  at  that  sky,  and  tell  me  if  you  do  not 
feel  capable  of  doing  as  much."  Muratori,  in  a  letter  to 
an  inhabitant  of  Siena,  wrote  :  "  Your  air  is  admirable, 
really  producing  fruitful  minds."  Macaulay  remarks  that 
Scotland,  though  one  of  the  poorest  countries  in  Europe, 
stands  in  the  first  rank  for  richness  in  men  of  genius  ; 
it  is  sufficient  to  name  Michael  Scot,  Napier,  the 
inventor  of  logarithms,  Buchanan,  Ben  Jonson,  and,  one 
may  perhaps  add,  Newton.  On  plains,  on  the  other  hand, 
men  of  genius  are  rare.  Of  ancient  Egypt,  a  country  of 
plains,  Kenan  writes  :  u  No  revolutionary,  no  reformer 
no  great  poet,  no  artist,  no  man  of  science,  no  philo- 
sopher, not  even  a  great  minister,  can  be  met  in  the 


CLIMATIC  INFLUENCES  ON  GENIUS,   131 

history  of  Egypt.  ...  In  this  sad  valley  of  eternal 
slavery,  for  thousands  of  years  they  cultivated  the  fields, 
carried  stones  on  their  backs,  and  were  good  officials, 
living  well  without  glory.  There  was  the  same  level  of 
moral  and  intellectual  mediocrity  everywhere."1  And 
the  same  may  be  said  in  our  days. 

At  first  it  seems  surprising  to  see  a  condition  of  dege- 
neration, such  as  genius  may  be  called,  developing  at 
spots  of  maximum  salubrity.  But  if  there  are  anaerobic 
microbes,  some  are  aerobic  ;  many  forms  of  degeneration, 
such  as  goitre,  malaria,  and  leprosy,  have  a  special 
habitat.  It  is  evident  that  we  have  to  reckon  with  the 
dynamogenic  influence  of  light,  with  the  stimulating 
action  of  the  ozonized  air  of  the  hills,  and  of  a  warm 
temperature.  We  may  understand  this  the  better  since 
we  have  already  seen  that  heat  augments  the  creative 
power  of  men  of  genius,  and  the  need  of  the  brain  for 
oxydated  blood  in  order  to  work  is  well  known.  This  is 
confirmed  by  the  fact  that  in  mountains  above  an  ele- 
vation of  three  thousand  metres,  no  man  of  genius  has 
ever  been  produced.  The  great  Mexican  and  Peruvian 
civilizations  flourished  on  the  high  tablelands,  but,  as 
Nibbi  has  well  shown,  they  were  not  born  there  ;2  in 
fact,  the  Mexican  civilization  is  owing  to  the  Toltecas, 
who  came  from  the  east,  and  the  pretended  great  men  of 
Mexico,  including  its  sixty  presidents,  were  not  born  on 
the  tableland.  The  same  may  be  said  of  many  men 
who  were  not  quite  justly  termed  illustrious,  such  as 
Echeveria  in  painting,  Moizzos  and  Cervantes  in  botany, 
and  Ixtlihcochitl.3  Some  men  of  true  genius,  as  Garci- 
lasso  dela  Vega  and  Alvares  de  Vera,  were  born 
something  below  three  thousand  metres  at  Quito  and 
Bogota.  * 

There  is  here  again  a  parallelism  between  genius  and 
insanity.  Those  who  live  in  mountainous  regions  are  more 


1  "  Lcs  Antiquitcs  Egyptiennes,"  in  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  April, 
1865. 

-'  Archivio  di  Psichiatria,  vol.  viii.  fasc.  3. 

3  Libri,  Histoiredes  Mathematiqiies,  vol.  iii. 

4  De  Candolle,  Histoiredes  Sciences,  1873. 


1 32  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

liable  to  insanity  than  the  inhabitants  of  the  plains,  a 
fact  which  has  long  been  embodied  in  proverbs  concerning 
the  air  of  Monte  Baldo,  and  the  madmen  of  Collio  and 
Tellio.  We  may  recall  also  the  epidemics  of  Monte 
Atniata  (Lazzaretti),  of  Busca  and  Montenero,  of  Ver- 
zegnis  ;  and  we  may  remember,  too,  that  the  hills  of 
Judea  and  of  Scotland  have  produced  prophets  and  half- 
insane  persons  gifted  with  second  sight. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE  INFLUENCE  OF  RACE  AND  HEREDITY  ON  GENIUS 
AND  INSANITY. 


Race — Insanity — The  influence  of  sex — The  heredity  of  genius — Crimi- 
nal and  insane  parentage  and  descent  of  genius— Age  of  parents — 
Conception. 

Race. — We  have  seen  that  in  Italy  the  Greek  and  the 
Etruscan  racial  elements  combine  with  the  temperate  and 
mountainous  climate  to  produce  men  of  genius  ;  the 
influence  of  race  calling  forth  genius  even  where  the 
climate  is  not  happy.  We  cannot  otherwise  explain  the 
genius  produced  at  Modena,  Mantua,  and  Lucca,  which 
possess  the  Etruscan  origin,  although  not  the  delicious 
climate,  of  Florence.  The  Jews,  again,  offer  us  an 
eloquent  example. 

I  have  elsewhere  shown  (Uomo  Bianco  e  P  Uomo  di 
Color e  and  Pcnsicro  c  Mctcorc]  how,  owing  to  the  bloody 
selection  of  mediaeval  persecutions,  and  owing  also  to  the 
influence  of  temperate  climate,  the  Jews  of  Europe  have 
risen  above  those  of  Africa  and  the  East,  and  have  often 
surpassed  the  Aryans.  It  is  not  only  a  difference  in 
general  culture,  but  we  find  more  precocious  and 
extended  mental  work  applied  to  different  sciences.  It 
is  certainly  thus  in  music,  the  drama,  satirical  and 
humorous  literature,  journalism,  and  in  various  branches 
of  science.  This  has  been  statistically  proved  by  various 
writers,  as  by  Jacobs  in  a  very  careful  study  on  the 
ability  of  the  Jews  in  Western  Europe  and  of  Jews  in 
general.1 

1  Joseph  Jacobs,  "The  Comparative  Distribution  of  Jewish  Ability," 
JournalofAnthropologia.il  Institute  of  Great  Britain,  1886,  pp.  351-379. 


134  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

In  100,000  celebrities — 


Europeans. 

Jews. 

Actors 

21 

•7  4 

Agriculture 
Antiquaries 

2 
2  3 

3-1 
26 

Architects 
Artists     
Authors  ... 

*J 

6 
40 
716 

6 
34 

221 

Divines    ... 

OIU 
I  7O 

^Zj 
IOC 

Engineers 
Engravers              . 

13 

1UJ 

9 

Lawyers  ... 
Medicals... 

44 
-ii 

40 

4Q 

Merchants 

12 

47 

Military  ... 

$6 

4J 

6 

Miscellaneous    ... 
Metaphysics        ...                                 ... 

4 

2 

Musicians 

j  i 

71 

Natural  Science... 
Naval 

22 
12 

25 

Philologists 

J-7 

127 

Poets       

2O 

76 

Political  Economy 
Science   ... 

2O 
CJ 

J" 

26 
C2 

Sculptors 

IO 

12 

Sovereigns 
Statesmen              .                                 ... 

21 

I2C 

87 

Travellers              .                       

2C 

12 

a  The  two  lists  are  approximately  equal  in  antiquaries, 
architects,  artists,  lawyers,  natural  science,  political 
economy,  science,  sculptors.  Jews  seem  to  have 
superiority  as  actors,  chess-players,  doctors,  merchants 
(chiefly  financiers),  in  metaphysics,  music,  poetry,  and 
philology.  .  .  .  Of  course,  Jews  have  no  Darwin.  It  took 
England  180  years  after  Newton  before  she  could  produce 
a  Darwin,  and  as  Britishers  are  five  times  the  number  of 
Jews,  even  including  those  of  Russia,  it  would  take,  on 
the  same  showing,  900  years  before  they  produce  another 
Spinoza,  or,  even  supposing  the  double  superiority  to  be 
true,  450  years  would  be  needed." 

Jews  have  given  to  the  world  musicians  like  Meyerbeer, 


INFLUENCE  OF  RACE  AND  HEREDITY.   135 

Halevy,  Gutzkow,  Mendelssohn,  Offenbach,  Rubinstein, 
Joachim,  Benedict,  Moscheles,  Cowen,  Sullivan,  Gold- 
mark,  Strauss ;  poets,  novelists,  humourists,  &c.,  like 
Heine,  Saphir,  Camerini,  Revere,  Jung,  Weill,  Fortis, 
Gozlan,  Moritz  Hartmann,  Auerbach,  Borne,  Ratis- 
bonne,  Kompert,  Grace  Aguilar,  Franzos,  Massarani, 
Lindau,  Catulle  Mendes  ;  linguists  like  Ascoli,  Benfey, 
Munk,  Fiorentino,  Luzzato,  Oppert,  Bernhardi,  Fried- 
land,  Weil,  Lazarus,  Steinthal  ;  physicians  like  Valen- 
tin, Hermann,  Haidenhain,  Schiff,  Casper,  Stilling, 
Gluge,  Traube,  Fraenkel,  Kuhn,  Cohnheim,  Hirsch, 
Liebreich,  Bernstein,  Remak,  Weigert,  Mcynert,  Hit- 
zig,  Westphal,  Mendel,  Leidesdorf,  Benedikt ;  philo- 
sophers like  Spinoza,  Maimon,  Sommerhausen,  Moses 
Mendelssohn  ;  naturalists  like  Cohn  ;  economists  like 
Ricardo,  Lassalle,  Karl  Marx  ;  jurists  and  statesmen  like 
Stahl,  Gans,  Beaconsfield,  Cremieux.  Even  in  sciences 
in  which  the  Semite  formerly  showed  no  ability,  such  as 
mathematics  and  astronomy,  we  find  such  men  as  Gold- 
schmidt,  Beer,  Sylvester,  Kronecker,  and  Jacobi. 

It  must  be  observed  that  a  very  large  proportion  of 
these  men  of  genius  have  been  radically  creative  ;  revolu- 
tionary in  politics,  and  in  religion,  and  in  science.  Jews, 
indeed,  initiated  Nihilism  and  Socialism  on  the  one  hand, 
Mosaism  and  Christianity  on  the  other.  Commerce  owes 
to  them  the  bill  of  exchange,  philosophy  owes  to  them 
Positivism,  literature  the  Neo-humourism. 

Jacobs  shows  that  this  abundance  of  Jewish  men  of 
genius  of  the  first  order  is  allied  with  a  deficiency  in  men 
of  the  second  order  of  intellect.  He  explains  the 
superiority  by  the  higher  level  of  education  among  the 
Jews,  their  devotion  to  family  life,  the  almost  complete 
absence  of  priests  and  dogmas,  the  facilities  which  the 
study  of  Hebrew  offers  for  investigations  in  philosophy 
and  for  that  kind  of  music  which  forms  part  of  their 
religious  ceremonies.  It  is  difficult,  however,  to  find  a 
relationship  between  this  rhythmical  caterwauling  and  the 
sublime  notes  of  Meyerbeer  and  Mendelssohn  ;  and  Jews 
possess  more  than  enough  of  priests  and  dogmas.  I 
would  add  that  if  the  Jews  have  not  yet  produced  men 
like  Newton,  Darwin,  and  Michelangelo,  it  is  because 


136  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

they  have  not  yet  accomplished  their  ethnic  evolution,  as 
they  show  by  the  obstinacy  with  which  they  cling  to  their 
ancient  beliefs. 

It  is  strange  that  among  the  factors  of  Jewish 
superiority  in  genius  Jacobs  does  not  mention  the 
neurotic  tendency,  the  existence  of  which,  as  we  shall 
see,  he  has  himself  shown.  This  would  also  well  explain 
the  deficiency  of  Jews  in  intellect  of  medium  quality  in 
which  the  morbid  element  is  always  less  marked. 

Insanity. — It  is  curious  to  note  that  the  Jewish 
elements  in  the  population  furnish  four  and  even  six 
times  as  many  lunatics  as  the  rest  of  the  population. 
Jacobs,  who,  as  we  have  seen,  does  not  suspect  the  corre- 
lation between  genius  and  insanity,  gives  a  remarkable 
proof  of  it  by  pointing  out  that  while  Englishmen  have 
3,050  per  million  afflicted  with  mental  disease,  Scotchmen 
have  3,400,  and  Jews  3,900,  the  proportion  of  insanity  in 
the  three  races  being  related  to  the  proportion  of  genius. 
And  while,  according  to  Galton,  there  are  256,000  of  the 
mediocre  class  among  a  million  Englishmen,  Jacobs 
reckons  that  there  are  only  239,000  among  Scotchmen, 
and  222,000  among  Jews. 

Servi  found  I  lunatic  to  391  Jews  in  Italy,  nearly  four 
times  as  many  as  among  Catholics.1  This  fact  has  been 
made  still  clearer  by  Verga3  who  in  1870  found  the 
proportions  of  lunatics  among  Catholics  to  be  I  in  1775, 
as  against  I  in  384  among  Jews.  Mayr  (in  1871)  gives 
the  proportion  of  lunatics  in  Germany  as  follows  : — 

Per  10,000  Christians.  Per  10,000  Jews. 

Prussia 8.7  14.1 

Bavaria   ...          ...          ...     9.8  ...          ...          ...     25.2 

All  Germany     8.6  16.1 

This  is  a  singular  proportion  or  disproportion  in  a 
population  among  which  the  aged  who  supply  so  large  a 
number  of  cases  of  senile  dementia  are  numerous,  but 
where  alcoholism  is  rare.  This  fatal  privilege  has  not 
attracted  the  attention  of  the  leaders  of  that  anti-Semitic 
movement  which  is  one  of  the  shames  of  contemporary 

1  Gli  Israeliti  di  Europa,  1872. 

3  Archivio  di  Statistica,  Rome,  1880. 

3  Die  Verbreit,  der  Blind.  &c.,  1872, 


INFLUENCE  OF  RACE  AND  HEREDITY.  137 

Germany.1  They  would  be  less  irritated  at  the  success  of 
this  race  if  they  had  thought  of  all  the  sorrows  that  are 
the  price  of  it,  even  at  our  epoch  ;  for  if  the  tragedies  of 
the  past  were  more  bloody,  the  victims  are  not  now  less 
unhappy,  struck  at  the  source  of  their  glory,  and  because 
of  it,  deprived  even  of  the  consolation  of  being  able,  as 
formerly,  to  contribute  to  the  most  noble  among  the 
selections  of  species. 

This  is  not  true  of  the  Jews  alone.  Beard,  in  his 
American  Nervousness,  remarks  that  the  neurotic 
tendency  which  dominates  North  America  makes  of 
that  country  a  land  of  great  orators. 

The  influence  of  race  is  as  visible  in  genius  as  in 
insanity.  Education  counts  for  little,  heredity  for  much. 
"By  education,"  said  Helvetius,  "you  can  make  bears 
dance,  but  never  create  a  man  of  genius."  2 

Influence  of  Sex, — In  the  history  of  genius  women 
have  but  a  small  place.  Women  of  genius  are  rare 
exceptions  in  the  world.  It  is  an  old  observation  that 
while  thousands  of  women  apply  themselves  to  music 
for  every  hundred  men,  there  has  not  been  a  single 
great  woman  composer.  Yet  the  sexual  difference 
here  offers  no  obstacle.  Out  of  six  hundred  women 
doctors  in  North  America  not  one  has  made  any  dis- 
covery of  importance  ;  and  with  few  exceptions  the  same 
may  be  said  of  the  Russians.  In  physical  science,  it  is 
true,  Mary  Somerville  emerges  ;  and  in  literature  we  have 
George  Eliot,  George  Sand,  Daniel  Sterne,  and  Madame 
de  Stael  ;  in  the  fine  arts,  Rosa  Bonheur,  Lebrun, 
Maraini  ;  Sappho  and  Mrs.  Browning  opened  new  paths 
for  poetry  ;  Eleonora  d'Arborea,  it  is  said  (but  the  asser- 
tion  is  contested),  initiated  at  the  beginning  of  the 
fifteenth  century  legal  reforms  of  almost  modern  cha- 
racter ;  Catherine  of  Siena  influenced  the  politics  and 

1  Renan  in  his  Souvenirs  de  Jeunesse  remarks  that  since  Germany 
has  given  herself  up  to  militarism  she  would  have  no  men  of  genius,  if  it 
were  not  for  the  Jews,  to  whom  she  should  be  at  least  grateful.  But  he 
forgets  Haeckel,  Virchow,  and  Wagner. 

~  One  case  is  known  in  which  parents  zealously  sought  to  educate  and 
favour  by  every  means  poetic  genius  in  their  son.  The  outcome  of 
tlu-ir  fervent  efforts  was  (liapelain,  the  too  famous  singer  of  the 


138  THE  MAN  GF  GENIUS. 

religion  of  her  time  ;  Sarah  Martin,  a  poor  dressmaker, 
influenced  prison  reform  ;  Mrs.  Beecher  Stowe  played  a 
large  part  in  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  United  States. 
But  of  all  these,  none  touch  the  summits  reached  by 
Michelangelo,  or  Newton,  or  Balzac.  Even  J.  S.  Mill, 
who  was  very  partial  to  the  cause  of  women,  confessed 
that  they  lacked  originality.  They  are,  above  all,  con- 
servators. Even  the  few  who  emerge  have,  on  near 
examination,  something  virile  about  them.  As  Goncourt } 
said,  there  are  no  women  of  genius  ;  the  women  of  genius  , 
are  men. 

Pulcheria,  Marie  dei  Medici,  Louise,  mother  of  Francis 
I.,  Maria  Christina,  Maria  Theresa,  Catherine  II.,  Eliza- 
beth, displayed  eminent  political  ability  as  rulers  ;  as  in 
the  field  of  democracy  Madame  Roland,  Fonseca,  G.  Sand, 
Madame  Adam  ;  Mill  affirms  that  when  an  Indian  state 
is  ruled  with  vigour  and  vigilance,  three  times  out  of 
four  the  ruler  is  a  woman.  At  the  same  time  it  is  noted 
that  when  women  rule,  men  command,  just  as  when  men 
rule,  women  command.  In  any  case  their  number  is  too 
limited  to  compare  them  with  masculine  rulers.  As  in 
politics,  so  admirable  examples  of  valour  were  given  by 
Caterina  Sforza  and  Joan  of  Arc,  Annita  Garibaldi, 
Enrichetta  Castiglioni,  and  many  others. 

These  facts  become  more  notable  because  unexpected 
and  exceptional.  It  may  be  said  that  the  disparity  would 
be  much  less  if  the  predominance  of  men,  depriving 
women  of  the  vote  in  politics  and  of  action  in  war,  had 
not  taken  away  from  women  the  opportunity  of  mani- 
festing their  capacities.  But  if  there  had  been  in 
women  a  really  great  ability  in  politics,  science,  &c.,  it 
would  have  shown  itself  in  overcoming  the  difficulties 
opposed  to  it ;  nor  would  arms  have  been  lacking,  nor 
allies  in  the  enemy's  camp.  In  revolutions  (except  in 
religion)  women  have  always  been  in  a  small  minority, 
not  being  found,  for  example,  in  the  English  Revolution, 
or  in  that  of  the  Low  Countries,  or  of  the  United  States. 
They  never  created  a  new  religion,  nor  were  they  ever 
at  the  head  of  great  political,  artistic,  or  scientific  move- 
ments. 

On  the  contrary,  women  have  often  stood  in  the  way 


INFLUENCE  OF  RACE  AND  HEREDITY.  139 

of  progressive  movements.  Like  children,  they  are  noto- 
riously misoneistic  ;  they  preserve  ancient  habits  and 
customs  and  religions.  In  America  there  are  tribes  in 
which  women  keep  alive  ancient  languages  which  the 
men  have  lost  ;  in  Sardinia,  Sicily,  and  some  remote 
valleys  of  Umbria,  many  ancient  prejudices  and  pagan 
rites,  perhaps  of  a  prehistoric  character — superstitious 
cures,  for  instance — are  preserved  by  women.  As  Gon- 
court  remarks,  they  only  see  persons  in  everything  ;  they 
are,  as  Spencer  observes,  more  merciful  than  just. 

The  Heredity  of  Genius. — According  to  Gal  ton  1  and 
Ribot,2  genius  is  often  hereditary,  especially  in  the  musical 
art  which  furnishes  so  large  a  contingent  to  insanity. 
Thus  Palestrina,  Benda,  Dussek,  Hiller,  Eichhorn,  had 
sons  who  were  very  distinguished  in  music.  Andrea 
Amati  was  the  most  illustrious  of  a  family  of  violinists  at 
Cremona  ;  Beethoven's  father  was  a  tenor  at  the  Elector 
of  Cologne's  chapel,  and  his  grandfather  had  been  a  singer 
and  then  maestro  at  the  same  chapel  ;  Belliniiwas  the  son 
and  nephew  of  musicians  ;  Haydn  had  a  brother  who  was 
an  excellent  organist  and  composer  of  religious  music  ;  in 
Mendelssohn's  family  there  were  several  musical  amateurs ; 
Mozart  was  the  son  of  a  maestro  of  the  chapel  of  the 
Prince  Archbishop  of  Salzburg  ;  Palestrina  had  sons  who 
died  young  but  who  left  praiseworthy  compositions  pre- 
served among  their  father's  works. 

The  Bach  family  perhaps  presents  the  finest  example 
of  mental  heredity.  It  began  in  1550,  and  passed  through 
eight  generations,  the  last  known  member  being  Wilhelm 
Friedrich  Ernst,  Kapellmeister  to  the  Queen  of  Prussia, 
who  died  in  1845.  During  two  centuries  this  family  pro- 
duced a  crowd  of  musicians  of  high  rank.  The  founder 
of  the  family  was  Veit  Bach,  a  Presburg  baker,  who 
amused  himself  with  singing  and  playing.  He  had  two 
sons  who  were  followed  by  an  uninterrupted  succession 
of  musicians  who  inundated  Thuringia,  Saxony,  and 
Franconia  during  two  centuries.  They  were  all  organists 
or  church  singers.  When  they  became  too  numerous  to 
live  together  and  had  to  disperse,  they  agreed  to  reunite 

1  Hereditary  Genius,  1868. 

3  VHcrcditc  rsychologiqite,  1878. 


140  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

on  a  fixed  day  once  a  year.  This  custom  was  preserved 
up  to  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  sometimes 
one  hundred  and  twenty  persons  of  the  name  of  Bach 
met  at  the  same  spot.  Fetis  counts  among  them  twenty- 
nine  musicians  of  eminence.1 

Among  musicians  may  be  named  the  Adams,  the 
Coustons,  the  Sangallos  ;  among  painters,  the  Van  der 
Weldes,  the  Coypels,  the  Van  Eycks,  the  Murillos,  the 
Veroneses,  the  Bellinis,  the  Caraccis,  the  Correggios,  the 
Mieris,  the  Bassanos,  the  Tintorettos,  the  Caliaris,  the 
Vanloos,  the  Teniers,  the  Vernets,  and  especially  the 
Titians  who  produced  a  race  of  painters,  as  shown  in  the 
following  genealogy  taken  from  Ribot's  excellent  book  : — 

Tiziano  Vecellio. 
X 


Ma 

-< 

X 
X 

X 

I 

Fra 
•io 

ncesco 

TlZIANO 

1 
jricio                 Cesare 

Fa 

1                        1 
Pomponio            Orazio 

Tizianello  Tomaso. 

Among  poets  may  be  noted  Bacchylides,  the  nephew 
of  Simonides  and  uncle  of  ^Eschylus  who  again  had 
sons  and  nephews  who  were  poets  ;  Manzoni,  the  nephew 
of  Beccaria  ;  Lucan,  the  nephew  of  Seneca  ;  Tasso,  the 
son  of  Bernardo  ;  Ariosto,  with  a  brother  and  nephew 
poets  ;  Aristophanes/ with  two  sons  who  wrote  comedies; 
Corneille,  Racine,  Sophocles,  Coleridge,  who  had  sons 
and  nephews  who  were  poets  ;  the  Dumas,  father  and 
son  ;  the  brothers  Joseph  and  Andre  Chenier,  Alphonse 
and  Ernest  Daudet. 

In  the  natural  sciences  we  find  the  two  Plinies,  uncle 
and  nephew,  the  families  of  Darwin,  Euler,  De  Candolle, 

1  B.iographie  Universe  I /c  des 


INFLUENCE  OF  RACE  AND  HEREDITY.  141 

Hooker,  Herschel,  Jussieu,  Saussure,  Geoffrey  St.  Hilaire. 
Among  philosophers  we  find  the  Scaligers,  the  Vossius, 
the  Fichtes,  and  the  brothers  Humboldt,  Schlegel  and 
Grimm  ;  among  statesmen  the  Pitts,  Foxes,  Cannings, 
Walpoles,  Peels,  and  Disraelis  ;  among  archaeologsts,  the 
Viscontis.  Aristotle,  himself  the  son  of  a  scientific  phy- 
sician, had  sons  and  nephews  who  were  men  of  science. 
Cassini,  an  astronomer,  had  a  son,  who  was  a  celebrated 
astronomer,  a  grandson  who  was  a  member  of  the  Academy 
of  Sciences  at  the  age  of  twenty-two,  and  a  more  remote 
relation  who  was  a  distinguished  naturalist  and  philologist. 
Here  is  the  genealogical  tree  of  the  Bernouilli  family  : — 


Jacques  Bernouilli 

1 

Jacques 

Jean 

1 
Nicolas 

Nicolas 

Daniel 

1 
Jean 

Jean 

1 
Jacques 

All  the  members  of  this  family  were  distinguished  in 
some  science  ;  at  the  beginning  of  this  century  there  was  a 
Bernouilli  who  was  a  chemist  of  some  distinction  ;  and  in 
1863  there  still  lived  at  Bale  Christophe  Bernouilli,  a 
professor  of  the  natural  sciences. 

Galton,  in  a  work  of  great  value,  but  in  which  he  often 
commits  the  mistake  (from  which  I  also  cannot  free 
myself)  of  confusing  talent  with  genius,  calculates  a  pro- 
portion of  425  men  of  ability  to  a  million  among  the 
male  population  over  fifty  years  of  age,  and  the  more 
select  part  of  them  as  250  to  a  million.  Dealing  with 
300  families,  containing  1000  eminent  men,  he  concludes 
that  the  percentage  of  eminent  kinsmen  in  these  families 
would  be  as  follows  : — 

48  sons  1 8  uncles 

41  brothers  13  cousins 

31  fathers  17  grandfathers 

14  grandsons  3  great-grandfathers 

22  nephews  5  great-uncles 


i42  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

The  probabilities  of  kinsmen  of  illustrious  men  rising 
to  eminence  are — 15^  to  100  in  the  case  of  fathers  ;  13^ 
to  100  in  the  case  of  brothers  ;  24  to  100  in  the  case  of 
sons. 

Galton  remarks  that  these  figures  vary,  according  as 
we  are  concerned  with  artists,  diplomatists,  soldiers,  &c. 

I  am  not,  however,  inclined  to  believe  that  this  immense 
accumulation  of  fact  authorizes  us  to  accept  a  hereditary 
influence  in  genius  as  complete  as  in  insanity.  In  the 
first  place,  in  insanity  the  hereditary  influence  is  exercised 
in  a  more  intense  and  decisive  manner,  as  48  to  80  ;  and 
then  if  Galton's  law  applies  to  judges  and  statesmen, 
among  whom  adulation  and  the  fetishistic  adoration  of  a 
party  or  a  caste  can  raise  the  son  or  grandson  of  a  great 
man  far  above  his  merits,  it  is  quite  otherwise  with  artists 
and  poets,  who  present  an  exaggerated  hereditary  action 
in  brothers  and  sons  and  especially  nephews,  but  very 
little  in  grandparents  and  uncles.  And  while  in  the 
heredity  of  genius  the  masculine  sex  prevails  over  the 
feminine  in  the  proportion  of  70  to  30,  in  the  heredity  of 
insanity  there  is  scarcely  any  difference  between  the  two 
sexes.1 

Many  men  of  genius  have  been  thought  to  inherit 
from  their  mothers :  such  are  Cicero,  Condorcet,  Cuvier, 
Buffon,  Goethe,  Sydney  Smith,  Cowper,  Napoleon,  Crom- 
well, Chateaubriand,  Scott,  Byron,  Lamartine,  Saint 
Augustine,  Gray,  Swift,  Fontenelle,  Ballanche,  Manzoni, 
Kant,  Wellington,  Foscolo.  On  the  other  hand,  Bacon, 
Raphael,  Weber,  Schiller,  Milton,  Alberti,  Tasso,  are 
said  to  inherit  from  their  fathers.  Yet,  it  may  be  asked, 
what  was  the  celebrity  of  these  fathers  and  mothers  that 
one  can  feel  assured  they  transmitted  any  genius  to  their 
children  ?  Among  most  men  of  genius,  also,  there  can  be 
no  heredity  because  of  the  predominance  of  sterility  and 
of  degeneration,  of  which  the  aristocracy  furnishes  us 
with  a  remarkable  proof.2 

1  Ribot  in  his  L'Hercdite  Psychologique  refers  to  French  statistics  of 
1 86 1    according  to  which   in    1000   lunatics  of  each   sex,   there   was 
hereditary  influence  in  264  men  and  in  266  women. 

2  Galton  himself  remarks  that  of  31  great  families  of  lawyers  raised 
to  the  peerage  before  the  end  of  the  reign  of  George  IV.,  twelve  are 


INFLUENCE  OF  RACE  AND  HEREDITY.  143 

With  a  few  exceptions,  then,  such  as  the  Danvins,  the 
Cassinis,  the  Bernouillis,  the  Saint  Hilaires,  the  Herschels, 
men  of  genius  only  transmit  to  their  descendants  a  slight 
tendency  magnified  in  our  eyes  by  \\\G  prestige  of  a  great 
name  : — 

"  Rare  voile  ri surge  per  li  ratni 

L'tunana  probitate"  l 

Who  thinks  of  Tizianello  beside  Titian,  of  Nicomachus 
beside  Aristotle,  of  Orazio  Ariosto  beside  his  great  uncle  ; 
or  of  the  worthy  professor  Christophe  beside  his  great 
ancestor  Jacques  Bernouilli  ? 

Insanity,  on  the  other  hand,  is  often  completely  trans- 
mitted, or  even  with  greater  intensity,  to  succeeding 
generations.  Cases  of  hereditary  insanity  in  children  and 
grandchildren,  the  form  of  insanity  often  being  the  same 
as  in  the  ancestor,  are  very  numerous.  All  the  descen- 
dants of  a  Hamburg  noble,  whom  history  registers  as  a 
great  soldier,  were  struck  by  insanity  at  the  age  of  forty.2 
At  Connecticut  Asylum  eleven  members  of  the  same 
family  have  arrived  in  succession. 3 

A  watchmaker,  having  recovered  from  an  attack  of 
insanity  caused  by  the  revolution  of  1789,  finally  poisoned 
himself:  later  on  his  daughter  became  insane,  and  fell 
into  a  state  of  dementia  ;  one  of  his  brothers  struck  a 
knife  into  his  own  abdomen  ;  another  became  a  drunkard 
and  died  on  the  roadside  ;  a  third  refused  food  and 
perished  from  starvation  ;  his  sister,  who  was  of  good 
health,  had  a  son  who  was  an  epileptic  lunatic,  a  daughter 
who  became  insane  after  her  confinement  and  rejected 
food,  an  infant  who  refused  tp  be  suckled,  and  two  others 
who  died  of  cerebral  diseases. 

extinct,  especially  those  which  contracted  alliances  with  heiresses. 
Out  of  487  families  admitted  to  citizenship  at  Berne  from  1583  to  1654 
only  168  remained  in  1783.  "  When  a  grandee  of  Spain  is  announced  we 
expect  to  see  an  abortion"  (Ribot,  De  fHereditc^  p.  820).  The  French 
and  Italian  nobility  to-day  has  become  for  the  most  part  an  inert  instru- 
ment in  the  hands  of  the  clergy.  And  how  many  of  the  sovereigns  of 
Europe  yet  preserve  those  ancestral  virtues  to  the  presumed  transmission 
of  which  they  owe  in  large  part  their  throne  and  prestige? 

1  Dante,  PurgatoHoy  canto  vii. 

2  Lucas,  Dcl'Hcrcditc. 

3  Kilxrt,  UHtrcdilc  Psychologize. 


144  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

In  a  family  studied  by  Berti,  in  four  generations  of 
about  eighty  individuals  descended  from  an  insane 
melancholiac  we  find  ten  subject  to  insanity,  nearly 
always  melancholia,  nineteen  who  were  neurotic,  three 
who  had  special  ability  and  three  with  criminal  tendencies. 
The  disorder  was  aggravated  in  the  later  generations  and 
developed  at  an  earlier  age.  In  the  third  and  fourth 
branches,  the  insane  and  neurotic  appeared  in  every 
generation  ;  in  the  others,  the  hereditary  influence  passed 
over  one  generation  in  the  men  and  two  in  the  women. 

The  history  of  the  so-called  "Jukes"  family1  shows 
that  such  an  influence  may  be  still  more  powerfully  deve- 
loped, especially  in  association  with  alcoholism.  From 
the  head  of  the  family,  Max  Jukes,  a  great  drunkard, 
descended,  in  75  years,  200  thieves  and  murderers,  280 
invalids  attacked  by  blindness,  idiocy,  or  consumption,  90 
prostitutes  and  300  children  who  died  prematurely.  The 
various  members  of  this  family  cost  the  state  more  than 
a  million  dollars. 

These  are  not  isolated  facts.  But  in  what  families  can 
we  find  genius  so  fatally  and  progressively  fruitful  ? 

Flemming  and  Demaux,  again,  have  shown  that  not  only 
do  drunkards  transmit  to  their  descendants,  tendencies  to 
insanity  and  crime,  but  that  even  habitually  sober  parents, 
who  at  the  moment  of  conception  are  in  a  temporary 
state  of  drunkenness,  beget  children  who  are  epileptic  or 
paralytic,  idiotic  or  insane,  very  often  microcephalic,  or 
with  remarkable  weakness  of  mind  which  at  the  first 
favourable  occasion  is  transformed  into  insanity.2  Thus 
a  single  embrace,  given  in  a  moment  of  drunkenness,  may 
be  fatal  to  an  entire  generation. 

What  analogy  can  we  find  here  with  the  rare  and 
nearly  always  incomplete  heredity  of  genius  ? 

The  Criminal  and  Insane  Parentage  and  Descent  of 

1  Dugdale,   The  Jukes. 

2  Academic  des  Sciences,    1871.      Five   cases   of    epilepsy,    and    of 
insanity,  two  of  general  paralysis,  one  of  idiocy  and  several  of  micro- 
cephaly were  observed  under  these  circumstances.      The  microcephalic 
condition   which   so   often  appears   among   the   hereditary   results   of 
alcoholism  may  be  understood  when  we  recall  the  atrophies,  the  cerebral 
scleroses  (a  kind  of  histologic  microcephaly)  which  are  so  constantly 
found  in  the  drunkard  himself. 


INFLUENCE  OF  RACE  AND  HEREDITY.    145 

Genius. — The  parallelism  of  genius  to  insanity  is,  however, 
still  present.  We  find  that  many  lunatics  have  parents 
of  ..genius,  and  that  many  men  of  genius  have  parents 
or  sons  who  were  epileptic,  mad,  or,  above  all,  criminal. 
It  is  sufficient  to  study  the  history  of  the  Caesars,  of 
Charles  V.,  of  Peter  the  Great.  We  see  a  progressive 
degeneration  in  crime  and  insanity  in  relations  or 
children,  rather  than  any  conservation  or  increase  of 
genius.  This  fact  confirms  a  posteriori  the  degenerative 
character  of  genius  ;  and  at  the  same  time  reveals  the 
relationship  which  it  generally  has  with  moral  insanity. 
Commodus,  son  .of  the  virtuous  Marcus  Aurelius,  was  a 
monster  of  cruelty.  The  son  of  Scipio  Africanus  was  an 
imbecile,  the  son  of  Cicero  a  drunkard.  Luther's  son  was 
insubordinate  and  violent  ;  William  Penn's  was  a 
debauched  scoundrel.  Themistocles,  Aristides,  Pericles, 
Thucydides  wrere  unhappy  in  their  children. 

Cardan  had  two  sons  who  were  criminals  ;  one,  of  great 
ability,  was  condemned  to  death  for  poisoning  ;  the  other, 
given  up  to  gaming,  drinking,  and  thieving,  was  succes- 
sively imprisoned  at  Pavia,  Milan,  Cremona,  Bologna, 
Piacenza,  Naples.  When  arrested  he  would  promise 
reformation,  but  as  soon  as  he  was  free  he  at  once  returned 
to  his  old  habits,  and  even  calumniated  his  father  and 
attempted  to  get  him  imprisoned.1  Cardan's  father  was 
eccentric  and  stammered  ;  he  did  not  dress  like  other 
people,  and  pursued  various  strange  studies  ;  he  had  lost 
some  part  of  his  skull  in  consequence  of  a  wound  received 
in  youth,  and  he  believed  that  he  was  guided  by  a  spirit. 
His  mother  was  irascible  ;  when  pregnant  with  him  she 
attempted  to  abort.2 

It  appears  that  Aretino's  mother  was  a  prostitute. 
Petrarch  had  a  lazy  and  vicious  son,  "  the  most  refractory 
to  letters  that  man  of  letters  ever  had  ;  "  he  died  at  the 
age  of  twenty-four. 3  Rembrandt  brought  up  his  son  Titus, 
with  great  care,  to  be  an  artist  ;  but  in  spite  of  all  efforts 
he  could  make  nothing  of  him.  Walter  Scott's  son,  a 
cavalry  officer,  was  ashamed  of  his  father's  literary  celebrity, 
and  boasted  that  he  had  never  read  one  of  his  novels. 

1  Bertolotti,  Testamcnti  di  Cardano,  1882.          2  De  Vita  Propria. 

3  FamilX.Ul.  2,  XXIII.  12. 

II 


146  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

Mozart's  son,  when  asked  by  Bianchini  if  he  liked  music, 
replied  by  throwing  a  handful  of  gold  on  the  table  : 
"  That  is  the  only  music  I  like  !  "  Sophocles'  son  tried  to 
represent  his  old  father  as  imbecile.  Frederick  the  Great's 
father  was  morally  insane  and  a  drunkard  ;  Peter  the 
Great  had  a  son  who  was  a  drunkard  and  maniacal  ; 
Richelieu's  sister  imagined  that  her  back  was  made  of 
crystal  ;  his  brother  thought  he  was  God  the  Father  ; 
Niccolini's  sister  thought  she  was  damned  because  of  her 
brother's  heresy,  and  attempted  to  kill  him  ;  Hegel's  sister 
was  insane,  as  also  was  Diderot's  ;  Lamb's  sister  killed 
her  mother  during  a  maniacal  attack.  Gray's  father  was 
a  worthless  scoundrel,  who  used  to  beat  his  wife,  by  whose 
exertions  the  children  were  supported.  Thomas  Camp- 
bell's only  son  was  hopelessly  imbecile. 

Charles  V.'s  mother  suffered  from  melancholia  ;  his 
grandchildren  and  great-grandchildren  were  also  insane  : 
Don  Carlos,  brutal,  cruel,  and  turbulent ;  Philip  III., 
subject  to  convulsions  ;  Charles  II.,  an  imbecile  epileptic, 
with  whom  the  race  was  extinguished  \  and  Alexander 
Farnese,  a  bastard  grandson  of  eccentric  genius.1 

The  drunkenness  of  Beethoven's  father  was  notorious. 
Byron's  mother  was  half-mad  ;  his  father,  known  as 
"  mad  Jack  Byron,"  was  dissolute  and  eccentric,  and  is 
said  to  have  committed  suicide.  It  has  been  said  of  Byron 
that  if  ever  there  was  a  case  in  which  hereditary  influence 
could  justify  eccentricity  of  character  it  was  his,  for  he  was 
descended  from  individuals  in  whom  everything  seemed 
calculated  to  destroy  harmony  of  character  and  domestic 
peace.  Alexander  had  a  dissolute  and  perverse  mother,  a 
drunken  father.  Plutarch's  grandfather  was  much  given 
to  wine,  of  which  he  delighted  to  celebrate  the  virtues  ; 
and  Cimon's  was  a  drunkard  and  debauched.  Kerner  had 
a  maternal  uncle  who  was  mad  ;  his  sister  was  melan- 
cholic and  had  two  children,  of  whom  one  was  insane,  the 
other  a  somnambulist.2  The  sons  of  Tacitus,  Carlini, 
Bernardin  de  Saint-Pierre,  Mercadante,  Donizetti,  Volta, 
Manzoni,  a  daughter  of  Victor  Hugo,  the  father  and 

1  Ireland,    The    Blot   upon   the    Biain,    1885,    p.    147  ;    Dejerine, 

rtditcilans  Us  Maladies,  1 886. 
Bilder  aus  mein.  Knabenzeit,  1837. 


INFLUENCE  OF  RACE  AND  HEREDITY.   147 

brothers  of  Villemain,  the  sister  of  Kant,  the  brothers  of 
Zimmermann,  Perticari,  and  Puccinotti  were  all  insane. 
D'Azeglio,  who  had  a  grandfather  and  a  brother  more 
than  eccentric,  records  a  saying  current  at  Turin  :  "  / 
Taparci  a  fan  ncn  le  grumclc  a  port"* 

The  origins  of  Kenan's  neurosis,  of  which  I  have  already 
spoken,  he  has  himself  indicated  in  speaking  of  his  reli- 
gious and  prematurely  sacerdotal  education,  that  education 
of  the  seminary  which  when  it  once  takes  hold  of  a  man 
never  more  leaves  him,  and  which  is  so  productive  of 
insanity.  The  alienist  will  find  other  sources  of  neurosis 
and  atavism  in  the  little  town  of  Treguier  in  which 
Renan  was  born.  On  account  of  the  frequency  of  con- 
sanguineous marriages  and  of  the  preponderance  of  the 
ecclesiastical  element,  the  place  swarmed  with  the  insane 
and  semi-insane.  "  These  inoffensive  lunatics,"  he  writes, 
"  were  a  sort  of  institution,  a  municipal  affair.  We  said, 
1  our  lunatics,'  as  at  Venice  they  say  '  nostrc  carampanc? 
One  met  them  nearly  everywhere  ;  they  saluted  you, 
greeted  you  with  some  nauseous  pleasantry,  which  yet 
raised  a  smile.  They  were  liked,  and  they  were  useful. 
I  shall  always  remember  the  good  lunatic  Brian,  who 
imagined  that  he  was  a  priest,  and  passed  part  of  the  day 
in  church,  imitating  the  ceremonies  of  the  mass  ;  all  the 
afternoon  the  cathedral  was  filled  with  a  nasal  murmur  ; 
it  was  the  poor  lunatic's  prayer,  well  worth  any  other."2 
A  still  greater  influence  on  Kenan's  psychosis  must  be 
attributed  to  the  insanity  in  his  own  family.  His  paternal 
uncle,  semi-insane,  passed  his  days  and  nights  at  inns 
telling  stories  and  legends  to  the  peasants  with  whom  he 
was  a  great  favourite  ;  one  night  he  was  found  dead  on 
the  roadside.  His  grandfather,  an  ardent  and  honest 
patriot,  lost  his  reason  in  1815,  through  grief,  and  used  to 
walk  about  with  an  enormous  tricoloured  cockade, 
exclaiming  :  "  I  should  like  to  know  who  would  dare  to 
snatch  from  me  this  cockade  !  "  He  himself,  a  seven- 
months'  child,  remained  for  a  long  time  small  and  weak, 
and  for  this  reason  was  the  more  easily  disturbed  by  a 

.    '   Manor ie,  p.  341.     I.e.,  "  The  heads  of  the  Taparelli  are  not  in  the 
ri^hl  place."     Taparelli  was  a  family  name  of  D'A/eglio. 
cFEnfancC)  p.  20. 


148  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

sacerdotal  education,  which  inflames,  like  a  hot  iron,  even 
the  most  tranquil  spirits. 

In  Schopenhauer,  also,  the  insane  and  neurotic  hereditary 
tendency  was  well  marked.  On  his  father's  side  he  ^  was 
descended  from  an  old  family  of  Dantzig  merchants  ;  his 
great-grandfather  was  a  man  of  very  strong  and  energetic 
character  ;  his  grandfather,  a  man  of  quiet  business  habits, 
seems  to  have  brought  the  property  into  the  family,  but 
the  grandmother  had  an  aunt  and  a  grandmother  who 
were  insane.  Schopenhauer's  father  seems  to  have  been 
a  skilled  man  of  business  ;  a  republican,  he  possessed  the 
native  arrogance  of  a  democratic  patrician  ;  inclined  to 
deafness  from  childhood,  he  had  attacks  of  rage  from 
which  even  the  domestic  dog  and  cat  fled  terrified.  With 
the  increase  of  his  deafness  he  became  more  irritable,  and 
suffered,  if  not  from  actual  insanity,  at  least  from  morbid 
fears.  It  was  suspected  that  he  committed  suicide.  He 
presented  various  characters  of  degeneration  :  large  ears, 
very  prominent  eyes,  thick  lips,  a  short,  up-turned  nose  ; 
he  was,  however,  of  considerable  height.  Schopenhauer's 
mother,  married  at  the  age  of  nineteen,  was  witty  and 
ambitious,  and,  as  he  himself  said,  very  frivolous.  His 
brother  was  imbecile  from  childhood. 

This  influence  of  insane  heredity  can  to-day  be  con- 
trolled by  statistics.  The  Prussian  statistics  for  1877 
show  that  among  10,676  lunatics,  morbid  heredity  may  be 
traced  in  6,369.*  They  are  divided  as  follows  :— 

Father  or      Grandparents      Sisters  or 
mother  or  uncles  brothers 

per  cent.  per  cent.  per  cent. 

Insanity    ...         ..„          ..     89*0  86  *o  76*1 

12-4  67  13-1 

I'O  O*I  O'l 

18-0  3-1  3'3 


Serious  Neurosis  ... 
Crime 
Alcoholism 
Suicide 
Extraordinary  talent 


7  27  2-3 


6-3 


This  seems  to  show  that  a  considerable  number  of  lunatics 
are  descended  from  men  of  ability.  The  number  of  brothers 
and  sisters  of  lunatics  endowed  with  ability,  surpassing 
that  of  suicidal,  alcoholistic,  or  criminal  brothers  confirms 

1  M.eyKZit,Jahresber.furPsychiatr.,  Vienna,  1 880. 


INFLUENCE  OF  RACE  AND  HEREDITY.  149 

the  influence.     In  twenty-two  cases  of  hereditary  insanity 
Aubonel  and  There"  observed  two  cases  of  sons  of  ability.1 

These  facts  were  not  unknown  to  old  observers. 
Tassoni,  a  very  original  writer,  in  his  Pensieri  Diversi 
(1621)  discusses  the  question  :  u  How  it  happens  to  wise 
fathers  to  have  very  foolish  children,  and  to  very  foolish 
fathers  to  have  very  wise  children."  Among  the  former 
he  mentions  the  sons  of  Scipio  Africanus,  Anthony,  Cicero, 
Agrippa  Posthumus,  Claudius  the  son  of  Drusus,  Caligula, 
of  Germanicus,  Commodus,  of  Marcus  Aurelius,  Lam- 
procles,  of  Socrates,  Arrhidaeus,  of  Philip.  Among  many 
opinions,  more  or  less  extravagant,  of  learned  men  of  his 
time,  he  reports  one  to  the  effect  that  "  in  great  men  the 
vital  spirits  assemble  at  the  brain  to  fortify  and  give 
vigour  to  the  powers  of  the  intelligence  ;  it  happens  in 
consequence  that  the  blood  and  sperm  remain  cold  and 
languid,  and  the  children  of  such  men,  especially  the 
males,  are  inclined  to  stupidity." 

Age  of  Parents. — This  is  one  of  the  hereditary  in- 
fluences which  often  escape  from  view,  and  are  at  present 
not  clearly  seen.  Marro  has  shown  the  great  influence  of 
the  advanced  age  of  the  parents  on  the  intelligence  or  the 
insanity  of  the  children.  Very  great  is  the  number  of 
men  of  genius,  and  even  of  talent,  issued  from  aged 
fathers  :  Frederick  II.,  Napoleon  I.,  Sciacci,  Bizzozzero, 
Rochefort,  Dumas  plre,  A.  Jussieu,  Balzac,  J.  Cassini,  C. 
Vernet,  Beaconsfield,  Horace  Walpole,  William  Pitt, 
Racine,  Adler,  Auriac,  Beclard,  Schopenhauer.  From 
young  fathers  I  have,  on  the  other  hand,  only  found 
Victor  Hugo,  De  Girardin,  Arneth,  Barral,  Bertillon, 
Segur.  This  influence  may  explain  the  longevity  of  men 
of  genius. 

Conception. — De  Candolle  speaks  of  the  influence  which 
strong  passion  on  the  part  of  the  parents  at  conception 
may  have  on  the  offspring,  and  recalls  the  considerable 
number  of  bastards  of  genius.  Erasmus  boasted  that  he 
was  not  the  fruit  of  wearisome  conjugal  duty.  Isaac 
Disraeli  wrote  in  his  "Memoirs  of  Toland "  that  birth 
outside  marriage  creates  strong  and  resolute  characters. 
Among  illegitimate  sons  were  :  Themistocles,  Charles 
1  Ribot,  I? Htriditt  Psychologiqttgi  p.  171. 


150  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

Martcl,  William  the  Conqueror,  the  Duke  of  Berwick 
whom  Montesquieu  called  the  perfect  man,  Leonardo  da 
Vinci,  Boccaccio,  A.  Dumas,  Cardan,  D'Alembert,  Savage, 
Prior,  De  Girardin,  La  Harpe,  Alexander  Farnese, 
Dupanloup.1  Newton  was  conceived  after  his  parents 
had  spent  two  years  of  forced  continence.  It  will  be 
seen  from  these  and  other  facts  how  far  we  are  yet  from 
having  exhausted  the  numerous  sources  of  hereditary 
genius. 

Those  who  recall  how  many  men  of  genius  have  been 
born  of  consumptive  and  drunken  parents,  and  who  know 
how  these  two  forms  of  degeneration  are  often  transformed 
in  the  children  into  moral  insanity,  will  perceive  that 
there  can  be  other  hereditary  causes  of  genius  which 
escape  ordinary  observers,  and  are,  therefore,  little  known. 

1  The  same  kind  of  influence  may  be  traced  among  the  insane  and 
degenerate.  A  son  of  Louis  XIV.  and  Madame  de.  Montespan,  con- 
ceived during  a  crisis  of  remorse  and  grief,  at  the  epoch  of  the  Jubilee, 
was  called  "F  enfant  dn  jubile"  on  account  of  his  condition  of 
permanent  melancholy.  A  man  of  talent,  subject  to  attacks  of  mental 
exaltation,  had  several  children,  of  whom  two,  conceived  during  these 
attacks,  were  insane.  Dejerine,  L?  Hcreditc  dans  l.'s  Maladies  dn  Systcinc 
Ncweitx,  1886. 


CHAPTER    IV. 

THE  INFLUENCE  OK  DISEASE  ON  GENIUS. 

Spinal   diseases — Fevers — Injuries  to  the  head  and    their  relation  to 

genius. 

GERARD  DE  NERVAL  in  his  book,  Le  Revc  ct  la  Vic,  after 
having  confessed  that  he  often  wrote  in  a  state  of  morbid 
exaltation,  adds  that  the  old  saying  Mens  sana  in  corpore 
sano  is  false,  for  many  powerful  minds  have  been  allied  to 
weak  and  diseased  bodies. 

Conolly  treated  a  man  whose  intelligence  was  aroused 
by  the  use  of  blisters,  and  another  whose  ability  was 
called  forth  during  the  initial  period  of  phthisis  and  gout. 
Cabanis,  Tissot,  and  Pomme  observe  that  certain  febrile 
conditions  provoke  extraordinary  mental  activity.  Syl- 
vester remarks  that  during  the  nocturnal  fever  of  what 
he  describes  as  a  fortunate  attack  of  bronchitis  he  was 
enabled  to  reach  the  solution  of  a  mathematical  problem.1 

A  man  of  genius,  Maine  de  Biran,  who  was  always  ill, 
well  expresses  the  influence  of  infirmities  on  genius, 
"The  feeling  of  existence,"  he  writes,  "is  not  found 
among  the  majority  of  men  because  with  them  it  is 
continuous  ;  when  a  man  does  not  suffer  he  does  not 
think  of  himself  ;  disease  alone  and  the  habit  of  reflection 
enable  us  to  distinguish  ourselves." 

It  has  frequently  happened  that  injuries  to  the  head 
and  acute  diseases,  those  frequent  causes  of  insanity,  have 
changed  a  very  ordinary  individual  into  a  man  of  genius. 
Vico,  when  a  child,  fell  from  a  high  staircase  and  fractured 
his  right  parietal  bone.  Gratry,  a  mediocre  singer, 
became  a  great  master,  after  a  beam  had  fractured  his 
skull.  Mabillon,  almost  an  idiot  from  childhood,  fell 

1  Nature,  Nov.,  1883. 


152  THE  MAN  OP  GENIUS. 

down  a  stone  staircase  at  the  age  of  twenty-six,  and  so 
badly  injured  his  skull  that  it  had  to  be  trepanned  ;  from 
that  time  he  displayed  the  characteristics  of  genius. 
Gall,  who  narrates  this  fact,  knew  a  Dane  who  had  been 
half  idiotic,  and  who  became  intelligent  at  the  age  of 
thirteen,  after  having  rolled  head  foremost  down  a  stair- 
case.1 Wallenstein  was  looked  upon  as  a  fool  until  one  day 
he  fell  out  of  a  window,  and  henceforward  began  to  show 
remarkable  ability.  Some  years  ago,  a  cretin  of  Savoy, 
having  being  bitten  by  a  mad  dog,  became  very  intelligent 
during  the  last  days  of  his  life.  Cases  have  been  recorded 
in  which  ordinary  persons  have  displayed  extraordinary 
intelligence  after  diseases  of  the  spinal  cord.2  "It  is 
possible  that  my  disease  [of  the  spinal  cord]  may  have 
given  a  morbid  character  to  my  later  compositions,"  wrote 
with  true  divination  the  unfortunate  Heine.  And  the 
remark  does  not  apply  to  his  later  writings  only.  "  My 
mental  excitement,"  he  wrote,  some  months  before  his 
condition  had  become  aggravated,  "  is  the  effect  of  disease 
rather  than  of  genius.  I  have  written  verses  to  appease 
my  suffering  a  little.  ...  In  this  horrible  night  of 
senseless  pain  my  poor  head  is  flung  backwards  and 
forwards,  shaking  with  pitiless  gaiety  the  bells  on  my 
jester's  cap. "3  Be'clard  turned  from  mere  theories  to 
experiment,  after  a  stroke  of  apoplexy/  Pasteur's  greatest 
discoveries  were  made  after  a  stroke  of  apoplexy.  Bichat 
and  Schroeder  van  der  Kolk  have  observed  that  men  with 
anchylosis  of  the  neck  possess  remarkably  bright  intelli- 
gence. It  is  a  common  saying  that  the  hump-backed  are 
keen  and  malicious.  Rokitansky  sought  to  explain  this 
by  the  resulting  curve  of  the  aorta,  after  giving  origin  to 
the  vessels  which  supply  the  brain,  the  volume  of  the 
heart  and  the  arterial  pressure  in  the  head  being  thus 
augmented. 

1  Physiologic  du  Cerveatt,  p.  21. 

2  Journal  of  Mental  Science,  1872. 

3  Correspondence  Inedite,  Paris,  1877* 

4  Revue  Scientific,  April,  1888. 


CHAPTER    V. 

THE    INFLUENCE   OF   CIVILIZATION   AND   OF 
OPPORTUNITY. 

Large    Towns  —  Large    Schools  —  Accidents  —  Misery  —  Power  — 
Education. 

HOWEVER  clearly  such  laws  as  we  have  examined  may 
seem  to  be  ascertained,  the  conclusions  deduced  from  them 
must  be  accepted  with  a  certain  reserve  ;  since  there 
exists  a  series  of  factors,  almost  impossible  to  seize,  which 
intercept  and  confound  all  these  influences,  not  excepting 
even  the  orographic. 

We  have  already  seen  how  great  agglomerations  of 
individuals,  whatever  the  climate  and  race,  are  sufficient  to 
increase  the  number  of  artists  and  of  talents.  But  might 
not  this  be  a  purely  factitious  effect,  as,  for  instance,  when 
individuals  who  have  left  their  birthplace  for  some  great 
capital  (as  often  happens  in  the  case  of  infants  and 
invalids),  are  looked  upon  as  natives  of  the  latter  ?  This 
becomes  certain,  if  we  remember  the  pernicious  influence 
of  great  towns,  and  consider  with  Smiles,  that  the  life 
of  large  towns  is  not  favourable  to  intellectual  work,  that 
men  who  have  had  a  great  influence  on  their  age  have 
been  brought  up  in  solitude,  and  that  all  the  great  men 
of  England,  and  even  of  London,  were  born  in  the  country, 
though  this  fact  is  often  ignored  on  account  of  their 
having  fixed  their  residence  in  the  capital.  Carlyle  says 
that  a  man  born  in  London  seems  but  the  fraction  of  a 
man.  We  read,  in  the  Lives  of  the  Engineers,  that  all 
great  English  engineers  have  been  country-bred. 

The  establishment  of  a  school  of  painting,  even  when 
it  is  the  result  of  an  importation,  makes  an  artistic  centre 
of  a  place  which  was  not  so  previously,  and,  if  the  estab- 


154  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

lishment  goes  back  to  a  very  distant  time,  the  number  of 
artists  becomes  very  large.  Let  us  look,  for  example,  at 
Piedmont,  where,  assuredly,  a  military  education  rein- 
forced by  climate  and  race,  and,  to  a  still  greater  degree,  by 
clerical  influence,  retarded  for  a  long  time  the  develop- 
ment of  the  fine  arts,  and  especially  of  music.  Up  to 
1460,  celebrated  painters  were  not  numerous  in  Piedmont, 
and  the  only  ones  to  be  found  there  were  of  foreign 
origin,  such  as  Bono  and  Bondiforte.  But  Bondiforte, 
who  had  been  sent  for  from  Milan,  was  immediately 
followed  by  Sodoma,  Martini,  Giovannone,  Vercellese. 
Ferro  di  Valduggia  was  followed  by  Lanini,  and  Tansi  by 
Valduggia,  in  the  same  way  as  Viotti's  example  attracted 
thither,  within  a  short  time,  five  celebrated  violinists. 

Scarcely  had  a  few  distinguished  painters — such  as 
Macrino  and  Gaudenzio  Ferrari,  shown  themselves  at 
Novara,  at  Alba,  and  at  Vercelli,  than  others  were  immedi- 
ately seen  to  appear  ;  and,  in  our  own  day,  wherever 
military  influence  has  been  entirely  superseded  by  social, 
this  province  has  furnished,  in  proportion  to  its  size,  as 
many  artists  as  the  rest,  or  even  more,  and  those  of  quite 
equal  standing — e.g.,  Gastaldi,  Mosso,  Pittara,  &c. 

Had  any  one  undertaken,  300  years  ago,  to  draw  up  the 
statistics  of  Scotch  thought,  he  would  scarcely  have  found 
a  single  name  to  include  in  his  list.  Yet  Scotland, 
delivered  from  the  leaden  mantle  of  religious  intolerance, 
has  become,  as  we  have  seen,  one  of  the  richest  centres  in 
Europe  for  bold  and  original  thinkers. 

On  the  other  hand,  Greece,  placed  in  ancient  times  by 
race  and  nature  in  the  first  rank,  as  regards  intellectual 
creation,  no  longer  shows  any  trace  of  her  superiority. 
Nature  and  the  race  have  not  changed,  but  slavery, 
political  struggles,  and  hard  living  have  exhausted  all  her 
strength  ;  for  a  nation  does  not  afford  itself  the  luxury 
of  art  and  high  thinking  till  its  existence  is  assured  and 
easy. 

Thus  the  influences  of  agglomeration  might  often  have 
been  disguised  by  the  influence  of  national  well-being. 

Not  that  the  action  of  race  and  climate  disappears,  but 
its  manifestations  remain  latent.  The  mighty  intellect 
due  to  the  Tuscan  race  and  climate,  reveals  itself  at  the 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  CIVILIZATION.     155 

present  day — after  the  enervating  influence  of  the 
Medici,  the  priests,  and  the  linguistic  pedants,  has  done 
its  work  —  in  the  improvisations  of  Pistoian  peasant 
women,  and  the  subtle  epigrams  of  the  Florentine  popu- 
lace. Genius  (such  as  that  of  Pacini,  Carrara,  Betti, 
Giusti,  Guerrazzi,  Carducci)  is  no  longer  endemic,  but 
occurs  sporadically. 

It  appears  to  me  that,  in  many  cases,  social  influences 
are  more  apparent  than  real  analogous  rather  to  the 
peck  of  the  chicken  which  cracks  the  egg-shell  than  to 
the  spermatozoid  which  generates  the  embryo. 

We  see  that  Florence,  like  Athens,  supplied  at  the 
epoch  of  republican  agitations  the  maximum  of  Italian 
genius.  But  similar  agitations  in  South  America  and  in 
France  (1789)  did  not  yield  as  many  great  men  ;  but 
simply  a  number  of  men  who,  being  useful  in  the  emer- 
gency of  the  time,  passed  for  great.1  One  might  even  be 
inclined  to  suspect  that  the  numerous  great  men  who 
appeared  at  Florence  were  themselves  the  cause  of  her 
revolutions.2 

The  same  assertion  holds  good  of  opportunity.  Oppor- 
tunity appears,  sometimes,  to  have  assisted  the  develop- 
ment of  genius.  Thus  Mutius  Scaevola,  having  been 
reproached  by  Servius  Sulpicius  with  ignorance  of  his 
country's  Uws£becaus£  a  ureat  jurisconsult. 

It  has  often  happened  that  stonecutters  in  the  quarries 
of  Florence,  in  the  old  Republican  times,  have  become 
celebrated  sculptors,  like  Mino  da  Fiesole,  Desiderio  da 
Settignano,  and  Cronaca.  Canova  and  Vincenzo  Vela 
were  also  quarrymen,  and  Hugh  Miller,  from  working 
as  a  mason,  became  a  highly-esteemed  geologist. 

Andrea  del  Castagno,  a  shepherd  of  Mugello,  one  day, 
when  overtaken  by  a  storm,  took  refuge  in  an  oratory, 
where  a  house-painter  was  daubing  a  picture  of  the  Virgin. 
From  thenceforth  he  felt  an  irresistible  desire  to  imitate 
him,  and  practised  drawing  figures  in  charcoal  whenever 
he  could  ;  so  much  so,  that  his  fame  soon  spread  among 
the  peasants,  and,  afterwards,  by  the  assistance  of  Berna- 

1  Tainc,  Les  origincs  dc  la  France  Coutctnporainc,  Pari     1885. 

2  Atlantic  Monthly,  1881. 


156  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

dino  de'  Medici,  who  enabled  him  to  study,  he  became  a 
celebrated  painter. 

Vespasiano  de'  Bisticci,  a  Florentine  paper-maker, 
whose  profession  involved  the  handling  of  many  books,  and 
contact  with  a  great  number  of  literary  and  learned  men, 
took  to  literature  himself. 

More  frequently,  however,  opportunity  is  only  the  last 
drop  which  makes  the  vessel  run  over.  This  is  so  true 
that  the  cases  in  which  genius  has  manifested  itself  in  spite 
of  adverse  circumstances  and  even  violent  opposition,  are 
innumerable.  It  is  sufficient  to  recall  Boccaccio,  Goldoni, 
Muratori,  Leopardi,  Ascoli,  Cellini,  Cavour,  Petrarch, 
Metastasio,  and,  finally,  Socrates,  who  was  obliged  to  cut 
and  carve  stones.  All  our  recent  great  musicians — 
Wagner,  Rossini,  Verdi — were  misunderstood  in  their 
youth. 

Long  ago,  it  was  said,  "  He  to  whom  Nature  would  not 
tell  it,  would  not  be  told  by  a  thousand  Athens  and  a 
thousand  Romes."  J 

Circumstances,  then,  and  a  certain  degree  of  civiliza- 
tion gain  acceptance  and  toleration  for  genius  and  its 
discoveries  which,  under  other  conditions,  would  have 
either  passed  unnoticed,  or  met  with  ridicule,  and  even 
persecution. 

History  shows  that  great  discoveries  are  rarely  absolute 
novelties,  and  that  they  have  long  existed  as  toys  or 
curiosities.  u  Steam,"  says  Fournier,  "  was  a  plaything 
for  children  in  the  time  of  Hero  of  Alexandria,  and  An- 
themius  of  Tralles.  The  human  mind  and  the  needs  of 
our  race  have  to  work  by  experience,  a  million  times 
over,  before  deducing  all  the  consequences  of  a  fact.2 

In  1765,  Spedding  offered  portable  gas,  prepared  and 
ready  for  use,  to  the  corporation  of  Whitehaven,  and  was 
refused.  At  a  later  date  came  Chaussier,  Minkelers, 
Lebon,  and  Windsor,  who  had  no  other  merit  than  that 
of  appropriating  his  discovery. 

Coal  had  been  known  ever  since  the  fifteenth  century  ; 
in  1543  Blasco  de  Garay  appears  to  have  propelled  a 

1  "  A  cut  natura  non  lo  voile  dire 

Nol dirian  mille  Atene  e  milk  Rome." 

2  E.  Fournier,  Le  Vieux-Neiif,  Paris,  1887. 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  CIVILIZATION.    157 

vessel  by  steam  and  paddles  in  the  port  of  Barcelona  ; 
the  screw-steamer  was  invented  before  1790.  When 
Papin  experimented  with  steam  navigation,  he  met  with 
nothing  but  derision,  and  was  treated  as  a  charlatan. 
When  the  screw  was  at  last  applied,  Sauvage,  who  had 
invented  it,  never  saw  it  in  action,  except  from  the  prison 
where  he  was  confined  for  debt. 

Daguerreotypy  was  guessed  at  in  Russia  during  the  six- 
teenth century,  and  again,  in  Italy,  by  Fabricius,  in  1566. 
It  was  afterwards  discovered  anew  by  Thiphaigne  de  la 
Roche.  Galvanism  was  also  discovered  by  Cotugno  and 
by  Duverney. 

The  theory  of  Natural  Selection  itself  does  not  belong 
exclusively  to  Darwin.  Existing  species,  it  was  already 
said  by  Lucretius,  have  only  been  able  to  maintain  them- 
selves by  their  cunning,  strength,  or  swiftness  ;  others 
have  succumbed.  And  Plutarch,  remarking  that  horses 
which  have  been  pursued  by  wolves  are  swifter  than 
others,  gives  this  reason — that,  the  slower  ones  of  the 
band  having  been  overtaken  and  devoured,  only  the  more 
agile  survived. 

Newton's  law  of  attraction  was  already  foreshadowed 
in  works  of  the  sixteenth  century— more  particularly  in 
those  of  Copernicus  and  Kepler — and  was  nearly  com- 
pleted by  Hooke. 

It  has  been  the  same  with  magnetism,  chemistry,  and 
even  criminal  anthropology.  Civilization,  therefore,  does 
not  produce  men  of  genius,  and  discoveries  ;  but  it  assists 
their  development,  or,  more  correctly  speaking,  deter- 
mines their  acceptance. 

It  may  therefore  be  admitted  that  genius  can  exist  in 
any  age  and  any  country  ;  but,  as  in  the  struggle  for 
existence  the  greater  number  of  beings  are  only  born  to 
become  the  prey  of  others,  so  many  men  of  genius,  if 
they  do  not  meet  with  the  favourable  moment,  either 
remain  unknown  or  are  misunderstood. 

While  there  are  some  civilizations  which  assist  the 
development  of  genius,  others  are  injurious  to  it.  In 
those  parts  of  Italy,  for  instance,  where  civilization  is 
most  ancient,  and  where  it  has  been  frequently  renewed, 
becoming  stronger  at  each  renewal,  though  the  temper 


158  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

of  the  people  is  more  open,  the  formation  of  genius  is 
of  rare  occurrence.  In  general,  when  the  average  culture 
of  a  nation  is  of  earlier  date,  novelties  are  less  eagerly 
received.  On  the  contrary,  in  countries  where  civilization 
is  recent,  as  in  Russia,  new  ideas  are  accepted  with  the 
greatest  favour. 

When  the  repetition  of  the  same  observation  renders 
a  new  truth  less  difficult  to  accept,  then  genius  is  not  only 
recognized  as  useful  and  even  necessary,  but  received 
with  acclamations.  The  public,  perceiving  the  coin- 
cidence between  a  given  civilization  and  the  manifes- 
tation of  genius,  thinks  that  the  two  are  connected, 
confusing  the  slight  influence  which  determines  the 
hatching  of  the  chicks  with  the  act  of  fecundation — 
which,  on  the  contrary,  depends  on  race,  atmospheric 
influences,  nutrition,  &c. 

This,  too,  is  what  takes  place  in  our  own  day.  Hypno- 
tism exists  to  prove  how  many  times,  even  under  our 
very  eyes,  a  scientific  notion  may  be  renewed,  and  each 
time  taken  for  a  new  discovery.  Every  age  is  not  equally 
ripe  for  inventions  without  precedents,  or  with  too  few  ; 
and  those  which  are  not  ripe,  are  incapable  of  perceiving 
their  inaptitude  for  adopting  them.  In  Italy,  for  twenty 
years,  the  man  who  had  discovered  pellagrozeine  was 
looked  upon  by  the  authorities  as  a  madman.  At  the  / 
present  day  the  academic  world,  always  composed  of 
intelligent  mediocrities,  laughs  at  criminal  anthropology, 
is  mildly  sarcastic  towards  hypnotism,  and  looks  on 
homoeopathy  as  a  joke.  Perhaps  even  my  friends  and 
myself,  in  laughing  at  spiritualism,  are  misled  by  the 
misoneism  latent  in  us  all,  and,  like  hypnotised  persons, 
are  utterly  unable  jeven  to  perceive  that  such  is  the  case. 

Misery  is  often  the  stimulus  of  genius.  It  was  neces- 
sity rather  than  natural  inclination  which  drove  Dryden 
to  become  an  author.  Goldsmith,  when  he  had  knocked 
at  every  door  in  vain,  took  to  writing.  And  so  again  and 
again. 

It  is  true  also  that  extreme  misery  frequently  ruins 
genius.  It  placed  immense  difficulties  in  the  way  of 
Columbus.  George  Stephenson's  steam  engine  would 
have  been  an  abortion,  if  he  had  not  been  enabled  at 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  CIVILIZATION.     159 

great  sacrifice  to  educate  his  son.  Meyerbeer,  who  pro- 
duced so  laboriously,  and  whose  genius  cannot  be  ex- 
plained apart  from  his  Italian  journeys  and  life,  would 
have  been  in  a  deplorable  condition  without  wealth. 

Many  men  of  genius,  on  the  other  hand,  have  been 
spoilt  by  wealth  and  power.  Jacoby  has  shown  that 
unlimited  power  hastens  degeneration,  and  tends  to  pro- 
duce megalomania  and  dementia  in  those  who  possess  it. 

The  influence  of  education  has  been  investigated  less 
than  it  deserves.  Without  the  school,  many  believe  there 
would  be  no  genius.  What,  it  is  said,  would  have  become 
of  Metastasio,  if  he  had  not  been  picked  up  and  educated  ? 
Giotto  would  merely  have  amazed  the  shepherds  of  his 
native  valleys  by  daubing  the  walls  of  some  chapel. 
Paganini  would  have  been  unheard  of.  Pitre,  in  his 
admirable  book,  Usi  c  costnmi  dclla  Sicilia,  writes  at 
length  of  certain  wonderful  poetasters,  who  narrate  fan- 
tastic lays  of  knighthood  to  the  people  of  Palermo,  yet 
they  can  neither  read  nor  write.  Who  knows  what  they 
would  do  if  they  were  educated  ? 

Those  who  have  been  among  the  mountains  know  the 
works  produced  by  certain  shepherds.  They  are  made 
with  coarse  instruments,  yet  they  reveal  marvellous  taste 
and  delicacy.  Such  men  give  us  the  impression  of  so 
many  aborted  Michelangelos  ;  they  are  men  of  genius 
who  have  lacked  the  opportunity  of  manifesting  them- 
selves. 

But  these  facts  do  not  neutralize  others  which  show 
the  pernicious  influence  of  the  school  on  genius.  Hazlitt 
well  said  that  whoever  has  passed  through  all  the  grades 
of  classical  instruction  without  having  become  a  fool,  may 
consider  himself  to  have  escaped  by  miracle.  Darwin 
feared  to  send  his  sons  to  school.  Who  can  describe  the 
martyrdom  of  the  child  of  genius  compelled  to  spend  his 
brains  over  a  quagmire  of  things  in  which  he  will  suc- 
ceed the  less  the  more  he  is  attracted  in  other  directions  ? 
He  rebels,  and  then  begins  a  fierce  struggle  between  the 
pupil  of  genius  and  the  professor  of  mediocrity,  who 
cannot  understand  his  fury  and  his  instincts,  and  who 
represses  and  punishes  them.  Balzac,  who  proved 
this,  and  was  driven  away  from  school  after  school,  has 


160  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

minutely  analyzed  this  bitterness  of  the  college  in  his 
wonderful  study,  Louis  Lambert.  One  shudders  on 
thinking  of  the  youth  of  such  lofty  and  serene  intelli- 
gence, treated  with  contempt  as  stupid  and  idle,  and  his 
discourse  on  will  which  had  cost  him  so  much  labour 
destroyed  unread  by  an  ignorant  master.  And  so,  also, 
it  was  with  Valles.  Verdi  was  unanimously  rejected 
at  the  Conservatorio  of  Milan  in  1832,  even  as  a  paying 
pupil.  Rossini  was  regarded  as  an  idiot  by  his  fellow- 
pupils,  and  by  his  teacher,  as  also  was  Wagner.  Cole- 
ridge has  written  with  bitterness  of  his  schooldays,  when, 
he  says,  his  nature  was  always  repressed.  Howard  was 
considered  so  stupid  at  school  that  he  was  sent  to  a 
druggist's.  Pestalozzi  was  looked  upon  as  a  silly  and 
incapable  boy,  whose  spelling  and  writing  were  incor- 
rigibly bad.  Crebillon  as  a  youth  was  regarded  as  roguish 
and  lazy,  and  when  he  left  the  university  he  was  labelled  : 
JPucr  ingcniosus,  scd  insigiiis  nebulo.  Cabanis  as  a  boy 
showed  very  early  signs  of  uncommon  intelligence,  but 
the  severe  discipline  of  school  only  served  to  make  him 
a  dissembler,  and  he  was  finally  expelled.  Diderot  was 
regarded  as  the  shame  of  his  house.  Verdi,  Rossini, 
Howard,  Cabanis,  would  not  allow  themselves  to  be 
defeated,  but  how  many,  discouraged,  have  lost  faith  in 
themselves  !  It  is  useless  to  say  that  this  struggle  for 
existence  results  in  the  survival  of  the  fittest  ;  for  even 
the  weakest  men  of  genius  are  worth  more  than  medio- 
crities, and  it  is  a  sin  to  lose  a  single  one.  We  are  not 
here  dealing  with  a  phenomenon  like  that  presented  by 
the  struggle  of  lower  organisms.  The  case  is  even 
opposed,  since  their  great  sensibility  renders  men  of 
genius  more  fragile.  The  persecutions  of  the  school, 
tormenting  these  beings  when  they  are  in  their  first 
youth  and  most  sensitive,  cause  us  to  lose  those  who, 
being  more  fragile,  are  better.  Here,  therefore,  the 
struggle  for  existence  suppresses  the  strongest,  or  at  all 
events  the  greatest.  The  worst  of  this  is  that  there  is 
no  remedy.  Teachers  are  not  men  of  genius,  and  in  any 
case  they  cannot,  and  should  not,  look  to  anything  but 
the  manufacture  of  mediocrity.  At  all  events,  let  no 
obstacles  be  put  in  the  way  of  genius. 


PART  III. 
GENIUS  IN  THE  INSANE. 

CHAPTER  I. 
INSANE  GENIUS  IN  LITERATURE. 

Periodicals    published   in   lunatic    asylums  —  Synthesis  —  Passion  — 
Atavism — Conclusion. 

THE  connection  which,  as  we  have  seen,  exists  between 
genius  and  insanity  is  confirmed  by  the  over-excitement 
of  the  intelligence,  and  the  temporary  appearance  of  real 
genius  frequently  observed  among  the  insane. 

u  It  seems,"  writes  Charles  Nodier,  "as  if  the  divergent 
and  scattered  rays  of  the  diseased  intellect  were  suddenly 
concentrated,  like  those  of  the  sun  in  a  lens,  and  then 
lent  to  the  speech  of  the  poor  madman  so  much  brilliancy 
that  one  may  be  permitted  to  doubt  whether  he  had  ever 
been  more  learned,  clear,  or  persuasive  while  in  full  pos- 
session of  his  reason."1 

"  Madness,"  writes  Theophile  Gautier,2  "  which  creates 
such  enormous  gaps,  does  not  always  suspend  all  the 
faculties.  Poems  written  during  complete  dementia  often 
observe  the  rules  of  quantity  extremely  well.  Domenico 
Theotocopuli,  the  Greek  painter,  whose  master-pieces  are 
admired  in  the  Spanish  churches,  was  insane.  We  have 
seen  in  England,  scenes  of  lions  and  stallions  fighting,  the 
work  of  an  insane  patient,  done  on  a  board  with  a  red-hot 
iron,  which  looked  like  some  of  Gericault's  sketches 
rubbed  in  with  bitumen." 

Under  the  influence  of  insanity,  "  an  ignorant  peasant 

1  Ch.  Nodier,  Les  Bas  Ileus,  1846,  p.  217. 

2  Voyage  en  Italic,  Paris,  1880. 

12 


1 62  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

will  make  Latin  verses  ;  another  will  suddenly  speak  in  an 
idiom  which  he  has  never  learnt,  and  of  which  he  will 
not  know  a  word  after  his  recovery.  A  woman  will  sing 
Latin  hymns  and  poems  entirely  unknown  to  her  ;  a  child, 
wounded  in  the  head,  constructs  syllogisms  in  German, 
and  is  unable,  when  no  longer  ill;  to  utter  a  single  ex- 
pression in  that  language."  J 

Winslow  knew  a  gentleman,  incapable  in  his  normal 
condition  of  doing  a  simple  addition  sum,  who  became 
an  excellent  mathematician  during  his  attacks  of  mania. 
In  the  same  way,  a  woman  who  wrote  poetry  while  in 
the  asylum,  after  her  cure  became  once  more  a  peaceable 
and  prosaic  housekeeper. 

A  monomaniac  at  the  Bicetre  lamented  his  detention  in 
the  following  striking  verse  :— 

"  Ah  I  lepoetede  Flortnct' 

Wavait  pas,  dans  son  chant  sac  re 
Rcve  Falrinic  dc  souffrance 
De  tcs  i/iurs,  Bicctrc  cxccrc"  2 

Esquirol  gives  an  account  of  a  maniac  who  invented, 
during  the  acute  period  of  his  malady,  a  new  kind  of 
cannon  which  was  afterwards  adopted. 

Morel  had  under  his  care  a  madman,  subject  to  inter- 
mittent states  in  which  all  his  faculties  were  more  or  less 
blunted,  if  not  actually  lost,  who,  during  his  lucid  intervals, 
composed  fine  comedies. 

John  Clare,  who  wrote  nonsense  as  soon  as  he  began  to 
express  himself  in  prose,  in  some  of  his  tender  and  melan- 
choly elegies  rose  to  a  rare  perfection  of  style  and  the 
choicest  ideas.3 

Leuret  says,  in  speaking  of  mania,  "  It  has  happened  to 
me  more  than  once  to  form  too  favourable  an  idea  of  the 
intellectual  capacity  of  some  persons,  when  I  could  only 
judge  of  it  by  what  they  said  or  did  during  an  attack  of 
mania.  A  patient  whose  conversation  and  flashes  of  wit 
had  struck  me,  sometimes  turned  out,  after  his  recovery, 

1  Trelat,  Rechcrches  historiqucs  snr  la  folic,  p.  Si.     Paris,  1839. 

2  Morcau,  Psychologic  morbide,  Paris,  1859. 

3  Marce,  "  De  la  valeur  des  cents  des  alienes  "  ;  Journal  dc  iiicdccine 
•men  talc,  1864. 


INSANE  GENIUS  IN  LITERATURE.       163 

to  be  a  very  ordinary  man,  far  inferior  to  the  opinion  I 
had  conceived  of  him."  ' 

Marce  has  recorded  the  case  of  a  young  married  woman 
of  cultivated  mind,  but  merely  ordinary  intelligence,  who, 
during  the  course  of  an  attack  of  mania,  in  which  ideas  of 
jealousy  predominated,  "  wrote  to  her  husband  letters 
which,  for  their  eloquence  and  the  passionate  energy  of 
their  style,  might  easily  be  placed  beside  the  most  fervent 
passages  of  the  Nouvclle  PIel<>ise.  When  the  attack  was 
over  her  letters  became  simple  and  modest,  and  no  one, 
on  comparing  them  with  the  others,  would  have  believed 
that  the  two  sets  came  from  the  same  pen."2 

Excessive  activity  of  the  intellect,  writes  Dagonet,  is 
also  sometimes  observed  in  the  depressive  forms  of  mental 
aberration,  but  much  less  frequently  than  in  the  expansive 
forms.  As  a  proof  of  this,  it  is  sufficient  to  cite  the  fol- 
lowing letter,  written  by  a  patient  affected  with  melan- 
cholic delusion,  to  her  husband,  a  country  schoolmaster. 
The  letter  was  full  of  mistakes  in  spelling  ;  the  woman 
who  wrote  it  had  no  education,  and  in  her  normal  con- 
dition, no  eloquence  ;  but  disease  had  transformed  her  by 
developing  her  intellectual  faculties  : — 

"Why  did  not  the  Master  of  the  universe  open  the  tomb 
to  me  in  my  brilliant  youth  ?  Why,  at  the  same  time,  did 
He  not  remove  me  from  you,  since  you  do  not  love  me, 
and  I  am  making  you  unhappy  ? 

"Why did  I  become  a  mother  ?  To  be  unhappy — more 
than  unhappy — to  leave  the  children  who  are  so  dear  to 
me.  .  .  .  Why  do  you  hate  me  ?  Though  I  stood  with 
my  feet  in  boiling  oil,  I  should  still  say,  I  love  you  !  .  .  . 

"  Why  did  you  not  let  me  die  ?     You  would  be  happy, 

—  and   I — my  troubles    would    be    over.  .   .  .  My  dear 

children  would  come  and  play  by  my  grave.  I  should  still 

be  near  them — I  should  still,  in  the  darkness  of  the  grave, 

hear  them  say,  'There  is  our  mother  ! '  "3 

If  this  woman    had  fed    her    mind    on    the    works   of 


1  Leurct,  Fragments  psyckologiquts  SKI-  lafolic. 
-  A)inalcs  incdico-psycJiolo^iqucs,  tome  iii.  p.  93,  1864. 
<  Annalcs  iiicJico-psycholo^iques,    1850,  p.  48;  Parchappe,   Syinpto- 
matologie  de  lafolic. 


164  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

Chateaubriand  she  could  not  have  expressed  herself  with 
more  poetry  or  imagination. 

"It  has  been  known,"  says  Tissot,  "that  a  young  man, 
whose  tutor  had  never  been  able  to  teach  him  anything,  and 
who,  as  the  saying  is,  could  not  put  a  noun  and  an  adjec- 
tive together,  spoke  Latin  fluently,  after  some  days  of 
malignant  fever,  and  developed  ideas  which  till  then  had 
not  struck  him."  x 

Among  other  examples  of  what  Lecamus  calls  learned 
frenzies,  he  cites  Mademoiselle  Antheman  who,  during 
her  delirium,  was  of  "  smiling  countenance  and  agreeable 
humour.  Having  lost  the  use  of  her  right  hand  through 
paralysis,  she  painted  and  embroidered  with  her  left,  with 
incredible  dexterity  ;  and  the  productions  of  her  mind 
were  no  less  surprising  than  those  of  her  hands.  She  re- 
cited verses  which  showed  the  greatest  possible  vivacity 
and  delicacy,  though  they  were  the  first  she  had  ever 
composed. " 2 

"  I  am  going  to  try,"  says  Gerard  de  Nerval,  in  his  book 
entitled  Le  Revc  ct  la  Vie,  "  to  transcribe  the  impressions 
of  a  long  illness  which  ran  its  course  entirely  in  the 
mysteries  of  my  mind.  I  do  not  know  why  I  make  use 
of  the  term  illness,  for  never — as  far  as  I  am  concerned — 
did  I  feel  better.  Sometimes  I  thought  rny  strength  and 
activity  were  doubled  ;  it  seemed  that  I  knew  and  under- 
stood everything,  imagination  gave  me  infinite  delight. 
In  recovering  what  men  called  reason,  shall  I  have  to 
regret  the  loss  of  this  ?  " 

What  mental  practitioner  has  not  heard  similar  words 
over  and  over  again  from  the  mouth  of  unhappy  patients 
who,  after  recovering  their  reason,  regretted  their  past 
state,  that  new  life,  that  vita  nuova,  which  Gerard  defines 
as  "  L? epanchement  dn  songe  dans  la  vie  r'eelle  /" 

Increase  of  intellectual  activity,  says  Dr.  Parchappe, 
is  frequently  met  with  in  insanity  ;  it  is  even  one  of  the 
most  salient  characteristics  of  this  disease  in  its  acute 
period.  The  annals  of  science — adds  the  same  author — 
contain  a  certain  number  of  well-authenticated  facts, 
which  have  contributed  to  confirm  the  superstition  of  a, 

1  Tissot,  Des  nerfs  et  de  leurs  maladies,  p.  133. 
3  Medecine  de  F  esprit,  vol.  ii.  p.  32. 


INSANE  GENIUS  JN  LITERATURE.      165 

supernatural  heightening  of  the  intellectual  faculties,  and 
which  explain,  up  to  a  certain  point,  how  the  love  of  the 
marvellous,  in  credulous  observers,  by  exaggerating  and 
distorting  analogous  facts,  has  been  able  to  gain  credit 
for  the  wonderful  tales  which  abound  in  the  history  ot 
religious  sects  at  all  epochs,  and  more  especially  in  the 
history  of  diabolical  possessions  in  the  Middle  Ages.1 

Van  Swieten  (Comment.,  1121)  relates  that  he  had  seen 
a  woman  who,  during  her  attacks  of  mania,  only  spoke 
in  verse,  which  she  composed  with  admirable  facility, 
although  in  health  she  had  never  shown  the  least  poetic 
talent. 

Lorry  cites  the  case  of  a  lady  of  rank,  of  very  ordinary 
intellect,  who  was  subject  to  attacks  of  melancholy,  during 
which  her  intelligence  was  so  far  developed  as  to  enable 
her  to  discuss  the  most  difficult  questions  with  eloquence. 

A  young  girl  of  the  people,  aged  fourteen,  attacked 
with  insanity  in  consequence  of  a  religious  revival,  talked 
on  theological  subjects  as  if  she  had  devoted  herself  to 
this  study  ;  she  spoke  like  a  preacher,  of  God  and  of 
Christian  duties,  and  gave  sagacious  answers  to  the  objec- 
tions which  were  made.2 

*'  I  have  had  occasion, "  writes  Morel, 3  a  to  remark,  in 
some  hypochondriac,  hysteric,  and  epileptic  patients,  an 
extraordinary  intellectual  activity  at  the  critical  periods  of 
the  disease.  It  is  not  rarely  observed  that  the  attacks  of 
exacerbation  to  which  they  are  subject  are  preceded  by  an 
abnormal  manifestation  of  the  intellectual  forces.  A  young 
hypochondriacal  patient,  confided  to  my  care,  often 
astonished  those  who  saw  him  by  the  facility  of  his  elocu- 
tion, and  the  brilliancy  with  which  he  expressed  his  ideas. 
At  certain  times  he  would  compose,  in  the  course  of  a 
single  night,  a  piece  of  music  or  a  play  which  possessed 
remarkable  traits,  and  some  beauties  of  the  first  order. 
But,  knowing  the  patient,  I  was  never  mistaken  in  my 
prognostications  from  this  state  of  things.  I  knew  that, 
after  three  or  four  days  of  excitement,  this  young  man 
would  fall  into  a  dull  stupor  and  become  a  prey  to  a  torpid 

1  Symptomatalogie  de  lafolie. 

2  J.  Frank,  Pathologic  interne  ;  Maniejantastique. 

3  Trait 'e  des  mahulics  inentales,  1858. 


1 66  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

apathy  which  prevented  him  from  feeling  the  instinct  of 
his  greatest  natural  necessities.  The  case  ended  in  com- 
plete dementia." 

"  In  the  case  of  a  hysterical  patient,  with  a  predomi- 
nance of  exalted  religious  ideas,  I  have  also  observed 
remarkable  phenomena  of  intellectual  reminiscence.  She 
had  heard  a  great  number  of  sermons,  and  read  still  more. 
I  have  heard  her  repeat  word  for  word  what  she  had  read 
or  what  had  been  delivered  in  her  presence.  We  were 
able  to  follow  her,  book  in  hand,  when,  under  the 
influence  of  a  nervous  excitement  which  quickened  her 
memory,  she  recited  sermons  by  well-known  Christian 
orators.  She  was  quite  unable  to  repeat  this  phenomenon 
in  her  ordinary  condition  ;  but,  as  in  the  preceding  case, 
we  knew  what  view  to  take  of  a  fact  of  this  nature — not 
to  mention  that  it  resembled  a  large  number  of  other 
cases,  by  means  of  which,  at  different  times,  the  public 
credulity  has  been  exploited.  In  this  woman  the  pheno- 
menon always  preceded  a  crisis  of  exacerbation  followed 
by  stupor. 

"  Let  us  now  pass  to  the  extreme  concentration  of  the 
attention  in  a  hypochondriacal  patient  relating  her  own 
sensations.  The  following  extracts  are  from  a  diary  left 
to  me  by  the  patient  in  question.  It  summarizes  all  that 
is  experienced  by  this  class  of  patients. 

"  September  6,  1852,  9  p.m.  This  evening,  on  going  to 
bed,  sharp  pain  in  the  sacral  regions  and  in  the  thighs. 
Tearing  pains  in  the  left  ear  and  eye  while  falling  asleep. 
I  was  overpowered  by  the  feeling  of  fear.  I  seemed  to  be 
rolling  into  bottomless  abysses,  and  to  have,  as  it  were,  an 
iron  hook  fixed  in  my  skull  and  heart,  and  dragging  them 
out. 

"  September  7,  1852,  7  a.m.  Lancinating  pain  in  the 
eyes,  acute  suffering  in  the  eyelids.  Pressure  on  the 
temples,  principally  on  the  left,  eyes  constantly  watering, 
larynx  contracted  ;  a  horrible,  never-ceasing  devouring 
hunger,  which  seems  to  make  me  start.  I  am  seized  by 
an  anger  which  makes  me  seem  mad  in  the  eyes  of  others. 
If  I  could  still  cry  out,  that  would  relieve  me  ;  I  am  boil- 
ing over  with  anger,  and  I  look  wild.  It  is  as  though  I 
had  a  little  saw  inside  my  head.  Always  this  motion  of 


INSANE  GENIUS  IN  LITERATURE.      167 

sawing — of  a  wheel  which  keeps  turning  and  carries  me 
with  it.     My  bones  feel  to  me  like  dead  wood  which  burns  * 
like  logwood. 

"  September  8,  1852.  The  whole  day  without  having 
been  able  to  do  anything.  My  forehead  seemed  encircled 
with  a  tight  iron  band.  I  went  to  bed  with  a  feeling  of 
deep  depression.  Fear  overpowers  me — sometimes  a  feel- 
ing of  hatred — a  very  little  excusable  jealousy  of  those 
who  can  act  freely  and  work.  I  have  in  my  back  some- 
thing like  little  strings  pulling  in  all  directions,  making 
music  like  an  accordion.  It  is  torturing.  The  strop 
man  would  fall  dead  with  terror,  if  he  could  see  the  reality 
of  a  person  in  my  state  of  health.  .  .  .  And  they  laugh  at 
me.  .  .  .  The  doctors  refuse  to  believe  in  my  sufferings. 
There  are  moments  when  all  that  I  have  ever  seen  in  my 
life  is  before  my  eyes  at  once.  I  feel  myself  lifted  into  the 
air  or  up  to  the  roofs  ;  I  feel  a  horror  of  myself.  It  is  like 
an  old  painting  by  Rembrandt  etched  in  aqua  for tis. 

"Dreams.  —  Dead  horses,  headless,  dismembered — 
horrors  of  all  kinds.  .  .  .  Then  there  are  members  of  my 
family  who  appear  to  me;  but  everything  I  see  is  dis- 
torted and  reduced  in  size  ;  there  is,  as  it  were,  a  cntiu  r<i 
obscura  in  me,  and  the  reflector  shows  me  everything  in 
miniature.  I  admit  that  I  may  be  insane — but  you.  t"<>, 
must  admit  at  least  that  I  am  very  ill,"  £c. 

It  is  known,  says  Paulhan,1  that  with  some  dementia 
patients,  certain  faculties  remain  intact  ;  they  cat;,  for 
instance,  play  at  cards  or  draughts,  though  their  mind  in 
general  may  be  quite  disorganized.  The  same  is  found 
to  be  the  case  with  idiots.  Griesingcr  saw,  in  the  Earls- 
wood  Asylum,  a  young  man  who  had  made,  all  by  him- 
self, a  remarkable  model  of  a  man-of-war.  This  individual's 
intelligence  was  very  limited  ;  he  had  no  idea  whatever  of 
numbers.  "  It  more  frequently  happens,"  adds  the  author, 
"  that  complete  idiots  execute  fairly  good  work  in  draw- 
ing or  painting.  In  such  cases,  it  is,  of  course,  only  a 
mechanical  talent." 

Esquirol  reports  the  case  of  a  general  suffering  from 
mania,  whose  "  delusions  persist  throughout  the  summer, 

1  Revue  PhilosopJiique,  1 888. 


1 68  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

with  some  lucid  intervals,  during  which  the  patient  writes 
comedies  and  vaudevilles  which  betray  the  incoherence 
of  his  ideas.  ...  In  spite  of  the  confusion  of  his  mind, 
the  general  conceives  an  idea  for  the  perfecting  of  a 
certain  weapon,  draws  designs,  and  manifests  the  desire 
of  getting  a  model  constructed."  One  day,  he  went  to 
the  foundry,  and,  on  his  return,  was  seized  with  agitation 
and  delirium.  A  while  later,  he  paid  a  second  visit  to 
the  foundry,  and  "  the  model  having  been  executed,  gave 
an  order  for  fifty  thousand.  This  order  was  the  only  act 
which  gave  the  founder  reason  to  suspect  the  general's 
malady.  His  invention  was  afterwards  officially  adopted." 
Thus,  in  the  midst  of  general  incoherence,  an  important 
series  of  ideas  was  maintained  and  carried  out  to  the  end. 

A  writer  not  practised  in  mental  disease,  Esquiros, 
whom  we  have  already  had  occasion  to  quote,  mentions 
the  following  facts,  which  are  very  significant  : — 

"  Dr.  Leuret,"  he  says,  "  related  to  us  the  history  of  a 
patient  in  the  Bicetre  who,  during  his  malady,  had  shown 
a  remarkable  talent  for  writing,  though  when  in  good 
health  he  would  have  been  quite  incapable  of  doing  as 
much.  '  I  am  not  quite  cured,'  he  said  to  the  physician, 
who  thought  him  convalescent.  '  I  am  still  too  clever  for 
that.  When  I  am  well,  I  take  a  week  to  write  a  letter. 
In  my  natural  condition  I  am  stupid  ;  wait  till  I  become 
so  again."  The  same  observer  also  cites  the  case  of  a 
merchant  whose  affairs  were  in  danger.  During  his  ill- 
ness, this  man  found  means  to  re-establish  them  ;  the 
result  of  each  of  his  attacks  was  the  perfecting  of  some 
mechanism,  or  the  invention  of  some  means  for  facilitating 
his  industry  ;  and  at  the  end  of  this  invaluable  insanity, 
he  was  found  to  have  recovered  both  his  reason  and  his 
fortune. 

"  We  have  been  shown  at  Montmartre,  in  Dr.  Blanche's 
establishment,  traces  of  charcoal-drawings  on  a  wall. 
These  half-effaced  figures,  one  of  which  represented  the 
Queen  of  Sheba,  and  the  other  some  king,  were  the  work 
of  a  distinguished  young  author,  who  has  since  recovered 
his  reason.  This  illness  had  developed  a  new  talent, 
which  was  non-existent,  or  at  least  played  a  most  insigni- 
ficant part,  while  he  was  in  health. 


INSANE  GENIUS  IK  LITERATURE.      169 

44  It  is  said  that  Marion  Delorme  met,  in  a  madhouse, 
with  the  first  man  who  conceived  the  idea  of  applying 
4t'ic  forces  of  steam  to  the  needs  of  industry,  Salomon  de 
X-'aus.  Talents  created  by  disease  forsake  the  individual, 
for  the  most  part,  at  the  same  time  as  the  disease 
itself."  * 

I  had  under  treatment  at  Pavia,  a  peasant  lad,  aged 
twelve,  who  composed  extremely  original  musical  melodies, 
and  bestowed  on  his  companions  in  misfortune  nicknames 
which  fitted  so  well  that  they  always  kept  them.  With 
him  was  a  little  old  man  afflicted  with  rickets  and  pellagra 
who,  when  asked  whether  he  was  happy,  replied,  like  a 
philosopher  of  ancient  Greece,  "  All  men  are  happy,  even 
the  rich,  if  they  are  only  willing." 

Many  of  my  pupils  still  remember  B ,  by  turns 

musician,  servant,  porter,  keeper  of  a  cookshop,  tinman, 
soldier,  public  letter-writer,  but  always  unfortunate.  He 
left  us  an  autobiography,  which,  apart  from  a  few  ortho- 
graphical mistakes  in  spelling,  would  be  quite  worth 
printing  ;  and  he  asked  me  for  his  discharge  in  terms 
which,  for  an  uneducated  working  man,  were  wanting 
neither  in  beauty  nor  in  originality. 

Not  long  ago  I  heard  a  poor  hawker  of  sponges,  when 
insane,  thus  conjecture  and  sum  up  the  cardinal  idea  of  the 
circulation  of  life  :  "  We  do  not  die.  When  the  soul  is  worn 
out  it  melts,  and  is  turned  into  another  shape.  In  fact, 
when  my  father  had  buried  a  dead  mule,  we  afterwards  saw 
mushrooms  growing  in  great  numbers  on  the  same  spot, 
and  the  potatoes  in  the  same  place,  which  were  formerly 
very  small,  grew  to  twice  their  usual  size." 

Thus  a  vulgar  mind,  enlightened  by  the  energy  of 
mania,  stumbles  on  theories  which  the  greatest  thinkers 
arrive  at  with  difficulty. 

G.  B.,  a  maniac,  nephew  of  a  celebrated  author,  said 
to  me  one  day,  when  I  hesitated  before  permitting  him 
to  ride  a  somewhat  skittish  horse,  "  No  fear,  doctor — 
similia  similibus" 

M.  G.,  a  merchant,  suffering  from  melancholia,  said  to 

,  Paris  au  dix-neiivtime  stick — Les  maisons  de  /bus,  tome 


1 70  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

some  one  who  had  called  him  "  Count "  by  mistake, 
"  What  count  ?  I  have  kept  plenty  of  accounts — I  know 
no  others  !  " 

u  Why   will    you    not    shake    hands    with    me  ?  "    i    , 

asked    Madame    M ,   a  sufferer  from  moral  insanity, 

one  morning,  "  Are  you  angry  with  me  ?  "  "  Pallida 
virgo  cupit,  rubictmda  rccusat"  she  replied.  Another 
time  I  asked  her,  "Do  you  hope  to  leave  this  establish- 
ment soon  ?  "  She  answered,  "  I  shall  leave  it  when  those 
outside  have  recovered  their  reason." 

V ,  a  thief,  and  insane,  made  his  escape  during  a 

walk  which  had  been  permitted  him.  When  overtaken 
and  reproached  with  having  betrayed  the  confidence  re- 
posed in  him,  he  replied,  a  I  only  wanted  to  try  whether 
my  knees  were  stiff  or  not." 

B.  B.,a  maniac  woman,  over  seventy  years  of  age,  who 
had  lost  all  her  teeth,  made  obscene  remarks.  When  re- 
monstrated with  for  using  expressions  so  unbecoming  to 
her  age,  she  said,  "  Old  !  old  !  Why,  do  you  not  see  that 
I  have  not  yet  cut  my  teeth  ?  " 

N.  B.,  who  became  a  poet  through  insanity,  writes  with 
much  subtlety,  but  his  verses  do  not  scan.  His  companion, 
G.  R.,  once  told  us  that  he  lengthened  the  feet  on  purpose, 
so  that,  being  well  planted,  they  should  not  be  able  to 
escape  his  memory.1 

Synthesis . — The  most  original  and  general  charac- 
teristic of  the  poets  who  are  the  product  of  insanity 
is  precisely  the  forcing  of  the  mind  to  a  state  so  at 
variance  with  previous  conditions  of  life  and  culture. 
In  many,  it  is  true,  the  only  result  of  this  effect  is  a  con- 
tinuous flow  of  epigrams,  plays  upon  words,  and  assonances 
— puns,  in  short,  such  as  are  praised  in  society  as  evidences 
of  wit  ;  though  it  is  no  wonder  that  they  should  abound 
in  lunatic  asylums,  being,  as  they  are,  the  very  negative 
of  truth  and  logic.  This  tendency,  or,  at  least,  the  ten- 
dency to  alliteration  and  rhyme,  is  evident  in  all  their 
works,  even  those  written  in  prose.  Yet,  on  the  other 

1  See  Appendix.     I  regret  that  in  the  English  edition  of  my  work 
it  has  not  been  found  possible  to  give  a  more  copious  selection  from 
the  poems  by  the  insane  which  I  have  at  my  disposal.     F^ 
must  refer  the  reader  to  the  original  Italian  or  to  the  French  < 


INSANE  GENIUS  IN  LITERATURE.      171 

hand,  we  not  rarely  meet  with  improvised  philosophers, 
who  in  their  utterances  reproduce  parts  of  the  systems  of 
the  Positivists,  of  Epicurus  and  Comte  ;  the  brain, 
quickened  by  insanity,  being  able  to  seize  upon  those 
salient  points  of  truth  from  which  the  systems  named 
took  their  rise,  and  that  because  these  men  have  less 
hatred  of  novelty,  and  more  originality,  than  normal 
people. 

Their  most  salient  characteristic — originality  heightened 
to  the  point  of  absurdity — is  due  to  the  overflowing  of 
the  imagination  which  can  no  longer  be  restrained  within 
the  bounds  of  logic  and  common  sense.  It  is  natural 
that  the  mind  which  has  been  most  injured,  or  is  by 
nature  the  most  deficient,  should  exceed  most  in  this 
respect.  We  need  only  refer  now  to  the  pretended  me- 
tamorphosis and  journeyings  of  the  soul  of  P of 

Siena,  and  the  writings  of  M of  Pesaro,  who  had 

carried  his  passion  for  the  Greek  language  so  far  as  to 
invent  a  new  idiom,  in  which  gravel  was  called  lithiasis, 
the  sea,  cquor^  convictions,  agtmies,  the  world,  a  rase.1 

Their  more  rapid  association  of  ideas,  and  livelier 
imagination,  often  enable  them  to  solve  problems  which 
more  cultivated,  but  normal,  intellects  can  scarcely  attack 
with  success. 

Another  peculiarity  characteristic  of  them,  but  which, 
be  it  noted,  is  often  found  also  in  the  writings  of  criminals, 
is  the  tendency  to  speak  of  themselves  or  their  companions, 
and  to  write  autobiographies,  abandoning  themsclve^ 
without  restraint  to  the  torrent  of  ambition  or  love. 
But  with  insane  persons  the  form  of  expression  is  much 
less  artificial  than  that  used  by  criminals,  in  whose  writings 
one  finds  more  coherence  but  less  creative  power  and 
originality. 

The  use  of  assonances  in  place  of  reasoning  is  entirely 
peculiar  to  the  insane,  as  also  the  use  of  special  words,  or 
words  used  in  a  peculiar  sense,  and  the  exaggerated  im 
portance  attributed  to  the  most  trifling  things. 

"  Cest  k  travail  des  fous  itcpuiser  leurs  cemelles 
Sur  des  riens  fatigants,  sur  qnclqucs  bagatelles" 


1  Sec  my  UUomo  Delinqiiente. 


1 72  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

said  Hecart  in  his  Gualana,  which,  by  the  way,  is  only 
the  work  of  a  mattoid. 

Many  of  them,  though  fewer  than  among  the  mattoids, 
mingle  drawing  with  poetry,  as  though  neither  art  by 
itself  were  sufficient  for  the  impetus  of  their  ideas. 
Their  style  lacks  the  polish  which  comes  of  much 
elaboration,  but  abounds  in  incisive  and  vigorous  sen- 
tences, so  that  it  often  equals,  and  even  surpasses,  the 
productions  of  calmer  and  more  refined  art. 

Passion. — This  should  not  cause  surprise  any  more 
than  the  tendency  to  versification  in  individuals  who, 
before  losing  their  reason,  were  ignorant  of  prosody,  when 
it  is  remembered  that  poetry — as  Byron  well  said  and 
demonstrated  in  his  own  person — is  the  expression  of 
passion  under  excitement,  and  grows  in  vigour  and  effec- 
tiveness as  the  excitement  increases. 

That  rhythm  can  relieve  and  express  abnormal  psychic 
excitement  much  better  than  prose  can  be  deduced  from 
the  poetic  inspirations  of  drunkards,  as  well  as  from  the 
spontaneous  affirmations  of  insane  poets. 

"  Je  vous-ecris  en  vers,  11* en  soy  ez  point  choque, 
En  prose  je  ne  sais  exprimer  mapensee," 

an  insane  criminal  wrote  to  Arboux,  clearly  explaining 
this  tendency.1 

A  lunatic  at  Pesaro  gave  this  reason  for  some  of  his 
verses  :  "  Poetry  is  a  spontaneous  emanation  from  the 
mind — poetry  is  the  cry  of  the  soul  pierced  by  a  thousand 
griefs." 2 

Atavism. — Vico  had  already  guessed,  and  Buckle,  at  a 
later  date,  has  admirably  explained  that,  among  primitive 
peoples,  all  thinkers  and  sages  were  poets.  In  fact,  the 
earliest  histories  were  put  into  a  fixed  form  and  handed 
down  by  the  bards  of  Gaul,  or  by  the  Toolkolos  of  Tibet ; 
likewise  in  America,3  the  Deccan,*  Africa,*  and  Oceania.6 

1  Les  prisons  de  Paris,  1881. 

2  Diario  del  Manicomio  di  Pesaro,  1879. 

3  Prescott,  Conquest  of  Peru,  i. 

4  Lieut. -Col.  Mark  Wilks,  Historical  Sketch  of  the  South  of  India. 

5  Mungo  Park,  Travels,  i. 

6  Ellis,  Polynesian  Researches,  vol.  iv.  p.  462,  1834. 


INSANE  GENIUS  IN  LITERATURE.      173 

Kills  writes  that  the  Polynesians  have  recourse  to  their 
oallads  as  to  historical  documents  when  any  question 
arises  regarding  the  deeds  of  their  ancestors.  And  as  in 
ancient  India,  so  also  in  mediaeval  Europe,  the  sciences 
were  explained  in  verse.  Montucla  speaks  of  a  mathe- 
matical treatise  of  the  thirteenth  century  written  in  verse  ; 
an  Englishman  versified  the  Institutes  of  Justinian,  and  a ' 
Pole  wrote  a  rhyming  work  on  heraldry. 

History,  properly  so  called,  though  written  in  prose 
was  in  the  Middle  Ages  no  less  fabulous  and  full  of  fantastic 
absurdities  and  puns  than  poetry.  Troyes  was  derived 
from  Troy,  Nuremberg  from  Nero,  the  Saracens  from 
Sara  ;  Mahomet  was  a  cardinal  ;  Naples  was  built  on  a 
foundation  of  eggs  ;  after  certain  victories  of  the  Turks 
there  were  children  born  with  22  or  23  instead  of  32 
teeth.  Turpin,  the  Macaulay  of  those  times'  relates  in 
his  chronicle  that  the  walls  of  Pampeluna  fell  as  soon  as 
the  followers  of  Charlemagne  had  begun  to  pray.  Fer- 
rante  was  20  cubits  in  height,  and  had  a  face  a  cubit  in 
length.  In  short,  the  history  of  those  days  was  the  same 
as  the  fairy  tales  still  told  at  rustic  firesides,  from  which 
we  can  gather  nothing  but  the  uniform  quality  of  human 
imbecility  which  becomes  more  fantastic  the  more  ignorant 
it  is. 

A  tendency  to  revert  to  ancestral  conditions  appears 
even  in  the  prose  of  the  mattoid  or  insane.  Thus  Tanzi 
and  Riva,1  speaking  of  some  works  by  monomaniacs 
write  as  follows  : — 

"  For  the  demonomaniacs  of  a  hundred  years  ago — 
belated  representatives  of  mediaeval  mysticism,  who  typify 
the  ancient  form  of  paranma — are  now  substituted  the 
modern  paranoiacs  ;  new  alchemists  who,  with  their 
pseudo-scientific  delusions,  and  their  vainglorious  phrases, 
revive  in  our  day  the  style  and  thoughts  of  Trithemius, 
Agrippa,  Paracelsus,  and  other  men  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury who  were  strange,  but  learned  and  venerated  students 
of  occult  science  and  magic.  Paranoia  follows  the  path 
of  humanity  through  the  centuries,  undergoing,  with  a 
certain  delay,  all  its  changes,  though  often  separated  from 

1  La  Paranoia,  1886. 


174  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

it  only  by  a  slight  interval.  As  an  example  of  this  latter 
kind  we  may  take  the  following  passage  from  an  extremely 
long  autobiography,  written  by  a  paranoiac,  in  which  the 
acute  and  accurate  account  of  his  own  adventures  is  found 
in  company  with  insane  statements  like  the  following  : — 

"  '  It  ought  to  be  known  that  the  aristocracy,  or  persons 
descended  from  them,  secrete  a  certain,  as  yet  undefined, 
substance  which  produces  electricity.  In  this  way  it  is 
easy  to  understand  how  there  can  be  communication 
between  one  nobly-born  person  and  another — if  one 
thinks  for  a  moment  of  the  telegraph  and  its  electric 
batteries.  In  this  manner  two  nobles,  being  placed  in 
communication,  act  upon  each  other  as  electric  batteries, 
transmitting  every  movement  and  thought  by  means  of  a 
thread,  as  if  the  idea  and  way  of  thinking  were  so  many 
strokes  on  the  part  of  the  manipulator  of  the  telegraphic 
instrument.  The  system,  as  may  be  understood,  is  in- 
finitesimal, for  thought,  transmitted  from  one  side,  forms 
on  the  other  as  many  infinitesimal  points  as  there  are 
atoms  forming  the  idea.'  " 

MM.  Riva  and  Tanzi  observe  that  many  of  the  ancient 
alchemists  expressed  themselves  in  precisely  the  same  way. 

u  So,"  they  continue,  "nothing  could  be  easier  than  to 
recognize  a  born  paranoiac  in  the  King  of  Bavaria,1 
misanthropic,  vain,  ambitious,  mystical,  romantic,  voluble, 
subject  to  hallucinations,  eccentric  in  his  acts,  his  habits, 
his  judgment  and  his  conduct,  perverted  in  his  aesthetic 
tastes,  in  love,  in  the  ethical  sentiments,  exaggerated  and 
unbalanced  in  everything.  He  was  so  profoundly  im- 
pressed with  the  stamp  of  mediaeval  atavism  that  political 
journalism — hitting  the  mark  with  unconsciously  scientific 
correctness — designated  him  as  a  Sir  Percival  come  to  life 
again." 

The  pathologic  and  atavistic  origin  of  many  of  the 
literary  productions  of  the  insane  explains  the  frequent 
inequalities  of  the  style,  which  is  as  feeble  and  slovenly 
when  the  excitement  ceases,  as  it  was  at  first  splendid  and 
vigorous,  and  the  abrupt  transition  from  stanzas  worthy 
of  a  classic  author  to  the  scribbling  of  an  idiot.  This 

1  Ludwig  II. 


INSANE  GENIUS  IN  LITERATURE,      175 

origin  also  accounts  for  the  extreme  contradictions  to  be 
found  in  the  writings  of  one  and  the  same  author — as  is 
seen  in  Farina  and  Lazzaretti — their  fondness  for  aphorisms 
and  detached  periods,  the  abrupt  and  disconnected  cha- 
racter of  their  style — which  is  both  primitive  and  childish — 
and  the  monotonous  repetition  of  certain  words  or  phrases, 
recalling  the  verses  of  the  Bible  or  the  suras  of  the  Koran. 
It  also  explains  their  propensity  for  continually  dwelling 
on  the  same  subject,  nearly  always  connected  with  matters 
out  of  the  line  of  their  own  studies,  and  (what  is  more  im- 
portant) of  no  advantage  to  themselves  or  others.  Their 
works  are  nearly  always  autobiographical. 

Conclusion. — Summing  up  what  has  been  said,  there  is 
a  special  organization  in  all  the  writings  of  madmen,  even 
the  absurdest — a  true  finality,  as  Paulhan  calls  it. 

"  I  understand  by  this,"  he  says,  "  that,  as  soon  as  one 
psychic  element  exists,  it  tends  to  call  forth  others.  It  is 
not  the  totality  of  the  mind — if  it  is  not  itself  co-ordinated 
— which  determines  the  appearance  of  phenomena,  but 
the  elements.  That  is  to  say,  what  is  already  syste- 
matized in  the  mind  tends  to  acquire  a  more  complete 
systematization.  If  it  is  a  sensation,  it  will  tend  to 
awaken  particular,  precise,  and  appropriate  ideas  or  acts  ; 
if  it  is  a  general  tendency — a  pre-established  mental 
organization — it  will  tend  to  make  the  mind  interpret 
in  such  or  such  a  manner  the  sensations  which  reach  it. 

"  As  every  psychic  element  is  systematic,  and  as,  when 
finality  is  not  to  be  found  in  the  totality  of  a  psychic 
organism,  or  of  a  series  of  actions,  or  a  theory,  or  an 
argument,  or  a  passion  (and  in  this  case  all  these  facts  are 
not  really  psychic  elements),  it  exists  in  the  elements. 
This  tendency  on  the  part  of  the  elements  to  systematic 
association,  exercising  itself  without  higher  control,  with- 
out general  direction,  ends  in  producing  numerous  discords 
in  the  totality  of  psychic  operations.  The  result  is  some- 
what as?  though  all  the  musicians  in  an  orchestra  were  to 
play  different  tunes  in  as  many  different  keys. 

"  When,  in  the  constitution  of  society,  an  association  is 
dissolved,  a  law  of  finality  is  broken  and  the  elements  (the 
human  beings  who  formed  the  association)  are  restored 
to  individual  life.  They  then  enter  upon  new  forms  of 


1 76  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

social  activity.  If,  for  example,  a  factory  is  .closed,  the 
men  and  women  who  worked  there  and  were  united 
by  a  systematic  association,  go  to  work  again,  each  on  his 
or  her  own  account,  either  separately,  or  in  new  associa- 
tions, in  which  some  of  them  may  chance  to  meet  again. 
The  same  thing  takes  place  with  the  psychic  elements, 
wherever,  from  one  cause  or  another,  the  bond  which 
united  them  is  broken  ;  they  enter  into  new  associations 
where  they  work,  each  on  its  own  account,  at  the  risk  of 
producing  nothing  but  incoherence.  This  isolated  activity 
of  the  elements  is  met  with  in  a  striking  manner  in  mental 
disease. 

"The  pun  is  a  form  of  this  disorder.  On  analyzing  it, 
we  find  that  it  consists  essentially  in  this  :  A  sound  em- 
ployed in  a  particular  complexus  (consisting  of  the  sound, 
the  ideas,  and  the  systematized  images  constituting  the 
signification  of  the  sound),  itself  forming  part  of  a  more 
complex  system,  separates  itself  at  least  partially  from 
these  two  systems,  and  becomes  associated  with  other 
systems  of  ideas  and  images.  The  association  through 
a  resemblance  between  certain  parts  of  the  words 
— for  example,  by  means  of  rhyme — is  an  essentially 
analogous  fact.  Here  it  is  a  sound  which,  systematically 
associated  with  other  sounds,  allies  itself  at  the  same  time 
with  different  sounds,  in  order  to  form  simultaneously,  or 
at  short  intervals,  systems  which  do  not  harmonise 
together.  Among  the  latter  class  may  be  reckoned  the 
greater  number  of  lapsus  linguce  and  lapsus  calami. 

"Examples  of  this  abound.  M.  Regnard  has  cited 
several  pieces  of  verse  written  by  madmen,  which  show 
in  a  high  degree  the  mode  of  elementary  systematic 
association.  Sometimes  one  observes  a  remnant  of  in- 
tellectual co-ordination,  as  in  the  following  lines,  in  which, 
however,  incoherence  is  also  abundantly  manifested  : — 

"  (faime  lefeu  de  lafortgcre 

Ne  durant  pas,  mais  petillant ; 
Lafumee  est  Acre  de  go  At. 
Maii,  des  cendres  de :  la  Fouferre 
On  pent  tirer  en  s'amusant 
Deux  sous  d'utt  sel  qui  lave  tout, 
De  soude,  un  sel  qui  lave  tout.'1  J 

1  P.  Regnard,  Les  maladies  epidcmiques  de  Fesprit,  p.  370. 


ItfSAtfE  G£tflUS  Itf  LITER  A  TURE.      1 7  7 

At  other  times  sense  disappears  altogether,  as  in  these 
lines,  also  quoted  by  M.  Regnard,  and  composed  by  a 
patient  whose  mania  was  that  of  self-conceit,  and  who  had 
been  insane  for  twenty-five  years  : — 

"  l  Magnanl  a  nwn  soiihait,  mcdecin  Magnnn  iine, 
Adore  de  vion  sort  la  force  qui  .  .   .  fanime. 

Adinirant  son  bean  crane  .  .  .  autrc  reword  de  Phl'dre, 
Nargue  Legrand  du  Saulle  et  sois  tin  Grand  du  Cedre?  x 

A  good  example  of  this  phenomenon  is  afforded  by  the 
patient,  observed  by  Trousseau,  who  wrote  down  more 
than  five  hundred  pages  of  words  connected  with  one 
another  by  assonance  or  sense  :  Chat,  chapeau,  pcau, 
mauchon,  main,  manchcs,  robe,  rose,  jupon,  pompon, 
bouquet,  bouquetierc,  cimetttre,  btirc,  &c.2 

"  One  need  not  be  either  insane  or  imbecile  to  make 
puns  and  associate  words  together  on  account  of  super- 
ficial resemblances.  In  this  case,  instead  of  being  a 
permanent  dissociation  of  the  more  complex  systems,  it 
is  a  momentary  dissociation  which  gives  rise  to  the 
phenomenon.  Nothing  is  more  natural — when  one  feels 
the  need  of  unbending  one's  mind — than  to  restore  to 
themselves  the  psychic  elements  retained  in  complex 
systems  not  necessary  to  life,  and  to  allow  them  a  liberty 
which  they  sometimes  abuse.  To  continue  the  above 
comparison — which  may  be  carried  a  long  way — the 
workmen  in  the  factory  are  not  always  at  work  ;  they 
have  their  moments  of  rest  and  recreation,  and  then 
usually  occupy  themselves  with  less  complex  systems."  3 

Those  most  prone  to  these  rhythmic  manifestations  are, 
in  my  opinion  (which  is  borne  out  by  Adriani  and  Toselli), 
chronic  maniacs,  alcoholic  maniacs,  and  paralytics  in  the 
early  stage — in  whom,  however,  there  is  apt  to  be  more 
rhyme  than  verse,  and  more  verse  than  sense.  Melan- 
choly patients  would  take  the  next  place,  owing  to  the 
small  number  of  these  found  in  asylums  ;  they  seem 
to  find  in  versification  a  relief  from  their  habitual 

1  Regnard,  Les  maladies,  <SrV. ,  p.  390. 

2  Quoted  by  M.  Luys,  Actions  rejlexes  du  cerveau,  p.  170 

3  Revue  Philosophise,  1888,  No.  8. 


178  THE  MAN  OF 

silence,  or  a  defence  against  imaginary  persecutions. 
This  is  a  much  more  important  fact  than  would  appear 
at  first  sight,  when  connected  with  another,  already 
well  known,  viz.,  that  all  great  thinkers  and  poets' are 
constitutionally  inclined  to  melancholy. 


CHAPTER  II. 

ART    IN   THK   INS  AM- 

Geographical  distribution — Profession — Influence  of  the  special  form 
of  alienation — Originality — Eccentricity — Symbolism — Obscenity 
— Criminality  and  moral  insanity — Uselessncss — Insanity  as  a 
subject — Absurdity  —  Uniformity —  Summary—  Music  among  the 
insane. 

THOUGH  the  artistic  tendency  is  very  pronounced,  and 
might  almost  be  called  a  general  characteristic,  in  some 
varieties  of  insanity,  few  authors  have  paid  sufficient 
attention  to  it. 

The  only  exceptions  are  Tardieu,  who,  in  his  ILtudcs 
Medico- L'egalcs  sur  la  foh'e,  remarks  that  the  drawings 
of  the  insane  are  of  great  importance  from  the  point  of 
view  of  forensic  medicine  ;  Simon,1  who,  in  speaking  of 
drawing  among  megalomaniacs,  observes  that  the  imagi- 
nation appears  in  them  in  inverse  proportion  to  the 
intellect  ;  and  Frigerio,  who  some  time  later  gave  a 
survey  of  the  subject  in  an  excellent  essay,  published  in  the 
Diario  del  Manicninio  di  Pesaro*  Since  then  I  have 
been  able  to  make  a  completer  examination  of  this  sub- 
ject, thanks  to  the  curious  documents  supplied  to  me  by 
MM.  Riva,  Toselli,  Lolli,  Frigerio,  Tamburini,  Marag- 
liano,  and  Maxime  du  Camp. 

By  comparing  their  observations  with  my  own,  I  find 
a  total  of  108  mental  patients  with  artistic  tendencies,  of 
which: — 46  were  towards  painting,  10  sculpture,  n 
engraving,  8  music,  5  architecture,  28  poetry. 

The  prevailing  psychopathic  forms  in  these  108  cases, 
were  : — In  25,  sensorial  monomania  and  that  of  perse- 

1  Annalcs  Aled.  Psych.,  1876. 

2  Regnarcl  has  also  touched  upon  the  subject,  but  without  going  into 
it  deeply,  in  his  Sonellcrie,  Paris,  1887. 


180  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

cution  ;  21  dementia,  16  megalomania,  14  acute  or  inter- 
mittent mania,  8  melancholia,  8  general  paralysis,  5 
moral  insanity,  2  epilepsy. 

It  is  evident  that  those  which  predominate  are  the 
congenital  and  least  readily  curable  forms  (monomania 
and  moral  insanity),  together  with  dementia,  and  those 
forms  which  it  accompanies,  or  in  which  it  is  latent 
(megalomania  and  paralysis). 

Let  us  now  consider  the  special  characteristics  of  these 
insane  artists. 

Geographical  distribution. — In  the  districts  where  the 
artistic  tendency  is  more  marked  among  the  sane,  the 
number  of  insane  artists  is  also  higher.  In  fact,  I  have 
found  very  few  of  the  latter  at  Turin,  Pavia,  or  Reggio, 
while  at  Perugia,  Lucca,  and  Siena  they  abound. 

Profession. — Only  in  a  few  cases  could  the  tendency 
be  explained  by  profession  or  habits  acquired  before  the 
appearance  of  the  disease.  We  find  among  the  insane 
artists  mentioned  above — 8  ex-painters  or  sculptors,  10 
ex-architects,  carpenters,  or  cabinet  makers  ;  10  former 
schoolmasters  or  priests,  i  telegraphist,  2  students,  6 
sailors,  soldiers,  or  officers  of  engineers. 

Among  modern  painters  affected  with  insanity,  we  may 
note  Gill,  Cham,  Chirico,  Mancini,  and  others. 

In  some  cases,  former  tendencies  were  accentuated  by 
insanity.  Thus,  a  mechanician  made  drawings  of  machines, 
two  sailors  constructed  models  of  ships,  a  major-domo 
traced,  on  the  floor,  pictures  of  tables  prepared  for  a 
banquet,  with  pyramids  of  fruit.  At  Reggio,  a  cabinet- 
maker carved  some  very  fine  foliage  and  ornaments  ;  a 
naval  officer  at  Genoa  at  first  carved  models  of  ships,  and 
afterwards  was  continually  occupied  in  depicting — though 
he  had  never  learnt  to  paint — scenes  at  sea  which,  he 
said,  consoled  him  for  being  debarred  from  his  favourite 
element. 

Sometimes  these  men  were  inspired  by  insanity  with 
a  strange  energy  in  their  work,  "just  as  if,"  as  MM.  de 
Paoli  and  Adriani  wrote  to  me,  "  they  had  been  paid  for 
it.  They  cover  the  walls,  the  tables,  and  even  the  floor, 
with  painting."  One  of  them,  a  painter,  who  had 
formerly  only  reached  mediocrity,  attained  such  perfection 


ART  IN  THE  INSANE.  181 

through  his  malady,  that  a  copy  of  one  of  Raphael's 
Madonnas,  executed  by  him  during  one  of  his  attacks, 
gained  a  prize  medal  at  the  Exhibition. 

Mignoni,  the  celebrated  painter  of  Reggio,  who  became 
an  inmate  of  the  asylum  at  that  town  on  account  of 
dementia  and  megalomania,  remained  idle  there  for 
fourteen  years.  At  last,  at  the  suggestion  of  Dr.  Zani, 
he  resumed  his  brush,  and  covered  the  walls  of  the 
asylum  with  excellent  frescoes.  One  of  them  repre- 
sented the  story  of  Count  Ugolino  so  vividly,  that  one 
of  the  patients  began  to  throw  meat  at  it,  so  that  the 
father  and  children  might  not  die  of  hunger,  and  the 
grease  spots  are  still  to  be  seen.1 

Of  eight  painters,  whose  history  Adriani  has  related  to 
me,  four  kept  their  former  skill  while  under  the  influence 
of  acute  or  intermittent  mania  ;  in  two  others,  it  was  so 
far  weakened  that  one  of  them,  after  his  recovery,  sin- 
cerely deplored  the  work  done  during  his  illness. 

Influence  of  the  special  form  of  Insanity. — In  many 
cases,  the  choice  of  subject  is  inspired  by  the  malady. 
A  melancholiac  was  continually  carving  a  figure  of  a 
man  with  a  skull  in  his  hand.  A  woman  affected  with 
megalomania  was  always  working  the  word  DIO  (God) 
into  her  embroidery.  Most  monomaniacs  habitually 
allude  to  their  imaginary  misfortunes  by  means  of  special 
emblems. 

A  monomaniac,  who  laboured  under  the  delusion  that 
he  was  being  persecuted,  drew  his  enemies  pursuing 
him  on  one  side  of  the  picture  and  Justice  defending 
him  on  the  other. 

Alcoholic  maniacs  often  make  an  excessive  use  of 
yellow  in  their  pictures.  One  painter,  in  whom  alcohol 
had  completely  destroyed  the  sense  of  colour,  became 
very  skilful  in  the  rendering  of  white,  and,  between  his 
drunken  fits,  became  the  best  painter  of  snow-scenes  in 
France. 

An  artist  of  note,  C ,  when  affected  with  general 

paralysis,  lost  his  sense  of  proportion,  e.g.,  he  began  to 
sketch  a  tree  which,  if  drawn  in  its  entirety,  would  have 
reached  beyond  the  frame  of  the  picture.     He  collected 
1  Gazzetta  del  Manicomio  di  Reggio ,  1867. 


1 82  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

the  poorest  oleographs  and  admired  them,  and  coloured 
everything  green. 

It  is  more  usual,  however?  for  insanity  to  transform 
into  painters  persons  who  have  never  been  accustomed 
to  handle  a  brush,  than  for  it  to  improve  skilled  artists. 
Sometimes  the  disease,  while  suppressing  some  qualities 
of  value  to  art,  causes  the  appearance  of  others  which  did 
not  previously  exist,  and  gives  to  all  a  peculiar  character. 

Insanity  changed  Luke  Clennell  from  a  painter  to  a 
poet,1  while  Melmour,  a  physician  who  fell  into  a  state 
of  dementia  after  the  loss  of  his  wife,  who  died  on  their 
wedding-day,  took  to  literature  and  lost  his  previous 
aptitudes. 

u  Exaggeration  pushed  to  its  extreme — to  the  im- 
probable, or  even  the  impossible,"  says  Regnard,  "  is  one 
characteristic  of  paralytics.  One  of  these  madmen 
painted  a  man  touching  the  stars  with  his  head  and  the 
earth  with  his  feet."2 

Daudet,  mjack,  speaks  of  insane  artists  whose  pictures 
seemed  to  represent  earthquakes  or  the  inside  of  a  ship 
during  a  storm. 

Individuals,  who  previously  had  not  the  remotest 
idea  of  art,  are  impelled  by  disease  to  paint,  especially  at 

the  periods  of  strongest  excitement.     B ,  a  mason, 

became  a  painter  while  in  the  Pesaro  asylum.  His  attacks 
of  mania  were  always  announced  by  an  outbreak  of  his 
tendency  to  draw  caricatures  of  the  hospital  staff,  whom 
he  condemned,  in  effigy,  to  the  strangest  punishments. 
For  instance,  he  painted  the  cook,  a  stout  and  ruddy 
man,  in  the  attitude  of  an  Eccc  Homo,  behind  a  grating 
which  prevented  him  from  touching  the  most  appetising 

viands.     This  was  the  penalty  for  having  refused  B 

one  of  his  favourite  dishes. 

The  grotesque  apotheosis  of  himself,  painted  by  the 

pederast  and  megalomaniac,  R ,  in  which  he  excretes 

and  fecundates  eggs  which  symbolise  worlds,  is  charac- 
teristic of  the  boundless  vanity  and  unbridled  imagina- 
tion of  megalomaniacs  and  paralytics. 

Among  the  pictures  executed  by  the  patients  at  San 

1  O.  Delepierre,  Histoire  litttraire  desfous,  Paris,  1860. 

2  Regnard,  ot>.  cil. 


ART  IN  THE  INSANE. 


183 


Servolo,  the  most  curious  is  one  by  a  lunatic  who,  in  his 
lucid  intervals,  paints  fairly  well,  though  with  excessive 
minuteness  of  detail ;  but  during  his  attacks  this  minute- 
ness is  so  far  exaggerated  as  to  become  grotesque. 

Nothing  but  an  intense  religious  monomania  could  have 
inspired  the  singular  self-crucifixion  of  the  Venetian  shoe- 
maker, Matteo  Lovat.  I  have  been  able  to  procure  an 
authentic  picture  of  this  strange  performance  which  is  re- 
produced below.  Shortly  afterwards  Lovat  died  in  an 
asylum.1 


One  patient,  G ,  was  a  poor  peasant  woman,  utterly 

1  Ruggieri,  Hisfoire  du  cmcijiement  opcre  sur  sa  propre  personne  par 
M,  Lovat)  Venice,  1806. 


1 84  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

uneducated,  in  whose  family  pellagra  and  insanity  were 
both  hereditary.  In  the  long  isolation  required  by  her 
state,  she  developed  great  skill  (quite  unknown  before 
her  illness)  in  embroidering  on  linen,  with  coloured 
threads  pulled  from  her  clothing,  an  extraordinary  num- 
ber of  figures,  which  were  faithful  representations  of  her 
delusions.  Her  autobiography  is,  so  to  speak,  traced  in 
this  embroidery  ;  in  every  piece  of  work  she  has  repre- 
sented herself,  sometimes  struggling  with  the  nurses  or 
the  nuns,  sometimes  herding  cows,  or  occupied  with  other 
rustic  work.  Elsewhere  she  would  depict  tables  spread 
for  meals,  with  an  infinite  variety  of  accessories.  But  the 
most  singular  thing  is  that  the  outlines  are  drawn  with 
a  clearness  which  would  be  the  envy  of  a  professional 
caricaturist ;  no  shading  whatever,  four  stitches,  repre- 
senting nose,  eyes,  and  mouth,  were  arranged  with  so 
much  artistic  judgment  as  to  show  clearly  the  individual 
expression  of  each  face. 

Another  artist  in  the  same  line,  though  of  less  striking 

gifts,  is  a  certain  I ,  suffering  from  moral  insanity, 

who  shows  numerous  degenerative  symptoms.  She,  too, 
embroiders  figures  of  men  and  women  with  considerable 
skill,  but  always  in  harmony  with  her  perverted  sexual 
tendencies.1 

Originality. — Disease  often  develops  (as  we  have 
already  seen  in  the  case  of  insane  authors)  an  originality 
of  invention  which  may  also  be  observed  in  mattoids, 
because  their  imagination,  freed  from  all  restraint,  allows 
of  creations  from  which  a  more  calculating  mind  would 
shrink,  for  fear  of  absurdity,  and  because  intensity  of 
conviction  supports  and  perfects  the  work. 

At  Pesaro  there  was  a  woman  who  drew,  or  em- 
broidered, by  a  method  peculiar  to  herself,  unravelling 
cloth,  and  fastening  the  threads  on  paper  by  means  of 
saliva. 

Another  embroideress,  formerly  given  to  drink,  exe- 
cuted butterflies  which  seemed  to  be  alive.  She  had 
applied  to  white  embroidery  the  methods  of  coloured 


1  Frigerio,  Letter  of  November  2,  1887. 


ART  IN  THE  INSANE.  185 

work,  and  was  able  to  produce  marvellous  effects  of  light 
and  shade. 

At  Macerata  a  patient,  with  a  number  of  pipe-stems, 
constructed  a  model  of  the  front  of  the  asylum  ;  another 
had  the  idea  of  representing  a  song  in  sculpture.  At 
Genoa,  a  dementia  patient  carved  pipes  out  of  coal. 

One  Zanini,  at  Reggio,  constructed  a  boot  which  was 
unique  of  its  kind,  so  that,  as  he 'said,  no  one  else  should 
be  able  to  put  it  on.  This  exceptional  foot-gear  was  open 
on  one  side,  and  tied  up  with  string,  its  edges  were  orna- 
mental, and  worked  with  hieroglyphics. 

M.  L of  Pesaro  was  constantly  making  requests  to 

leave  the  asylum.  When  told  that  there  was  no  means 
of  transporting  him  to  his  home,  he  set  about  construct- 
ing one  for  himself.  This  was  a  four-wheeled  cart,  with 
an  upright  pole,  at  the  top  of  which  was  a  pulley  with  a 
rope  running  through  it.  One  end  of  the  rope  was 
fastened  to  the  axle  of  the  fore-wheels,  the  other  to  that 
of  the  hind-wheels.  An  elastic  cord  was  attached  to  the 
rope  for  a  distance  of  four  or  five  centimetres,  and  by 
pulling  this,  first  at  one  end  and  then  at  the  other,  a 
person  standing  on  the  cart  was  able  to  make  the  wheels 
go  round.1 

In  many  arabesques  drawn  by  a  megalomaniac,  one 
can  trace,  carefully  hidden  among  the  curves,  sometimes 
a  ship,  sometimes  an  animal,  a  human  head,  or  a  railway 
train,  or  even  landscapes  and  towns  ;  though  the  essen- 
tial character  of  arabesques  is  the  absence  of  the  human 
figure. 

The  best  asylums  of  Italy  have  sent  to  the  exhibitions 
of  Siena  and  Voghera,  models  in  relief  of  their  respective 
buildings,  admirably  executed  by  some  of  the  patients. 
That  of  the  asylum  at  Reggio  could  be  taken  to  pieces, 
and  showed  the  inside  arrangements,  staircases,  rooms, 
with  their  furniture,  &c.,  all  carefully  finished.  Even  the 
trees,  I  am  told,  were  copied  accurately  from  nature. 

A  canon,  who  had  no  technical  knowledge  of  archi- 
tecture, began,  after  an  attack  of  melancholia,  to  construct 
with  cardboard  and  papier-mache,  models  of  temples  and 
amphitheatres,  which  excited  great  admiration. 
1  ])iario  del  AFanicomio  di  Pesaro,  1879, 


1 86  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

Dr.  Virgilio  has  made  me  a  present  of  some  portraits 
of  Italian  specialists,  nearly  all  of  them  exceedingly  life- 
like, the  work  of  a  melancholia  patient.  The  note  of 
originality  only  comes  out  in  some  accessory  introduced 
into  each  picture,  such  as  a  fly,  or  a  butterfly,  repeated 
persistently  in  every  copy,  or  in  the  way  in  which  the 
artist's  name  is  worked  into  the  painting,  in  vertical  lines 
so  as  to  form  some  sort  of  decorative  ornament. 

A  work  of  extreme  though  useless  skill  and  originality 
is  the  self-crucifixion  of  Lovat,  already  mentioned. 

"The  monomaniac,  King  Louis  of  Bavaria,  was  the 
first  who  entirely  understood  Wagner.  His  prodigality 
in  spending  money,  and  the  creation  of  the  theatre  at 
Bayreuth — one  of  his  most  original  conceptions — have 
been  known  for  years,  but  the  greatest  manifestation  of 
his  genius  is  known  only  to  a  few.  Three  castles,  three 
palaces  of  splendid  and  indescribable  beauty,  rose  from 
the  earth,  as  if  by  enchantment.  He  superintended  even 
the  minutest  details  himself.  King  Louis's  madness  was 
a  dream  with  his  eyes  open.  By  himself,  in  the  space  of 
ten  years,  he  accomplished  more  than  any  twenty  sove- 
reigns, aided  by  the  artistic  genius  of  the  best  ages. 
Certainly  no  one,  at  the  present  day,  could  produce 
another  such  hall,  75  metres  in  length  (without  counting 
the  two  rooms  at  either  end,  which  would  bring  the 
length  up  to  100  metres),  a  gallery  illuminated  by  17 
great  windows,  33  rock-crystal  chandeliers,  44  candelabra, 
and  who  knows  what  else  !  "z 

Eccentricity. — But  even  originality  ends  by  degene- 
rating, in  all,  or  nearly  all,  into  mere  eccentricity,  which 
only  seems  logical  when  one  enters  into  the  idea  of  the 
delusion. 

Simon  remarks  that,  in  manias  of  persecution,  and  in 
paralytic  megalomania,  the  greater  the  mental  disturb- 
ance the  livelier  the  imagination,  and  the  more  grotesque 
the  fancies  engendered  by  it.  He  mentions  the  case  of  a 
painter,  who  declared  that  he  could  see  the  interior  of 
the  earth,  filled  with  houses  of  crystal,  illuminated  by 
electric  light,  and  pervaded  by  sweet  odours.  He 
described  the  city  of  Emma,  whose  inhabitants  have  two 
1  De  Renzis,  L? opera  tfunpazzo,  Rome,  1887. 


ART  IN  THE  INSANE.  187 

noses  and  two  mouths — one  for  ordinary  food,  the  other 
for  sweet  things — a  silver  chin,  golden  hair,  three  or  four 
arms,  and  only  one  leg  resting  on  a  little  wheel.1 

These  bizarre  creations  arise  in  great  part  from  the 
strange  hallucinations  to  which  the  patients  are  subject. 
We  may  see  an  example  of  this  in  the  four-legged  and 
seven-headed  beasts  painted  by  Lazzaretti  on  his  banners. 
A  melancholiac  made  himself  a  cuirass  of  stones,  to  defend 
himself  against  his  enemies.  Another  would  continue  all 
day  drawing  the  map  of  the  stains  left  by  damp  on  the 
walls  of  his  room.  Later  on  it  was  discovered  that  he 
believed  those  lines  to  represent  the  topography  of  the 
regions  which  God  had  given  him  to  rule  over  on  earth. 

This  is  one  of  the  reasons  why,  sometimes,  greater  ex- 
cellence in  art  is  found  in  cases  of  dementia,  than  in 
those  of  mania  or  melancholia. 

Symbolism. — Another  characteristic  trait  of  art  in  the 
insane  is  the  mingling  of  inscriptions  and  drawings,  and, 
in  the  latter,  the  abundance  of  symbols  and  hiero- 
glyphics. All  this  closely  recalls  Japanese  and  Indian 
pictures,  and  the  ancient  wall-paintings  of  Egypt,  and  is 
due  in  part  to  the  same  cause  at  work  in  these — the 
need  of  helping  out  speech  or  picture,  each  powerless 
by  itself  to  express  a  given  idea  with  the  requisite 
energy. 

This  cause  is  very  evident  in  a  case  communicated  to 
me  by  Dr.  Monti,  in  which  an  architectural  design,  though 
well  and  accurately  drawn,  was  rendered  incomprehensible 
by  the  numerous  inscriptions,  often  in  rhyme,  which  had 
been  crowded  into  it  by  its  author,  an  aphasiac,  who  had 
suffered  from  dementia  for  fifteen  years. 

In  some  megalomaniacs  this  happens  through  the  fancy 
they  have  for  expressing  their  ideas  in  a  language  different 
from  that  of  ordinary  human  beings.  Such  was  the  case  of 
the  master  of  the  world,  fully  treated  of  elsewhere,  by 
M.  Toselli  and  myself.2 

The  patient  in  question  was  a  peasant  named  G 

L ,  63  years  of  age,  with  an  easy  and  confident 

bearing,  prominent  cheek-bones,  spacious  forehead,  and 

1  Simon,  Ann.  Mcd.  Psych.,  1876. 
a  Archivio  di  Psichiatria,  1880. 


1 88  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

expressive  and  penetrating  look.  Cranial  capacity  1 544, 
index  82,  temperature,  37°  6'. 

In  the  autumn  of  1871  he  became  noted  for  vagrancy 
and  excessive  loquacity  ;  he  stopped  the  most  notable 
persons  of  the  village  in  public  places,  complaining  of 
injustice  which  he  alleged  himself  to  have  suffered  ;  he 
destroyed  the  vines,  devastated  the  fields,  and  rushed 
about  the  streets,  threatening  terrible  vengeance. 

Gradually  he  began  to  identify  himself  with  the  Deity, 
and  believe  himself  ruler  of  the  universe,  and  preached 
in  the  Cathedral  of  Alba  on  his  lofty  destiny.  In  the 
asylum  he  remained  calm  as  long  as  he  was  able  to  believe 
that  his  power  was  recognized  by  every  one,  but  at  the 
first  show  of  opposition  he  threatened — in  the  character  of 
ruler  and  personification  of  the  elements,  calling  himself 
sometimes  the  son,  sometimes  the  brother,  or  at  others 
the  father  of  the  sun — to  convulse  the  world  with  earth- 
quakes, overthrow  kingdoms  and  empires,  and  erect  his 
throne  on  the  ruins.  He  was  tired,  he  said,  of  keeping 
up  so  many  armies,  and  providing  for  so  many  idle 
persons  ;  it  would  be  but  just  if  the  authorities  and  the 
rich  were  at  least  to  send  him  a  large  sum  of  money,  to 
redeem  themselves  from  what  he  called  "  the  debts  of 
death."  In  return  for  this  payment  he  would  allow  them 
to  live  for  ever.  The  poor  ought  all  to  die,  as  useless 
persons,  and  it  was  preposterous  that  he  had  to  support 
so  many  madmen  in  his  own  palace.  He  therefore  sug- 
gested to  the  doctor  that  it  would  be  well  to  cut  their 
heads  off;  yet  he  waited  on  them  with  the  greatest  unsel- 
fishness when  they  were  ill,  an  inconsistency  which  is 
among  the  characteristics  of  paranoia. 

He  usually  bestowed  his  scanty  earnings  on  some  rogue 
whom  he  entrusted  with  letters  and  commissions  for  the 
other  world,  addressed  to  the  sun,  the  stars,  the  weather, 
Death,  the  lightning,  and  other  powers,  whose  help  he 
was  in  the  habit  of  invoking,  and  with  whom  he  held 
confidential  conversations  at  night.  He  was  quite 
pleased  when  some  calamity  had  desolated  the  country, 
this  being  the  beginning  of  the  judgments  threatened  by 
him,  and  a  sign  that  the  weather,  the  sun,  or  the  light- 
ning, had  obeyed  him, 


ART  IN  THE  INSANE.  189 

He  kept  in  a  trunk  some  roughly-fashioned  crowns 
which,  he  said,  were  the  true  royal  and  imperial  crowns 
of  Italy,  France,  and  other  states.  Those  worn  by  the 
actual  sovereigns  of  these  states  were  no  longer  of  any 
value,  having  been  usurped  by  wretched  men,  doomed  to 
speedy  destruction,  unless  they  paid  him  their  debts  of 
death,  in  letters  of  exchange  to  the  amount  of  several 
hundred  millions. 

But  his  most  characteristic  eccentricities  were  the  writ- 
ings in  which  his  delusion  was  manifested.  Although 
able  to  read  and  write,  he  scorned  the  use  of  the  ordinary 
kind  of  writing,  and,  in  a  character  of  his  own,  scrawled 
letters,  orders,  and  cheques,  to  the  Sun,  to  Death,  or  to  the 
civil  and  military  authorities.  He  always  had  his  pockets 
full  of  these  documents.  His  writing  consisted  mainly  of 
large  capital  letters,  mixed,  at  intervals,  with  signs  and 
figures  indicating  objects  or  persons.  The  words  are 
usually  separated  by  one  or  two  large  dots,  and  he  only 
wrote  some  of  the  letters  of  each  word  (nearlyialways  the 
consonants)  without  any  respect  for  the  laws  of  syllaba- 
tion.  In  some  of  his  writings,  the  alphabet  almost  entirely 
disappears. 

For  instance,  in  order  to  demonstrate  his  effective 
power,  he  sketched  a  series  of  rough  figures  representing 
the  elements  and  powers  which  were  his  familiar  spirits, 
— the  army  ready,  at  a  sign  from  him,  to  make  war  on  all 
terrestrial  powers  contending  with  him  for  the  dominion 
of  the  world.  These  are — i.  The  Eternal  Father.  2. 
The  Holy  Spirit.  3.  St.  Martin.  4.  Death.  5.  Time. 
6.  Thunder.  7.  Lightning.  8.  Earthquake.  9.  The 
Sun.  10.  The  Moon.  n.  Fire  (his  minister  of  war).  12. 
A  very  powerful  man  who  has  lived  ever  since  the  begin- 
ning of  the  world,  and  is  G.  L.'s  brother.  13.  The  Lion 
of  Hell.  14.  Bread.  15.  Wine.  The  whole  is  followed 
of  his  usual  signature— a  two-headed  eagle.  Each  of  these 
powers  is  also  indicated  by  letters  placed  beneath  the 
figures,  thus,  the  ist=P.  D.  E.  ;  the  2nd— L.  S.  P. 
S.,  &c. 

This  mixture  of  letters,  hieroglyphics,  and  figura- 
tive signs,  constitutes  a  kind  of  writing  recalling  the 
phonetico-ideographic  stage  through  which  primitive 


1 90  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

peoples  (the  Mexicans  and  Chinese  certainly)  passed,  be- 
fore the  discovery  of  alphabetic  writing. 

Among  the  savages  of  America  and  Australia,  writing 
consists  in  a  more  or  less  rough  kind  of  painting  ;  e.g., 
to  indicate,  "  would  that  I  had  the  swiftness  of  a  bird," 
they  depict  a  man  with  wings  instead  of  arms.1  These 
characters  are  not  so  much  writing  as  aids  to  memory 
still  further  connected  together  and  vivified  by  traditional 
songs  or  stories. 

Some  tribes,  however,  have  attained  to  a  somewhat  less 
imperfect  mode,  which  resembles  our  rebus  ;  for  instance, 
the  Maya  of  America,  to  signify  a  physician,  painted  a  man 
with  a  herb  in  his  hand  and  wings  to  his  feet  ;  an  evident 
allusion  to  the  rapidity  with  which  he  is  obliged  to  hasten 
to  those  who  require  him.  Rain  is  represented  by  a 
bucket.2 

The  ancient  Chinese  represented  malice  by  means  of 
three  women,  light  by  the  sun  and  moon,  and  the  verb 
to  listen  by  an  ear  between  two  doors. 

This  primitive  writing  shows  us  that  the  rhetorical 
tropes  and  figures  of  which  our  pedants  are  so  proud,  are 
expressions  of  poverty  rather  than  wealth  on  the  part  of 
the  intellect.  In  fact,  they  are  frequently  found  in  the 
speech  of  idiots  and  of  educated  deaf-mutes. 

After  having  used  this  system  for  a  considerable  time, 
some  more  civilised  races,  such  as  the  Chinese  and  Mexi- 
cans, took  another  step  forward.  They  classified  the  more 
or  less  picturesque  figures  referred  to  above,  and  suc- 
ceeded in  forming  ingenious  combinations  which,  without 
directly  representing  the  idea,  indirectly  suggested  a  remi- 
niscence of  it,  as  in  our  charades.  Besides  this,  to  pre- 
vent any  uncertainty  on  the  reader's  part,  they  placed 
either  before  or  after  these  signs  a  sketch  of  the  object  to 
be  expressed — a  scanty  remnant  of  the  actual  picture- 
writing  of  a  previous  age.  This  certainly  took  place 
at  a  time  when — the  language  once  being  fixed — it  was 
observed  how  some  people,  in  writing  down  a  given  sign, 
recalled  the  sound  of  the  words  which  it  suggested.  Thus 
Itzicoatl,  the  name  of  a  Mexican  king,  was  written  by 

1  Steinthal,  Entwicklung  der  Schrift,  1852. 

2  Boddart,  Pahwgraphy  of  America,  London,  1865. 


ART  IN  THE  INSANE.  191 

drawing  a  serpent  (Coatl,  in  Mexican)  and  a  lance  (Itzli)  ; 
thus,  too,  in  Chinese,  the  character  tschcn  represents  boat, 
lance,  and  table* 

Our  megalomaniac,  by  reviving  this  custom,  affords  one 
more  proof  that,  in  the  visible  manifestation  of  their 
thoughts,  the  insane  frequently  revert  (as  also  do  criminals) 
to  the  prehistoric  stage  of  civilization.  In  the  present 
case,  it  is  quite  easy  to  understand  by  what  mental  pro- 
cess G came  to  use  this  mode  of  writing.  Under 

the  megalomaniac  delusion,  believing  himself  lord  of  the 
elements,  superior  to  all  known  or  imaginable  forces,  he 
could  not  make  himself  properly  understood  with  the 
common  words  of  ignorant  and  incredulous  men  ;  neither 
could  ordinary  writing  suffice  to  express  ideas  so  new  and 
marvellous.  The  lion's  claws,  the  eagle's  beak,  the  ser- 
pent's tongue,  the  lightning-flash,  the  sun's  rays,  the  arms 
of  the  savage,  were  much  worthier  of  him,  and  more 
calculated  to  inspire  men  with  fear  and  respect  for  his 
person. 

Nor  is  this  an  isolated  case.  One  quite  analogous  to  it 
is  described  by  Raggi  in  his  excellent  study  of  the  writings 
of  the  insane.  Prof.  Morselli  has  furnished  me  with 
another  and  still  more  interesting  instance. 

"  The  patient  A.  T—  "  he  writes,  "  was  a  joiner  and 
cabinet-maker  ;  he  had  a  certain  skill  in  wood-carving, 
and  his  furniture  was  much  sought  after.2  About  seven 
years  ago  he  was  attacked  with  mental  disease,  apparently 
melancholia,  and  tried  to  commit  suicide  by  throwing 
himself  from  the  roof  of  the  town  hall.  He  is  now  subject 
to  attacks  of  excitement  with  systematized  delusions. 
His  predominant  ideas  are  political — republican  and 
anarchist — on  a  certain  groundwork  of  ambition.  He 
fancies  himself  changed  into  some  great  criminal  ;  some- 
times he  is  Gasperone,  sometimes  II  Passatore,  at  others 
Passanante.  He  is  always  drawing  or  carving,  and  his  work 
•generally  takes  the  form  of  trophies  or  allegorical  figures. 

"  The  most  curious  of  all  these  is  a  piece  of  carving  which 
represents  a  man  dressed  as  a  soldier,  provided  with  wings, 

1  Lombroso,  Uomo  bianco  ed  uomo  di  colors,  1871. 

2  Archivio  di  Psichiatria,  1881,  fasc.  iii. 


1 92  THE  MAN  OP  GENIUS. 

and  standing  on  an  inlaid  pedestal  covered  with  allegori- 
cal inscriptions.  This  figure  has  a  trophy  on  its  head, 
and  other  objects  are  carved  on  or  around  it,  each  of  which 

expresses  emblematically  some  one  of  T 's  delusions. 

For  instance,  the  wings  recall  the  fact  that,  when  his  first 
attack  came  on,  he  was  in  the  square  at  Porto  Recanati, 
selling  his  carvings,  among  which  which  were  several 
figures  of  angels,  at  a  soldo  a-piece.  The  '  Medal  of  the 
order  of  the  Pig '  is  a  token  of  contempt,  wherewith  he 
would  like  to  decorate  all  the  rich  and  powerful  of  the 
earth.  The  helmet,  with  a  lantern  hanging  to  the  vizor 
(a  reminiscence  of  Offenbach's  Brigands],  symbolises  the 
gendarmes  who  escorted  him  to  the  asylum.  The  cigar 
placed  crosswise  (note  the  position)  represents  his  disdain 
for  kings  and  tyrants  ;  and  the  position  of  the  leg  recalls 
a  fracture  of  that  limb  sustained  by  him  in  his  attempt 
at  suicide. 

"  The  inscriptions  on  the  pedestal  are  scraps  of  verse 
or  extracts  from  newspapers  which  T is  always  quot- 
ing, and  to  which  he  attaches  some  mysterious  signifi- 
cance. They  always,  however,  refer  to  the  state  of  slavery 
to  which  he  is  reduced  (i,e.,  his  detention  in  the  asylum), 
and  the  vengeance  he  will  one  day  wreak  on  his  captors. 

"  The  most  remarkable  thing,  however,  is  the  trophy 
resting  on  the  head  of  the  figure,  which  is  the  graphic 
expression,  so  to  speak,  of  a  song  ,x  either  written  by 

1  "  Un  veleno  ho  preparato 
Due  pugnali  tengo  in  seno  : 
Questo  viver  disgraziato 
Finira  una  volta  almeno 

T^amerbfino  alia  tomba 
E  anche  morto  famerb. 

La  campana  lamentosa 
Sonercl  la  morte  mia, 
Ed  allor  tu  udrai  curiosa 
Quellafunebre  armonia. 

T'amerb,  ecc.  ecc. 

Una  hinga  e  mesta  croce 
Nella  via  vedrai  passar  ; 
Ed  iin  prete  sullaforca 
Miserere  recitar. 

T'amerd,  ecc.  ecc." 

"  I  have  prepared  a  poison  ;  I  have  two  daggers  in  my  bosom  ;  this 


ART  IN  THE  INSANE.  193 

him  or  adapted  from  other  popular  poetry.  Each 
phrase  of  the  song  has  its  symbol  in  the  trophy.  Thus 
the  word  poison  in  the  first  verse  is  represented  by  the 
cup  ;  the  two  daggers  are  likewise  present  ;  the  end  of 
life  and  the  tomb  are  figured  by  a  kind  of  sarcophagus  or 
closed  chest ;  love  by  two  sprays  of  flowers.  The  bell  of 
the  second  stanza  is  easily  recognisable  ;  \hefunereal  music 
are  the  two  trumpets  crossed,  lower  down.  The  cross  of 
the  third  stanza,  and  \hz  priest  (represented  by  a  clerical 
hat)  are  not  forgotten.  It  is  curious  that  the  gallows 
should  be  wanting  to  complete  this  trophy.  The  spoon 

and  fork,  by  the  by,  are  T 's  favourite  implements. 

They  denote  that  he  eats  and  drinks  in  slavery,  or,  as  he 
says,  in  a  convict-prison  ;  and  for  this  reason,  he  always 
wears  a  set,  carved  in  wood  by  himself,  in  the  button-hole 
of  his  coat,  or  in  his  cap." 

We  may  once  more  remind  the  reader  that  savages 
hand  down  their  history  by  associating  picture-signs  with 
poetry. 

A  most  interesting  example  of  elaborate  symbolic 
faculty  in  a  monomaniac,  combined  with  higher  artistic 
power  than  is  usually  found  among  the  insane,  has  been 
recorded  with  very  full  illustrations  by  Dr.  William 
Noyes.1  This  patient  studied  art  at  Paris  under  Gerome 
and  returned  to  America  to  become  an  illustrator  of 
books  and  magazines.  He  developed  systematic  religious 
delusions,  and  frequently  worked  them  out  in  very 
beautiful  and  artistic  shapes,  nine  of  which,  all  executed 
in  the  asylum  at  which  he  was  confined,  are  here  repro- 
duced. The  circular  design  is  one  of  a  series  of  twelve 
charts  (one  for  each  of  the  tribes  of  Israel)  illustrating 
the  progress  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  They  were  all  delicately 

unhappy  life,  at  least,  shall  end  one  day.  I  will  love  thee  to  my  grave, 
and  even  when  dead,  I  will  love  thee  still. 

"The  mournful  bell  shall  sound  for  my  death,  and  thou  shall  listen 
wonderingly  to  that  funereal  harmony. — I  will  love  thee,  &c. 

"  A  long  and  sad  cross  (i.e.,  procession)  thou  shalt  see  passing  along 
the  road,  and  a  priest  standing  by  the  gallows,  reciting  the  Miserere. — 
I  will  love  thee,  &c." 

1  "Paranoia:  A  Study  of  the  Evolution  of  Systematized  Delusions 
of  Grandeur,"  in  American  Journal  of  Psychology,  May,  1888,  and 
May,  1889. 


194 


THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 


coloured  in  water  colours,  the  fine  shading  making  it  very 
difficult  to  give  in  black  and  white  an  adequate  idea  of 
the  beauty  of  the  original. 

"  In  the  centre  is  the  dove  representing  the  Holy 
Spirit,  and  surrounding  it  are  seven  different  crosses 
[St.  Andrew,  St.  Colomba,  St.  George,  St.  Michael,  The 


Prophet,  St.  Evangeli  Royal  Priesthood],  and  a  close 
study  will  show  the  seven  crosses,  most  ingeniously 
worked  together.  It  -is  probable  that  in  looking  at  the 
design  closely  for  the  first  time  one  will  suddenly  see  a 
new  cross  take  shape  before  his  eyes,  and  this  indeed  is 
what  the  patient  says  occurs  with  him.  In  describing  the 
crosses  he  will  say,  for  example,  that  in  drawing  the  cross 
of  St.  Andrew  the  lines  suddenly  took  a  new  shape  and 


ART  IN  THE  INSANE.  195 

he  found  he  had  also  made  a  cross  of  St.  Michael.  This 
to  him  is  a  matter  of  deep  significance,  and  he  feels  that 
his  work  is  directly  controlled  by  a  higher  power,  and 
that  the  work  of  his  fancy  is  really  inspired. 

"  Outside  these  central  crosses  are  the  names  of  three 
ancient  deities  who  were  each  characterized  by  some 
special  attribute,  and  under  these  the  parts  of  the  body 
that  the  artist  conceives  these  deities  especially  to  have 
represented,  and  then  comes  the  name  of  the  Biblical 
personage  in  whom  these  elements  were  finally  exemplified 
and  embodied.  To  the  left  of  the  dove  is  Venus,  repre- 
senting Blood,  exemplified  in  Moses  ;  above  is  Osiris, 
representing  Flesh,  embodied  in  Adam  ;  and  to  the  right 
Psyche,  representing  Water,  typified  in  Noah.  These 
three  are  but  the  gross  and  material  parts  of  Man,  repre- 
senting indeed  necessary  steps  in  his  progress  through 
life,  but  secondary  and  subordinate  to  the  higher  part  of 
his  nature  represented  by  Truth  and  the  Spirit — which 
receive  their  ultimate  embodiment  in  Christ. 

"The  Lion  denotes  Might,  and  the  Eagle  signifies 
Emulation  ;  but  it  is  uncertain  just  what  symbolism  is 
connected  with  the  serpent  twining  round  the  cross,  and 
the  open  book  crossed  by  a  sword  and  pen,  unless  indeed 
this  last  may  mean  the  Bible  with  the  emblems  of  peace 
and  war  lying  quietly  within  it,  and  it  seems  not  unlikely 
that  the  serpent  is  emblematic  of  the  Betrayal.  For  the 
rest  of  the  design,  however,  we  need  make  no  inferences, 
as  it  corresponds  closely  with  his  description. 

"  Outside  of  the  circle  enclosing  the  crosses  are  the  seals, 
sealing  the  Holy  Spirit.  In  the  large  light  triangles,  or 
rather  rays  of  the  sun,  are  given  the  names  of  the  twelve 
apostles,  forming  the  Seal  of  the  Prophet.  Above  these, 
in  the  same  space,  are  the  signs  of  the  zodiac  in  the 
extreme  points  of  the  triangle,  with  the  names  of  the 
parts  of  the  body  underneath,  that  these  signs  correspond 
to  in  the  ancient  mythology  ;  this  forms  the  Seal  of  the 
Zodiac.  Between  these  large  light  coloured  triangles 
are  the  twelve  holy  stones,  represented  as  ovals,  and  with 
their  names  plainly  distinguished  in  the  cut,  making  the 
Seal  of  the  Holy  Stones.  In  the  small  triangles  directly 
above  the  Holy  Stones  are  given  the  names  of  the  twelve 


196  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

tribes  of  Israel,  but  the  colour  of  these  in  the  chart 
(vermilion)  is  such  that  the  lettering  does  not  comes  out 
in  the  photographic  negative.  This  gives  the  Seal  of  the 
Twelve  Tribes.  Directly  beneath  the  Holy  Stones, 
filling  in  the  space  between  the  bottom  of  each  large 
triangle,  is  the  Seal  of  the  Germ,  coloured  dark  green,  and 
running  down  on  each  side  of  the  top  of  these  large 
triangles  are  small  triangles,  coloured  dark  red  and 
forming  the  Seal  of  the  Aceldama  or  Bloody  Seal.  On 
the  circumference  are  the  names  of  the  constellations  of 
the  zodiac,  and  directly  under  these  the  names  of  the  cor- 
responding months  of  the  year,  and  under  these  again  are 
the  mythological  representations  of  the  constellations, 
Leo  (July)  being  at  the  top,  and  then  in  order  to  the 
right  come  Virgo  (August),  Libra  (September),  Scorpio 
(October),  Sagittarius  (November),  Capricornus  (Decem- 
ber), Aquarius  (January),  Pisces  (February),  Aries  (March), 
Taurus  (April),  Gemini  (May),  Cancer  (June).  This 
gives  the  last  sealing  of  the  Seed,  the  Seal  of  the  Sun. 

"  It  will  be  seen  that  beginning  at  the  circumference  at 
any  point  and  going  toward  the  centre  there  is  a  complete 
astronomical  representation  of  the  season  of  the  year, 
first  the  name  of  the  constellation,  then  in  succession  the 
month,  the  constellation  depicted  pictorially,  the  sign  of 
the  zodiac  and  the  part  of  the  human  body  corresponding 
in  the  old  astronomy  to  this  sign  of  the  zodiac." 

Of  the  four  designs  reproduced  together,  the  first,  the 
Shechinah,  or  Light  of  Love,  represents  that  miraculous 
light  or  visible  glory  which  was  to  the  Jews  a  symbol  of  the 
Divine  presence  ;  the  second  represents  the  angel  Sandal- 
phon  with  the  Holy  Grail  at  the  side  and  the  letters 
Alpha  and  Omega  at  top  (the  design  must  be  inverted  to 
make  out  the  Omega)  ;  the  third,  Sub  Rosa,  and  the 
fourth,  Imp  and  Frogs,  are  graceful  fancies  which  suffi- 
ciently explain  themselves,  as  does  the  Witch. 

While  working  on  these  sketches,  he  made  at  the  same 
time  the  design  for  a  book-plate,  representing  Cupid 
learning  the  alphabet,  and  the  entire  design,  he  says,  is  full 
of  symbolism — a  favourite  word  with  him.  Cupid  has  his 
finger  on  Alpha,  signifying  the  beginning  of  his  educa- 
tion ;  above  the  book  is  Cupid's  target,  with  a  heart  for 


ART  IN  THE  INSANE^ 


197 


the  ^centre,  that  he 'has  pierced  with  ^anjarrow^  while  the 
full'quiver  stands]  to  the  right.  The  curious 'fish '.under 
the  Ventas  represents  the  IX0T2  of  the  early  Christians, 
while  three  crosses,  symbolic  of  the  Christian  religion,  are 


SHECHINAH. 


SANDALPHON. 


'fm 


SUB    ROSA. 


IMP   AND    FROGS. 


in  the  upper  left-hand  corner,  brought  out  by  heavy 
shading  of  the  cross  lines.  On  the  book  of  knowledge  is 
parched  the  dov^,  emblematic  of  purity,  while  the  olive 


198 


THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 


branch  at  the  left  of  the  book  and  the  palm  under  the 
Fool's  Bauble  give  still  other  religious  symbols.  The  lamp 
of  knowledge  is  burning  brightly  in  front  of  Cupid,  while 
at  his  feet  are  the  square,  compass,  triangle,  and  pencils, 
symbolizing  the  designer's  profession. 

Minuteness  of  Detail. — In  some  insane  artists,  espe- 
cially monomaniacs,  we  find  an  opposite  characteristic 
— the  exaggeration  of  particular  details — the  general 
effect  being  lost  in  obscurity  through  their  excessive 


.COODiRORRQW 


efforts  after  verisimilitude.  Thus,  in  a  landscape  ex- 
hibited among  those  rejected  from  the  Turin  salon,  not 
only  was  a  general  view  of  the  country  given,  but  every 
separate  blade  of  grass  could  be  distinguished.  In 
another  picture,  intended  to  be  very  imposing,  the  strokes 
of  the  brush  produced  the  effect  of  pencil  shading. 

Atavism. — Both  minuteness  and  symbolism  are  them- 
selves atavistic  phenomena  ;  but,  in  addition  to  them, 
there  may  be  noted  (in  a  large  number  of  cases)  a 


ART  IN  THE  INSANE. 


199 


!Y    PARANOIAC   ARTIST. 


200  THE  MAN  OF  GKNlUS. 

total  absence  of  perspective,  while  the  rest  of  the  execu- 
tion shows  clearly  enough  that  the  author  is  not  wanting 
in  artistic  sense.  One  would  take  him  to  be  a  true  artist, 
but  one  brought  up  in  China  or  ancient  Egypt.  Here  we 
have  evidently  a  kind  of  atavism  explicable  by  arrested 
development  of  some  one  organ,  and  a  corresponding 
backwardness  in  the  products  of  that  organ.  A  French 
captain,  suffering  from  paralysis,  drew  figures  stiff  as 
Egyptian  profiles.  A  megalomaniac  of  Reggio  executed 
a  coloured  bas-relief,  in  which  the  disproportionate  size  of 
the  feet  and  hands,  the  extreme  smallness  of  the  faces, 
and  the  stiffness  of  the  limbs,  completely  recall  the  work 
of  the  thirteenth  century.  Another  patient,  at  Genoa, 
carved  bas-reliefs  on  pipes  and  on  vases,  exactly  similar 
to  those  of  the  Neolithic  Age. 

Raggi  has  sent  me  some  flints  carved  by  a  monomaniac 
entirely  ignorant  of  archaeology,  which,  in  the  choice  of 
figures  and  emblems,  recall  the  style  of  Egyptian  and 
Phoenician  amulets.  In  these  instances  we  see  the  in- 
fluence of  similar  psychical  conditions  at  work. 

Arabesques. — In  some  few  patients,  M.  Toselli  has 
called  my  attention  to  a  singular  predilection  for  ara- 
besques and  ornaments  which  tend  to  assume  a  purely 
geometric  form,  without  loss  of  elegance.  This  is  the 
case  with  monomaniacs  ;  in  cases  of  dementia  and  acute 
mania  there  prevails  a  chaotic  confusion,  which,  however, 
does  not  always  imply  absence  of  taste.  I  have  seen  an 
instance  of  this  in  a  kind  of  ship,  the  work  of  a  dementia 
patient,  composed  of  an  enormous  number  of  little  slips 
of  wood,  brilliantly  coloured,  very  thin,  and  intertwined 
in  an  infinite  variety  of  ways,  the  general  effect  being  very 
graceful. 

Obscenity. — In  some  work  done  by  erotomaniacs,  para- 
lytics, and  demented  patients,  the  salient  characteristic, 
both  of  the  drawings  and  of  the  verses,  is  the  most 
shameless  indecency.  Thus  a  cabinet-maker  would  carve 
virile  members  at  every  corner  of  a  piece  of  furniture,  or 
at  the  summits  of  trees.  This,  too,  recalls  many  works 
of  savages  and  of  ancient  races,  in  which  the  organs  of 
sex  are  everywhere  prominent.  A  captain  at  Genoa  was 
fond  of  drawing  scenes  in  a  brothel.  In  many  the 


ART  IN  THE  INSANE.  201 

obscene  character  is  marked  by  the  most  singular  pre- 
texts, as  though  it  were  demanded  by  artistic  require- 
ments. A  monomaniac  priest  used  to  sketch  his  figures 
nude,  and  then  artfully  drape  them  by  means  of  lines 
which  revealed  the  generative  organs.  He  defended  him- 
self against  criticism  by  saying  that  his  figures  could  only 
appear  indecent  to  those  who  were  in  search  of  evil. 

M —  —  illustrated  his  strange  and  often  beautiful  verses 
with  innumerable  daubs,  representing  animals  of  mon- 
strous forms  struggling  with  men  and  women,  or  monks 
and  nuns,  naked,  in  the  most  shameless  attitudes. 

In  others  the  indecency  is,  if  possible,  still  more  evident, 
especially  in  cases  of  paralytic  dementia.  I  remember 
an  old  man  who  used  to  draw  a  vulva  on  the  address  of 
his  letters  to  his  wife,  surrounding  it  with  obscene  couplets 
in  dialect. 

It  is  a  curious  coincidence  that  two  artists — one  at 
Turin  and  the  other  at  Reggio — who  were  both  megalo- 
maniacs, should  both  have  had  sodomitic  instincts,  which 
they  combined  with  the  delusion  of  being  deities,  and 
lords  of  the  world,  which  they  had  created  and  emitted 
from  their  bodies.  One  of  them  (who,  nevertheless,  had  a 
real  artistic  sense)  painted  a  full-length  picture  of  him- 
self, naked,  among  women,  ejecting  worlds,  and  sur- 
rounded by  all  the  symbols  of  power.  This  repeats,  and 
at  the  same  time  explains,  the  Ithyphallic  divinity  of  the 
Egyptians. 

Criminality  and  Moral  Insanity. — In  this  connection  it 
is  important  to  notice  that  the  greater  number  of  these 
artists  show,  in  addition  to  their  other  forms  of  mania,  a 
marked  tendency  to  moral  insanity,  especially  in  the 
form  of  unnatural  vice.  The  painter  who  produced  the 
picture  of  "Delirium"  was  a  pederast.  The  man  who 
constructed  the  marvellous  model  of  the  Reggio  Asylum, 
already  alluded  to,  was  neither  draughtsman,  sculptor, 
nor  engineer.  He  was  a  madman,  and,  in  addition,  a 
thief,  with  unnatural  tendencies.  This  man,  whenever 
the  fancy  took  him,  escaped  from  the  asylum,  wandered 
about  for  some  days,  began  to  steal  when  he  had  ex- 
hausted the  small  amount  of  money  he  had  about  him, 
and  when  imprisoned  declared  himself  a  lunatic,  and 


202  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

so  got  acquitted  and  sent  back  to  Reggio,  when,  after  a 
short  interval,  he  would  repeat  the  same  line  of  conduct. 

Dr.  Tamburini  told  me  that  he,  too,  had  been  struck 
by  the  co-existence  of  artistic  faculty  and  moral  insanity 
in  these  patients. 

Uselessness. — A  characteristic  common  to  many  is  the 
complete  uselessness  of  the  work  to  which  they  devote 
themselves  ;  and  here  I  recall  once  more  Hecart's  dictum: — 

"  Cest  le  travail  desfous  cTepuiser  leurs  cervelles 
Sitr  des  riens  fatigants,  stir  quelques  bagatelles"1 

A  Genevan,  affected  by  persecutory  monomania,  spent 
years  in  embroidering  on  egg-shells  and  lemons.  Though 
her  work  was  most  beautiful,  it  could  be  of  no  advantage 
to  her,  for  she  kept  it  jealously  concealed  ;  and  I  myself, 
though  she  was  very  fond  of  me,  never  saw  any  of  it  till 
ufter  her  death. 

Here  we  have,  as  in  the  case  of  artists  of  genius,  the 
love  of  truth  and  beauty  for  their  own  sake  alone,  only 
that  the  aim  is  reversed. 

Sometimes  the  work  done,  though  very  useful  in  itself, 
is  of  no  advantage  to  the  artist,  and  has  no  connection 
with  his  profession.  Thus  a  captain,  who  had  become 
insane,  presented  me  with  the  model  of  a  bed  for  violent 
patients,  which,  I  believe,  would  be  extremely  useful  in 
practice.  Two  other  patients,  together,  made,  out  of  a 
piece  of  beef-bone,  some  very  neat  match-boxes,  orna- 
mented with  carvings  in  relief,  which  could  be  of  no 
profit  to  themselves,  since  they  refused  to  part  with  them 
for  money. 

There  are,  however,  some  exceptions.  A  melancholiac 
patient,  with  homicidal  and  suicidal  tendencies,  manu- 
factured himself  a  very  serviceable  knife,  fork,  and  spoon 
— metal  ones  not  being  allowed  him — out  of  the  bones 
which  remained  over  from  his  dinner.  A  cafe-keeper  at 
Colligno,  a  megalomaniac,  compounded  excellent  liqueurs 
out  of  the  scraps  left  over  from  meals,  though  of  the 
most  different  kinds  of  food.  A  criminal  lunatic  con- 
structed himself  a  key  out  of  a  number  of  small  pieces 
of  wood  joined  together.  I  do  not  count  among  these 

1  Hecart,  op.  cit. 


ART  IN  THE  INSANE. 


203 


examples  those  who  have  prepared  themselves  real 
cuirasses  of  iron  and  stone — a  piece  of  work  in  relation  to 
the  special  delusion  of  persecutions,  and  implying  an 
amount  of  labour  out  of  proportion  to  the  advantage 
obtained. 

Insanity  as  a  subiect. — Many  choose  insanity  as  the 


subject  of  their  paintings.  Professor  Virgilio  has  fur- 
nished me  with  a  very  curious  portrait  of  an  insane 
patient  at  the  moment  of  attack — the  eyes  rolling,  the 
hair  on  end,  the  arms  extended.  Under  his  feet  is  the 
epigraph  :  "  Delira  "  ("  He  is  raving  ").  This  is  the  work 
of  an  alcoholic  pederast. 


204  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

I  think  that  a  sane  artist  would  have  some  difficulty  in 
painting  a  closer  likeness  of  delirium.  This  reminds  me 
how  frequently  I  have  found,  among  the  poets  of  asylums, 
the  tendency  to  describe  insanity  ;  and  it  has  been  a 
favourite  theme  with  great  poets  who  have  suffered  from 
ill-health — Tasso,  Lenau,  Barbara,  Musset.  Mancini,  im- 
mediately after  his  recovery,  painted  a  woman  offering 
for  sale  the  picture  executed  by  a  madman  ;  and  Gill,  in 
the  hospital  of  Sainte- Anne,  painted  a  raving  maniac  with 
terrible  truth  to  nature.1 

Absurdity. — One  of  the  most  salient  characteristics  of 
nsane  art  is,  as  might  be  expected,  absurdity,  either  in 
drawing  or  colouring.  This  is  especially  noteworthy  in 
some  maniacs,  owing  to  the  exaggerated  association  of 
ideas,  through  which  the  connecting  links  (which  would 
serve  to  explain  the  author's  conception)  are  totally  lost. 
Thus,  an  artist  painted  a  "Marriage  at  Cana,"  with  all  the 
figures  of  the  apostles  exceedingly  well  drawn  ;  but  in 
place  of  the  figure  of  Christ  was  a  large  bunch  of  flowers. 

Paralytic  patients  draw  objects  without  any  sense  of 
proportion  ;  their  hens  are  the  size  of  horses,  and  their 
cherries  of  melons  ;  or,  while  striving  after  perfection  in 
the  design,  the  execution  is  merely  childish.  One,  who 
believed  himself  a  second  Horace  Vernet,  drew  horses  by 
means  of  four  straight  strokes  and  a  tail.2  Another  drew 
all  his  figures  upside  down.  Other  dementia  patients, 
owing  to  the  same  amnesia  which  is  apparent  in  their 
speech,  leave  out  the  most  essential  points  of  their  con- 
ception, like  M at  Pesaro,  who  made  an  excellent 

drawing   of    a   general,    seated,    but    forgot    the    chair. 
(Frigerio.) 

Imitation. — There  are  some  who  are  very  successful  in 
imitation,  but  can  produce  nothing  original  ;  they  will, 
for  instance,  copy  the  facade  of  the  asylum,  or  heads  of 
animals,  with  the  minute  accuracy  of  detail  which  charac- 
terizes primitive  art.  In  this  branch  I  have  seen  success- 
ful work  done  by  cretins  and  idiots,  the  latter  drawing  in 
exactly  the  same  manner  as  primitive  man. 

Uniformity. — Many  continually  repeat  the  same  idea  ; 
thus  one,  mentioned  by  Frigerio,  filled  sheets  of  paper  with 
1  Magnan.  2  Simon. 


ART  IN  THE  INSANE.  205 

a  bee  gnawing  the  head  of  an  ant  ;  another,  who  believed 
that  he  had  been  shot,  would  paint  nothing  but  fire-arms  ; 
a  third  confined  himself  to  arabesques. 

Summary. — These  traits  explain  the  instances  of  partial 
perfection  to  be  found  in  dementia  patients  ;  for  a  repeti- 
tion of  the  same  movement  tends  to  bring  it  nearer  and 
nearer  to  perfection.  At  other  times,  as  we  have  seen  in 
the  extempore  poets  and  authors  of  the  asylum,  it  is  the 
tenacity  and  energy  of  the  hallucinations  which  makes  a 
painter  of  a  man  who  was  never  one  before.  Blake  was 
able  to  picture  to  himself,  as  living  and  present,  persons 
already  dead,  angels,  &c.  This  was  the  case,  also,  with  the 
strange  insane  poet,  John  Clare,  who  believed  himself  a 
spectator  of  the  Battle  of  the  Nile,  and  the  death  of 
Nelson  ;  and  was  firmly  convinced  that  he  had  been 
present  at  the  death  of  Charles  I.  In  fact,  he  described 
these  events  with  such  remarkable  fidelity  and  accuracy, 
that  it  is  scarcely  probable  he  could  have  done  it  so  well 
had  he  been  in  full  possession  of  his  reason — the  more  so, 
as  he  was  entirely  without  culture.1  This  explains  why 
insane  painters  and  poets  are  so  numerous.  It  is  easy 
to  reproduce  clearly  what  one  sees  clearly.  Moreover, 
the  imagination  is  most  unrestrained  when  reason  is  least 
dominant  ;  for  the  latter,  by  repressing  hallucinations  and 
illusions,  deprives  the  average  man  of  a  true  source  of 
artistic  and  literary  inspiration. 

For  the  same  reason,  too,  art  itself,  may,  in  its  turn,  en- 
courage the  development  of  mental  disease.  Vasari  relates 
that  one  Spinelli,  a  painter  of  Arezzo,  having  at- 
tempted to  paint  the  deformity  of  Lucifer,  the  latter  ap- 
peared to  him  in  a  dream  and  reproached  him  with  having 
made  him  so  ugly.  The  painter  was  so  affected  by  this 
apparition  as  to  fall  seriously  ill ;  and  it  continued  to  haunt 
him  for  years.2 

Music  in  the  Insane. — Musical  ability  is  often  diminished 
in  those  who,  previous  to  their  illness,  cultivated  this  art 
with  passion.  Dr.  Adriani  observed  that  musicians,  under 
his  care  for  insanity,  almost  entirely  lost  their  powers. 
They  could  still  play  any  piece,  but  it  was  done  quite 
mechanically  and  without  expression.  Other  dementia 
1  Delepierre.  *  Vasari,  Vite  dei  pittori  celebri. 


206  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

patients  would  play  the  same  piece,  sometimes  even  a  few 
phrases,  over  and  over  again. 

Donizetti,  in  the  last  stage  of  dementia,  no  longer  recog- 
nized his  favourite  melodies.  His  last  works  show  traces 
of  that  fatal  influence  which  critics  have  also  observed  in 
Schumann's  symphony  of  the  "  Bride  of  Messina,"  com- 
posed during  his  attacks  of  insanity.1 

These  facts,  however,  do  not  contradict  our  assertion 
that  insanity  awakens  new  artistic  qualities  in  persons  not 
previously  gifted  in  that  way  ;  they  only  show  that  (as  we 
have  seen  in  the  case  of  professional  painters)  it  can  give 
no  additional  power  or  skill  to  those  who  already  pos- 
sessed them  when  attacked  by  disease. 

A  megalomaniac — formerly  a  syphilitic  patient — under 
the  care  of  Dr.  Tamburini,  sang  beautiful  airs  when  under 
excitement,  at  the  same  time,  instead  of  playing  an  accom- 
paniment, she  improvised,  on  the  pianoforte,  two  distinct 
motives  which  had  no  connection  with  each  other  or  the 
air  she  was  singing.  This  fact  confirms  the  observations 
of  Luys  as  to  the  independent  action  of  the  cerebral 
hemispheres. 

A  young  man  attacked  by  pellagra,  who  recovered  in 
my  hospital,  composed  expressive  and  original  melodies. 

M.  Raggi  told  me  that  he  had  had  under  his  care  a  melan- 
cholic patient  who,  during  her  attacks,  played  without 
enthusiasm,  and  even  with  repugnance,  but,  when  the  fit 
passed  off,  would  spend  whole  days  at  the  piano,  and  execute 
the  most  difrkult/<7r/z'//o;/,9  with  a  truly  artistic  enthusiasm. 
In  the  same  way,  a  paralytic  showed,  through  the  whole 
course  of  his  illness,  a  genuine  musical  mania,  during 
which  he  imitated  all  instruments,  and  agitated  himself, 
in  frantic  enthusiasm,  at  the//V?7/o  passages. 

Raggi  also  observed  a  paralytic  dementia  patient  who, 
after  breaking  his  thigh-bone  by  a  leap  from  a  window, 
rendered  every  bandage  which  could  be  devised  useless  by 
singing,  for  days  together,  motives  from  //  Trovatore  at 
the  top  of  his  voice,  and  accompanying  his  singing  with 
abrupt  rhythmical  movements  of  the  pelvis.  A  fancy  for 
monotonous  chanting  also  showed  itself  in  another  para- 
lytic, who  believed  himself  to  be  a  great  admiral. 
1  Clement,  Les  imisiciens  celebres,  Paris,  1878, 


ART  IN  THE  INSANE.  207 

In  maniacs,  acute  and  joyous  notes  predominate,  and, 
still  more,  the  repetition  of  the  rhythm. 

Every  one  who  has  paid  even  a  short  visit  to  an  asylum 
has  noticed  the  frequency  of  singing  and  shouting  and 
u  high  and  thin  voices,  and  with  them  a  sound  of  hands."1 
Nor  is  it  hard  to  understand  this,  if  we  remember  how 
Spencer  and  Ardigo  have  shown  that  the  law  of  rhythm  is 
the  most  general  form  under  which,  in  the  whole  of  nature, 
energy  is  manifested,  from  the  crystal  to  the  star,  or  to  the 
animal  organism.  Man,  therefore,  only  follows  a  general 
organic  law  in  giving  way  to  this  impulse,  which  he  does 
the  more  readily  the  less  he  is  controlled  by  reason.  This 
explains  the  number  of  poets  of  the  new  school  who  are 
found  in  asylums.  This  is  the  reason  why  savage  nations 
have  a  natural  inclination  for  music  ;  and  a  missionary  told 
Spencer  that  many  to  whom  he  taught  the  Psalms,  with 
music,  in  the  evening,  could  repeat  them  by  heart  on  the 
following  day. 

Savages,  in  speaking,  make  use  of  a  sort  of  monotonous 
chant  analogous  to  our  recitative.  Primitive  poetry  was 
always  sung,  whence  all  the  different  words  connected 
with  singing  applied  to  poetry  and  poets.  The  mysterious 
magic  formulas  and  recipes  of  the  ancients  2  were  also 
sung,  or  chanted,  whence  the  word  "enchantment."  Even 
at  the  present  day,  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Novi  and 
Oulx,  I  have  heard  peasant-women,  in  making  inquiries 
of  one  another,  modulate  their  voices  in  true  musical 
rhythm.  Modern  Improvvisatori  do  not  seem  able  to 
produce  their  verses  except  when  singing,  and  agitating 
all  their  muscles. 

It  must  be  remembered  that,  according  to  the  observa- 
tions of  Herbert  Spencer, 3  u  the  act  of  singing  employs 
and  exaggerates  the  signs  of  the  natural  language  of  pas- 
sion. Mental  excitement  is  transformed  into  muscular 
energy.  An  infant  will  laugh  and  bound  in  its  nurse's 
arms  at  the  sight  of  a  brilliant  colour,  or  the  hearing  of  a 
new  sound."  Strong  sensations  or  painful  emotions  cause 
us  to  gesticulate  ;  in  short,  they  excite  the  muscular  system, 
which  is  acted  upon  in  proportion  to  the  intensity  of  the 

1  "  Voci  alte  e  fioche  e  siton  di  man  con  elle"  (Dante,  Inf.  iii.  27.) 
-  Cato,  De  Re  Rustica,  3  Essays,  vol.  ii.  pp.  401,  &c, 


208  THE  MAN  OP  GENIUS. 

sensations.  Slight  pain  calls  forth  a  groan,  greater  pain  a 
cry  :  the  pitch  of  the  voice  varies  with  the  force  of  the 
emotion,  so  that,  in  the  strongest  emotions,  it  rises  to  the 
octave,  or  higher  ;  and  singing  is  always  involuntarily 
accompanied  by  tremors  and  agitations  of  the  muscles. 

What  could  be  more  natural  than  that,  in  the  conditions 
in  which  the  emotions  are  most  energetic,  and  so  fre- 
quently atavistic,  as  is  the  case  in  insanity,  these  tendencies 
should  be  reproduced  on  a  larger  scale  ? 

This,  too,  explains  why  so  many  morbid  men  of  genius 
should  be  musicians  :  Mozart,  Schumann,  Beethoven, 
Donizetti,  Pergolese,  Fenicia,  Ricci,  Rocchi,  Rousseau, 
Handel,  Dussek,  Hoffmann,  Gliick,  Petrella.1  Musical 
creation  is  the  most  subjective  manifestation  of  thought, 
the  one  most  intimately  connected  with  the  affective 
emotions,  and  having  less  relation  to  the  external  world 
than  any  other,  which  causes  it  to  stand  more  in  need  of 
the  fervent  but  exhausting  emotions  of  inspiration. 

Perhaps  the  study  of  these  peculiarities  of  art  in  the 
insane,  besides  showing  us  a  new  phase  in  this  mysterious 
disease,  might  be  useful  in  aesthetics,  or  at  any  rate  in 
art-criticism,  by  showing  that  an  exaggerated  predilection 
for  symbols,  and  for  minuteness  of  detail  (however 
accurate),  the  complication  of  inscriptions,  the  excessive 
prominence  given  to  any  one  colour  (it  is  well  known  that 
some  of  our  foremost  painters  are  great  sinners  in  this 
respect),  the  choice  of  licentious  subjects,  and  even  an 
exaggerated  degree  of  originality,  are  points  which  belong 
to  the  pathology  of  art. 

1  My  attention  was  called  many  years  ago  to  the  frequent  occurrence 
of  insanity  among  great  musicians  by  Dr.  Arnaldo  Bargoni,  and  after- 
wards by  Mastriani,  of  Naples,  in  an  excellent  article  in  Roma,  1881. 


CHAPTER  III. 
LITERARY  AND  ARTISTIC  MATTOIDS. 

Definition — Physical  and  psychical  characteristics — Their  literary  activity 
—  Examples— Lawsuit  mania — Mattoids  of  genius — Bosisio — The 
decadent  poets — Verlainc — Mattoids  in  art. 

WK  have  just  been  considering,  in  madmen,  the  sub- 
stantial character  of  genius  under  the  appearance  of 
insanity.  There  is,  however,  a  variety  of  these,  which 
permits  the  appearance  of  genius  and  the  substantial 
character  of  the  average  man  ;  and  this  variety  forms 
the  link  between  madmen  of  genius,  the  sane,  and  the 
insane  properly  so  called.  These  are  what  I  call  semi- 
insane  persons  or  mattoids. 

This  variety  constitutes,  in  the  world  of  mental  patho- 
logy, a  particular  species  of  a  genus  distinguished  by 
Maudsley  as  "odd,  queer,  strange"  persons  of  insane 
temperament,  and  previously  by  Morel.  Legrand  du 
Saulle,  and  Schule  (Gcistcskrunkheit,  ii.,  1880)  regard 
them  as  hereditary  neurotics,  Raggi  as  neuropathies^  and 
now  many  ?&  paranoiac  s — a  terminology  which  produces  a 
hopeless  confusion. 

The  graphomaniac,  representing  the  commonest  variety, 
has  true  negative  characteristics — that  is  to  say,  the 
features  and  cranial  form  are  nearly  always  normal 
(Bosisio,  Cianchettini,  F ,  P ,  &c.).  His  charac- 
teristics are  not  the  result  of  heredity  ;  at  most,  he  is 
the  son  of  a  man  of  genius  (Flourens,  Broussais,  Spandri, 
Knester,  &c.).  This  form  of  aberration  is  most  frequently 
found  in  men  ;  I  only  know  of  one  exception  in  Europe 
— Louise  Michel — and  it  appears  more  especially  in  great 
cities,  worn  out  with  civilization.  The  mattoid  shows  far 
iewer  signs  of  degeneracy  than  the  insane  properly  so 


210  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

called  : — Of  33  mattoids  only  21  showed  degenerative 
characters,  and  of  these  last  12  had  2,  2  were  found  to 
have  3,  there  were  2  with  4,  and  only  i  with  6. 

Another  negative  characteristic  is  the  survival  of 
family  affection,  and  even  of  that  for  the  human  race  in 
general,  sometimes  reaching  such  a  point  as  to  become 
exaggerated  altruism  ;  though,  in  many  cases,  vanity 
enters  largely  into  the  composition  of  this  virtue.  Thus 
Bosisio  thinks  of  and  provides  for  the  well-being  of 

posterity,  and  even  of  the  dead.     Thus  D loves  his 

wife  and  grandchildren,  and  constantly  works  for  his 
family  ;  Cianchettini  supported  a  deaf  and  dumb  sister ; 
Sbarbaro,  Lazzaretti,  Coccapieller,  adored  their  wives. 

In  prison,  a  few  days  ago,  I  had  occasion  to  perform  the 
operation  of  blood-transfusion,  and  wasted  much  time  in 
trying  to  find  a  healthy  individual  from  whom  to  take  the 
blood.  All  refused  ;  but  a  consumptive  mattoid,  as  soon 
as  he  heard  of  the  matter,  volunteered  for  the  operation, 
and  was  overwhelmed  with  shame  when  I  would  not  make 
use  of  him. 

They  have  an  exaggerated  conviction  of  their  own  per- 
sonal merit  and  importance,  with  the  peculiar  character- 
istic that  this  opinion  shows  itself  rather  in  writing  than 
in  words  or  actions,  so  that  they  do  not  show  irritation 
at  the  contradictions  and  evils  of  practical  life. 

Cianchettini  compares  himself  to  Galileo  and  to  Jesus 
Christ  ;  but  sweeps  the  barrack-stairs.  Passanante  pro- 
claims himself  President  of  the  Political  Society  while 
working  as  a  cook.  Mangione  classified  himself  as 
a  martyr  to  Italy  and  to  his  own  genius  ;  yet  he  con- 
descended to  act  as  a  broker.  Caissant  claimed  to  be  a 
cardinal,  but,  in  the  meantime,  he  was  a  clever  parasite, 
and  made  large  profits  through  his  very  insanity.  The 
shepherd  Bluet  believed  himself  to  be  an  apostle  and 
count  of  Permission,  and,  like  the  author  of  Scottatinge, 
deigned  to  address  himself  to  none  but  royal  personages. 
Yet  he  did  not  refuse  to  carry  on  the  trade  of  a  horse- 
breaker. 

Stewart,  the  eccentric  author  of  the  New  System  of 
Physical  Philosophy,  who  travelled  all  over  the  world  to 
discover  the  polarity  of  truth,  asserted  that  all  the  kings 


LITERARY  AND  ARTISTIC  MATTOWS.  211 

of  the  earth  had  entered  into  an  alliance  to  destroy  his 
works.  He  therefore  gave  the  latter  to  his  friends,  with 
the  request  to  wrap  them  up  well,  and  bury  them  in  re- 
mote localities, — never  revealing  the  latter,  except  on 
their  death-beds.  Martin  Williams — brother  of  that 
Jonathan  Williams,  who,  in  an  attack  of  insanity,  set  fire 
to  York  Minster,  and  of  John  Williams  who  struck  out  a 
new  line  in  painting — published  many  works  to  prove  the 
theory  of  perpetual  motion.  After  having  convinced 
himself  by  means  of  thirty-six  experiments  of  the  impossi- 
bility of  demonstrating  it  scientifically,  it  was  revealed  to 
him  in  a  dream  that  God  had  chosen  him  to  discover  the 
great  cause  of  all  things,  and  perpetual  motion  ;  and  this 
he  made  the  subject  of  many  works.1 

These  persons  would  not  come  under  the  heading  of 
mattoids,  if,  in  their  writings,  the  earnestness  and  per- 
sistence in  one  idea  which  make  them  resemble  the  rnono^- 
maniac  and  the  man  of  genius,  were  not  often  associated 
with  the  pursuit  of  absurdity,  continual  contradictions,  and 
the  prolixity  and  utility  of  insanity.  One  tendency  over- 
powers all  others — one  which  we  find  predominant  in 
insane  genius  :  viz.,  personal  vanity.  Thusj  out  of  21  -I 
mattoids,  we  find  forty-four  prophets. 

Filopanti,  in  the  DIG  Liber  ale,  places  his  father  Berillo, 
a  carpenter,  and  his  mother  Berilla  among  the  demigods. 
He  discovered  three  Adams,  and  gives  a  minute  narrative, 
year  by  year,  of  the  actions  of  each.  Cordigliani  prepared 
to  insult  the  Chamber  of  Deputies  in  order  to  obtain  an 
annuity  from  the  Government,  and  thought  this  action 
much  to  his  own  credit.  Guiteau  thought  he  was  saving 
the  Republic  by  the  murder  of  the  President,  and  had 
himself  called  a  great  lawyer  and  philosopher.  In  the 
same  way  Passanante,  after  having  preached  the  abolition 
of  capital  punishment,  condemns  the  guilty  members  of 
the  Assembly  to  death  ;  and,  after  having  given  orders  to 
a  respect  the  forms  of  government,"  insults  the  monarchy, 
makes  an  attempt  at  regicide,  and  proposes  to  u  abolish 
all  misers  and  hypocrites." 

A  physician,  S ,  prints  a  statement  that  blood- 

T    !   :-p.ot,  V<.'r  it  ts  positives,  18541 


212  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

letting  exposes  to  an  excess  of  light,  another  announces  in 
two  thick  volumes,  that  diseases  arc  elliptical. 

Critics  have  said,  referring  to  the  works  of  Demons, 
that  his  Dialectic  Quintessence  and  sextessence  are  a  true 
quintessence  of  absurdity.1  Gleizes  affirms  that  flesh  is 
atheistical.  Fuzi  (a  theologian)  asserts  that  the  menstrual 
blood  has  the  property  of  quenching  conflagrations. 

Hannequin,  who  used  to  write  in  the  air  with  his  fingers, 
and  had  an  aroinal  trumpet,  by  means  of  which  he  com- 
municated with  the  spirits  dispersed  through  the  air, 
declares  that  in  the  future  age  many  men  shall  become 
women  and  demigods. 

Henrion,  at  the  Academic  des  Inscriptions,  advanced 
the  theory  that  Adam  was  forty  feet  in  height,  Noah 
twenty-nine,  Moses  twenty-five,  £c, 

Leroux,  the  celebrated  Paris  Deputy,  who  believed  in 
metempsychosis  and  the  cabbala,  defined  love  as  "  the 
ideality  of  the  reality  of  a  part  of  the  totality  of  the  Infi- 
nite Being,1'  &c.,  and  wished  to  insert  the  principle  of  the 
triad  in  the  preamble  of  his  Constitution. 

Asgill  maintained  that  men  might  live  for  ever,  if  only 
they  had  faith. 

It  is  true  that,  here  and  there,  some  new  and  vigorous 
notion  emerges  from  the  chaos  of  such  minds,  because  the 
only  symptom  of  genius  developed  in  them  by  psychosis 
is  a  less  degree  of  aversion  to  novelty,  or,  to  employ  my 
own  terminology,  of  misoneism.2  Thus,  for  example,  amid 
the  most  absurd  opinions,  Cianchettini  has  some  very  fine 
passages  : 

"  All  animals  have  the  instinct  of  self-preservation,  with 
the  minimum  of  fatigue,  of  escaping  from  troublesome 
thoughts,  and  of  enjoying  the  delights  of  life  ;  and  to 
obtain  these  things,  liberty  is  indispensable  to  them. 

"  All  animals,  except  man,  gratify  and  always  have 
gratified  these  instincts,  and  perhaps  will  always  continue 
to  do  so.  Mankind  alone,  constituted  as  a  society,  find 
themselves  fettered,  and  in  such  a  way  that  no  one  has 
ever  succeeded,  not  merely  in  bringing  them  into  a  state 
of  peace  and  liberty,  but  even  in  snowing  how  they  may 
attain  this  end. 

Lesfotis  Hftcraires,  p.  51.  '  See  Trc  Trilnini,  1887. 


LITERARY  AND  ARTISTIC  MATTOIDS.  213 

u  Well — I  propose  to  demonstrate  this  proposition, 
And,  as  a  locked  door  cannot  be  opened  without  breaking 
it,  save  by  means  of  a  key  or  a  pick-lock  ;  so,  as  man  has 
lost  his  liberty  by  means  of  the  tongue,  nothing  but  the 
tongue,  or  its  equivalents,  can  set  him  free  without  injury 
to  his  nature." 

Amid  the  doggerel  jargon  of  the  Scotfatinge^  I  find  this 
beautiful  line  on  Italy — 

"  Padrona  e  sc/u'ava  sempre,  ai  figli  tnoi  iicmica"  l 

We  shall  see,  in  Passanante's  biography,  that  sometimes, 
in  his  writings  and  still  more  in  his  speeches,  he  struck 
out  vigorous  and  original  ideas  which,  in  fact,  led  many 
persons  into  error  as  to  the  nature  and  reality  of  his 
disease.  I  may  mention  the  sentence,  u  Where  the  learned 
lose  themselves,  the  ignorant  man  may  triumph," — 
and  another,  u  History  learnt  from  the  people  is  more 
instructive  than  that  which  is  studied  in  books."  Bluet 
distinguishes  "  the  maid  from  the  virgin,  in  that  the  first 
has  the  will  for  evil  without  the  power,  and  the  second 
has  neither  the  power  nor  the  will." 

It  is  natural  that  mattoids  should  repeat  in  their  con- 
ceptions the  ideas  of  stronger  politicians  and  thinkers, 
but  always  in  their  own  way,  and  always  exaggerated. 
Thus  Bosisio  exaggerates  the  delicate  consideration  of 
our  lovers  of  animals,  and  anticipates  the  ideas  of  Mile. 
Cl^mence  Royer  and  Comte  on  the  necessity  for  the 
application  of  the  Malthusian  theory.  In  the  same 
way,  Detomasi,  a  dishonest  broker,  discovered  a  prac- 
tical application  (except  for  the  morbid  eroticism  which 
he  added  to  it)  of  the  Darwinian  system  of  natural 
selection.  Cianchettini  wishes  to  put  Socialism  into 
practice. 

But  the  stamp  of  insanity  is  evident,  not  so  much  in 
the  exaggeration  of  their  ideas,  as  in  the  disproportion  of 
the  latter  among  themselves  ;  so  that,  from  some  well- 
expressed  and  even  sublime  conception,  we  pass  suddenly 
to  one  which  is  more  than  mediocre  and  paradoxical, 
nearly  always  opposed  to  the  received  ideas  of  the  majo- 
1  "  Always  mistress  or  slave — a  foe  to  thine  own  children." 


214  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

rity,  and  at  variance  with  the  position  and  education  of 
the  author.  In  short,  we  have  that  by  means  of  wjiich  Don 
Quixote,  instead  of  extorting  our  admiration,  makes  us 
smile.  Yet  his  actions,  in  another  age,  and  even  in  a 
different  man,  would  have  been  admirable  and  heroic. 
In  any  case,  among  mattoids,  traits  of  genius  are  rather 
the  exception  than  the  rule.1 

Most  of  them  show  a  deficiency  rather  than  an  exuber- 
ance of  inspiration  ;  they  fill  entire  volumes,  without 
sense  or  savour  ;  they  eke  out  the  commonplaceness  of 
their  ideas  and  the  poverty  of  their  style  with  a  multitude 
of  points  of  interrogation  and  exclamation,  with  repeated 
signatures,  with  special  words  coined  by  themselves,  as  is 
the  habit  of  monomaniacs  ;  thus  Menke  already  observed 
that  some  mattoids  contemporary  with  himself  had  in- 
vented the  words  derapti  feh'san.  Berbiguier  created  the 
word  farfidcrism.  A  monomaniac,  Le  Bardier,  wrote  a 
work  entitled  Dominatmosfheri,  intended  to  show  farmers 
how  to  obtain  double  harvests,  and  sailors  to  avoid 
storms.  He  entitled  himself  Dominatmosfherifateur* 
Cianchettini  invented  the  travaso  of  the  idea ;  Pari 
invented  cafnngata,  and  morbozoo,  and  we  owe  to 
Wahltuch,  ahtrologia  and  anthropomognotologia,  and  to 
G lepidermocrinia  and  glossostomopatica. 

We  often  find  an  eccentric  handwriting,  with  vertical 
lines  cut  by  horizontal  ones  and  tranverse  furrows,  even 
with  unusually-formed  letters,  as  in  Cianchettini. 

They  frequently  introduce  drawings  into  their  sentences, 
as  if  to  heighten  their  force,  thus  returning  (as  we  have 
already  seen  to  be  the  case  with  megalomaniacs)  to  the 

1  "//  se  trouvait   la  des  philosophes  plus  forts  que  Leibnitz,  mais 
sourdsmuels  de  naissance,  ne  pouvant  produire  que  les  gestes  de  leurs  idees 
et  pousser  des  argiiments  inarticutts  ;  des  peintres  tourmentes  de  faire 
grand,  mais  qui posaient  si  singulierement  un  homme  sur  ses  pieds,  un 
arbre  sur  ses  ratines,  que  tous  leurs  tableaux  ressemblaient  a  des  vues  de 
tremblements  de  terre  on  a  des  intlrieurs  de  paquebots  unjour  de  temple. 
Des  musiciens  invent enrs  de  claviers  intermediates,  des  savants  a  la 
fafon  du  docteur  Hitisch,  de  ces  cervelles  bric-a-brac,  ou  il  y  a  de  tout 
mais  ou  Ton  ne  trouve  rien,  a  cause  du  desordre,  de  la  poussiere,  et  aussi 
parceque  tous  les  objets  sont  cassh,  incomplets,  incapables  du  moindrq 
service"  (Daudet,  Jack). 

2  Delepierre,  Littlrateitr  desfous. 


LITERARY  AND  ARTISTIC  MATTOIDS.  215 

ideographic  writing  of  the  ancients,  in  which  the  figure 
served  as  a  determining  symbol. 

Wahltuch  published  two  books  on  Psychography,  a 
new  kind  of  philosophic  system  which,  however,  has  found 
a  serious  commentator  in  a  sane  philosopher — which 
speaks  volumes  for  the  seriousness  of  some  philosophers. 
According  to  this  system,  ideas  are  represented  by  so 
many  images  impressed  on  each  of  the  cerebral  convolu- 
tions. Thus  the  symbol  of  Physics  is  a  lighted  candle  ; 
that  of  alitrology,  or  the  faculty  of  judgment,  is  the  nose 
(or  the  sense  of  smell)  ;  of  ethics,  a  ring ;  and  of  motion, 
a  fishing-hook.  The  author,  despairing  (and  with  good 
reason)  of  making  himself  understood  in  words,  philoso- 
phises with  his  pencil,  and  has  crammed  his  book  with 
diagrams  of  brains  covered  with  such  figurative  signs. 

In  order  to  prove  the  applicability  of  these  principles 
to  literature,  he  has  presented  us  with  a  tragedy^/o# 
— in  which  the  characters  have  their  heads  covered  with 
similar  signs,  and  chant  verses  worthy  of  the  system,  e.g., 
"  O  that  I  could  separate  the  two  united  conceptions  of 
myself  and  impiety.  I  am  just.  Satan  is  impious."  : 

The  Jesuit  missionary,  Paoletti,  wrote  a  book  against 
St.  Thomas,  and  illustrated  it  with  a  drawing  of  the  vessels 
used  in  the  Tabernacle,  so  as  to  determine  the  future 
condition  of  the  sons  of  Adam  with  regard  to  predestina- 
tion. The  Divine  and  human  wills  are  figured  as  two 
balls  revolving  in  opposite  directions,  and  finally  meeting 
at  a  common  centre. 

The  titles  of  all  their  works  show  an  exuberance  which 
is  really  singular.  I  possess  one  of  eighteen  lines,  not 
counting  a  note  included  in  the  title-page  itself,  and 
intended  to  explain  it.  A  socialistic  work  published  in 
Australia,  by  an  Italian,  and  in  pure  Italian,  has  a  title 
arranged  in  the  shape  of  a  triumphal  arch. 

It  is  precisely  in  the  title-page  that  nearly  all  of  them 
at  once  betray  the  taint  of  madness.  This  example — from 
the  work  of  the  mattoid  Demons — will  suffice  :  "  The 
demonstration  of  the  fourth  part  of  nothing  is  something  ; 
everything  is  the  quintessence  extracted  from  the  quarter 

1  Staccar  potessi  i  due  concetti  uniti 
Di  me  ed  emgio.     lo  qiusto.     Empio  2  Satana* 


216  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

of  nothing  and  that  which  depends  on  it,  containing  the 
precepts  of  the  holy,  magic,  and  devout  invocations  of 
Demons,  to  discover  the  origin  of  the  evils  which  afflict 
France." 

Many  have  the  crotchet  of  mixing  up  with  their  sen- 
tences accumulated  series  of  numbers,  which  is  also 
sometimes  done  by  paralytics.  In  a  mad  production  of 
Sovbira's,  entitled  "  666,"  all  the  verses  are  accompanied 
by  the  number  666.  The  strange  thing  is  that,  at  the 
same  time,  a  certain  Porter,  in  England,  had  published  a 
work  on  the  number  666,  declaring  it  the  most  exquisite 
and  perfect  of  numbers.1  Lazzaretti,  too,  had  a  singular 

partiality  for  this  number.     Spandri,  Levron,  and  C 

have  a  similar  preference  for  the  number  3.  A  special 
characteristic  found  in  mattoids,  and  also,  as  we  have 
already  seen,  in  the  insane,  is  that  of  repeating  some  words 
or  phrases  hundreds  of  times  in  the  same  page.  Thus, 
in  one  of  Passanante's  chapters,  the  word  riprovate  occurs 
about  143  times. 

Some  have  had  special  paper  manufactured  for  their 
works,  like  Wirgman,  who  had  it  made  with  different 
colours  on  the  same  sheet,  at  an  enormous  increase  of 
expense,  so  that  a  volume  of  four  hundred  pages  cost  him 
over  ^*2, 200  sterling.  Filon  had  every  page  of  his  book 
of  a  different  colour. 

Another  characteristic  is  that  of  employing  an  ortho- 
graphy and  caligraphy  peculiar  to  themselves,  with  words 
in  large  type  or  underlined.  They  will  sometimes  write 
even  private  letters  in  double  column,  or  with  vertical 
lines  traversed  by  horizontal  and  sometimes  by  diagonal 
ones.  They  sometimes  underline  one  letter  in  preference 
to  others  in  the  same  word  (Passanante),  or  they  write  in 
detached  verses  like  those  of  the  Bible,  or  introduce 
points  after  every  two  or  three  words,  as  in  the  MS.  (in 
my  possession)  of  a  certain  Bellone,  or  parentheses,  even 
one  within  the  other,  as  Madrolle  used  to  do,  or  notes 
upon  notes,  even  in  the  title-page,  as  in  the  case  of 
Cas —  -  and  of  La .  The  latter  (a  University  pro- 
fessor) in  a  work  of  twelve  pages  has  nine  consisting  of 
notes  alone. 

^Delepierre,  op.  cit. 


LITERARY  AND  ARTISTIC  MATTOWS.   217 

Hepain  invented  a  physiological  language,  which  con' 
sists  in  the  main  of  our  own  letters  reversed,  and  of 
numbers  used  in  their  places. 

Many  have  a  caligraphy  quite  peculiar  to  themselves, 
close,  continuous,  with  lengthened  letters,  and  always 
extremely  legible. 

Many  (like  some  of  the  insane,  whom  they  surpass  in 
this  point)  continually  intersperse  their  conversation  with 
puns  and  plays  on  words.  A  certain  Jassio  wished  to 
prove  the  analogy  of  the  hand  and  the  week  in  which 
God  created  the  world,  by  means  of  a  pun  on  the  words 
main  and  semaine.  Hecart,  who  had  himself  said  that  it 
is  the  peculiarity  of  the  insane  to  occupy  themselves  with 
useless  trifles,  wrote  the  biography  of  the  madmen  of 
Valenciennes,  and  the  strange  book  entitled  Anagram- 
mata,poeme  en  VII.  chants,  XCVe  edition  (as  a  matter 
of  fact,  it  was  the  first),  rev.  corr.  et  augmcntee  ;  a 
Anagrammatopolis,  Pan  XIV.  de  fere  anagrammatique 
(Valenciennes,  1821,  16°).  The  book  is  almost  entirely 
composed  of  inversions  of  words.  The  following  is  an 
example  : 

"  Lccte.nr,  il  sied  que  je  vow  disc 

Qite  le  shire  fern  la  brise; 

Que  L'  tlu  pen  r  est  sans  pud  cur, 

Qi? on  pent  maculer  sans  clameur.  .  .  . 

La  nomade  a  mis  la  madonne 
A  la  paterne  de  Petronne 
Quand  le  grand  Dacier  ctait  diacre 
Le  caffier  cultivt du  fiacre." 

And   so  on  for  twelve  thousand   lines,  concluding  with 
this  : 

"  Moi  je  vais  poser  mon  rcpos." 

Here  it  is  as  well  to  note  that,  on  the  margin  of  a  copy  of 
the  Anagrammata  belonging  to  the  Bibliotheque  Nationale 
of  Paris  is  the  following  confession,  in  the  author's  hand- 
writing, "  Anagrams  are  one  of  the  greatest  inanities  of 
which  the  human  mind  is  capable  ;  one  must  be  a  fool  to 
amuse  one's  self  with  them,  and  worse  than  a  fool  to  make 
them."  This  is  a  correct  diagnosis  of  his  case. 

Filopanti,    in    the     Dto     Liberate,   explains    Luther's 


2i8  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

propaganda  by  a  caprice  on  the  part  of  the  Deity,  who 
caused  Mars  to  become  a  monk.  The  latter  thus  became 
Martin,  and  then  Martin  Luther. 

The  origin  of  Gleizes'  vegetarian  mania  was  a  dream,  in 
which  he  heard  a  voice  crying  in  his  ears,  "  Gleizes  means 
eglise"  He  thus  thought  himself  suddenly  appointed  by 
God  to  preach  his  doctrine  to  mankind.  Du  Monin  has 
the  plague  decapitated,  "  Take  away  this  head  from  hence  ; 
I  fear  that  this  head  will  deprive  my  people  of  their  heads 
by  a  new  mischief."  J 

But  a  still  more  prevalent  characteristic  is  the  singular 
copiousness  of  their  writings.  Bluet  left  behind  no  less 
than  1 80  books,  each  more  foolish  than  the  other.  We  shall 
see  how  Mangione,  who,  in  addition,  was  crippled  in  one 
hand  and  could  not  write,  deprived  himself  of  food  to 
defray  the  cost  of  printing,  and  sometimes  spent  more 
than  one  hundred  scudi  per  month  to  enable  him  to  gratify 
his  taste  for  authorship.  We  know  how  many  reams  of 
paper  Passanante  covered,  and  how  he  attached  more  im- 
portance to  the  publication  of  a  foolish  letter  of  his  than 
to  his  own  life.  Guiteau  used  so  much  paper  as  to  incur 
a  considerable  debt  which  he  was  unable  to  pay.  The 
list  of  George  Fox's  works  is  so  long  that  the  bibliographer 
Lowndes  does  not  venture  to  give  it.  Howerlandt's 
Essay  on  Tour  nay  consists  of  117  volumes. 

Sometimes  they  content  themselves  with  writing  and 
printing  their  vagaries,  and  make  no  attempt  to  diffuse 
them  among  the  public,  though  they  assume  that  the 
latter  must  be  acquainted  with  them. 

In  these  writings,  apart  from  their  morbid  prolixity,  let 
it  be  noted  that  the  aim  is  either  futile,  or  absurd,  or  in 
complete  contradiction  with  their  social  position  and 
previous  culture.  Thus  two  physicians  write  on  hypo- 
thetic geometry  and  astrology  ;  a  surgeon,  a  veterinary 
surgeon  and  an  obstetric  practitioner,  on  aerial  naviga- 
tion ;  a  captain  on  rural  economy ;  a  sergeant  on  thera- 
peutics ;  and  a  cook  on  high  political  questions.  A  theo- 
logian writes  a  treatise  on  menstrua,  a  carter  on  theology. 

1  "  Leve  ce  chef  (fid,  je  crains  que  ce  chef  prive  de  chef  les  miens  par  un 
noiiveau  mechef^ 


LITERARY  AND  ARTISTIC  MATTOIDS.  219 


Two  porters  are  the  authors  of  tragedies,  and  a  custom- 
house officer  of  a  work  on  sociology. 

As  to  the  subjects  chosen,  an  examination  of  186  insane 
books  in  my  collection  gives  the  following  result  : 

51  deal  with  Personal  Topics 
36  are  works  on  Medicine 
27     ,,          ,,         Philosophy 
25  contain  Lamentations 
7  are  Dramatic 


4  are  on  Astronomy 


1 86 


Religious 
Poetry 


Physics 

Politics 

Political  Economy 

Rural  ,, 

Veterinary  Medicine 

Literature 

Mathematics 
is  on  Grammar 
,,  a  Dictionary 


I  do  not  count  miscellaneous  works,  such  as  controversial 
treatises,  essays  on  mechanics,  studies  in  magnetism, 
funeral  orations,  eccentric  theological  works,  researches 
in  literary  history,  proclamations,  matrimonial  advertise- 
ments, &c. 

Some  statistics  compiled  by  Philomneste  give  a  list  of 
such  books  known  in  Europe,  which  are  thus  classified : 

82    '    Aeronautics 
Chemistry 
Physics 
Zoology 
Strategy 
Chronology 


Theology        

Prophecy  (esoteric  mysticism) 

Philosophy    ... 

Politics 

Poetry  and  Drama 

Languages  and  Granmar 

Erotic  Literature 

Hieroglyphics 

Astronomy     . . . 


44 

g 
i 

5 
3 

2 


Hygiene 

Pedagogy 

Archaeology 

While  poetry  prevails  among  the  insane,  theology  and 
prophecy  predominate  in  the  mattoids,  and  so  on  in 
diminishing  proportions  for  the  more  abstract,  uncertain 
and  incomplete  sciences,  as  we  see  by  the  scarcity  of  the 
naturalists  and  mathematicians.  It  is  well  to  note  the 
small  number  of  atheists — three  only,  amid  such  a  swarm 


220  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

of  theologians  and  philosophers  (162).  Spiritualism,  on 
the  other  hand,  is  so  much  in  favour,  that  Philomncste 
gave  up  the  task  of  cataloguing  the  works  which  treated 
of  it. 

All  topics  are  welcome  to  mattoids,  even  those  most 
foreign  to  their  profession  or  occupation  ;  but  they  are 
found  to  choose  by  preference  the  most  grotesque  and 
uncertain  subjects,  or  questions  which  it  is  impossible  to 
solve.  Such  are  the  quadrature  of  the  circle,  hierogly- 
phics, exposition  of  the  Apocalypse,  air-balloons,  and 
spiritualism.  They  are  also  fond  of  treating  the  subjects 
most  talked  of — what  one  might  call  the  questions  of  the 
day.  Speaking  of  Demons,  who  has  already  been  men- 
tioned, Nodier  said,  "  He  was  not  a  monomaniac — very 
much  the  contrary  ;  he  was  a  many-sided  madman,  always 
ready  to  repeat  any  strange  thing  that  came  to  his  ears, 
a  chameleon-like  dreamer,  who  insanely  reflected  the 
colours  of  the  moment."  x  Thus,  at  the  time  of  our  great 
national  deficits,  projectors  appeared  by  the  dozen,  with 
proposals  to  restore  the  Italian  finances,  either  by  means 
of  assignats,  or  by  the  spoliation  of  the  Jews  or  the  clergy, 
by  forced  loans,  &c.  Later  on,  came  the  social  and  religious 
problem  (Passanante,  Lazzaretti,  Bosisio,  Cianchettini)  ; 
at  the  present  moment  the  question  most  under  discussion 
is  that  of  the  pellagra. 

Thus  we  have,  among  others,  Pari,  who  has  discovered 
the  cause  of  the  disease  in  certain  fungi,  which  fall  from 
the  roofs  of  dirty  huts  into  the  peasants'  food,  and  make 
them  ill.  The  proof  is  evident  :  photograph  the  section 
of  a  hut,  and  place  it  under  the  microscope,  and  you  will 
find,  on  comparison,  that  fungi  are  more  numerous  than 
in  town  houses  where  pellagra  is  unknown. 

But  why  do  these  fungi  produce  the  pellagra  f  The 
reason  is  very  simple.  These  fungi  contain  the  substance 
fungtna,  which  burns  at  47°  (stc).  Now,  when  the  out- 
side temperature  is  at  13°  and  the  body  at  32°  (stc)  the 
two  quantities  of  caloric  are  added  together,  and  we  burn  ! 
This  is  why  sufferers  from  the  pellagra  appear  scorched 
by  the  sun  ! 

It   is  noteworthy  that  in  nearly  all — Bosisio,  Cianchet- 
1  Philomneste,  Lesfoiis  Zitttraires,  1881. 


L1TERARV  AND  ARTISTIC  MATTOIDS.  221 

tini,  Passanante,  Mangione,  De  Tommasi,  B , — the 

convictions  set  forth  in  their  written  works  are  exceedingly 
deep  and  firmly  fixed.  They  show  as  much  absurdity  and 
prolixity  in  their  writings  as  they  do  common  sense  and 
prudence  in  their  verbal  answers — even  rebutting  objec- 
tions with  a  single  monosyllable,  and  explaining  their 
own  eccentricities  with  so  much  good  sense  and  some- 
times acuteness  that  the  unlearned  may  well  take  their 
fancies  for  wisdom  ;  while,  later  on,  they  relieve  their 
insane  impulses  by  covering  reams  of  paper. 

a  The  guardian  is  the  true  sentinel  of  the  people  and 
government,  liberty,  the  circulation  of  the  press  " — was 
a  sentence  of  Passanante's,  which  at  first  seems  a  mere 
play  on  words,  but  he  explained  it  to  experts  in  these  terms  : 
"  The  liberty  of  the  press,  the  free  circulation  of  journals 
constitute  a  surveillance  over  the  rights  of  the  people." 
When  I  asked  Bosisio  why  he  was  so  eccentric  as  to  wear 
sandals  and  walk  about  bare-headed  and  half-naked  in 
the  heat  of  July,  he  replied,  u  To  imitate  the  Romans, 
and  to  keep  the  head  healthy,  and,  lastly,  to  call  public 
attention  to  my  theories  by  some  visible  sign.  Would 
you  have  stopped  to  speak  to  me  if  I  had  not  been  dressed 
like  this  ?  » 

Moreover,  mattoids — the  reverse  being  the  case  both  with 
genius  and  with  insanity — are  united  by  common  interest 
and  sympathy,  and,  above  all,  by  hatred  to  the  common 
enemy,  the  man  of  genius.  They  form  a  kind  of  free- 
masonry,— all  the  more  powerful  that  it  is  irregular- 
founded  on  the  common  need  of  resisting  the  ridicule 
which  inexorably  attacks  them  on  every  side,  on  the 
need  of  extirpating,  or  at  least  opposing,  their  natural 
antithesis,  genius.  Though  hating  one  another,  they 
are  firmly  united  ;  and  though  they  do  not  enjoy 
one  another's  triumphs,  they  rejoice  in  common  over 
the  victims  who  never  fail  to  fall  to  the  lot  of  one  or 
the  other.  For,  as  we  have  seen,  the  vulgar,  called 
upon  to  choose  between  the  mattoid  and  the  man  of 
genius,  never  hesitate  to  sacrifice  the  latter.  Even  at 
the  present  clay,  many  practitioners  who  take  the  dosi- 
metricians  seriously,  laugh  at  homoeopathy  ;  and  the 
academic  multitudes  who  laugh  at  Schlieiiiaini  and  Ardigo 


222  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

never  treated  the  archaeological  discoveries  of  Father 
Secchi  in  the  same  way.  This  is  also  shown  by  the  em- 
phatic and  senseless  addresses  presented  to  Coccapieller 
and  Sbarbaro  by  many  individuals  who  were  still  more 
insane  than  their  idols.1 

This  explains  why,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  universal 
suffrage  was  introduced  under  the  Roman  Republic  of 
1849,  the  populace  never  thought  of  electing  Ciceruacchio 
to  the  parliament.  Ciceruacchio  was  a  rough  working- 
man,  but  he  was  sane. 

One  characteristic  which  further  distinguishes  mattoids 
from  criminals  and  from  many  of  the  actually  insane  is  an 
extreme  abstemiousness,  which  sometimes  equals  the  ex- 
-  of  the  early  Cenobites.  Bosisio  lived  on  polenta 
without  salt  ;  Passanante  on  bread  only  ;  Lazzaretti  often 
on  nothing  but  a  few  potatoes  ;  Mangione  on  peas,  beans, 
rice,  &c.,  at  thirteen  sous  a  day.  This  may  be  explained 
by  their  finding  sufficient  support  and  comfort  in  their 
own  grotesque  lucubrations,2  as  is  the  case  with  ascetics 
and  great  thinkers  ;  and  besides,  being  usually  poor,  they 
prefer  to  spend  their  small  means  in  securing  the  triumph 
of  their  ideas  rather  than  in  satisfying  their  stomachs  ; 

1  "  Have  you  ever  noticed,"  writes  Daudet  (Jack,  ii.  58),  speaking  of 
mattoids,  whom  he  calle  les  rates,  "how  these  people  seek  each  other 
in   Paris,  how  they  are  attracted  to  each  other,  how  they  group  them- 
selves with  their    grievances,   their    demands,   their   idle   and    barren 
vanities?     While,   in   reality,  full   of  mutual   contempt,  they  form  a 
Mutual   Admiration   Society,  outside  which  the  world  is  a  blank  to 
them." 

2  "  Maisparmi  ces  groupes  tapageurs  qui  s*  en  allaient  fredonnant,  dccla- 
mant,  disciitant  encore,  pcrsonne  ne  prenait  garde  au  froid  sinistre  de  la 
unit  ni  au  brouillard  humidc  qid  tombait.  A  r  entree  de  V avenue,  on  ia- 
fcrcut  qnc  fheure  des  omnibus  elait  passee.      Tons  ces  pauvres  diables  en 
prircnt  bravement  leur  parti.     La  chime  re  aux  ecaillcs  (for  eclair  ait  ct 
abregeait  leur  route,  ^illusion  leur  tenait  chaud,  et  repandus  dans  Paris 
dhert,  Us  se  tournaient  courageusemcnt  aux  miseres  obscures  de  la  vie. 

"  L'art  est  un  si  gratid  magicien  I  II  crte  itn  soleil  qui  iu it  pour  tons 
comme  Fautre,  et  ceiix  qui  s'en  approchcnt,  meme  les  pauvres,  meme  les 
laides,  meme  les  grotesques,  emportent  tin  peu  de  sa  chaleur  et  de  son 
rayonnement.  Cefeu  du  del  imprudemment  ravi,  que  les  rate's  garment 
au  fond  de  leurs  prunelles,  les  rend  quelquefois  redoutables,  le  phis  sou- 
vent  ridicules,  inais  leur  existence  en  revolt  line  serenite  grandiose,  un 
mepris  du  mal,  tine  grace  a  soujffrir  que  les  autres  miscres  nf  lonnaissent 
pas"  ( Daudet,  Jack,  i.  p.  3). 


LITERARY  AND  ARTISTIC  MATTOIDS.  223 

all  the  more  so,  as  nearly  all  of  them  (Cianchettini,  Bosisio, 

F- ,  for  instance)  were  scrupulously  honest,  and  almost 

e  \cc-sively  methodical,  keeping  account  even  of  scraps  of 
waste-paper,  which  they  catalogued  with  singular  order. 

In  short,  such  men,  certainly  insane  in  their  writings, 
and  sometimes  as  much  so  as  any  patient  in  an  asylum, 
are  scarcely  >o  in  the  ordinary  acts  of  life,  in  which  they 
.-how  themselves  full  of  good  sense,  shrewdness,  and  even 
of  a  sense  of  order  ;  so  that  they  arc  quite  the  reverse  of 
men  of  real  genius — especially  those  inspired  by  mad- 
QCSS,  whose  abilitv  in  literature  is  nearly  always  in  inverse 
proportion  to  their  aptitude  for  practical  life.  This  is 
DOW  it  happens  that  many  authors  of  medical  eccentrici- 
ties are  practitioners  of  great  repute.  Three  such  are 
directors  of  hospitals.  The  author  of  the  Sc'jttiitinge  is  a 
captain  and  commissariat  officer.  Another,  the  inventor 
of  almost  prehistoric  machines,  and  author  of  works  which 
are  more  than  humorous,  fills  an  office  which  exposes 
him  to  continual  contact  with  cultivated  men  who  have- 
never  su>pected  him  of  madness.  Five  are  professors, 
two  of  whom  are  attached  to  a  university  ;  three  are 
deputies,  two  senators,  one  is  a  counsellor  of  state,  one- 
counsellor  of  prefecture,  and  another  counsellor  of  the 
Court  of  Cassation.  Three  are  provincial  counsellors,  and 
five,  priests  ;  and  nearly  all  of  them  are  of  advanced  age 
and  respected  in  their  vocations.  Frecot  was  mayor  of 
Hesloup,  Leroux  and  A<giil  were  members  of  parliament. 
Mattoid  theologians — Simon  Morin,  Lebreton,  Geoffroi 
Vallee,  Vanini — have  unfortunately  been  taken  so  seriously 
as  to  be  burned  alive  or  hanged.  Juris's  bones  were  burned 
with  his  writings  under  the  gallows  at  Bale.  Kehler  was 
beheaded  for  the  sole  offence  of  having  corrected  Joris's 
proofs.  We  shall  see,  in  the  following  chapter,  how  many 
others — Smith,  Fourier,  Kleinov,  Fox — found  fanatical 
followers. 

That  calmness,  in  spite  of  obstinate  persistence  in  a 
delusion,  which  distinguishes  them  from  more  ordinary 
insane  patients,  may  also  be  observed  in  monomaniacs — 
U  even  their  most  prominent  characteristic — and  is  not 
rarely  found  in  some  of  the  stages  of  inebriety. 

But,    precisely   as  in    the    ordinary  insane,   so   also  in 


224  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

mattoids,  the  calm  sometimes  suddenly  ceases,  and  gives 
place  to  impulsive  forms  of  mania  and  delusion,  especi- 
ally under  the  stimulus  of  hunger  or  irritated  passion,  or 
during  the  return  of  the  various  neuroses  which  accom- 
pany and  often  generate  the  disease,  as  in  the  cases  of 
Cordigliani  and  Mangione. 

This  is  why  it  is  important  to  note  that  many  are 
subject  to  symptoms  which  indicate  the  pre-existence  of 
disturbance  at  the  nervous  centres.  Giraud  and  Spandri 
have  convulsive  movements  of  the  face,  lowering  of  the 
right  eyebrow,  and  ptosis  on  the  right  side.  Anaesthesia 
was  found  in  Lazzaretti,  Mangione,  and  De  Tommasi  ; 

delusions  of  short  duration  in  Cordigliani.  P ,  a 

young  man  of  distinguished  abilities,  became  mattoid 
only  after  an  attack  of  typhus  fever.  Kulmann  became 
a  prophet  at  eighteen,  after  suffering  from  disease  of  the 
brain.  These  impulsive  outbursts  make  such  cases  ex- 
tremely important  to  alienist  physicians — who,  finding  no 
similar  cases  in  any  of  the  better-known  forms  of  men- 
tal disease,  often  erroneously  infer  imposture,  or  sound- 
ness of  mind — and  still  more  to  politicians  who,  by  not 
at  once  placing  such  men  (at  first,  it  is  true,  far  more 
ridiculous  than  dangerous)  in  asylums,  expose  themselves 
to  perils  perhaps  greater  than  those  threatened  by  actual 
madmen,  who  betray  themselves  at  once,  thus  making  it 
possible  to  take  measures  for  rendering  them  harmless. 

There  is  a  much  more  dangerous  variety  of  these 
graphomaniacs — those  whose  disease  was  formerly  known 
as  "  lawsuit  mania."  These  individuals  feel  a  continual 
craving  to  go  to  law  against  others,  while  considering 
themselves  the  injured  party.  They  display  an  extra- 
ordinary activity,  and  a  minute  knowledge  of  the  law, 
which  they  always  try  to  interpret  to  their  own  advan- 
tage, heaping  up  petition  on  petition,  memorial  on 
memorial,  in  such  quantities  as  is  difficult  to  imagine, 
Many  attach  themselves  to  some  person,  to  obtain  whose 
influence  they  are  continually  scheming  ;  then  they  apply 
to  the  King  or  the  Parliament.  They  are  apt  to  succeed 
at  first,  especially  with  members  of  Parliament,  or  at  least 
to  be  considered  merely  as  over-zealous  suitors.  At  last, 
however,  when  their  persistence  has  wearied  every  one 


LITERARY  AND  ARTISTIC  MATTOIDS.  225 

out,  they  convert  their  forensic  and  literary  violence  into 
deeds,  certain  that  everything  will  be  pardoned  them  in 
consideration  of  the  justice  of  their  cause — nay,  that  their 
action  will  have  the  effect  of  deciding  the  suit  in  their 
favour.  This  result,  to  tell  the  truth,  sometimes  ensues, 

thanks  to  the  institution  of  the  jury.  Thus  G , 

having  lost  his  cause,  shot  at  and  wounded  Count  Colli, 
but  was  acquitted  through  the  singular  eloquence  he 
displayed  before  the  jury.  Ten  years  later,  he  forced  his 
way,  armed,  into  an  apartment  which  he  had  already  sold, 
and  which,  nevertheless,  he  insisted  on  having  back. 

As  the  erotomaniac  falls  in  love  with  an  ideal  person, 
and  imagines  himself  loved  by  one  who  has  never  even 
seen  him,  so  they  can  see  no  aspect  of  the  case  but 
their  own  ;  and  the  lawyers  and  judges  who  do  not 
support  them  become  enemies  on  whom  they  concentrate 
the  fiercest  hatred,  and  whom  they  look  on  as  the  cause 
of  every  misfortune  that  may  befall  them.  It  is  not  rare 
to  find  them  constituting  themselves  judges  in  their  own 
cause,  pronouncing  sentence,  on  their  own  responsibility, 
on  their  adversaries,  and  sometimes  going  the  length  of 

executing  the  same.  A  certain  B ,  from  whom  the 

parish  priest  had  taken  a  field  by  a  perfectly  legal  and 
regular  contract,  took  it  into  his  head  that  he  had  the  right 
to  assault  all  the  priests  of  his  village,  u  because,"  he  said, 
'•  Catholicism  is  in  opposition  to  the  Government."  For 
the  same  reason  he  tried  to  burn  down  the  church  ;  and 
all  this,  after  a  series  of  lawsuits  and  proclamations,  very 
just,  it  may  be  conceded,  in  principle,  but  certainly  not  in 
application. 

These  persons  have,  too,  a  similar  kind  of  handwriting, 
with  very  much  lengthened  letters  ;  and  they  likewise  abuse 
the  alphabet.  Their  theme,  however,  is  confined  to  their 
immediate  circle,  and  they  show  more  violence  in  dealing 
with  it ;  they,  only  touch  by  rebound,  as  it  were,  on 
social  and  religious  questions. 

Yet  the  personal  litigations  of  many  of  these  suitors  are 
mixed  up  with  political  differences  ;  and  this  is  the  kind 
from  which  most  danger  is  to  be  expected  in  our  day. 
These  are  usually  individuals  whose  scant  education  and 
extreme  poverty  do  not  allow  them  to  air  their  ideas  in 

16 


226  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

print,  so  that  they  have  to  relieve  their  feelings  by  deeds 
of  violence.  Such  was  Sandon,  who  caused  such  annoy- 
ance to  Napoleon  and  to  Billault,  and  was  a  genuine 
political  mattoid  ;  such,  too,  were  Cordigliani,  Passanante, 
Mangione,  and  Guiteau.  Krafft-Ebing  speaks  of  a  man 
who  had  founded  a  Club  of  the  Oppressed,  for  the  assist- 
ance of  those  who  could  get  no  justice  from  the  Courts, 
and  forwarded  its  rules  to  the  king. 

Mattoids  of  Genius. — Not  only  is  there  an  imper- 
ceptible gradation  between  sane  and  insane,  between 
madmen  and  mattoids,  but  also  between  these  last  (who 
are  the  very  negation  of  genius)  and  men  of  real  genius. 
So  much  so,  that  among  my  collection  there  are  certain 
individuals  I  find  a  difficulty  in  classifying.  Such,  for 
instance,  is  Bosisio,  of  Lodi. 

L.  Bosisio,  of  Lodi,  fifty-three  years  of  age,  has  one 
cousin,  a  cretin.  His  mother  is  sane  and  intelligent ;  his 
father  intelligent,  but  given  to  drink.  He  had  two 
brothers  who  died  of  meningitis.  As  a  young  man  he 
became  a  revenue  officer  ;  left  his  native  town  in  1848, 
and  when  nearly  dying  of  hunger  at  Turin,  threw  him- 
self from  a  balcony  and  broke  his  legs.  Having  obtained 
promotion  in  1859,  ne  fulfilled  his  duties  in  a  satisfactory 
manner  up  to  the  year  1866,  when — though  still  showing 
intelligence  and  accuracy  in  the  duties  of  his  office — he 
began  to  perform  eccentric  actions,  especially  inexplicable 
in  a  member  of  the  bureaucracy.  Thus,  one  day,  he 
bought  all  the  birds  for  sale  in  the  village  of  Bussolengo, 
and  then  opened  their  cages  and  set  them  at  liberty.  He 
took  to  reading  newspapers  all  day  long,  and  began  to 
send  energetic  protests  to  the  Government,  petitioning 
them  to  put  a  stop  to  the  disforesting  of  the  country,  the 
massacre  of  birds,  &c.  Being  dismissed  from  his  post, 
with  a  meagre  pension,  he  suddenly  gave  up  all  the 
luxuries  of  life,  and  took  no  food  but  polenta  without 
salt.  He  left  off,  one  at  a  time,  all  his  clothes  except 
shirt  and  drawers,  and  spent  all  his  scanty  means  in  the 
purchase  of  books  and  papers,  and  in  publishing  works 
on  the  regeneration  of  posterity,  which  he  distributed 
gratuitously — Criticism  on  My  Times,  The  Cry  of 
Nature,  "  §  113  of  the  Cry  of  Nature" 


LITERARY  AND  ARTISTIC  MATTOIDS.  227 

To  any  one  who  studies  these  books,  and,  still  more,  to 
one  who  hears  him  talk,  it  is  evident  that  he  has  worked 
out  in  his  own  head  a  system  not  entirely  illogical.  We 
suffer  loss,  he  says,  through  the  grape  disease,  through 
the  diseases  among  the  silkworms  and  crabs,  through 
floods.  All  these  things  are  caused  by  injury  done  to 
the  globe  through  the  destruction  of  forests  and  the 
extermination  of  birds,  and  (this  is  where  we  first  perceive 
his  madness)  the  torture  inflicted  on  it  by  the  railways 
which  pass  over  its  surface.  In  economical  matters,  we 
are  doing  equally  ill  ;  by  raising  ruinous  loans  we  are 
compromising  the  future  of  that  posterity  whose  champion 
he  has  appointed  himself. 

"  Add  to  this,"  he  continues,  "  that  the  ancient  Romans 
took  much  exercise,  had  not  the  luxury  that  we  have,  and 
did  not  take  coffee.  All  these  things  compromise  pos- 
terity, because  they  ruin  the  germs  of  humanity.  And 
what  ruins  them  far  more  is  the  ill-treatment  of  women, 
marriages  for  the  sake  of  money,  and  certain  forms  of 
ill-judged  charity.  Unhappy  children,  crippled  or  con- 
sumptive, are  kept  alive,  who,  if  killed  in  time,  would 
not  reproduce  themselves  ;  and,  in  the  same  way,  if, 
instead  of  keeping  sickly  individuals  alive  in  hospitals, 
at  great  trouble  and  expense,  people  were  to  help  the 
strong  and  healthy  when  they  fall  ill,  the  race  would 
be  improved.  And  thieves  and  murderers — are  they,  too, 
not  sick  men  who  ought  to  be  exterminated,  if  the  race 
is  not  to  be  ruined  ?  How  deadly  and  bestial  is  human 
greed  !  Everything  is  neglected  for  the  sake  of  satisfying 
the  appetites,  without  a  thought  for  the  fate  of  the 
generations  who  are  to  succeed  us.  ...  The  ill-omened 
mania  for  procreation,  which  is  inexorably  precipitating 
all  nations  into  an  abyss  whence  one  can  see  no  outlet, 
and  which  arrested  the  attention  of  Malthus,  reminds  me 
of  the  story  of  Midas,  who  asked  of  a  god  that  everything 
which  he  touched  might  turn  to  gold.  The  divinity  con- 
sented ;  but  his  first  transports  of  joy  were  followed  by 
grief  and  despair,  and  his  very  food  being  changed  into 
gold,  he  saw  himself  condemned  by  himself  to  die  of 
hunger." 

I  think  there  could  be  no  better  exairmle  than  this  to 


228  THE  MAN  OP  GEN2US. 

prove  the  existence  of  an  active  and  powerful  mind, 
unsound  on  a  single  given  point.  Any  one  who  knows 
the  writings  of  Clemence  Royer  and  Comte  will,  in  fact, 
find  nothing  insane  in  these  ideas  of  Bosisio's,  except  his 
refusal  to  eat  salt  (which  he  scarcely  justifies  by  adducing 
the  example  of  savages  who  are  strong  and  healthy  with- 
out it),  his  notion  of  railways  ruining  the  globe,  and  his 
very  airy  fashion  of  dress.  For  this  last  whim,  however, 
he  gives  a  tolerably  good  reason,  by  alleging  the 
example  of  Roman  simplicity,  and  by  the  assertion  (not 
altogether  without  foundation)  that  the  wearing  of  a  hat 
tends  to  promote  baldness.  Moreover,  he  observed,  very 
justly,  that  without  those  eccentric  habits  he  would  be 
unable  to  gain  a  hearing  and  promulgate  his  ideas. 

A  truly  morbid  symptom,  however,  is  to  be  found  in 
the  fact  that  he  based  all  his  conclusions  on  the  informa- 
tion gained  from  political  journals — poor  material,  indeed, 
for  study.  However,  he  justified  himself  thus  :  "  What 
can  I  do  ?  They  are  modern  studies,  and  I  cannot  do 
without  them,  much  as  I  dislike  them,  as  I  have  no  other 
means  of  gaining  information  about  mankind."  But  the 
point  where  his  insanity  comes  out  most  clearly  is  in 
the  importance  attached  by  him  to  the  slightest  fact 
gathered  up  in  these  sweepings  of  the  political  world.  If 
a  child  falls  into  the  water  at  Lisbon,  or  a  lady  sets  her 
skirts  on  fire,  he  immediately  infers  from  these  facts  the 
degeneracy  of  the  race.  The  student  of  hygiene  must  be 
astonished  at  seeing  a  man  retain  robust  health  (and 
Bosisio  walks  his  twenty  miles  a  day)  on  unsalted  polenta. 
The  psychologist  cannot  refuse  to  recognize  in  this  case 
that  madness  acts  like  leaven  on  the  intellectual  powers, 
and  excites  the  psychic  functions  so  as  almost  to  reach 
the  level  of  genius,  though  not  without  traces  of  disease. 
It  is  certain  that  if  Bosisio  had  been  a  student  of  law 
or  medicine,  instead  of  a  poor  exciseman,  and  had  been 
grounded  in  the  culture  which  he  only  gained  at  hap- 
hazard, and  under  the  influence  of  mental  disease,  he 
might  have  become  a  Clemence  Royer  or  a  Comte,  or  at 
least  another  Fourier  ;  for  his  philosophic  system  is,  in 
the  main,  similar  to  that  of  the  latter,  except  for  the 
peculiarities  engrafted  on  it  by  mental  aberration. 


LITERARY  AND  ARTISTIC  MATTOIDS.  229 

But,  when  we  think  of  the  integrity  of  his  life,  the 
method  and  order  to  be  perceived  in  all  his  affairs,  can 
we  dismiss  him  merely  as  a  man  of  unsound  mind  ?  And, 
when  we  remember  the  relative  novelty  of  his  ideas,  can 
we  confuse  him  with  the  many  absurd  mattoids  already 
described  ?  Certainly  not. 

Let  us  suppose  that  Giuseppe  Ferrari,  instead  of  a 
superior  culture,  had  only  received  Bosisio's  education  ;  we 
should  certainly  have  had,  in  place  of  a  savant  justly 
admired  by  the  world,  something  similar  to  Bosisio. 
Certainly,  indeed,  those  systems  of  historical  arithmetic, 
with  kings  and  republics  dying  on  a  fixed  day,  at  the  will 
of  the  author,  can  only  belong  to  the  world  of  mental 
alienation. 

The  same  thing  might  be  said  of  Michelet,  if  one  thinks 
of  his  fancy  natural  history,  his  academic  obscenities,  his 
incredible  vanity,1  and  the  later  volumes  of  his  History 
of  France  which  are  nothing  but  a  tangled  thicket  of 
scandalous  anecdotes  and  grotesque  paradoxes.2  So,  too, 
of  Fourier  and  his  disciples,  who  predict  with  mathematical 
exactness  that,  80,000  years  hence,  man  will  attain  to  the 
age  of  144  ;  that  in  those  days  we  shall  have  37  millions 
of  poets  (unhappy  world  !)  ;  likewise  37  millions  of  mathe- 
maticians equal  to  Newton  ;  of  Lemercier,  who,  along 
with  some  very  fine  dramas,  wrote  some  in  which  speeches 
are  assigned  to  ants,  seals,  and  the  Mediterranean  ;  and  of 
Burchiello,  who  asks  painters  to  depict  for  him  an  earth- 
quake in  the  air,  and  describes  a  mountain  giving  a  pair 
of  spectacles  to  a  bell-tower  !  The  same  is  true  of  the 

1  "  Toute  une  literature  est  nee  de  mon  Insecte  et  de  mon  Oiseau. — 
/,'Amour  et  la  Femme  restent  et  resteront,  coninie  ayant  deux  bases, 
rune   scientifique,    la    nature    meme,  —  fautre    morale,    le    caur   des 
citoyens.  .  .  . 

"y'<w  defini  Fhistoire  tine  resurrection. — Cest  le  titre  I e  plus  appropric 
a  mon  4  vohime.  .  .  . 

"  En  1870,  dans  le  silence  universe! ,  seul,  je  parlai.  Mon  livre  fait 
en  qs  jours  fut  la  seule  defense  de  la  patrie.  .  .  ." 

2  He  studies,  as  an  important  document,  the  journal  of  Louis  XIV.'s 
digestion,  and  divides  his  reign  into  two  periods — before  and  after  the 
fistula.     In  the  same  way  P'rancis  I.'s  reign  is  divided  into  the  periods 
before  and  after  the  abscess.    Conclusions  of  the  following  kind  abound  : — 

"  De  toute  fancienne  monarchic,  il  ne  reste  a  la  France  qu'ttu  noin^ 
Henri  IV. ;  et  dwx  chansons  Gabrielle  et  Marlborough." 


23o  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS, 

heir  of  Confucius,  the  astronomer  who  created  the  Dio 
Liberate  ;  of  the  pseudo-geologist  who  has  discovered  a 
secret  of  embalming  bodies  which  might  be  known  to 
any  assistant  demonstrator  of  anatomy,  and  who  believes 
that  the  world  can  be  purified  by  cremation. 

In  Italy,  a  man  has  for  many  years  been  a  professor  in 
one  of  the  great  universities  who,  in  his  treatises,  created 
the  nation  of  the  cagots,  and  suggested  a  certain  instru- 
ment for  resuscitating  the  apparently  drowned,  which 
would  have  been  enough  to  suffocate  a  healthy  person. 
Another  talked  of  baths  at  a  temperature  of — 20°,  and  the 
advantages  of  sea- water  owing  to  the  exhalations  of  the 
fish  !  Yet  his  volumes  contain  some  very  fine  things, 
and  have  reached  a  second  edition,  and  none  of  his 
colleagues  ever  suspected  that  his  mind  was  not  perfectly 
sound.  How  is  he  to  be  classified  ?  He  occupies  a  middle 
place  between  the  madman,  the  man  of  genius,  and  the 
graphomaniac,  with  which  last  he  has  in  common  the 
sterility  of  his  aims,  and  his  calm  and  persistent  search 
after  paradoxes. 

Italy,  for  the  rest,  as  I  have  shown  in  Tre  Tribuni*  has 
had,  and  idolized,  for  a  brief  quarter  of  an  hour,  two 
mattoids  of  considerable  gifts,  Coccapieller  and  Sbarbaro, 
who,  in  the  midst  of  immoralities,  trivialities,  contradic- 
tions, and  paradoxes,  had  a  few  traits  of  genius,2  explicable 
by  a  less  degree  of  misoneism,  and  a  greater  facility  in 
adopting  new  ideas. 

Decadent  Poets. — Some  acquaintance  with  this  new 
variety  of  literary  madmen  will  explain  to  us  the  exis- 
tence, in  the  seventeenth  century,  of  the  French  precteux, 
and,  at  the  present  day,  that  of  the  Parnassiens,  Sym- 
bolistes,  and  Decadents. 

1  Pp.  119,  120,  121. 

2  Sbarbaro,  e.g.,  in  the  midst  of  numberless  absurdities,  wrote;  "  The 
man  who  feels  no  hatred  for  the  foul  and  unjust  things  which  cumber  our 
social  life  is  the  false  phantom  of  a  citizen,  a  eunuch  in  heart  and  mind" 
(Forche,  21). 

"  Parliamentary  systems  do  not  work  well,  since  they  do  not  allow 
of  the  best  being  at  the  top,  and  nonentities  at  the  bottom  "  (Forche,  3). 
This,  however,  is  borrowed  from  Machiavelli's  Decades. 

"  If  you  call  me  a  malcontent,"  he  said  to  the  Council  of  Public 
Instruction,  "  you  do  me  honour  :  progress  is  due  to  rebels  and  mal- 
contents. Christ  Himself  was  a  rebel  and  an  agitator." 


LITERARY  AND  ARTISTIC  MATTOIDS.   231 

11 1  have  read  their  verses,"  says  Lemaitre,1  u  and  not 
even  seen  as  much  as  the  turkey  in  the  fable,  who,  if  he 
did  not  distinguish  very  well,  at  least  saw  something.  I 
have  been  able  to  make  nothing  of  these  series  of  words, 
which — being  connected  together  according  to  the  laws 
of  syntax — might  be  supposed  to  have  some  sense,  and 
have  none,  and  which  spitefully  keep  your  mind  on  the 
stretch  in  a  vacuum,  like  a  conundrum  without  an 
answer.  .  .  . 

"  (£n  ta  dentelle  ou  rfest  notoire 
Jlfon  doux  evanouisseinent, 
Taisons  pour  Patre  sans  histoire 
Tel  vtxu  de  levres  resumant. 

Toute  otnbre  hors  d'un  territoire 

Se  teinte  iterativement 

A  la  lueur  exhalatoire 

Des  petales  de  reniuenientS  .  .  • 

"  One  of  them,  however,  has  explained  to  us  what  they 
intended  doing,  in  a  pamphlet  modestly  entitled,  Traiic 
du  Vcrbc,  by  Stephane  Mallarm^.  By  this  it  appears 
that  they  have  invented  two  things — the  symbol,  and 
1  poetic  instrumentation.' 

"  The  invention  of  the  symbolists  seems  to  consist  in 
not  saying-  what  feelings,  thoughts,  or  states  of  mind  they 
express  by  images.  But  even  this  is  not  new.  A  SYMBOL 
is,  in  short,  an  enlarged  comparison  of  which  only  the 
second  term  is  given — a  connected  series  of  metaphors. 
Briefly,  the  symbol  is  the  old  '  allegory '  of  our  fathers.2 

"  Now,  here  is  the  second  discovery  made  by  our  wild- 
eyed  symbolists.  Men  have  suspected,  ever  since  Homer's 
time,  that  there  are  relations,  correspondences,  affinities, 
between  certain  sounds,  forms,  and  colours,  and  certain 
states  of  mind.  For  instance,  it  was  felt  that  the  repeated 
sound  of  a  had  something  to  do  with  the  impression  of 
freshness  and  peace  produced  by  this  line  of  Virgil — 

"  '  Pascitur  in  silva  magnafonno.sajuvenca? 
It  was  known  that  sounds  may,  like  colours,  be  striking 

1  Revue  poliliqtie  et  litteraire,  1888,  No.  i. 

2  We  have  seen  that  a  love  of  symbolism  is  one  of  the  characteristics 
of  monomaniacs. 


232  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

or  subdued  ;  like  feelings,  sad  or  joyful.  But  it  was 
thought  that  these  resemblances  and  relations  are  some- 
what fugitive,  having  nothing  constant  or  sharply-defined, 
and  that  they  are,  at  least,  hinted  at  by  the  sense  of  the 
words  which  compose  the  musical  phrase. 

"  Now,  attend  to  this  !  For  these  gentlemen,  a  = 
black,  e  =  white,  i  =  blue,  o  =  red,  u  =  yellow. 

"  Again,  black  =  the  organ,  white  =  the  harp,  blue  == 
the  violin,  red  =  the  trumpet,  yellow  =  the  flute. 

"  Again,  the  organ  expresses  monotony,  doubt,  and 
simplicity  ;  the  harp,  serenity  ;  the  violin,  passion  and 
prayer  ;  the  trumpet,  glory  and  ovation  ;  the  flute,  smiles 
and  ingenuousness. 

"It  is  difficult  to  make  out  to  what  degree  the  young 
symbolards  still  take  account  of  the  sense  of  words.  That 
degree,  however,  is,  in  any  case,  very  slight,  and,  for  my 
part,  I  cannot  well  distinguish  the  passages  where  they 
are  obscure  from  those  where  they  are  only  unintelligible. 

"  In  short,  a  poetry  without  thoughts,  at  once  primitive 
and  subtle,  which  does  not  (like  classic  poetry)  express  a 
connected  series  of  ideas,  nor  (like  the  poetry  of  the 
Parnasstcns)  the  physical  world  in  its  exact  outlines,  but 
states  of  mind  in  which  we  can  scarcely  distinguish  our- 
selves from  surrounding  objects,  where  sensation  is  so 
closely  united  to  sentiment  ;  where  the  latter  grows  so 
rapidly  and  naturally  out  of  the  former,  that  it  is  quite 
sufficient  for  us  to  note  down  our  sensations  at  random 
just  as  they  present  themselves,  to  express  ipso  facto  the 
emotions  which  they  successively  give  rise  to  in  the  mind. 

"  Do  you  understand  ?  .  .  .  Neither  do  I.  One  would 
have  to  be  drunk  in  order  to  understand  this." 

I  can  only  conceive  that  the  poetry,  an  attempt  to 
define  which  has  here  been  made,  could  be  that  of  a 
solitary,  a  nerve-sufferer,  and  almost  a  madman.  This 
poetry  thus  flourishes  on  the  borderland  between  reason 
and  madness. 

Yet  these  mattoids  have  their  man  of  genius — Verlaine. 
Let  us  hear  Lemaitre  on  this  subject : — 

"  I  imagine  he  must  be  almost  illiterate.  He  has  a 
strange  head — the  profile  of  Socrates,  an  enormous  fore- 
head, a  skull  knobbed  like  a  battered  basin  of  thin  copper. 


LITERARY  AND  ARTISTIC  MATTOIDS.  233 

He  is  not  civilized,  he  ignores  all  received  codes  of 
morality. 

"  One  day  he  disappears.  What  has  become  of  him? 
It  would  be  in  character  for  him  to  have  been  publicly 
cast  out  from  regular  society.  I  see  him  behind  the 
grate  of  a  prison,  like  Francois  Villon — not  for  having, 
like  him,  become  an  accomplice  of  thieves  and  rogues,  for 
the  love  of  a  free  life,  but  rather  for  an  error  of  over- 
sensitiveness — for  having  avenged  (by  an  involuntary 
stab,  given,  as  it  were,  in  a  dream)  a  love  reprobated  by 
the  laws  and  customs  of  the  modern  and  Western  world. 
But,  though  socially  degraded,  he  remains  innocent.  He 
repents  as  simply  as  he  sinned — with  a  Catholic  repent  j 
ance,  all  terror  and  tenderness,  without  reasoning,  without 
pride  of  intellect.  In  his  conversion,  as  in  his  sin,  he 
remains  a  purely  emotional  being.  .  .  . 

"  Then,  it  may  be,  a  woman  took  pity  on  him,  and  he 
let  himself  be  led  like  a  little  child.  He  reappears,  but 
continues  to  live  apart.  No  one  has  ever  seen  him  on  the 
Boulevards,  or  in  a  theatre,  or  at  the  Salon.  He  is  some- 
where at  the  other  end  of  Paris,  in  the  back-room  of  a 
wine-merchant's  shop,  drinking  blue  wine.  He  is  as  far 
from  us  as  if  he  were  an  innocent  satyr  in  the  great  forests. 
When  he  is  ill,  or  at  the  end  of  his  resources,  some  doctor, 
whom  he  knew  formerly,  when  in  jail,  gets  him  into  the 
hospital  ;  he  stays  there  as  long  as  he  can  and  writes 
verses  ;  he  hears  queer,  sad  songs  whispered  to  him  out 
of  the  folds  of  the  cold  white  calico  curtains.  He  is  not  a 
declasse,  for  he  never  had  a  class.  His  case  is  rare  and 
peculiar.  He  finds  means  to  live,  in  a  civilized  society,  as 
he  could  live  in  a  state  of  the  freest  nature. 

"  It  may  be  that  he  has  sometimes  felt  for  an  instant 
the  influence  of  some  contemporary  poets,  but  these  have 
done  nothing  for  him,  save  to  awaken  and  reveal  to  him 
the  extreme  and  painful  sensibility  which  is  his  whole 
being.  In  the  main,  he  is  without  a  master.  He 
moulds  language  at  his  will,  not,  like  a  great  writer 
because  he  knows  it,  but,  like  a  child,  because  he  is  igno- 
rant of  it.  He  gives  wrong  senses  to  words  in  his  simpli- 
city. Little  as  we  might  expect  it,  this  poet,  whom  his 
disciples  regard  as  such  a  consummate  artist,  writes  on 


234  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

occasion  (if  we  may  dare  to  speak  out),  like  a  pupil  of  the 
technical  schools,  or  a  second-rate  chemist  subject  to 
lyric  outbursts.  After  this,  it  is  amusing  to  see  him 
while  posing  as  the  impeccable  artist,  the  sculptor  of 
strophes,  the  gentleman  who  distrusts  imagination, 
write,  with  the  keenest  sense  of  enjoyment  : — 

"'A  nous  qui ciselons  Ics  mots  comme  des  coupes 
Et  qui  faisons  des  vers  hints  tri's  froidement.  .  .   . 
Ce  qii'il  nous  fatit,  d  nous,  c'est,  aux  hieurs  des  lampes, 
La  science  conquise  et  le  sommeil  dompte. ' 

Yet  this  writer,  so  wanting  in  ordinary  technical  skill, 
has  yet  written — I  cannot  tell  how — verses  of  a  penetrating 
sweetness,  a  languid  charm  which  is  peculiarly  his  own, 
and  which  perhaps  arises  from  a  union  of  these  things — 
charm  of  sound,  clearness  of  feeling,  and  partial  obscurity 
in  the  words.  Thus,  when  he  tells  us  that  he  is  dream- 
ing of  an  unknown  woman,  who  loves  him,  who  under- 
stands him,  and  weeps  with  him,  he  adds  : — 

"  '  Son  no  in  ?  Je  me  souviens  qitil  est  doux  et  sonorey 
Coin  me  ceux  des.aimes  que  la  vie  exila. 

Son  regard  est  pareil  an  regard  des  statues ', 

Et  pour  sa  voix  lointaine,  et  calme,  et  grave,  elk  a 

L'inflexion  des  voix  cheres  qui  se  sont  tues.' 

"  I  am  also  very  fond  of  the  Chanson  cPAutomnc,  though 
certain  words  (bleme  and  suffocant)  are  not  perhaps  used 
with  entire  accuracy,  and  scarcely  correspond  with  the 
"  languor  "  described  just  before. 

"    Les  sanglots  longs 
Des  violons 

De  Pautoinne 
Blessent  mon  ccettr 
D'une  langueur 

Monotone. 

Tout  suffocant 
Et  blcme^  qitand 

Sonnc  fheure, 
Je  me  souviens 
Des  jours  anciens, 

Et  je  pleure. 


LITERARY  AND  ARTISTIC  MATTOIDS.  235 

ILt  je  nfen  vais 
Au  vent  mauvais 

Qui  nfemporte 
De  fa,  de  la, 
Pareil  a  la 

Feuillc  morte. ' 

"  He  celebrates  the  Virgin  in  an  exceedingly  fine 
hymn  : — 

"  '  Je  nc  vcux  plus  aimer  qne  ma  mere  Marie. 

Et,  commcj''etaisfaible  et  In  en  mediant  encore, 
Aux  mains  laches,  les  yeux  eblouis  des  chemins, 
Elle  baissa  vies  yctix,  ct  me  joignit  les  mains 
Et  ni'enseigna  les  mots  par  lesquels  on  adore. 

• 

Et  tons  ces  bons  efforts  vers  les  croix  et  les  dates, 
Coin  me  je  rinvoquais,  Elle  en  ceignit  mes  reins. ,' 

"  His  piety  inspires  him  with  some  very  sweet  lines  :  — 

"  '  Ecoutez  la  chanson  hi  en  donee 

Qui  ne  pleure  q^le  pour  vous  plaire. 

Elle  cst  discrete,  die  cst  legere : 

Un  frisson  d^ can  sur  de  la  mousse  !  .   .   . 

Elle  dit,  la  voix  rcconnue, 
Que  la  bonte  c'est  not  re  vie, 
Qtte  de  la  haine  et  de  Fenvie 
Rien  ne  reste,  la  mart  vemte.  .  .    . 

Accueillez  la  voix  qui  persiste 

Dans  son  naif  epithalame. 

Allez,  rien  n'est  meilleur  d  P amc 

Que  de  faire  une  a  me  mains  triste  /  .  .   . 

Je  ne  me  souviens  phis  que  dn  mal  qne  fat  fait. 

Dans  tons  les  mouvcments  bizarrcs  de  ma  vie, 
De  mes  "  malheurs"  selon  le  moment  et  le  lieu, 
Des  atttrcs  et  de  moi,  de  la  roiite  suivie, 
Je  n'ai  rien  retenu  que  la  grace  de  Diezt.' 

"  But,  even  in  the  Poemcs  Saturmens,  we  already 
meet  with  pieces  of  an  oddity  difficult  to  define — pieces 
which  seem  to  belong  to  a  poet  who  is  slightly  mad,  or 
perhaps  to  one  who  is  only  half  awake,  and  whose  brain 
is  darkened  by  the  fumes  of  his  dreams,  or  of  drink  ; 
so  that  external  objects  only  appear  to  him  through 


236  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

a  mist,  and  the  indolence  of  his  memory  prevents  him 
from  getting  hold  of  the  right  words.  Take  this  for 
an  example  : — 

"  '  La  lune  plaqnait  ses  teintes  de  zinc 

Par  angles  obtus  ; 

Des  bouts  defumee  en  forme  de  cinq 
Sortaient  drus  et  noirs  des  hauts  toils po:ntns. 

Le  del  ttait  gris.     La  bise  plenrait 

A  in  si  qifun  basson. 
An  loin  un  matou  frileux  et  disc  ret 
Miaulait  oTttrange  et  grelc  facon. 

Moi,  fallal's  rfcant  du  dirin  Platan 

Et  de  Phidias, 

Et  de  Salamine  et  de  Marathon, 
Sous  Focil  clignotant  des  bleus  bees  de  gaz? 

"  That  is  all.  What  is  it  ?  It  is  an  impression — the 
impression  of  a  gentleman  who  walks  about  the  streets  of 
Paris  at  night,  and  thinks  about  Plato  and  Salamis,  and 
thinks  it  funny  to  think  of  Plato  and  Salamis  '  sous  Fcetl 
des  bees  de  gaz?  Why  should  it  be  funny  ?  I  cannot 
tell. 

"  '  Aitnez  done  la  raison  :  que  toujours  vos  ecrits 

Empmntent  d'elle  settle  et  letir  lustre  et  leur  prix. ' 

"  One  might  almost  say  that  Paul  Verlaine  is  the  only 
poet  who  has  never  expressed  anything  but  sentiment  and 
sensation,  and  has  expressed  them  for  himself,  and  for 
no  one  else,1  which  dispenses  him  from  the  obligation  of 
showing  the  connection  between  his  ideas,  since  he  knows 
it.  This  poet  has  never  asked  himself  whether  he  should 
be  understood,  and  he  has  never  wished  to  prove  any- 
thing. This  is  why  (Sagesse  excepted)  it  is  almost 
impossible  to  give  a  resume  of  his  collections,  or  to  state 
their  main  idea  in  a  succinct  form.  One  can  only  charac- 
terise them  by  means  of  the  state  of  mind  of  which  they 
are  most  frequently  the  rendering  —  semi-intoxication, 
hallucination  which  distorts  objects,  and  makes  them 
resemble  an  incoherent  dream  ;  uneasiness  of  the  soul 
which,  in  the  terror  of  this  mystery,  complains  like  a 

1  M.  Jules  Tellier  has  not  inaptly  called  him,  in  Victor  Hugo's  style, 
"  T  homine-frisson" 


LITERARY  AND  ARTISTIC  MAfTOlDS.  237 

child  ;  then  languor,  mystic  sweetness,  and  a  lulling  of  the 
mind  to  rest,  in  the  Catholic  conception  of  the  universe 
accepted  in  all  simplicity. 

u  There  is  something  profoundly  involuntary  and 
illogical  in  the  poetry  of  M.  Paul  Verlaine.  He  scarcely 
ever  expresses  movements  of  full  consciousness  or  en- 
tire sanity.  It  is  on  this  account,  very  often,  that  the 
meaning  of  his  song  is  clear  —  if  it  is  so  at  all  —  to  himself 
alone.  In  the  same  way,  his  rhythms,  are  sometimes 
perceptible  by  no  one  but  himself.  I  do  not  refer  here  to 
the  interlaced  feminine  rhymes,  alliterations,  assonances 
within  the  line  itself,  of  which  none  has  made  use  more 
frequently  or  more  successfully  than  he. 

u  But  there  are  two  sides  to  him.  On  one,  he  looks 
very  artificial.  He  has  an  Ar  s  Poetica  of  his  own,  which 
is  entirely  subtle  and  mysterious,  and  which,  I  think,  he 
was  very  late  in  discovering  :  — 

"  '  De  la  iniisique  avant  toiite  chose, 
Et  pour  cela  prefire  f  impair 
Phis  vague  et  plus  soluble  dans  fair, 
Sans  rien  en  hii  qui  pese  ou  qui  pose. 

Ilfaut  aussi  que  tit  rfailles  point 
Choisir  tes  mots  sans  quelque  nieprise  : 
Rien  de  phis  cher  que  la  chanson  grise 
Oh  tindecis  au  precis  se  joint.  .  .  . 

Car  nous  vonlons  la  nuance  cncor, 
Pas  la  coulcur,  rien  que  la  nuance  ! 
Oh  !  la  nuance  settle  fiance 
Le  rfoe  an  reve,  et  la  flute  au  cor.   .  .  .' 

"  On  the  other  side,  he  is  quite  simple  :  — 

"  '  Je  suis  venu,  calnie  orphelin, 

Riche  de  mes  seuls  yeux  tranquillcs, 
Vers  les  homines  des  grandes  villes  : 
Us  ne  nfont  pas  trouve  malin.'1 


"  Or,  elsewhere 


Thus  far  Lemaitre. 


•fai  peur  cfun  baiser 
Conime  d'une  abeille. 
Je  souffre  et  je  veille 
Sans  me  reposer^ 
J^ai  peur  (Fun  baiser,  ,' 


238  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  decadents  correspond  exactly  to 
the  diagnosis  of  literary  mattoids,  in  all  their  old  vacuity, 
but  with  the  appearance  of  novelty.  At  the  same  time, 
there  are  among  them,  real  men  of  genius  who — amid  the 
(frequently  atavistic)  oddities  of  mattoidism —  have  struck 
an  original  note. 

All  these  cases  show  us  that  the  gradations  and  transi- 
tions between  sanity  and  insanity  are  far  from  being  as 
hypothetical  as  Livi  asserts  them  to  be.  Moreover,  all 
this  is  in  perfect  harmony  with  the  eternal  evolution 
which  we  see  going  on  in  the  ample  realm  of  nature, 
which,  as  has  been  well  said,  never  proceeds  by  leaps, 
but  by  successive  and  gradual  transformations. 

Now,  it  is  natural  that,  as  these  gradations  exist  in 
this  very  strange  form  of  literary  insanity,  they  should 
also  be  found  in  the  forms  of  criminal  insanity,  and  that, 
in  consequence,  many  of  those  asserted  to  be  guilty  or 
mad,  are  only  half  responsible,  although  no  human 
thought  can  trace  the  limits  with  entire  certainty. 

It  is  well  to  observe  here,  what  a  different  appearance 
madness  assumes,  according  to  the  age  in  which  it  occurs. 
Had  Bosisio  lived  in  the  Middle  Ages,  or  in  Spain  or 
Mexico  at  a  later  period,  the  kind-hearted  liberator  of 
birds,  the  martyr  for  posterity,  would  have  become  a 
St.  Ignatius  or  a  Torquemada — the  Positivist  atheist 
an  ultra-Catholic,  commanded  by  a  cruel  Deity  to  im- 
molate human  victims ;  but  Bosisio  was  an  Italian, 
living  in  1870. 

This  case  affords  an  excellent  explanation  of  the 
occurrence,  in  remote  times,  and  among  savage  or  slightly 
civilized  nations,  of  numerous  outbreaks  of  epidemic 
insanity  ;  and  shows  that  many  historical  events  may 
have  been  the  result  of  mania  on  the  part  of  one  or  more 
persons.  Cases  in  point  are  those  of  the  Anabaptists, 
the  Flagellants,  the  witch-mania,  the  Taeping  revolution. 

Mental  aberration  gives  rise  in  some  men  to  ideas  which, 
though  bizarre,  are  sometimes  gigantic  and  rendered  more 
efficacious  by  a  singular  force  of  conviction,  so  as  to  sweep 
along  the  feeble-minded  multitude,  who  are  all  the 
more  attracted  by  any  singularity  in  dress,  attitudes  or 
abstinence  (which  such  disease  alone  can  suggest  and 


LITERARY  AND  ARTISTIC  MATTOIDS.  239 

render  possible),  that  these  phenomena  are  made  in- 
explicable to  them  (and  therefore  worthy  of  veneration) 
by  their  ignorance  and  barbarism.  The  ignorant  man 
always  adores  what  he  cannot  understand. 

Our  poor  sufferer  from  hallucinations  wanted  nothing 
but  a  favourable  epoch  to  impress  his  ideas  on  the 
multitude — neither  muscular  strength,  nor  a  certain 
vigour  of  thought,  nor  extraordinary  endurance  under 
privations,  nor  disinterestedness,  nor  conviction.  At 
another  epoch,  Italy  would  have  found  her  Mahomet 
in  Bosisio. 

Mattoids  in  Art. — At  the  competition  opened  at  Rome 
for  designs  for  a  proposed  monument  to  Victor  Emmanuel 
—  the  subject  being  an  international  one — mattoids 
came  forward  in  crowds.  In  fact,  we  find,  in  Dossi's 
curious  book,  not  less  than  39  out  of  296  (13  per  cent.),  a 
number  which  would  be  raised  to  25  per  cent,  if  we  add  38 
more,  who,  in  addition  to  their  eccentricity,  gave  tokens 
of  being  imbecile. 

The  most  general  characteristic  of  these  productions  is 
their  stupidity.  One  of  them  proposes  a  square  stone 
box  without  a  roof  (similar  to  the  "  magnaneries  "  or 
roofless  stone  buildings  used  in  the  South  of  France  for 
silkworms),  which  he  calls  a  "  Right  Quadrangular  Tower" 
— destined  to  receive  the  late  king's  remains,  and  protect 

them    against   the  inundations    of  the  Tiber.     Tr 's 

monument — "  destined  to  live  for  centuries  " — consists 
of  a  column  surrounded  by  obelisks,  by  four  flights  of 
steps,  and  four  triangles,  each  surrounded  by  twelve  small 
spires.  Each  of  the  latter  is  to  support  a  bust,  each  of 
the  columns  a  statue  of  some  great  Italian  •  with  regard 
to  six  statues,  the  artist  reserves  the  right  of  changing 
them  at  the  death  of  our  illustrious  men — Sella,  Mamiani, 
&c.  This  is  a  case  for  saying,  u  Perish  the  astrologer  !  " 
Another  competitor — two,  in  fact — have  projected  rooms 
to  serve  as  public  lavatories  at  the  base  of  their  columns. 
There  is  a  curious  coincidence  and  emulation  of  hatred 
in  nearly  all  ;  most  of  them  make  use  of  celebrated 
monuments,  whose  destruction  is,  of  course,  a  sine  qua 
110 n  to  the  erection  of  theirs. 

But,  if  wanting  in  every  sign  of  genius,  these  designs 


24o  TtiE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

are  not  deficient  in  allegorical  symbols  of  the  most 
grotesque  type,  or  in  inscriptions.  Some  of  them,  indeed , 
are  nothing  but  a  mass  of  irrelevant  inscriptions,  relating 
to  everything  in  the  world,  except  the  poor  Re 
Galantuomo  himself — but  more  particularly  to  the  sup- 
posed genius  of  the  artist. 

Here  we  find  that  the  main  characteristic  of  such 
minds — vanity,  heightened  to  the  point  of  disease — makes 
each  of  them  think  his  own  production  a  masterpiece. 
Canfora  declares  that  he  is  "  neither  engineer  nor  architect, 
but  inspired  by  God  alone"  A.  B.  does  not  send  in  his 
design  to .  the  Committee,  because  it  is  too  grand  ;  and 
another  ends  by  saying,  u  How  mighty  is  the  thought  of 
the  artist !  " 

Nearly  all  are  absolutely  ignorant  of  the  art  in  which 
they  claim  to  excel.  Thus  Dossi  found  among  the  pro- 
jectors, teachers  of  mathematics  and  of  grammar,  doctors 
in  medicine  and  in  law,  military  men,  accountants,  and 
others  who  themselves  asserted  that  they  had  never  before 
handled  pencil  or  compasses.  At  the  same  time,  their 
far  from  humble  social  position  bears  out  what  I  consider 
to  be  one  of  the  principal  points  :  viz.,  that  we  have 
before  us  (as  might  be  suspected)  idiots,  or  persons  actually 
insane,  but  men  quite  respectable  outside  their  special 

artistic  mania.  Such  should  be  M ,  a  member  of 

the  Russian  Archaeological  Society,  of  the  Hellenic 
Syllage,  Architect-in-chief  of  Roumelia  and  the  palaces 
of  the  Sultan,  Knight  and  Commander  of  various  Orders, 
&c.,  &c. 

When  we  compare  these  stupid  abortions  with  the 
pictures  inspired  by  insanity  (I  am  not  now  speaking  of 
those  painters  who,  like  various  poets  and  musicians, 
in  losing  their  reason,  lost  artistically  more  than  they 
gained — especially  in  right  proportion  and  the  harmony 
of  colour),  we  shall  often  find  the  absurd  and  dispro- 
portionate ;  but  also,  at  the  same  time,  a  true,  even 
excessive  originality,  mingled  with  a  savage  beauty  sui 
generis,  which,  up  to  a  certain  point,  recalls  the  master- 
pieces of  mediaeval,  and,  still  more,  of  Chinese  and 
Japanese,  art,  so  extraordinarily  rich  in  symbols.  We 
shall  see,  in  short,  that  art  suffers  here,  not  from  a  defect, 


LITERARY  AND  ARTISTIC  MATTOIDS.  241 

but  from  an  excess  of  genius,  which  ends  by  crushing 
itself. 

In  conclusion,  it  is  very  evident  that  the  insane  artist 
is  as  superior  to  the  mattoid  in  the  practice  of  his  art, 
as  he  is  inferior  to  him  in  practical  life  ;  that,  in  short, 
in  the  region  of  art,  the  mattoid  approaches  nearest  to  the 
imbecile,  and  the  lunatic  to  the  man  of  genius. 


CHAPTER  IV. 
POLITICAL  AND  RELIGIOUS  LUNATICS  AND  MATTOIDS. 

Tart  played  by  the  insane  in  the  progressive  movements  of  humanity — 
Examples —Probable  causes — Religious  epidemics  of  the  Middle 
Ages — Francis  of  Assisi — Luther — Savonarola— Cola  da  Rienzi — 
San  Juan  de  Dios — Campanella — Prosper  Enfantin — Lazzaretti — 
Passanante — Guiteau — South  Americans. 

ALL  this  helps  us  to  understand  why  the  great  progressive 
movements  of  nations,  in  politics  and  religion,  have  so 
often  been  brought  about,  or  at  least  determined,  by 
insane  or  half-insane  persons.  The  reason  is  that  in 
these  alone  is  to  be  found,  coupled  with  originality  (which 
is  the  special  characteristic  of  the  genius  and  the  lunatic, 
and  still  more  of  those  who  partake  of  the  character  of 
both),  the  exaltation  capable  of  generating  a  sufficient 
amount  of  altruism  to  sacrifice  their  own  interests,  and 
their  lives,  for  the  sake  of  making  known  the  new  truths, 
and,  often,  of  getting  them  accepted  by  a  public  to  which 
innovations  are  always  unwelcome,  and  which  frequently 
takes  a  bloody  revenge  on  the  innovator. 

"  Such  persons,"  says  Maudsley,  "  are  apt  to  seize  on 
and  pursue  the  bypaths  of  thought,  which  have  been 
overlooked  by  more  stable  intellects,  and  so,  by  throwing 
a  side-light  on  things,  to  discover  unthought-of  relations. 
One  observes  this  tendency  of  mind  even  in  those  of  them 
who  have  no  particular  genius  or  talent  ;  for  they  have  a 
novel  way  of  looking  at  things,  do  not  run  in  the  common 
groove  of  action,  or  follow  the  ordinary  routine  of  thought 
and  feeling,  but  discover  in  their  remarks  a  certain 
originality  and  perhaps  singularity,  sometimes  at  a  very 
early  period  of  life. 

"  Notable,  again,  is  the  emancipated  way  in  which  some 
of  them  discuss,  as  if  they  were  problems  of  mechanics, 


RELIGIOUS  LUNATICS  AND  MATTOIDS.  243 

objects  or  events  round  which  the  associations  of  ideas 
and  feelings  have  thrown  a  glamour  of  conventional 
sentiment.  In  regard  to  most  beliefs,  they  are  usually  more 
or  less  heterodox  or  heretical,  though  not  often  constant, 
being  apt  to  swing  round  suddenly  from  one  point  to  a 
quite  opposite  point  of  the  compass  of  belief.  .  .  .  Inspired 
with  strong  faith  in  the  opinions  which  they  adopt,  they 
exhibit  much  zeal  and  energy  in  the  propagation  of 
them."1  They  are  careless  of  every  obstacle,  and  un- 
troubled by  the  doubts  which  arise  in  the  minds  of  calm 
and  sceptical  thinkers.  Thus  they  are  frequently  social 
or  religious  reformers. 

It  should  be  understood  that  they  do  not  create  any- 
thing, but  only  give  a  direction  to  the  latest  movements 
prepared  by  time  and  circumstances,  as  also — thanks  to 
their  passion  for  novelty  and  originality — they  are  nearly 
always  inspired  by  the  latest  discoveries  or  innovations, 
and  use  these  as  their  starting-point  in  guessing  at  the 
future. 

Thus  Schopenhauer  wrote  at  an  epoch  in  which 
pessimism  was  beginning  to  be  fashionable,  together  with 
mysticism,  and  only  fused  the  whole  into  one  philosophic 
system.  Caesar  found  the  ground  prepared  for  him  by 
the  Tribunes. 

When,  says  Taine,  a  new  civilization  produces  a  new 
art,  there  are  ten  men  of  talent  who  express  the  idea  of 
the  public  and  group  themselves  round  one  man  of  genius 
who  gives  it  actuality  ;  thus  De  Castro,  Moreto,  Lopez 
de  la  Vega,  round  Calderon  ;  Van  Dyck,  Jordaens,  De 
Vos,  and  Snyders  round  Rubens. 

Luther  summed  up  in  himself  the  ideas  of  many  of  his 
contemporaries  and  predecessors  ;  it  is  sufficient  to 
mention  Savonarola. 

The  spherical  shape  of  the  earth  had  already  been 
maintained  by  St.  Thomas  Aquinas,  and  by  Dante,  before 
the  discoveries  of  Columbus,  which  are  also  antedated  by 
those  of  the  Canary  Islands,  Iceland,  and  Cape  Verde. 

If  the  new  ideas  are  too  divergent  from  prevalent 
popular  opinion,  or  too  self-evidently  absurd,  they  die 

1  Responsibility  in  Mental  Disease,  p.  47. 


244  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

out  with  their  author,  if,  indeed,  they  do  not  involve 
him  in  their  fall. 

Arnold  of  Brescia,  Knutzen,  *  Campanella,  tried  to 
shake  off  the  dominion  of  the  clergy,  and  take  away  the 
temporal  power  of  the  Pope  ;  they  were  persecuted  and 
crushed. 

"  The  insane  person,"  says  Maudsley,  "  is  in  a  minority 
of  one  in  his  opinion,  and  so,  at  first,  is  the  reformer,  the 
difference  being  that  the  reformer's  belief  is  an  advance 
on  the  received  system  of  thought,  and  so,  in  time,  gets 
acceptance,  while  the  belief  of  the  former,  being  opposed 
to  the  common  sense  of  mankind,  gains  no  acceptance, 
but  dies  out  with  its  possessor,  or  with  the  few  foolish 
persons  whom  it  has  infected.''2 

Of  late  years  there  has  arisen  in  India,  owing  to  the 
efforts  of  Keshub  Chunder  Sen,  a  new  religion  which 
deifies  modern  rationalism  and  scepticism  ;  but  here,  also, 
the  madness  of  Keshub  evidently  outran  the  march  of  the 
times  ;  for  the  triumph  of  a  similar  religion  is  not  pro- 
bable, even  among  us,  with  our  much  greater  progress  in 
knowledge.  Thus,  too,  Buddhism,  finding  the  ground 
contested  by  the  caste  system  in  India,  took  no  firm 
hold  there,  while  it  extended  itself  in  China  and  Tibet. 
Keshub  was  induced  to  take  up  this  line  of  action  by  a 
form  of  madness  analogous  to  that  which  we  shall  also 

see  in  B of  Modena.  In  fact,  this  strange  rationalist 

believes  in  revelation,  and  in  1879  he  declaimed,  "I  am 
the  inspired  prophet,"  &c.3 

The  same  thing  may  be  said  of  politics.  Historical 
revolutions  are  never  lasting,  unless  the  way  has  been 
prepared  for  them  by  a  long  series  of  events.  But  the 
crisis  is  often  precipitated — sometimes  many  years  before 

1  Knutzen,  of  Schleswig,  in  1674,  preached  that  there  was  neither 
God  nor  devil,  that  priests  and  magistrates  were  useless  and  pernicious, 
that  marriage  was  unnecessary,  that  man  ended  with  death,  and  that 
every  one  ought  to  be  guided  by  his  own  inner  consciousness  of  right. 
For  this  reason  he  gave  to  his  disciples  the  name  of  the  Conscientarii, 
garnishing  his  discourses  with  grotesque  quotations.  He  went  about 
begging  and  preaching  in  strange  garments.  It  is  not  known  what 
became  of  him  after  1674.  His  writings  are  Epistola  amid  ad  amicum^ 
Schediasma  de  lacrimis  Christi,  &c. 

2  Responsibility,  p.  53.  3  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  1880, 


RELIGIOUS  LUNATICS  AND  MATTOIDS.  245 

its  time — by  the  unbalanced  geniuses  who  outrun  the 
course  of  events,  foresee  the  development  of  intermediate 
facts  which  escape  the  common  eye,  and  rush,  without  a 
thought  of  themselves,  on  the  opposition  of  their  con- 
temporaries, acting  like  those  insects  which,  in  flying  from 
one  flower  to  another,  transport  the  pollen  which  would 
otherwise  have  required  violent  winds,  or  a  long  space  of 
time  to  render  it  available  for  fertilization. 

Now,  if  we  add  the  immovable,  fanatical  conviction  of 
the  madman  to  the  calculating  sagacity  of  genius,  we  shall 
have  a  force  capable,  in  any  age,  of  acting  as  a  lever  on 
the  torpid  masses,  struck  dumb  before  this  phenomenon, 
which  appears  strange  and  rare  even  to  calm  thinkers  and 
spectators  at  a  distance.  Add  further,  the  influence  which 
madness,  in  itself,  already  has  over  barbarous  peoples  at 
early  periods,  and  we  may  well  call  the  force  an  irresis- 
tible one. 

The  importance  of  the  madman  among  savages,  and 
the  semi-barbarous  peoples  of  ancient  times,  is  rather 
historical  than  pathological.  He  is  feared  and  adored  by 
the  masses,  and  often  rules  them.  In  India,  some  madmen 
are  held  in  high  esteem,  and  consulted  by  the  Brahmins 
— a  custom  of  which  many  sects  bear  traces.  In  ancient 
India  the  eight  kinds  of  demonomania  bore  the  names  of 
the  eight  principal  Indian  divinities  ;  the  Yakshia-graha 
have  deep  intelligence ;  the  Deva-graha  are  strong, 
intelligent,  and  esteemed  and  consulted  by  the  Brahmins; 
the  Gandharva-graha  serve  as  choristers  to  the  gods.  But, 
in  order  to  know  what  a  point  the  veneration  of  the  insane 
may  reach,  and  how  little  modern  India  has  changed  in  this 
respect,  it  is  quite  sufficient  to  observe  that  there  exist  at 
present  in  that  country  43  sects  which  show  particular 
zeal  towards  their  divinity,  sometimes  by  drinking  urine, 
sometimes  by  walking  on  the  points  of  sharp  stones, 
sometimes  by  remaining  motionless  for  years  exposed  to 
the  rays  of  the  sun,  or  by  representing  to  their  own 
imagination  the  corporeal  image  of  the  god,  and  offering 
up.  to  him,  also  in  imagination,  prayers,  flowers,  or  food.1 
The  existence  of  endemic  insanity  among  the  ancient 
Hebrews  (and,  by  parity  of  reasoning,  among  their  con- 
1  Dubois,  People  of  India ,  p.  360. 


246  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

geners,  the  Phoenicians,  Carthaginians,  &c. — the  same 
words  being  used  for  prophet,  madman,  and  wicked  mari] 
is  proved  by  history  and  language.  The  Bible  relates  that 
David,  fearing  that  he  would  be  killed,  feigned  madness,1 
and  that  Achish  said,  "Have  I  need  of  madmen  that  ye 
have  brought  this  fellow  to  play  the  madman  in  my 
presence  ?  "  This  passage  is  evidence  of  their  abundance, 
and  also  of  their  inviolability,  which  was  certainly  owing 
to  the  belief,  still  common  among  the  Arabs,  which  causes 
the  word  nabi  (prophet)  to  be  constantly  used  in  the 
Bible  in  the  sense  of  madman,  and  vice  versa.  Saul,  even 
before  his  coronation,  was  suddenly  seized  with  the  pro- 
phetic spirit,  so  much  to  the  surprise  of  the  bystanders 
that  the  event  was  made  the  occasion  of  a  proverb — "  Is 
Saul  also  among  the  prophets  ?  "  One  day,  after  he  had 
become  king,  the  spirit  of  an  evil  deity  weighed  upon 
him,  and  he  prophesied  (here  raged]  in  the  house,  and 
attempted  to  transfix  David  with  a  lance.2  In  Jeremiah 
xxix.  26,  we  read  "  The  Lord  hath  made  thee  priest,  .  .  . 
for  every  man  that  is  mad  and  maketh  himself  a  prophet, 
that  thou  shouldst  put  him  in  prison  and  in  the  stocks." 
In  i  Kings  xviii.  we  see  the  prophets  of  the  groves,  and 
of  Baal  crying  out  like  madmen,  and  cutting  their  flesh. 
In  the  First  Book  of  Samuel  we  find  Saul  as  a  prophet 
rushing  naked  through  the  fields.3  Elsewhere  we  see 
prophets  publicly  approaching  places  of  ill-fame,  cutting 
their  hands,  eating  filth,  &c.  The  Medjdub  of  the  Arab, 
and  the  Persian  Davana  are  the  modern  analogues.-* 

"  Medjdubim"  says  Berbrugger,  u  is  the  name  given 
to  these  individuals  who,  under  the  influence  of  special 
circumstances  fall  into  a  state  which  exactly  recalls  that 
of  the  Convulsionnaires  of  St.  Medard.  They  are 
numerous  in  Algeria,  where  they  are  better  known  under 
the  names  of  Aissawah  or  Ammarim."  Mula  Ahmed,  in 
the  narrative  of  his  journey  (translated  by  Berbrugger) 
speaks  of  "  Sidi  Abdullah,  the  Medjdub,  who  brought 
the  best  influence  to  bear  on  the  Hammis,  his  thievish 
and  vicious  fellow-citizens.  He  would  remain  t  for 

1  I  Samuel  xxi.  14,  15.  -  Ibid.,  xix.  9,  10,  23. 

3  Ibid.,  xix.  24. 

4  Berbrugger,  Exploration  Scientifque  de  FAlgerie,  1855. 


RELIGIOUS  LUNATICS  AND  MATTOIDS.  247 

three  or  five  days  like  a  log,  without  eating,  drinking, 
or  praying.  He  could  do  without  sleep  for  forty  days 
at  the  end  of  which,  he  was  seized  with  violent  convul- 
sions "  (p.  278).  Further  on,  he  speaks  of  one  Sidi  Abd-el- 
Kadr,  who  wandered  from  place  to  place,  forgetful  of  him- 
self and  his  family — an  indifference  probably  due  to  his 
sainthood.  Drummond  Hay  shows  us  how  far  respect  for 
the  insane  is  carried  in  Morocco,  and  among  the  neighbour- 
ing nomadic  tribes  :  "  The  Moor  tells  us  that  God  has 
retained  their  reason  in  heaven,  whilst  their  body  is  upon 
earth  ;  and  that  when  madmen  or  idiots  speak,  their  reason 
is,  for  the  time,  permitted  to  return  to  them,  and  that 
their  words  should  be  treasured  up  as  those  of  inspired 
persons." l 

The  author  himself  and  an  English  consul  were  in 
danger  of  being  killed  by  one  of  these  novel  saints,  who, 
naked,  and  often  armed,  insist  on  acting  out  the  strangest 
caprices  which  enter  their  heads  ;  and  those  who  oppose 
them  do  so  at  their  peril. 

In  Barbary,  says  Pananti, 2  the  caravans  are  in  the 
habit  of  consulting  the  mad  santons  (Vasli),  to  whom 
nothing  is  forbidden.  One  of  them  strangled  every 
person  who  came  to  the  mosque  ;  another  at  the  public 
baths  violated  a  newly  married  bride,  and  her  companions 
congratulated  the  fortunate  husband  on  the  occurrence. 

The  Ottomans  3  extend  to  the  insane  the  veneration 
which  they  have  for  dervishes,  and  believe  that  they  stand 
in  a  special  relation  to  the  Deity.  Even  the  ministers  of 
religion  receive  them  into  their  own  houses  with  great 
respect.  They  are  called  JEulya,  Ullah  Deli — u  divine 
ones,"  u  sons  of  God  " — or,  more  accurately,  u  madmen  of 
God."  And  the  various  sects  of  Dervishes  present 
phenomena  analogous  to  those  of  madness.  Every 
monastery  4  has  its  own  species  of  prayer  or  dance — or 
rather  its  own  peculiar  kind  of  convulsion.  Some  move 
their  bodies  from  side  to  side,  others  backwards  and  for- 
wards, and  gradually  quicken  the  motion  as  they  go  on 
with  their  prayer.  These  movements  are  called  Mukabdi 

1    Western  Barbary,  p.  60.  2   Travels,  p.  133. 

3  Beck,  Allegemeine  Schilderung  des  Othotn.  Ketches.,  p.  177. 

4  Ibid.,  p.  529. 


248  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

(heightening  of  the  divine  glory),  or  Ovres  Tewhid  (praise 
of  the  unity  of  God).  The  Kufais  are  distinguished  above 
all  other  orders  by  exaggerated  sanctity.  They  sleep  little, 
lying,  when  they  do,  with  their  feet  in  water,  and  fast  for 
weeks  together.  They  begin  the  chant  of  Allah,  advancing 
the  left  foot  and  executing  a  rotatory  movement  with  the 
right,  while  holding  each  other  by  the  forearm.  Then 
they  march  forward,  raising  their  voices  more  and  more, 
quickening  the  motion  of  the  dance,  and  throwing  their 
arms  over  each  other's  shoulders,  till,  worn  out  and  per- 
spiring, with  glazing  eyes  and  pale  faces,  they  fall  into  the 
sacred  convulsion  (hahik).  In  this  state  of  religious 
mania  (says  our  author)  they  submit  to  the  ordeal  of  hot 
iron,  and,  when  the  fire  has  burnt  out,  cut  their  flesh  with 
swords  and  knives. 

In  Batacki,  when  a  man  is  possessed  by  an  evil  spirit,  he 
is  greatly  respected  ;  what  he  says  is  looked  on  as  the 
utterance  of  an  oracle,  and  immediately  obeyed.1 

In  Madagascar,  the  insane  are  objects  of  veneration. 
In  1863  many  people  were  seized  with  tremors,  and  im- 
pelled to  strike  those  who  came  near  them.  They  were 
also  subject  to  hallucinations  and  saw  the  dead  queen 
coming  out  of  her  grave.  The  king  ordered  these  persons 
to  be  respected,  and  for  a  space  of  at  least  two  months, 
soldiers  were  seen  beating  their  officers,  and  officials  their 
superiors. 

In  China  the  only  well-defined  traits  of  insanity  are  to 
be  found  in  the  only  Chinese  sect  which  was  ever  con- 
spicuous, in  that  sceptical  nation,  for  religious  fanaticism. 
The  followers  of  Tao  2  believe  in  demoniacal  possession, 
and  endeavour  to  gather  the  future  from  the  utterances 
of  madmen,  thinking  that  the  possessed  person  declares 
in  words  the  thought  of  the  spirit. 

In  Oceania,  at  Tahiti,  a  species  of  prophet  was  called 
Eu-toa — z>.,  possessed  of  the  divine  spirit.  The  chief  of 
the  island  said  that  he  was  a  bad  man  (toato-eno).  Omai, 
the  interpreter,  said  that  these  prophets  were  a  kind  of 
madmen,  some  of  whom,  in  their  attacks,  were  not  con- 


1  Ida  Pfeiffer,  Voyage,  vols.  v.,  vi. 

2  Medhurst,  State  and  Prospects,  London,  1838,  p.  75. 


RELIGIOUS  LUNATICS  AND  MAT  TO  IDS.  249 

scious  of  what  they  were  doing,  nor  could  they  afterwards 
remember  what  they  had  done.1 

With  regard  to  America,  Schoolcraft,  in  that  enormous 
medley  entitled  Historical  and  Statistical  Information  of 
the  Indian  Tribes'2  (1854),  says  that  the  regard  for  mad- 
men is  a  characteristic  trait  of  the  Indian  tribes  of  the 
north,  and  especially  of  Oregon,  who  are  considered  the 
most  savage.  Among  these  latter,  he  mentions  a  woman 
who  showed  every  symptom  of  insanity — sang  in  a 
grotesque  manner,  gave  away  to  others  all  the  trifles  she 
possessed,  and  cut  her  flesh  when  they  refused  to  accept 
them.  The  Indians  treated  her  with  great  respect. 

The  Patagonians  3  have  women-doctors  and  magicians 
who  prophesy  amid  convulsive  attacks.  Men  may  also  be 
elected  to  the  priesthood,  but  they  must  then  dress  as 
women,  and  cannot  be  admitted  unless  they  have,  from 
their  childhood,  shown  special  qualifications.  What  these 
are  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  epileptics  are  appointed  as 
a  matter  of  course,  as  possessing  the  divine  spirit. 

In  Peru,  besides  the  priests,  there  were  prophets  who 
uttered  their  improvisations  amid  terrible  contortions  and 
convulsions.  They  were  venerated  by  the  people,  but 
despised  by  the  higher  classes.* 

All  revolutions  in  Algeria  and  in  the  Soudan  s  are 
due  to  lunatics  or  neurotics  who  make,  of  their  own 
neurosis  and  the  religious  societies  to  which  they  attach 
themselves,  instruments  for  invigorating  religious  fanatic- 
ism and  getting  themselves  accepted  as  inspired  messengers 
of  God.  Such  were  the  Mahdi,  Omar,  and  a  madman 
who  headed  the  great  revolt  of  the  Taepings  in  China.6 

Phenomena  which  present  such  complete  uniformity 
must  arise  from  like  causes.  These  seem  to  me  to  be 
reducible  to  the  following  : 

i.  The  mass  of  the  people,  accustomed  to  the  few 
sensations  habitual  to  them,  cannot  experience  new  ones 
without  wonder,  or  strange  ones  without  adoration. 

1  Cook,  Voyages,  vol.  ii.  p.  19.  2  Vol.  iv.  p.  49. 

3  D'Orbigny,  L'Homme  Americain.,  ii.  p.  92. 

4  Miiller,  Geschichte  der  Urreligion,  Basle,  1853. 

5  Revue  Scientifique,  1887. 

6  See  my  Tre  Tribuni,  1887. 


250  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

Adoration  is,  I  should  say,  the  necessary  effect  of  the 
reflex  movement  produced  in  them  by  the  overwhelming 
shock  of  the  new  impression.  The  Peruvians  applied  the 
word  Huacha  (divine)  to  the  sacred  victim,  the  temple, 
a  high  tower,  a  great  mountain,  a  ferocious  animal,  a  man 
with  seven  fingers,  a  shining  stone,  &c.  In  the  same  way 
the  Semitic  El  (divine)  is  synonymous  with  great,  light, 
new,  and  is  applied  to  a  strong  man,  as  well  as  to  a  tree, 
a  mountain,  or  an  animal.  After  all,  it  is  quite  natural 
that  men  should  be  struck  by  the  phenomenon  of  one  of 
their  fellow-creatures  completely  changing  his  voice  and 
gestures,  and  associating  together  the  strangest  ideas — 
when  we  ourselves,  with  all  the  advantages  of  science,  are 
often  puzzled  to  understand  the  reasons  for  his  actions. 

2.  Some  of  these  madmen  possess  (as  we  have  seen,  and 
shall  see  again,  in  the  Middle  Ages  and  among  the  Indians) 
extraordinary  muscular  strength.      The  people  venerate 
strength. 

3.  They  often   show  an  extraordinary  insensibility  to 
cold,  to  fire,  to  wounds  (as  among  the  Arab  Santons,  and 
among  our  own  lunatics),  and  to  hunger. 

4.  Some,  affected   either   by  theomania   or  ambitious 
mania,  having  first  declared  themselves  inspired  by  the 
gods,  or  chiefs  and  leaders  of  the  nation,  &c.,  drew  after 
them  the  current  of  popular  opinion,  already  disposed  in 
their  favour. 

5.  The  following  is  the  principal  reason.  Many  of  these 
madmen  must  have  shown  a  force  of  intellect,  or  at  any 
rate  of  will,  very  much  superior  to  those  of  the  masses 
whom  they  swayed  by  their  extravagances.  If  the  passions 
redouble  the  force  of  the  intellect,  certain  forms  of  mad- 
ness (which  are  nothing  but  a  morbid  exaltation  of  the 
passions)  may  be  said  to  increase  it  a  hundred-fold.    Their 
conviction  of  the  truth  of  their  own  hallucinations,  the 
fluent  and  vigorous  eloquence  with  which  they  give  utter- 
ance to  them — and  which  is  precisely  the  effect  of  their 
real  conviction — and  the  contrast  between  their  obscure 
or  ignoble  past,  and  their  present  position  of  power  or 
splendour,   give   to  this   form  of  insanity,  in  the  mind 
of    the  people,  a  natural  preponderance  over   sane  but 
quiet  habits  of  mind.    Lazzaretti,  Briand,  Loyola,  Molinos, 


RELIGIOUS  LUNATICS  AND  MATTOIDS.  251 

Joan  of  Arc,  the  Anabaptists,  &c.,  are  proofs  of  this  asser- 
tion. And  it  is  a  fact  that,  in  epidemics  of  prophecy — 
such  as  those  which  prevailed  in  the  Cevennes,  and, 
recently,  at  Stockholm — ignorant  persons,  servant-maids, 
and  even  children,  excited  by  enthusiasm,  are  fired  to 
deliver  discourses  which  are  often  full  of  spirit  and 
eloquence. 

A  maid-servant  said,  "  Can  you  put  a  piece  of  wood  in 
the  fire  without  thinking  of  hell  ? — the  more  wood,  the 
greater  the  flames."  Another  prophetess,  a  cook,  cried 
out,  "  God  pronounces  curses  on  this  wine  of  wrath  (/.£., 
brandy),  and  the  sinners  who  drink  of  it  shall  be  punished 
according  to  their  sin,  and  torrents  of  this  wine  of  wrath 
shall  flow  in  hell  to  burn  them.  "  A  child  of  four  said, 
"  May  God  in  heaven  call  sinners  to  repentance  !  Go  to 
Golgotha — there  are  the  festal  robes  !  "  x 

6.  Mania,  among  barbarous  people,  often  takes  the 
epidemic  form,  as  among  the  savage  negroes  of  Juidah, 
among  the  Abipones  and  among  the  Abyssinians  in  those 
affections  analogous  to  the  tarantula  which  are  called 
tigrctier.  Thus,  in  Greece,  an  instance  is  recorded  of  an 
epidemic  madness  among  the  people  of  Abdera,  who  had 
been  deeply  moved  by  the  recital  of  a  tragedy  ;  and 
those  Thyades  who  appeared  at  Athens  and  Rome — wor- 
shippers of  Bacchus,  thirsting  for  luxury  and  blood,  and 
seized  with  sacred  fury — were  affected  by  erotico-religious 
insanity.  But  this  is  more  especially  seen  in  the  Middle 
Ages,  when  mental  epidemics  were  continually  succeed- 
ing one  another. 

The  strangest  forms  of  madness  were  thus  communi- 
cated, like  a  true  contagion,  from  whole  villages  to  whole 
nations,  from  children  to  old  men,  from  the  credulous  to 
the  most  resolute  sceptics.  Demonomania,  more  or  less 
associated  with  nymphomania  and  convulsions,  &c.,  pro- 
duced sometimes  witches,  sometimes  persons  possessed 
with  devils,  according  as  it  was  boasted  of  and  displayed, 
or  suffered  with  horror,  by  its  victims.  It  showed  itself 
in  the  most  obscene  hallucinations  (especially  of  com- 
merce with  evil  spirits,  or  the  animals  which  represented 
them),  in  an  antipathy  to  sacred  things,  or  those  believed 
1  Ideler,  Versuch  einer  Theorie  des  Wahnsimus,  p.  236  (1842). 


252  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

to  be  such  (e.g.,  the  bones  said  to  be  relics),  or  in  an 
extraordinary  development,  sometimes  of  muscular,  some- 
times of  intellectual,  power,  so  that  they  spoke  languages  of 
which  they  had  previously  only  the  slightest  knowledge, 
or  recalled  and  connected  the  most  remote  and  compli- 
cated reminiscences.  This  form  of  insanity  was  some- 
times associated  with  erotic  ecstasies,  or  partial  anaesthesia, 
and  often  with  a  tendency  to  biting,  to  murder,  or  to 
suicide.  Sometimes  there  was  a  shuddering  horror, 
oftener  gloomy  hallucinations  ;  but  always  a  profound 
conviction  of  their  truth. 

When  the  prophetic  enthusiasm  became  epidemic  in 
the  Cevennes,  women,  and  even  children,  were  reached  by 
this  contagion,  and  saw  Divine  commands  in  the  sun  and 
in  the  clouds.  Thousands  of  women  persisted  in  singing 
psalms  and  prophesying,  though  they  were  hanged  whole- 
sale. Whole  cities,  says  Villani,  seemed  to  be  possessed 
of  the  devil. 

At  Aix-la-Chapelle,  in  1374,  there  spread,  from  epilep- 
tics and  choreics  to  the  people  in  general — affecting  even 
decrepit  old  men  and  pregnant  women  —  a  mania  for 
dancing  in  the  public  squares, crying,  "Here  Sant  Johan, 
so  so,  vrisch  und  vro  /"  This  was  accompanied  by 
religious  hallucinations,  in  which  they  saw  heaven 
opened,  and  within  it,  the  assembly  of  the  blessed. 
The  subjects  also  had  an  antipathy  to  anything  red, 
unlike  tarantula  subjects  who  are  madly  attracted  to  red. 
The  mania  extended  to  Cologne,  where  500  persons  were 
seized  with  it  ;  thence  to  Metz,  where  there  were  1,100 
dancers,  Strasburg,  and  other  places.  Nor  did  it  cease 
speedily,  for  it  recurred  periodically  in  subsequent  years  ; 
and  on  the  day  of  St.  Vitus  (probably  chosen  as  a  patron 
on  account  of  the  Celtic  etymology  of  his  name)  thou- 
sands of  dances  took  places  near  his  relics.  In  1623  these 
pilgrimages  still  continued. 

Most  curious  is  that  epidemic  mania  for  pilgrimages, 
developed  among  children  in  the  Middle  Ages.  When 
men's  minds  were  cast  down  with  grief  for  the  loss  of  the 
Holy  Land,  in  1212,  a  shepherd-boy  of  Cloes,  in  Vendome, 

1  Ilecker,  Tanzmanie,  Berlin,  1834,  p.  120.  Traces  exist  even  to- 
day, as  at  Echternach,  in  Luxembourg. 


RELIGIOUS  LUNATICS  AND  MATTOIDS.  253 

thought  himself  sent  by  God,  who  had  appeared  to  him 
in  the  shape  of  an  unknown  man,  accepted  bread  from 
him,  and  entrusted  him  with  a  letter  for  the  king.  All 
the  sons  of  the  neighbouring  shepherds  flocked  to  him  ; 
30,000  men  became  his  followers.  Soon  there  arose  other 
prophets  of  eight  years  old,  who  preached,  worked 
miracles,  and  led  hosts  of  delirious  children  to  the  new 
saint  at  Cloes.  They  made  their  way  to  Marseilles,  where 
the  sea  was  to  withdraw  its  waves  in  order  to  let  them 
pass  over  dry-shod  to  Jerusalem.  In  spite  of  the  opposi- 
tion of  the  king  and  their  parents,  and  the  hardships  of 
the  journey,  they  reached  the  sea,  were  put  on  board 
ship  by  two  unscrupulous  merchants,  and  sold  as  slaves 
in  the  East. 

The  first  impulse  towards  the  epidemic  form  caused 
by  mania  was  the  veneration  for  individuals  affected  by 
it,  which  rendered  them  liable  to  be  taken  as  models  ; 
but  the  principal  cause  is  just  that  isolation,  that  ignor- 
ance, which  is  the  accompaniment  of  barbarism.  It  is, 
above  all,  the  advance  of  civilization,  the  greater  contact 
of  a  greater  number  of  persons,  which  gives  definite  form 
to  the  sense  of  individuality,  sharpening  it  by  means  of 
interest,  diffidence,  ambition,  emulation,  ridicule  ;  but, 
above  all,  by  the  continual  variety  of  sensations  and  con- 
sequent variety  of  ideas.  Thus  it  seldom  happens  that 
great  masses  of  people  are  equally  predisposed  towards, 
and  impressed  by,  the  same  movement.  In  fact,  though 
epidemics  of  mental  alienation  have  shown  themselves, 
even  in  the  most  recent  times,  it  has  always  been  among 
the  most  ignorant  classes  of  the  population,  and  in  dis- 
tricts remote  from  the  great  centres  of  communication  ; 
always,  moreover,  in  mountainous  countries  (certainly 
through  atmospheric  influences,  as  well  as  on  account 
of  greater  isolation) T — as  in  Cornwall,  Wales,  Norway, 
Brittany  (the  barking  women  of  Josselin),  in  the  re- 
motest colonies  of  America,  in  the  distant  valley  of  Mor- 
zines  in  France,  and  the  Alpine  gorge  of  Verzegnis  in 
Italy,  where  Franzolini  has  so  well  described  it.  Thus, 
at  Monte  Amiata  (where,  later  on,  we  shall  find  Lazzaretti), 
the  chroniclers  record  that  one  Audiberti  lived  in  an  extra- 
1  Pensiero  e  Meteore,  1878,  p.  129. 


254  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

ordinary  state  of  filth,  and  was  for  this  reason  venerated 
as  a  saint.  Not  far  from  this  place,  Bartolomeo  Bran- 
dano,  a  tenant  of  the  Olivetan  monks,  who  lived  towards 
the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century — perhaps  overcome  by 
the  sufferings  of  his  country  during  the  occupation  by  the 
Spanish  army — was  seized  by  religious  monomania,  and 
believed  himself  to  be  John  the  Baptist.  He  assumed  the 
dress  of  the  saint,  and,  covered  with  a  hair-shirt  reaching 
to  his  knees,  with  bare  feet,  a  crucifix  in  his  hand,  and  a 
skull  under  his  arm,  he  travelled  through  the  district  of 
Siena,  preaching,  prophesying,  working  miracles,  and 
finding  proselytes.  He  then  went  to  Rome,  and,  on  the 
square  of  St.  Peter's,  preached  against  the  Pope  and  the 
Cardinals.  But"  Clement  VII.,  instead  of  having  him 
hanged,  sent  him  to  the  Tordinona  prison,  where  it  was 
usual  at  that  time  to  seclude  the  insane,  when  they  were 
not  burnt  at  the  stake  as  being  possessed  of  demons. 
When  he  came  out  of  prison  he  returned  to  Siena,  and 
several  times  insulted  Don  Diego  Mendoza,  commander 
of  the  Spanish  army  ;  but  Don  Diego,  unable  to  tell 
whether  he  were  a  saint,  a  prophet,  or  a  madman,  had 
him  seized  and  taken  to  the  prison  of  Talamone,  so  that 
the  governor  might  decide  the  question.  The  Siennese 
governor  would  have  nothing  to  do  with  him,  and  said, 
"  If  he  is  a  saint,  saints  are  not  sent  to  the  galleys  ;  if  he 
is  a  prophet,  prophets  are  not  punished  ;  and  if  he  is 
mad,  madmen  are  exempt  from  the  laws."  Brandano 
was  thus  liberated  in  a  short  time,  and,  after  having 
preached  a  sermon  to  the  prisoners,  he  went  away,  and 
returned  to  his  prophecies  and  his  exorcisms. 

Even  recently,  in  the  remote  village  of  Busca,  in  Pied- 
mont, two  saints  have  arisen,  one  of  whom  had  been  a 
convict  for  twenty  years,1  and  the  other  already  had  a 
congregation  of  over  300  members.  Not  far  from  there, 
in  the  Alpine  village  of  Montenero,  there  appeared,  in 
1887,  the  epidemic  delirium  of  the  second  coming  of 
Christ,  in  expectation  of  which  event  more  than  3,000 
inhabitants  assembled,  in  spite  of  the  snow.  About  the 
same  time  a  vagabond  Messiah  was  arrested  at  Vezzola, 
in  the  Abruzzi. 

1  Archivio  di  Psichiatria,  1880,  Fasc.  ii. 


RELIGIOUS  LUNATICS  AND  MATTOIDS.  255 

The  retrograde  metamorphosis  of  the  intellectual 
faculties  passes  through  slighter  gradations  in  the  bar- 
barian than  in  the  civilized  man.  The  former  is  much 
less  able  to  distinguish  illusions  from  realities,  hallucina- 
tions from  desires,  and  the  possible  from  the  supernatural, 
and  also  to  keep  his  imagination  in  check. 

The  Norwegian  preaching  epidemic  of  1842  was  termed 
Magdkrankheit — the  maid-servants'  disease — because  it 
attacked  servants,  hysterical  women  in  general,  and  chil- 
dren of  the  lower  classes.  The  Redruth  epidemic  was 
diffused  entirely  among  persons  "  whose  intellect  is  of  the 
very  lowest  class"  ;T  whereas  when,  in  recent  years,  the 
craze  of  magnetism,  and  the  still  more  foolish  one  of 
table-rapping,  appeared,  they  never  presented  any  other 
characteristic  than  that  of  widely  diffused  errors,  and 
mental  alienation  in  this  direction  could  only  boast  of 
isolated  victims. 

It  is  not  long  since  the  Haytian  negroes  looked  on  cer- 
tain trees  which  had  been  hung  with  cloths  as  images  of 
saints  ;  and  the  Nubians  see  their  gods  in  the  grotesque 
forms  of  splintered  rocks.  The  slightest  cause  predis- 
poses the  barbarian  to  terror  ;  and  from  terror  to  super- 
stition is  but  a  short  step.  This  last,  which  disappears 
before  the  logic  and  the  sarcasm  of  civilized  people,  is  the 
most  important  factor  in  the  development  of  insanity. 
Ideler,2  speaking  of  the  Stockholm  epidemic  of  1842, 
mentions  it  as  a  historical  fact  that,  in  the  places  where 
the  disease  first  appeared,  people's  minds  had  for  a  long 
time  past  been  disturbed  and  excited  by  sermons  and 
devotional  exercises  ;  and  that,  in  these  places,  the  number 
of  those  affected  had  perceptibly  increased. 

This  is  the  explanation  of  ancient  and  modern  prophets, 
and  their  sudden  power  which  has  left  traces  on  the 
history  of  nations. 

Many  unhappy  persons  affected  by  ambitious  mania, 
or  theomania,  are  looked  upon  as  prophets,  and  their 
delusions  taken  for  revelations  ;  and  this  is  the  origin  of 
a  number  of  sects  which  have  intensified  the  struggle 

1  Nasse,  Zeitschrift,  1814,  i.  p.  255. 

2  Versuch,  i.  p.  274. 


256  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

between  religion  and  liberty  both  in  the  Middle  Ages  and 
in  modern  times. 

Picard,  for  example,  imagined  himself  to  be  a  son  of 
God,  sent  on  earth  as  a  new  Adam,  to  re-establish  the 
natural  laws,  which  consisted,  according  to  him,  in  going 
naked,  and  in  the  community  of  women.  He  met  with 
believers  and  imitators,  and  founded  the  sect  of  the  Adam- 
ites, who  were  exterminated  by  the  Hussites  in  1347,  but 
were  afterwards  revived  under  the  name  of  Turlupins. 

In  the  same  way,  the  Anabaptists,  at  Miinster,  at  Ap- 
penzell,  and  in  Poland,  believed  that  they  saw  luminous 
forms  of  angels  and  dragons  fighting  in  the  sky,  that  they 
received  orders  to  kill  their  brothers  or  their  best-beloved 
children  (homicidal  mania),  or  to  abstain  from  food  for 
months  together,  and  that  they  could  paralyze  whole 
armies  by  their  breath  or  by  a  look.  Later  on,  those  sects 
of  Calvinists  and  Jansenists  which  caused  the  shedding  of 
so  much  blood,  had — as  Calmeil  has  demonstrated — an 
analogous  origin.  This  is  also  the  origin  of  the  belief  in 
wizards  and  demoniacs. 

If  we  glance  over  the  lists  of  literary  madmen  and 
illuminati  given  by  Delepierre,  Philomneste,  and  Adelung, 
the  number  of  followers  found  by  many  of  them  makes 
us  laugh  and  sigh  in  the  same  breath  at  the  extent  of 
human  folly.  Let  us  mention,  for  example,  Kleinov, 
who,  in  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century,  claimed  to 
represent  the  King  of  Zion,  whose  sons  his  followers 
asserted  themselves  to  be  j  and  Joachim  of  Calabria,  who 
declared  that  the  Christian  era  was  to  end  in  1200,  when 
a  new  Messiah  was  to  appear  with  a  new  gospel.  Sweden  - 
borg,  who  believed  that  he  had  spoken  with  the  spirits 
of  -the  various  planets  for  whole  days,  and  even  for 
months  together,  who  had  seen  the  inhabitants  of  Jupiter 
walking  partly  on  their  hands  and  partly  on  their  feet, 
those  of  Mars  speaking  with  their  eyes,  and  those  of 
the  Moon  with  their  stomachs,  incredible  as  it  may 
seem,  has  believers  and  followers  even  up  to  the  present 
time.1 

1  Swedenborg ,  by  M.  de  Beaumont-Vassy,  1842;  Mattel,  Em.  de 
Swedenborg,  sa  vie,  1863. 


RELIGIOUS  LUNATICS  AND  MATTOIDS.  257 

Irving,  in  1830,  asserted  that  he  had  received,  by  divine 
inspiration,  the  gift  of  unknown  tongues,  and  founded  the 
sect  of  the  Irvingites. 

John  Humphrey  Noyes,  of  the  United  States,  be- 
lieved himself  to  have  the  gift  of  prophecy,  and  founded 
the  sect  of  u  Perfectionists  "  established  at  Oneida,  who 
considered  marriage  and  property  as  theft,  did  not 
recognize  human  laws,  and  believed  eveYy  action,  even 
the  commonest,  to  be  inspired  by  God. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  century  that  prophetess  of 
monarchy,  Julie  de  Kriidener,  possessed  great  influence. 
She  was  hysterical,  and  so  far  erotic  as  to  throw  herself  on 
her  knees  in  public  before  a  tenor  ;  afterwards,  impelled 
by  disappointment  in  love  towards  the  ancient  faith,  she 
believed  herself  chosen  to  redeem  humanity,  and  found  in 
this  belief  the  vigour  of  a  burning  eloquence.     She  went 
to  Bale  and  turned  the  city  upside  down  by  preaching  the 
speedy  coming  of  the  Messiah.      Twenty  thousand  pil- 
grims responded  to  her  call  ;  the  Senate  became  alarmed 
and  banished  her.     She  hastened  to  Baden,  where  four 
thousand  people  were  waiting  on  the  square  to  kiss  her 
hands  and  her  dress.     A  woman  offered  her  ten  thousand 
florins  to  build  a  new  church  ;  she  distributed  them  to 
the  poor  "  whose  reign  was  at  hand."     She  was  exiled 
from  Baden,  and   returned  to  Switzerland,  followed  by 
crowds.     Though  persecuted  by  the   police,  she  passed 
from  town  to  town,  followed  by  acclamations  and  blessings. 
She  said  that  her  works  were  dictated  to  her  by  angels. 
Napoleon,  who  had  treated  her  with  contempt,  became, 
for   her,  the  u  dark   angel,"    Alexander    of  Russia,  the 
angel  of  light.     Her  influence  became  the  inspiration  of 
the  latter  ;  so  much  so,  that  the  idea  of  the  Holy  Alliance 
seems  to  be  due  to  her  alone.1 

Loyola,  when  wounded,  turned  his  thoughts  to  religious 
subjects,  and,  terrified  by  the  Lutheran  revolt,  planned 
and  founded  the  great  Company.  He  believed  that  he 
received  the  personal  assistance  of  the  Virgin  Mary  in 
his  projects,  and  heard  heavenly  voices  encouraging  him 
to  persevere  in  them. 

1  Mayor,  Madame  de  Kriidener,  Turin,  1884. 

18 


258  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

Analogous  phenomena  may  be  observed  in  the  lives  of 
George  Fox  and  the  early  Quakers.1 

Francis  of  Assist.'2 — The  son  of  a  religious  woman, 
Francis  of  Assisi  was  forced  to  devote  himself  to  business 
after  receiving  only  the  elements  of  education  from  the 
priests  of  S.  Giorgio.  Being  rich,  and  able  to  spend  money 
as  he  pleased,  he  became  the  life  and  soul  of  the  joyous  com- 
panies of  young  men,  whose  custom  it  was  to  go  about  the 
city  by  day  and  night,  singing  and  diverting  themselves. 
He  seemed  to  be  the  son  of  a  great  prince  rather  than  of 
a  merchant.  The  citizens  of  Assisi  called  him  "  the  flower 
of  youths,"  and  his  companions  deferred  to  him  as  to  their 
leader.  He  excelled  in  singing,  his  biographers  praise  his 
sweet  and  powerful  voice  ;  and  he  was  also  dexterous  in 
feats  of  arms.  When  taken  prisoner,  in  a  skirmish  between 
the  burghers  of  Perugia  and  those  of  Assisi,  he  encouraged 
his  companions  in  prison,  and  exhorted  them  to  cheerful- 
ness both  by  word  and  example.  His  naturally  refined 
and  noble  disposition  was  shown  both  in  his  person  and 
manners,  and  in  a  liberality  which  delighted  in  giving  to 
the  poor. 

It  is  said  that,  in  his  twenty-fourth  year,  a  severe  illness 
confined  him  for  a  long  time  to  his  bed.  At  the  begin- 
ning of  his  convalescence,  he  left  the  house,  leaning  on  a 
stick,  and  stood  still  to  gaze  at  the  beautiful  country 
which  surrounds  Assisi,  but  could  find  no  pleasure  in  it, 
as  he  had  once  done.  From  that  day  forward,  he  was  sad 
and  thoughtful.  He  often  left  his  companions,  and  retired 
to  a  cave,  where  he  spent  hours  in  meditation. 

In  order  to  relieve  his  sufferings,  he  had  recourse  to 
prayer,  and  prayed  so  fervently  that  one  day  he  thought 
he  saw  before  him  Christ  nailed  to  the  cross,  and  felt  "the 
passion  of  Christ  impressed  even  upon  his  bowels,  upon 
the  very  marrow  of  his  bones,  so  that  he  could  not  keep 
his  thoughts  fixed  upon  it  without  being  overflowed  with 
grief."  He  was  then  seen  wandering  about  the  fields  with 
his  face  bathed  in  tears  ;  and  when  asked  whether  he  felt 
ill,  he  replied,  "  I  am  weeping  for  the  passion  of  my  Lord 
Jesus."  His  friends  said  to  him,  a  Think  of  choosing  a 

1  See  Macaulay,  History,  vol.  ii. 

2  Bonghi,  Vita  di  S.  F.  <?  Assisi,  1885. 


RELIGIOUS  LUNATICS  AND  MATTOIDS.  259 

wife,"  and  he  replied,  "  Yes,  I  am  thinking  of  a  lady — of 
the  noblest,  the  richest,  the  most  beautiful,  that  was  ever 
seen  !  "  Who  was  the  lady  of  his  thoughts,  he  revealed 
on  the  day  when,  laying  aside  the  dress  of  his  rank,  he 
threw  a  beggar's  mantle  over  his  shoulders,  to  the  un- 
bounded anger  of  his  father,  who  in  vain  tried  to  im- 
prison him,  and  to  the  great  scandal  of  every  one.  By 
many,  we  read  in  the  Fioretti,  he  was  thought  a  fool  ; 
and  as  a  madman  he  was  mocked  and  driven  away  with 
stones,  by  his  relations  and  by  strangers  ;  and  he  suffered 
patiently  all  mockery  and  harsh  treatment,  as  though  he 
had  been  deaf  and  dumb. 

Francis  of  Assisi,  however,  was  original  and  great,  not 
through  those  qualities  which  he  had  in  common  with  the 
vulgar  herd  of  ascetics — abstinences,  mortifications,  prayers, 
ecstasies,  visions — but  on  account  of  something  which  was, 
without  his  knowing  it,  the  very  negation  of  asceticism — 
the  affirmation  and  the  triumph  of  the  gentlest  and  sweetest 
feelings  of  humanity.  The  ascetic  abhorred,  condemned,  and 
fled  from  nature,  life,  all  human  affections,  in  order  to  steep 
himself  in  solitary  contemplation  :  Francis,  by  example 
and  precept,  preached  the  love  of  nature,  concord,  mutual 
affection  between  human  beings,  and  work.  The  ascetic 
called  everything  beautiful  in  the  world  the  work  of  Satan  : 
Francis  brought  about  a  true  revolution  by  calling  it  the 
work  of  God,  praising  and  thanking  God  for  it.  It  was 
a  new  kind  of  loving  and  passionate  Pantheism  which  in- 
spired him  with  the  Song  of  the  Sun,  in  which  all  creatures, 
animate  and  inanimate,  are  joined  in  fraternal  embrace, 
in  which  the  beautiful  and  radiant  sun,  the  bright  and 
precious  moon  and  stars,  the  wind,  the  clouds,  the  clear 
sky — water,  "  useful,  humble,  precious,  and  chaste," — fire, 
shining,  joyous,  "  hardy  and  strong,"  Mother  Earth,  who 
sustains  and  feeds  us,  together  with  man,  who  up  to  that 
time  had  been  taught  to  despise  everything  that  might 
distract  him  from  the  selfish  thought  of  his  fate  in  the 
next  world — all  these  are  called  upon  to  sing  the  glor~ 
of  the  Lord  who  is  good,  to  bless  Him  for  having  made 
the  universe  so  rich,  varied,  and  beautiful,  so  worthy  to 
be  loved.1 

1  Bonghi. 


260  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

If  we  think  of  this  bold  and  far-reaching  change,  we 
shall  no  longer  smile  in  reading  the  Song ;  remembering, 
too,  that  it  was  the  first  attempt  made  by  the  Italian 
people  to  express  their  religious  feelings  in  the  vulgar 
tongue. 

For  such  a  song  to  burst  from  the  impassioned  heart  of 
Francis,  the  germs  of  universal  love  which  he  cherished 
there  must  already  have  come  to  perfect  growth.  He 
must  have  freed  himself  entirely  from  the  ancient  terror, 
which,  in  the  common  superstitious  belief,  peopled  woods, 
mountains,  air  and  water,  with  hidden  enemies.  As  also, 
in  order  to  bring  men  back  to  mutual  love,  in  an  age  when 
"  those  whom  one  wall  and  one  ditch  confined,  gnawed 
one  another,"  he  had,  through  the  natural  tendency  to  ex- 
tremes, to  include,  not  only  Brother  Sun  and  Sister  Moon, 
but  even  Brother  Wolf. 

Having  composed  the  Song,  Francis  was  so  well  pleased 
with  it  that  he  adapted  to  it  a  musical  melody,  taught  it 
to  his  disciples,  and  thought  of  choosing  among  his 
followers  some  who  should  go  about  the  world  singing 
the  praises  of  God,  and  "  asking,  as  their  only  recompense 
that  their  listeners  should  repent,  should  call  themselves 
just  '  God's  jesters '—Joculatores  Domini"  Thus  he  gave 
the  first  and  most  vigorous  impulse  to  religious  poetry  in 
the  vulgar  tongue. 

Luther. — Luther  x  attributed  his  physical  pains  and  his 
dreams  to  the  arts  of  the  devil,  though  all  those  of  which 
he  has  left  us  a  description  are  clearly  due  to  nervous 
phenomena.  He  often  suffered,  e.g.,  from  an  anguish 
which  nothing  could  lighten,  caused,  according  to  him,  by 
the  anger  of  an  offended  God.  At  27,  he  began  to  be 
seized  with  attacks  of  giddiness,  accompanied  by  head- 
aches and  noises  in  the  ears,  which  returned  at  the  ages 
of  32,  38,  40,  and  52,  especially  when  he  was  on  a 
journey.  At  thirty-eight,  moreover,  he  had  a  real 
hallucination,  perhaps  favoured  by  excessive  solitude. 
"  When,  in  1521,"  he  writes,  "  I  was  in  my  Patmos,  in  a 
room  which  was  entered  by  no  one  except  two  pages  who 
brought  me  my  food,  I  heard,  one  evening,  after  I  was 
in  bed,  nuts  moving  inside  a  sack,  and  flying  of  them- 
1  A  re  hiv  fur  Psychiatric,  1881. 


RELIGIOUS  LUNATICS  AND  MATTOIDS.  261 

sel  vcs  against  the  ceiling  and  all  round  my  bed.  Scarcely 
had  I  gone  to  sleep,  when  I  heard  a  tremendous  noise,  as 
if  many  berries  were  being  thrown  over  ;  I  rose,  and  cried, 
'  Who  art  thou  ?  '  commended  myself  to  Christ,"  &c. 

In  the  church  at  Wittenberg,  he  had  just  begun  explain- 
ing the  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  and  hail  reached  the  words, 
"  The  just  shall  live  by  faith,"  when  he  felt  these  ideas 
penetrate  his  mind,  and  heard  that  sentence  repeated 
aloud  several  times  in  his  ear.  In  1507,  he  heard  the 
same  words  when  on  his  journey  to  Rome,  and  again  in  a 
voice  of  thunder,  as  he  was  dragging  himself  up  the  steps 
of  the  Scala  Santa.  "  Not  seldom,"  he  confesses,  "  has  it 
happened  to  me  to  awake  about  midnight,  and  dispute 
with  Satan  concerning  the  Mass,"  and  he  details  the 
many  arguments  adduced  by  the  Devil. 

Siu'tmarnla. — But  the  illustration  in  every  respect  most 
apposite  (if  it  did  not  seem  almost  a  national  blasphemy  to 
say  so)  is  that  offered  us  by  Savonarola.  Under  the  influ- 
ence of  a  vision,  he  believed  himself,  even  from  hisymith, 
sent  by  Christ  to  redeem  the  country  from  its  corruption. 
One  day,  while  speaking  to  a  nun,  it  seemed  to  him  that 
heaven  suddenly  opened  ;  and  he  saw  in  a  vision  the 
calamities  of  the  Church,  and  heard  a  voice  commanding 
him  to  announce  them  to  the  people. 

The  visions  of  the  Apocalypse  and  of  the  Old  Testament 
prophets  passed  in  review  before  him.  In  14')!  he 
wished  to  leave  off  treating  of  polities  in  his  sermons.  u  I 
watched  all  Saturday,  and  the  whole  night,  but  at  day- 
break, while  I  was  praying,  I  heard  a  voice  say,  '  Fool, 
dost  thou  not  see  that  God  will  have  thee  go  on  in  the 
same  way  ?  '  ' 

In  1492,  while  preaching  during  Ail  vent,  he  had  a  vision 
of  a  sword,  on  which  was  written,  "  (wliniins  Domini 
super  tcrram"  Suddenly,  the  sword  turned  towards  the 
earth,  the  air  was  darkened,  there  was  a  rain  of  swords, 
arrows,  and  fire,  and  the  earth  became  a  prey  to  famine 
and  pestilence.  From  this  moment,  he  began  to  predict 
the  pestilence  which,  in  fact,  afterwards  came  to  pass. 

In  another  vision,  becoming  ambassador  to  Christ,  he 
makes  a  long  journey  to  Paradise,  and  there  holds  dis- 
course with  many  saints  and  with  the  Virgin,  whose  throne 


262  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

he  describes,  not  forgetting  the  number  of  the  precious 
stones  with  which  it  is  adorned.1 

We  shall  see  how  a  similar  scene  was  described  by 
Lazzaretti.  Savonarola  was  continually  meditating  on 
his  dreams  ;  and  he  tried  to  distinguish  which  among  his 
visions  were  produced  by  angels,  and  which  were  the 
work  of  demons.  Scarcely  ever  is  he  touched  by  a  mis- 
giving that  he  may  possibly  be  in  error.  In  one  of  his 
dialogues  he  declares  that  "  to  feign  one's  self  a  prophet 
in  order  to  persuade  others,  would  be  like  making  God 
Himself  an  impostor.  Might  it  not  be,"  continues  the 
objector,  "that  you  were  deceiving  yourself?  No,"  is 
the  reply,  "  I  worship  God — I  seek  to  follow  in  His  foot- 
steps ;  it  cannot  be  that  God  should  deceive  me."  2 

Yet,  with  the  contradiction  peculiar  to  unhinged  minds, 
he  had  written  a  short  time  before,  "  I  am  not  a  prophet, 
neither  the  son  of  a  prophet  ;  it  is  your  sins  that  make  me 
a  prophet  perforce."  Moreover,  in  one  page  he  says 
that  his  prophetic  illumination  is  independent  of  grace, 
whereas,  a  few  pages  back,  he  had  declared  that  the  two 
were  one  and  the  same  thing. 

Villari  justly  remarks  that  a  this  is  the  singularity  of 
his  character,  that  a  man  who  had  given  to  Florence  the 
best  form  of  republic,  who  dominated  an  entire  people, 
who  filled  the  world  with  his  eloquence  and  had  been 
the  greatest  of  philosophers — should  make  it  his  boast 
that  he  heard  voices  in  the  air,  and  saw  the  sword  of  the 
Lord  !  " 

"But,"  as  the  same  author  well  concludes,  "the  very 
puerility  of  his  visions  proves  that  he  was  the  victim  of 
hallucinations  ;  and  a  still  stronger  proof  is  their  uselessness, 
even  hurtfulness,  as  far  as  he  himself  was  concerned. 

u  What  need  was  there,  if  he  wished  to  cheat  the  masses, 
to  write  treatises  on  his  visions,  to  speak  of  them  to  his 
mother,  to  write  reflections  on  them  on  the  margins  of 
his  Bible  ?  Those  things  which  his  admirers  would  have 
been  most  eager  to  hide,  those  which  the  simplest  intelli- 
gence would  never  have  allowed  to  get  into  print,  these 
very  productions  he  continued  to  publish  and  republish. 

1  Villari,  Vita  di  Savonarola,  pp.  II,  304. 

2  De  Veritate  Prophetica,  1497. 


RELIGIOUS  LUNATICS  AND  MATTOIDS.  263 

The  truth  is  that,  as  he  often  confessed,  he  felt  an 
inward  fire  burning  in  his  bones,  and  forcing  him  to 
speak  ;  and  as  he  was  himself  swept  away  by  the  force  of 
that  ecstatic  delirium,  so  he  succeeded  in  carrying  with 
him  his  audience,  who  were  moved  by  his  words  in  a  way 
we  find  it  hard  to  understand  when  we  compare  the 
impression  produced  with  the  text  of  the  sermons  them- 
selves." 

This  helps  us  to  understand  how — exactly  in  the  same 
manner  as  Lazzaretti — he  propagated  his  divine  mad- 
ness among  the  people,  not  only  epidemically,  by  the  con- 
tagion of  ideas,  but  producing  actual  insanity  in  persons, 
who,  being  nearly  or  quite  without  education,  preached 
and  wrote  extempore  in  consequence  of  their  madness. 
Thus  Domenico  Cecchi x  was  the  author  of  a  work  entitled 
Sacred  Reform,  which  contains  the  very  just  sugges- 
tions of  relieving  the  Great  Council  from  minor  business, 
taxing  church  property,  imposing  a  single  tax,  and  creat- 
ing a  militia,  also  that  of  fixing  the  amount  of  girls' 
dowries.  In  his  preface,  he  writes  :  "  I  set  myself  with 
my  fancy  to  make  such  a  work,  and  I  can  make  no  other, 
and  by  day  and  night  methinks  I  have  made  such  efforts 
that  I  might  call  them  miraculous  ;  but  it  has  come  to 
pass  that  I  myself  stand  amazed  thereat." 

A  certain  Giovanni,  a  Florentine  tailor,  seized  with 
morbid  enthusiasm,  wrote  terzine  in  which  he  extolled 
the  future  glories  of  Florence,  and  produced  verses  worthy 
of  Lazzaretti,2  and  prophecies  like  the  following,  "  Yet  it 
must  needs  be  that  the  Pisan  shall  descend,  with  irons  on 
his  feet,  into  the  sewer,  since  he  has  been  the  cause  of  so 
much  woe." 

If  I  were  asked  whether,  in  our  asylums,  we  often 
meet  with  types  analogous  to  these,  I  should  reply  that 
there  is,  perhaps,  not  an  asylum  in  Italy  which  has  not 
received  one  of  these  strange  lunatics. 

Cola  da  Rienzi. — In  1330,  Rome  was  sinking  into 
chaos.  Historians  have  left  us  an  appalling  picture  of 
the  disorders  of  the  time,  the  absence  of  any  regular 
government,  and  the  lawless  tyranny  of  the  robber 
barons. 

'  Villari,  p.  406.  2  Villari,  ii.  p.  408. 


264  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

The  general  conditions  of  the  age  were  favourable  to 
popular  movements.  King  Robert,  the  protector  of  the 
barons  was  dead  ;  and  Todi  (1337),  Genoa  (under  Adorno, 
in  1367),  and  Florence  (1363),  had  initiated  a  democratic 
regime,  which  ushered  in  the  terrible  Ciompi  revolution 
of  1378.  A  premature  thrill  of  revolt  ran  through 
Europe,  and  was  felt  even  in  feudal  and  monarchical 
France,  where  the  movement  was  organized,  for  a  short 
time,  at  Paris,  under  Marcel.1 

Under  these  circumstances,  Cola — a  young  man,  born 
in  the  Tiber  district,  in  1313,  the  son  of  an  innkeeper 
and  a  washerwoman,  or  water-seller,  who  though  at  first 
little  better  than  a  field-labourer,  had  studied  as  a  notary, 
and  acquired  a  considerable  knowledge  of  the  history  and 
antiquities  of  his  country — saw  his  brother  murdered  by 
the  wretches  who  formed  the  government,  or  rather  the 
misgovernment  of  Rome. 

Then  he — who,  as  the  anonymous  historian  tells  us, 
always  had  "  a  fantastic  smile  "  on  his  lips,  and  already, 
when  meditating  on  ancient  books  and  the  ruins  of 
Rome,  had  often  wept,  exclaiming,  "  Where  are  the  good 
Romans  of  the  old  time  ?  Where  is  their  justice  ?  " — 
was  seized,  as  he  afterwards  acknowledged,2  by  an  irre- 
sistible impulse  to  put  into  action  the  ideas  which  he  had 
acquired  from  books. 

In  his  capacity  of  notary,  he  devoted  himself  to  the 
protection  of  minors  and  widows,  and  assumed  the 
curious  title  of  their  Consul,  just  as  there  were,  in  his 
time,  consuls  of  the  carpenters,  cloth-workers,  and  other 
guilds. 

In  1343,  in  one  of  the  numerous  small  revolutions  of 
the  period,  the  people  had  attempted  to  overthrow  the 
Senate,  creating  the  government  of  the  Thirteen,  under 
the  papal  authority.  On  that  occasion,  Cola  was  sent  as 
spokesman  of  the  people,  to  Avignon,  where  he  vividly 
depicted  the  evils  prevalent  in  Rome,  and,  by  his  bold 
and  powerful  eloquence,  amazed  and  won  over  the  cool- 

x  See   Perrens,  E.  Marcel,  1880  ;  Democratic  en  France  dans  le 
Moyen  Age,  1875. 
2  Letter  to  Charles  IV.     Document  33  in  Papencordt. 


RELIGIOUS  LUNATICS  AND  MATTOIDS.  265 

headed  prelates,  from  whom  he  attained  the  appointment 
of  notary  to  the  Urban  Chamber,  in  1344. 

On  his  return  to  Rome,  he  continued  to  exercise  this 
office  with  exaggerated  zeal,  and  got  himself  called 
Consul  no  longer  of  the  widows,  but  of  Rome.  He 
excelled  others  in  courtesy,  was  also  inflexible  in  the 
administration  of  justice,  and  never  failed  to  involve  him- 
self in  long  harangues  against  those  whom  he  called  the 
dogs  of  the  Capitol. 

One  day,  in  a  moment  of  exaggerated  fanaticism,  he  cried 
to  the  barons,  in  full  assembly,  "  Ye  are  evil  citizens — 
ye  who  suck  the  blood  of  the  people."  And,  turning  to 
the  officials  and  governors,  he  warned  them  that  it  was 
their  place  to  provide  for  the  good  of  the  State.  The 
result  of  this  was  a  tremendous  buffet  dealt  him  by  a 
chamberlain  of  the  House  of  Colonna.  He  then  took 
matters  more  calmly,  and  began  to  depict  the  former 
glories  and  present  miseries  of  Rome,  by  means  of  paint- 
ings, in  which  the  homicides,  adulterers,  and  other 
criminals  were  represented  by  apes  and  cats,  the  corrupt 
judges  and  notaries  by  foxes,  and  the  senators  and  nobles 
by  wolves  and  bears. 

On  another  day,  he  exhibited  the  famous  table  of 
Vespasian,  and  invited  the  public,  including  the  nobles, 
to  a  dramatic  explanation  of  it.  He  appeared,  arrayed 
in  a  German  cloak  with  a  white  hood,  and  a  hat  also 
white  and  surrounded  by  many  crowns,  one  of  which 
was  divided  in  the  midst  by  a  small  silver  sword.  The 
interpretation  of  these  grotesque  symbols,  which  already 
indicate  his  madness  (the  continual  use  of  such  being,  as 
already  stated,  characteristic  of  monomaniacs,  till  they 
end  by  sacrificing  to  their  passion  for  symbols  the  very 
evidence  of  the  things  which  they  wish  to  represent),  is 
unknown.  Thus,  applying — somewhat  after  his  own 
fashion — the  decree  of  the  Senate  which  granted  to 
Vespasian  the  right  of  making  laws  at  his  pleasure,  of 
increasing  or  diminishing  the  gardens  of  Rome  and  of  Italy 
(if  he  had  been  a  scholar,  he  would  have  said  the  area  of 
the  Roman  district),  and  of  making  and  unmaking  kings, 
he  called  on  them  to  consider  into  what  a  state  they  had 
fallen.  "Remember  that  the  jubilee  is  approaching,  and 


266  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

that  you  have  made  no  provision  of  food  or  other  neces- 
saries.    Put  an  end  to  your  quarrels,"  &c. 

But  along  with  these,  he  delivered  other  discourses 
which  were,  to  say  the  least,  eccentric;  e.g.,  "I  know 
that  men  wish  to  find  a  crime  in  my  speeches,  and  that 
out  of  envy  ;  but,  thanks  to  heaven,  three  things  consume 
my  enemies — luxury,  envy,  and  fire."  x  These  two  last 
words  were  greatly  applauded  ;  I  do  not  understand 
them,  however,  especially  the  last.  I  believe  that  they 
were  applauded,  precisely  because  the  audience  did  not 
understand  them,  as  happens  to  many  street  orators, 
with  whom  resonant  and  meaningless  words  supply  the 
place  of  ideas,  and  are  even  greeted  with  greater  enthu- 
siasm. 

The  fact  is,  that,  among  the  upper  classes,  he  passed 
for  one  of  those  persons  of  unsound  mind  who  were  then 
in  great  request  for  the  amusement  of  society.2  The 
nobles,  especially  the  Colonna,  disputed  the  pleasure  of  his 
company  with  each  other,  and  he  would  tell  them  of  the 
glories  of  his  future  government.  "  And  when  I  am  king 
or  emperor,  I  will  make  war  on  all  of  you.  I  will  have 
such  an  one  hanged,  and  such  another  beheaded."  He 
spared  none  of  them,  and  mentioned  them  by  name,  one 
by  one,  to  their  faces  ;  and,  all  the  time,  both  to  nobles 
and  commons,  he  continued  to  speak  of  the  good  state, 
and  of  how  he  was  going  to  restore  it. 

Here  I  insert  a  parenthesis.  It  has  been  said  (by 
Petrarch  in  particular)  that  he  feigned  madness,  and  was 
a  second  Brutus  ;  but  when  we  see  his  love  for  pomp, 
luxury,  strange  symbols,  and  garments,  gradually  in- 
creasing as  he  advanced  in  his  political  career,  and  after 
his  rise  to  power,  we  no  longer  have  any  doubt  as  to  the 
reality  of  his  madness. 

He  continued  to  put  forth  new  symbolical  pictures, 
among  others  one  with  this  inscription  :  "  The  day  of 

1  "  Invidia  e  fuoco"  Thus  the  anonymous  historian,  and  Zeffirino 
Re.  Muratori  reads  juoco,  "  gaming,"  but  not  even  thus  can  the  sentence 
be  explained  ;  for  it  was  certainly  other  vices  than  envy  and  gambling 
that  were  consuming  the  nobility  of  those  days. 

3  Even  after  the  first  plebiscite,  Stefano  Colonna,  in  opposing  him, 
said,  "If  this  madman  makes  me  angry,  I  will  have  him  thrown  from 
the  Capitol"  (p.  349). 


RELIGIOUS  LUNATICS  AND  MATTOIDS.  267 

justice  is  coming — Await  this  moment"  .  Be  it  noted  that 
this  picture  represented  a  dove  bringing  a  crown  of 
myrtle  to  a  little  bird.  The  dove  stood  for  the  Holy 
Spirit  (as  we  shall  see,  one  of  the  favourite  objects  of  his 
delirium)  and  the  bird  was  himself,  who  was  to  crown 
Rome  with  glory.  At  last,  on  the  first  day  of  Lent, 
1347,  he  affixed  to  the  door  of  San  Giorgio  another 
placard  :  "  Before  long,  the  good  State  of  Rome  shall  be 
restored" 

Not  being  feared  by  the  nobles,  who  thought  him  mad, 
he  was  able  to  conspire  secretly,  or  rather  to  keep  up  the 
ferment  of  public  opinion,  by  taking  apart,  gradually,  one 
by  one,  the  men  who  seemed  to  him  best  adapted  for  the 
purpose,  and  assigning  them  their  posts  on  Mount 
Aventine,  towards  the  end  of  April,  on  a  day  when  the 
governor  was  to  be  absent. 

In  this  assembly,  the  only  one  which,  up  to  that  time, 
had  been  held  in  secret,  the  mode  of  bringing  about  the 
Good  State  was  deliberated  on.  Here  he  showed  the 
eloquence  of  a  man  who  speaks  from  conviction,  and  of 
things  which  are  too  true  not  to  produce  a  deep  impres- 
sion. He  described  the  discord  of  the  great,  the  debase- 
ment of  the  poor,  the  armed  men  roaming  about  in  quest 
of  plunder,  wives  dragged  from  their  marriage-beds, 
pilgrims  murdered  at  the  gates,  priests  drowned  in  sensual 
orgies,  no  strength  or  wisdom  among  those  who  held  the 
reigns  of  power.  From  the  nobles  there  was  everything 
to  fear  and  nothing  to  hope.  Where  were  they,  in  the 
midst  of  all  these  disorders  ?  They  were  leaving  Rome, 
to  enjoy  a  holiday  on  their  estates,  while  everything  was 
going  to  wreck  and  ruin  in  the  city. 

As  the  members  of  the  popular  party  were  hesitating 
for  want  of  funds,  he  gave  them  a  hint  that  these  might 
be  obtained  from  the  revenues  of  the  Apostolic  Chamber, 
reckoning  10,000  florins  for  the  tax  on  salt  alone,  100,000 
for  the  hearth-tax,  figures  which  Sismondi  (chapter 
xxxviii.)  declares  to  be  absolutely  erroneous.  He  also 
gave  them  to  understand  that  he  was  acting  in  accordance 
with  the  wishes  of  the  Pope  (which  was  false),  and  that 
he  was  able  with  the  consent  of  the  latter,  to  seize  upon 
the  revenues  of  the  Holy  See. 


268  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

On  May  18,  1347,  in  Colonna's  absence,  he  had  pro- 
clamation made  through  the  streets,  by  sound  of  trumpet, 
that  all  citizens  were  to  assemble  in  the  night  of  the  day 
following,  in  the  church  of  Sant'  Angelo,  to  take  measures 
for  the  establishment  of  the  Good  State.  On  the  igth, 
Rienzi  was  present  at  the  meeting,  in  armour,  guarded  by 
a  hundred  armed  men,  and  accompanied  by  the  Papal 
Vicar,  and  by  three  standards  covered  with  the  most  extra- 
ordinary symbols — one  of  them  representing  Liberty,  one 
Justice,  and  one  Peace. 

Among  the  measures  which  he  caused  to  be  adopted  by 
this  improvised  assembly  were  some  which  would  be  well 
suited  to  our  own  times  ;  the  following,  for  instance  : — 

All  lawsuits  were  to  be  terminated  within  fifteen  days. 

The  Apostolic  Chamber  was  to  provide  for  the  support 
of  widows  and  orphans. 

Every  district  of  Rome  was  to  have  a  public  granary. 

If  a  Roman  were  killed  in  the  service  of  his  country, 
his  heirs  to  receive  a  hundred  lire  if  he  were  a  foot  sol- 
dier, and  a  hundred  florins  if  a  horseman. 

The  garrisons  of  cities  and  fortresses  to  be  formed  of 
men  chosen  from  among  the  Roman  people. 

Every  accuser  who  could  not  make  good  his  accusation, 
to  be  subject  to  the  penalty  which  his  victim  would  have 
incurred. 

The  houses  of  the  condemned  not  to  be  destroyed  (as 
was  then  the  case  in  all  communities),  but  to  become  the 
property  of  the  municipality. 

Cola  received  from  this  popular  assembly  entire  lord- 
ship over  the  city  ;  he  associated  the  Papal  Vicar  with 
himself  as  a  harmless  assistant,  entitled  himself  Tribune, 
and  performed  an  actual  miracle  in  restoring  peace  where 
there  had  been  chaos.  He  saw  the  proud  barons — even 
the  rebellious  and  powerful  prefect  of  Vico — prostrate 
at  his  feet.  He  executed  severe  justice  upon  the  most 
powerful  nobles  as  well  as  the  populace.  Members  of  the 
Orsini,  Savelli,  and  Gaetani  families  were  hanged  by  him, 
for  violation  of  the  laws  ;  and,  what  is  more,  even 
priests,  such  as  the  monk  of  St.  Anastasius  who  was 
accused  of  several  murders. 

By  means  of  the  so-called  Tribunal  of  Peace,  he  re- 


RELIGIOUS  LUNATICS  AND  MATTOIDS.  269 

conciled  with  each  other  1800  citizens,  who  had  previously 
been  mortal  enemies.  He  abolished,  or,  more  accurately 
speaking,  tried  to  abolish,  the  servile  use  of  the  title  Don, 
which  is  still  rampant  among  us  in  the  south  ;  he  pro- 
hibited dicing,  concubinage,  and  fraud  in  the  sale  of  pro- 
visions— which  last  was  the  measure  which  conduced  most 
to  his  popularity.  Finally,  he  created  a  true  citizen 
militia,  a  real  national  guard. 

He  caused  the  escutcheons  of  the  nobles  to  be  erased  from 
all  palaces,  equipages,  and  banners,  saying  that  there  was 
to  be  in  Rome  no  other  lordship  than  the  Pope's  and 
his  own. 

He  re-established  a  tax  on  every  hearth,  in  all  the 
towns  and  villages  of  the  Roman  district,  and  was  obeyed 
even  by  the  Tuscan  communities,  who  might  have  claimed 
exemption.  The  collectors  were  not  sufficient  for  the 
work.  All  the  governors,  except  two,  submitted  ;  and  he 
finally  appointed  a  kind  of  justice  of  the  peace,  to  decide 
even  criminal  cases. 

He  did  even  more.  He  was  the  first  to  conceive,  what 
even  Dante  had  not  thought  of,  an  Italy  neither  Guelf 
nor  Ghibelline,  under  the  headship  of  the  Roman  muni- 
cipality, in  which  like  Marcel  of  Paris,  he  attempted  to 
assemble  a  true  national  Parliament.1  He  was  the  first 
man  in  Italy  to  think  of  this,  and  was  only  understood 
by  thirty-five  communes. 

At  Avignon,  finally,  he  was  able  to  achieve  what  I  con- 
sider his  greatest  enterprise  :  to  get  himself  pardoned,  after 
a  course  of  speech  and  action  so  hostile  to  the  Papal  Court, 
by  those  who  never  pardon — the  clergy  of  that  ferocious 
and  implacable  age  ;  and  not  only  pardoned,  but  sent 
back,  though  for  a  short  period  and  in  an  inferior 
capacity,  to  a  position  fraught  with  the  greatest  dangers 
to  that  order. 

But  all  these  miracles,  alas  !  lasted  for  a  few 
days  only.  The  man  who  in  his  political  ideas  sur- 
passed not  only  his  contemporaries,  but  many  modern 
thinkers,  and  preceded  Mazzini  and  Cavour  in  the 
idea  of  unity,  was  in  fact  a  monomaniac,  as  is  recorded 

1  See  Papencordt,  Cola  di  Rienzi,  1844;  Cregorovius,  Geschichte  der 
Stadt  JRom,  vi.  p.  267. 


27o  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

by  the  historians,  Re  and  Papencordt ;  if  he  was  great 
in  conception,  he  was  uncertain  and  incapable  in  practical 
matters.  This  was  fully  shown,  e.g.,  when,  though  he 
had  his  greatest  enemy,  the  prefect  of  Vico,  in  his  hands, 
he  let  him  go,  keeping  his  son  as  a  hostage  ;  and  when 
he  failed  to  profit  by  his  unexpected  victory  over  the 
barons. 

Always  incapable  of  taking  any  resolution  which  was 
not  merely  theoretical,  he  believed  that  everything  he  did 
was  done  by  the  grace  of  the  Holy  Spirit,1  under  whose 
auspices  we  have  seen  that  he  began  his  enterprize. 

He  was  still  further  confirmed  in  his  delusion  by  a 
heresy  which  had  then  recently  sprung  up,  according  to 
which  the  Holy  Spirit  was  to  regenerate  the  world,  and 
especially  by  the  fact,  very  insignificant  in  itself,  that  a 
dove  alighted  near  him  while  he  was  showing  the  people 
one  of  his  allegorical  pictures.  To  this  dove  he  attributed 
his  successful  beginning,  as  he  ascribed  to  his  prophetic 
inspiration  the  victory  over  the  Colonna 2  and  that  over 
the  Prefect.3 

In  the  most  important  affairs,  he  believed  that  he  heard 
in  himself,  through  the  medium  of  a  dream  or  other  sign, 
the  voice  of  God,  with  whom  he  took  counsel,  and  to 
whom  he  referred  everything. 

Sustained  by  the  prestige  of  this  inspiration,  he 
furthermore  enacted  religious  laws,  e.g.,  one  compelling 
confession  once  a  year,  under  pain  of  confiscation  to  the 
extent  of  one-third  of  a  man's  property. 

He  did  not  fail  to  exhibit  the  usual  contradictions  pecu- 
liar to  the  insane.  Very  religious  himself,  he  had  no 
hesitation  in  comparing  himself  to  Christ,  only  on  account 
of  the  coincidence  implied  in  his  having  gained  a  victory 
at  the  age  of  thirty-three.  After  his  defeat,  he  again  com- 
pared himself  to  him,  in  a  play  upon  numbers  such  as  is 
common  among  the  insane,  because  he  was  for  thirty- 
three  months  an  exile  in  the  Majella,  in  a  wild  and  lonely 
hermitage,  surrounded  by  several  persons  subject  to 
hallucinations,  followers  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  who  pro- 
phesied that  he  would  once  more  be  victorious,  and  even 

1  Papencordt.  2  Life,  i.  32.  3  Jbid.,  i.  17. 


RELIGIOUS  LUNATICS  AND  MATTOIDS.  271 

rule  over  the  whole  world.  The  megalomaniac  delirium 
which  usually  prevailed  in  his  case,  explains  the  greater 
part  of  these  contradictions.  He  believed  that  in  his  own 
person  were  centred  all  the  hopes  of  a  Messiah  of  Italy, 
who  was  to  restore  the  Roman  Empire,  nay,  even  redeem 
the  world.1 

At  a  moment  when  he  must  have  thought  himself  near 
death,  in  the  prison  at  Prague,2  he  thought  himself  the 
victim  of  diabolical  imaginations,  or  believed  that  he  was 
obeying  the  will  of  heaven.  Thus  he  wrote,  "  I  kiss  the 
key  of  the  prison,  as  it  were  the  gift  of  God." 

One  day  he  arose  from  the  throne  and,  advancing  to- 
wards his  faithful  followers,  said  in  a  loud  voice,  u  We 
command  Pope  Clement  to  present  himself  before  our 
tribunal,  and  to  live  at  Rome  ;  and  we  give  the  same  com- 
mand to  the  College  of  Cardinals.  We  cite  to  appear 
before  us  the  two  claimants,  Charles  of  Bohemia  and 
Ludwig  of  Bavaria,  who  take  upon  themselves  the  title 
of  Emperors.  We  command  all  the  electors  of  Germany 
to  inform  us  on  what  pretext  they  have  usurped  the  in- 
alienable right  of  the  Roman  people — the  ancient  and 
legitimate  sovereign  of  the  empire." 

Then  he  drew  his  sword,  waved  it  three  times  towards 
the  three  divisions  of  the  known  world,  and  said,  three 
times,  in  a  transport  of  ecstasy,  "  This,  too,  belongs  to 
me  !  " 

All  this  because  he  had  bathed  in  the  porphyry  basin  of 
Constantine — to  the  great  scandal  of  his  followers — and 
believed  that  he  had  thus  succeeded  to  the  power  of  that 
emperor. 

While  he  was  going  on  this  course  the  Papal  Legate, 
by  whose  concurrence  alone  all  these  eccentricities  could, 
up  to  a  certain  point,  be  justified,  protested  with  all  the 
force  his  slight  degree  of  energy  would  allow.  It  would 
be  pretty  much  as  if  the  Consul  of  San  Marino  were  to 
take  it  into  his  head,  on  the  strength  of  a  majority  of 
votes,  or  because  he  had  worn  a  hat  belonging  to  Na- 
poleon I.,  that  he  could  summon  before  his  tribunal  the 
emperors  of  Austria,  Germany,  and  Russia,  with  a  few 
dukes  into  the  bargain.  And  if  this  would  appear  ridi- 
1  Papencordt,  doc.  83.  2  See  letter  to  Fra  Michele. 


272  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

culous  in  our  own  times,  when,  in  theory  at  least,  right 
is  esteemed  above  might,  what  must  it  have  seemed  in 
that  age  ? 

Nor  was  this  a  mere  momentary  aberration.  We  still 
possess  the  diplomatic  communication  (dated  Aug.  I2th), 
destined  for  the  emperors,  after  that  mad  theatrical  cere- 
mony. I  extract  some  passages  : x 

"  In  virtue  of  the  same  authority,  and  of  the  favour  of 
God,  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  the  Roman  people,  we  say, 
protest,  and  declare  that  the  Roman  Empire,  the  election, 
jurisdiction,  and  monarchy  of  the  Sacred  Empire  belong, 
by  full  right,  to  the  city  of  Rome,  and  to  all  Italy,  for 
many  good  reasons  which  we  shall  mention  at  the  proper 
place  and  time,  and  after  having  summoned  the  dukes, 
kings,  &c.,  to  appear  between  this  day  and  that  or 
Pentecost  next  following,  before  us  in  St.  John  Lateran, 
with  their  titles  and  claims  ;  failing  which,  on  the  ex- 
piry of  the  term,  they  will  be  proceeded  against  according 
to  the  forms  of  law,  and  the  inspiration  of  the  Holy 
Spirit." 

Moreover,  he  adds,  as  though  he  had  not  yet  expressed 
himself  clearly  enough,  "  Besides  what  has  been  heretofore 
said,  in  general  and  in  particular,  we  cite  in  person  the 
illustrious  princes,  Louis,  Duke  of  Bavaria,  and  Charles, 
Duke  of  Bohemia,  calling  themselves  emperors,  or  elected 
to  the  empire  ;  and,  besides  these,  the  Duke  of  Saxony, 
the  Marquis  of  Brandenburg,  &c.,  that  they  may  appear 
in  the  said  place  before  us  in  person,  and  before  other 
magistrates,  failing  which  we  shall  proceed  against  them, 
as  contumacious,"  &c. 

This  was  too  much.  The  mutual  animosity  of  the 
Colonna  and  the  Orsini  was  momentarily  suspended. 
They  united  their  forces  to  combat  him  openly  and  con- 
spire against  him  in  secret. 

An  assassin,  sent  by  them  to  attempt  the  tribune's  life, 
was  arrested,  and,  when  put  to  the  torture,  accused  the 
nobles.  From  that  instant  Rienzi  incurred  the  fate  of  a 
tyrant,  and  adopted  a  tyrant's  suspicions  and  rules  of 
conduct.  Shortly  afterwards,  under  various  pretexts,  he 
invited  to  the  capital  his  principal  enemies,  among  whom 
1  Hoxemio,  De  actis  pontif.,  vols.  ii.  and  jii, 


RELIGIOUS  LUNATICS  AND  MATTOIDS.  273 

were  many  of  the  Orsini  and  three  of  the  Colonna. 
They  arrived,  believing  themselves  called  to  a  council  or 
banquet ;  and  Rienzi,  after  inviting  them  to  take  their 
places  at  table,  had  them  arrested  ;  innocent  and  guilty 
had  to  undergo  this  terror  alike.  After  the  people  had 
been  summoned  to  the  spot,  by  the  sound  of  the  great 
bell,  they  were  accused  of  a  conspiracy  to  assassinate 
Rienzi,  and  not  a  single  voice  or  hand  was  raised  to 
defend  the  heads  of  the  nobility. 

They  passed  the  night  in  separate  rooms  ;  and  Stefano 
Colonna,  battering  at  his  prison  door,  several  times  en- 
treated that  he  might  be  freed  by  a  swift  death  from  so 
humiliating  a  position.  The  arrival  of  a  confessor,  and 
the  sound  of  the  funeral  bell,  showed  them  what  was 
awaiting  them. 

The  great  hall  of  the  Capitol,  where  the  trial  was  to  take 
place,  was  hung  with  white  and  red,  as  was  usual  when  a 
death-sentence  was  about  to  be  pronounced.  All  seemed 
ready  for  their  condemnation,  when  the  tribune,  touched 
by  fear  or  pity,  after  a  long  speech  to  the  people,  /';/  their 
defence,  caused  them  to  be  acquitted,  and  even  granted 
them  some  offices  (such  as  the  Prefecture  of  arms),  which 
could  not  fail  to  be  formidable  weapons  against  him.  It 
was  not  the  sort  of  thing  which  was  done  in  those  days  ; 
and  even  Petrarch  thought  he  had  been  too  lenient,  while 
the  lower  classes  expressed  their  sense  of  his  folly  in  a 
coarser  and  more  energetic  fashion. 

Such  was  his  madness,  says  the  anonymous  historian, 
that  he  allowed  his  enemies  to  entrench  themselves  afresh, 
and  then  sent  a  messenger  to  summon  them  to  his 
presence.  The  messenger  was  wounded,  whereupon  he 
summoned  them  a  second  time,  and  then  had  two  of  them 
painted,  hanging  head  downward.  They,  in  their  turn, 
took  the  town  of  Nepi  from  him,  for  which  he  could 
devise  no  other  retribution  than  the  drowning  of  two 
dogs,  supposed  to  represent  them.  After  some  bloodless 
and  useless  marches,  he  returned  to  Rome,  and,  having 
put  on  the  dalmatica  (/)  of  the  emperors,  had  himself 
crowned  for  the  third  time.  Worse  still,  he  at  the  same 
time  expelled  the  Papal  legate,  Bertrando,1  thus  throw- 
1  Muratori,  Cronaca  Estense,  xviii.  p.  409. 


274  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

ino  away  his  last  anchor  of  safety  at  the  moment  when  he 
needed  it  most. 

Besides  the  eccentricity  of  his  consecration  as  Knight 
of  the  Holy  Spirit,  preceded  by  the  bath  in  the  vase 
of  Constantine  (which,  though  it  can  readily  be  ex- 
plained by  the  ideas  of  the  period,  did  him  serious  injury 
in  the  estimation  of  the  majority,  and  especially  the  re- 
ligious, as  being  an  act  of  profanation),  he  was  guilty  of 
the  egregious  political  folly  of  declaring  that,  after  that 
ceremony,  the  Roman  people  had  returned  to  the  full 
possession  of  their  jurisdiction  over  the  world  ;  that  Rome 
was  the  head  of  the  world,  that  the  monarchy  of  the  em- 
pire and  the  election  of  the  emperor  were  privileges  of 
the  city,  of  the  Roman  people,  and  of  Italy.  This  was 
clearly  a  declaration  of  war  against  both  pope  and  emperor. 
Later  on,  on  August  I5th,  with  his  usual  monomaniac 
tendency  to  symbolism,  he  crowned  himself  with  six 
wreaths  of  different  plants — ivy,  because  he  loved  religion  ; 
myrtle,  because  he  honoured  learning ;  parsley,  because  of 
its  resistance  to  poison  (as  the  emperor  was  supposed  to 
resist  the  malevolence  of  his  enemies).  To  these  he  added, 
for  no  discoverable  reason,  the  mitre  of  the  Trojan  king, 
and  a  silver  crown  ! 

All  this  proves,  says  Gregorovius,  that  it  was  his  inten- 
tion to  get  himself  crowned  emperor. 

And,  as  it  was  the  custom  of  the  Roman  emperors  to 
promulgate  edicts  after  their  coronation,  so  he,  imme- 
diately after  this  ceremony,  by  political  decrees  confirmed 
to  the  whole  of  Italy  the  right  of  Roman  citizenship. 
Alberto  Argentaro x  adds  that  he  threatened  Pope  Cle- 
ment with  deposition,  if  he  did  not  return  to  Rome  within 
the  year,  and  that  he  would  have  elected  another  pope. 
Villani  says,2  that  he  wished  to  reform  the  whole  of  Italy 
in  the  ancient  manner,  and  subject  it  to  the  dominion  of 
Rome.  To  understand  how  truly  insane  was  this  project, 
it  must  be  remembered  that  his  sacred  militia — that  which 
he  believed  most  faithful — numbered  no  more  than  1600 
men,  and  that  the  whole  army,  counting  both  horse  and 
foot,  did  not,  on  an  outside  calculation,  exceed  2000. 

After  defeating  the  nobles,  without  any  merit  on  his 
1  Chronaca,  p,  140.  8  Book  x. 


RELIGIOUS  LUNATICS  AND  MATTOIDS.  275 

part,  he,  who  had  formerly  been  so  generous,  forbade  the 
widows  to  weep  for  the  dead  ;  and  was  guilty  of  words  and 
actions  which,  even  in  that  ferocious  age,  struck  his 
Sacred  Knights  (as  he  called  them)  as  so  barbarous  and 
foolish,  that  they  refused  to  bear  arms  for  him  any  longer. 
From  this  moment  date,  on  the  one  hand,  his  undoubted 
insanity,  on  the  other,  the  contempt  of  all  honourable 
men,  vigorously  expressed  by  Petrarch  himself  in  a  well- 
known  letter. 

It  can  now  be  understood  why  he  was,  even  from  the 
time  of  his  first  exploits,  so  fond  of  pompous  titles.  After 
calling  himself  "  Consul  of  the  Widows,"  and  "  Consul  of 
Rome,"  he  adopted  the  title  of  Tribune,  which  afterwards 
became  "  Clement  and  Severe  Tribune,"  the  contradiction 
being  nothing  to  him,  so  long  as  he  could  suggest  the 
name  of  Severinus  Boethius,  whose  arms  he  had  also 
adopted  ;  and,  not  long  after  this  (referring,  with  that  kind 
of  play  upon  words  so  dear  to  the  insane  and  to  idiots, 
to  his  nomination  in  August),  "  August  Tribune."  x  We 
can  also  comprehend  that,  stripped  of  all  his  power,  an 
exile  and  a  prisoner,  he  should  have  turned  to  the  prosaic 
Emperor  Charles  IV.,  telling  him  his  dreams,  as  we  shall 
see,  with  complete  confidence  in  their  reality. 

At  Rome,  after  his  first  fall  (which  was,  perhaps,  one 
cause  of  the  indulgence  with  which  he  was  treated  by  the 
pope),  there  had  been  a  new  outburst  of  disorder,  which  a 
tribune  who  has  remained  almost  unknown — one  Baron- 
celli — in  vain  endeavoured  to  stem.  Nor  did  Rienzi  him- 
self meet  with  any  better  success  on  his  return,  shorn  of 
his  ancient  prestige,  and  without  that  youthful  audacity 
which,  united  to  a  maniacal  erethism,  had  increased  the 
strength  of  the  poor  scholar  a  hundredfold  ;  and  he  was 
overthrown  by  the  populace  themselves.  For  men, 
whether  madmen  of  genius  or  complete  geniuses,  have  no 
power  against  the  natural  force  of  things.  Marcel  had  no 
success  at  Paris,  though  he  had  far  greater  forces  at  his 
disposal,  and  was  allied  with  the  Jacquerie  of  the  country 
districts. 

But  Rienzi  could  not  even  succeed  in  realizing  the  pro- 

1  Gregorovius,  vol.  vi.  p.  294. 


276  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

digies  of  insane  genius,  since  he  had  by  this  time  fallen 
into  true  dementia. 

It  appears  that  in  the  early  stages  of  his  government 
he  was  a  sober  and  temperate  man,  so  much  so  that  he 
had  to  make  an  effort  to  find  time  to  eat.  From  this  he 
passed  to  the  opposite  extreme  of  continued  orgies  and 
actual  dipsomania,  which  he  excused  by  alleging  the 
effects  of  a  poison  which  he  believed  to  have  been  ad- 
ministered to  him  in  prison.1  I  believe,  on  the  con- 
trary, that  this  phenomenon  was  occasioned  by  the 
progress  of  his  malady,  since  we  see  that  it  began  in 
the  early  months  of  his  first  tribunate,2  and  since  slow 
poisons  produce  emaciation,  not  obesity,  in  their  victims. 

u  At  every  hour  he  was  eating  dainties  and  drinking  ; 
he  observed  neither  time  nor  order  ;  he  mixed  Greek  with 
Flavian  wine  ;  he  drank  new  wine  at  any  hour.  He  used 
to  drink  too  much." 

"  Moreover  he  had  now  become  enormously  stout,  he 
had  a  face  like  a  friar,  round  and  jovial  as  that  of  a  bonze, 
a  ruddy  complexion,  and  a  long  beard.  His  eyes  were 
white,  and  suddenly  he  would  turn  red  as  blood,  and  his 
eyes  would  become  inflamed." 

In  short,  as  is  usually  the  case  with  persons  inclining 
to  dementia,  his  body  became  enormous,  and  his  eyes 
were  often  bloodshot,  while  his  face  acquired  an  entirely 
brutal  cast  of  expression.  His  mind  was  much  less  active, 
and  his  temper  fundamentally  changed,  while  the  fickle- 
ness, restlessness,  and  oddity,  which  had  served  to  excite 
great  admiration  for  him  in  the  mind  of  the  populace, 
now  had  so  degenerated  as  to  redound  to  his  injury. 
Those  who  saw  most  of  him  said  that  he  changed  his 
mind,  as  well  as  his  expression  of  face,  from  one  minute 
to  the  next,  and  was  never  constant  to  the  same  thought 
for  a  quarter  of  an  hour  together.  Thus  he  began  the 
siege  of  Palestrina,  and  then  abandoned  it ;  he  would 
appoint  a  skilful  commander,  and  then  cashier  him. 

1  "  He  said  that  they  had  bewitched  him  in  prison  "  (Anonimo). 

8  Even  within  a  few  months  from  his  first  assumption  of  the  tribunate 
he  became  "addicted  to  rich  food,  and  began  to  multiply  suppers, 
banquets,  and  revels  of  divers  meats  and  wines.  About  the  end  of 
December  he  began  to  grow  stout  and  ruddy,  and  eat  with  a  better 
appetite"  (Anonimo,  p.  92). 


RELIGIOUS  LUNATICS  AND  MATTOIDS.  277 

In  later  times,  when  he  was  forced  to  impose  taxes  on 
wine  and  salt,  even  for  the  poor,  he  restrained  his 
luxurious  tendencies,  and  became  apparently  temperate  ; 
but  his  other  evil  propensities  did  not  change.  To  the 
intermittent  generosity  of  which  he  had  given  proofs 
in  his  early  period  succeeded  a  cold  selfishness,  which 
excited  horror  even  in  that  cruel  age — when,  for  instance, 
he  had  Fra  Monreale  beheaded,  for  not  repaying  a  sum  of 
money  which  Rienzi  had  lent  him.  His  friend  Pandolfo 
Pandolfini,  respected  by  all  Rome  as  the  model  of  an 
honourable  man,  was  beheaded  by  him,  without  the 
shadow  of  a  reason,  merely  from  envy  of  his  reputation. 
Thus  he  sacrificed,  or  despoiled  of  their  property,  the  best 
men  in  the  country,  and  passed  from  the  extreme  of 
timidity  to  that  of  ferocity. 

He  was  seen  to  laugh  and  weep  almost  at  the  same 
time,  and  in  both  cases  without  sufficient  cause  ;  his 
paroxysms  of  joy  were  followed  by  sighs  and  tears. 

But  it  is  chiefly  in  his  letters  that  the  whole  of  his 
genius  and  of  his  madness  is  revealed. 

The  letters  of  Cola  da  Rienzi  were  sought  for  and 
collected  with  singular  curiosity,  as  though  (Petrarch 
several  times  writes  to  him)  u  they  had  fallen  from  the 
Antipodes,  or  the  sphere  of  the  moon."  Four  col- 
lections of  his  letters  are  extant — at  Mantua,  at  Turin 
(twenty-two  closely  written  pages),  at  Paris,  and  at 
Florence  (the  last-named  being  autographs).  They  have 
been  published  and  republished  by  Gaye,  De  Sade,  Hob- 
house,  Hoxemio,  Pelzel,  and  Papencordt,1  and  would  by 
themselves  be  sufficient  material  on  which  to  base  a 
diagnosis. 

In  fact,  there  is  not  one  of  them  which  does  not  bear 
the  impress,  either  of  a  morbid  vanity,  or  of  those  trivial 
repetitions  and  plays  upon  words  especially  characteristic 
of  the  insane. 

The  first  point  to  note  is  their  great  abundance,  in  an 
age  when  very  little  was  written. 

1  Gaye,  Carteggio  inedito  cFartisti,  Florence,  1839  ;  Hoxemio,  Qui 
Gesta  Pontificurn,  &c.,  &c.,  Leodii,  1822,  ii.  pp.  272-514  ;  Papencordt, 
Cola  di  Rienzi,  Hamburg,  1847 ;  Hobhouse,  Historic  Illustrations 
of  Childe  Harold,  1818 ;  De  Sade,  Mtmoires  de  Petrarque,  Hi. 


278  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

When  his  residence  in  the  Capitol  was  sacked,  after 
his  first  flight,  what  most  surprised  those  who  entered 
his  private  office  was  the  mass  of  letters  which  had  been 
drafted  and  never  sent.  It  was  well  known  that  the 
numerous  staff  of  clerks  employed  by  him  could  not  keep 
pace  with  the  amount  of  matter  he  dictated,  and  that  he 
was  continually  sending  couriers  not  only  to  friendly 
republics,  but  to  indifferent  or  hostile  potentates,  like  the 
King  of  France,  who  sent  a  jesting  reply  by  an  archer — 
a  functionary  somewhat  analogous  to  a  modern  police- 
man. Thus,  too,  the  lords  of  Ferrara,  Mantua,  and  Padua 
returned  him  his  letters. 

Add  to  this  their  style,  their  exaggerated  length,  the 
addition  of  postscripts  longer  than  the  letter  itself,  and 
the  singular  signature,  richer  in  laudatory  titles  than  was 
ever  used  except  by  Oriental  princes. 

These  letters  have,  indeed,  a  flavour  of  their  own,  a 
vivacity  breaking  loose  from  the  restraints  of  the  classical 
writers  who  served  as  his  models,  an  exuberant  self- 
confidence  which,  at  first  sight,  obliged  the  reader  to  put 
faith  in  the  falsehoods  with  which  they  swarmed.  Nay, 
it  seems  that — as  happens  with  some  lunatics,  and  some 
incorrigible  liars — he  ended  by  himself  believing  in  his 
own  fictions. 

Leaving  aside  many  strange  blunders,  surprising  in  a 
Latin  scholar,1  and  the  prolixity  already  mentioned,  with- 
out dwelling  on  the  very  undiplomatic  want  of  delicacy, 
present  to  a  morbid  extent,  and  all  the  more  surprising 
in  a  statesman  of  that  age,  when  reserve  was  more 
general  than  at  present,  one  fact  particularly  strikes  me 
— an  inveterate  habit  of  punning,  a  symptom  of  extreme 
frivolity,  which  was  certainly  not  a  characteristic  of 
mediaeval  diplomacy. 

What  man  in  his  senses  would,  even  in  the  depths  of 

1  Even  in  the  autograph  MSS.  we  find  cotidie  for  quotidie  ;  Capitalo 
for  Capitolis ;  patrabantur  for  perpetrabantur ;  speraverim  for  spreve- 
rim;  michi  for  mi  hi.  I  have  already  noted  the  strange  blunder  of 
explaining  the  Pomcerium — the  district  between  the  inner  and  outer 
walls  of' Rome — by  "the  garden  of  Italy"  All  this  indicates  a 
scholarship  which  was  neither  very  full  nor  very  accurate.  As  to  his 
caligraphy,  there  is  nothing  particular  to  remark. 


RELIGIOUS  LUNATICS  AND  MATTOIDS.  279 

the  Dark  Ages,  have  written  as  he  did  to  Pope  Clement, 
in  the  letter  dated  August  5,  1347?— 

"  The  grace  of  the  Holy  Spirit  having  freed  the 
Republic  under  my  rule,  and  my  humble  person  having 
been,  at  the  beginning  of  August,  promoted  to  the  militia, 
there  is  attributed  to  me,  as  in  the  signature,  the  name 
and  title  of  August. 

"  Given  as  above  on  the  5th  of  August, 

"  "HUMBLE  CREATURE, 

"  Candidate  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  Nicolo  the  Severe  and 
Clement,  Liberator  of  the  City,  Zealous  for  Italy,  Lover 
of  the  World,  who  kisses  the  feet  of  the  blessed." 

Note  that,  after  all  this  signature,  the  letter  goes  on  for 
three  pages  more,  on  much  more  serious  topics,  which  he 
had  postponed  to  the  pun  on  "  August." 

In  this  respect,  a  clear  proof  of  his  insanity  is  to  be 
found  in  the  letter  which  he  wrote  in  the  elation  of  his 
victory  over  the  barons.  Not  to  dwell  on  the  strange 
familiarity  with  the  Deity  which  he  shows,  when  he 
writes  "  that  God  formed  to  war  those  fingers  which  had 
been  trained  to  the  use  of  the  pen  "  (v,rhereas,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  he  had  no  knowledge  whatever  of  the  art  of  war), 
it  is  well  to  note  that,  among  his  gravest  charges  against 
the  Colonna  was  that  of  their  having  sacked  a  church 
where  he  had  deposited  his  golden  crown.  Still  more 
strange  is  the  following  claim  to  prophecy,  addressed  to 
the  clergy — who,  as  dealing  in  such  matters,  are  likely  to 
be  most  sceptical  concerning  them  : 

"We  should  not  forget  to  tell  you  that,  two  days 
before  these  occurrences,  we  had  a  vision  of  Pope  Boni- 
face, who  foretold  our  triumph  over  those  tyrants.  We 
made  a  report  thereof  in  full  season,  and  in  the  presence 
of  the  assembled  Romans,  and  going  into  St.  Peter's,  to 
the  altar  of  St.  Boniface,  we  presented  to  him  a  chalice  and 
a  veil. 

a  The  vision,  at  last,  thanks  to  Heaven,  was  fulfilled, 
thanks  to  the  help  of  the  Blessed  Martin,  His  tribune." 
(Here  he  forgets  that,  two  pages  previously,  in  the  same 
letter,  he  had  attributed  his  victories  to  St.  Laurence  and 


280  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

St.  Stephen.)  "As  those  traitors,"  he  continues,  "had 
plundered  the  pilgrims  on  the  day  of  his  festival,  that 
Saint  took  vengeance  on  them,  by  the  hand  of  a  tribune, 
three  days  afterwards,  that  is  to  say,  on  the  day  of  St. 
Columba,  who  glorified  the  dove  (colomba)  of  our  flag." 
Note  the  puns  in  the  above. 

He  concludes  with  some  of  those  postscripts  which  are 
so  frequent  in  the  letters  of  monomaniacs,  and  are  found 
in  nearly  all  of  his  : 

"  Given  at  the  Capitol,  on  the  very  day  of  the  victory — 
the  3rd  of  November,  on  which  day  there  perished  six 
tyrants  of  the  house  of  Colonna,  and  none  remained  but 
the  unhappy  old  man  Stefano  Colonna,  who  is  half  dead. 
He  is  the  seventh,  and  this  is  how  Heaven  was  willing  to 
make  the  number  of  the  slain  Colonna  equal  the  crowns 
(stc)  of  our  coronation,1  and  to  the  branches  of  the  fruit- 
bearing  tree  which  recall  the  seven  gifts  of  the  Holy 
Spirit." 

Absolute  insanity  is  here  shown,  both  in  the  idea 
and  the  word,  in  which  he  makes  the  Deity  intervene 
to  extinguish  a  family  of  heroes  for  the  sake  of  a  sinister 
freak  of  language,  in  honour  of  the  man  who,  a  few 
pages  previously — with  a  hypocrisy  soon  belied  by  facts 
— had  written,  "  Consistently  with  our  character,  we  were 
not  willing  to  employ  the  severity  of  the  sword — how- 
ever just — against  those  whom  we  might  bring  back  to 
grace  without  injury  to  freedom,  justice,  and  peace." 

Both  comic  and  insane  is  the  way  in  which,  in  another 
letter  to  Rinaldo  Orsini  (Sept.  22,  1347),  he  tries  to  dis- 
guise, by  a  number  of  useless  fictions,  the  enormous  error  of 
which  he  had  been  guilty  in  setting  at  liberty  the  nobles 
arrested  shortly  before.  "  We  wish  that  Your  Paternity 
should  know  how,  having  judged  certain  nobles,  lawfully 
suspected  by  the  people  and  by  us,  it  pleased  God  that  they 
should  fall  into  our  hands  "  (We  see,  on  the  contrary, 
that  he  had  expressly  invited  them).  "  We  caused  them 
to  be  shut  up  in  the  dungeons  of  the  Capitol ;  but,  finally 
(our  scruples  and  suspicions  having  been  removed),  we 

1  Among  his  vagaries,  we  have  already  noted  that  of  crowning  him- 
self with  seven  crowns.  In  his  seals  there  were  seven  stars  and  seven 
rays,  which,  under  the  second  Tribunate,  became  eight. 


RELIGIOUS  LUNATICS  AND  MATTOIDS.  281 

made  use  of  an  innocent  artifice  (sic]  to  reconcile  them 
not  only  with  ourselves,  but  with  God,  wherefore  we 
procured  them  the  happy  opportunity  of  making  a  devout 
confession.  It  was  on  the  i$th  of  September  that  we 
sent  confessors  to  each  one  of  them,  in  prison,  and  as 
the  latter  were  ignorant  of  our  good  intentions,  and 
believed  that  we  were  going  to  be  severe,  they  said  to  the 
nobles,  '  The  Lord  Tribune  will  condemn  you  to  death.' 
Meanwhile  the  great  bell  of  the  Capitol  tolled  without 
ceasing  for  the  assembly,  and  thus  the  terrified  nobles 
gave  themselves  up  for  lost  ;  and,  in  the  expectation  of 
death,  confessed  devoutly  and  with  tears,  ...  I  then 
made  a  speech  in  praise  of  them,"  &c. 

Let  the  reader  judge  of  the  condition  of  the  moral  sense 
in  a  man  who  could  write  thus.  It  should  be  noted, 
besides,  that,  diplomatically,  an  excuse  of  this  sort  (espe- 
cially in  dealing  with  priests,  who,  being  in  the  trade,  so  to 
speak,  would  know  its  exact  value),  would  not  only  be 
useless,  but  even  constitute  a  serious  accusation.  Nor  is 
his  conclusion  less  strange,  "  Withal  their  hearts  are  so 
united  to  ours  and  to  those  of  the  people,  that  this  union 
must  last  for  the  good  of  our  country  ;  because  thus  they 
see  that  we  are  impartial,  and  do  not  wish  to  be  as  severe 
as  we  might  be." 

But  his  useless  hypocrisies  did  not  end  there  ;  the  con- 
fusion of  the  patricians  probably  suggested  the  order, 
already  mentioned,  that  all  citizens  were  to  confess  and 
receive  the  communion  at  least  once  a  year,  under  pain  of 
losing  a  third  of  their  goods — half  the  forfeited  property  to 
go  to  the  parish  church  of  the  defendant,  the  other  to  the 
city.  And  the  notaries  were  obliged  to  act  as  spies  for  every 
testator.  Now,  Rienzi,  in  a  postscript  to  the  above  letter 
(and  I  repeat  that  I  have  frequently  observed  in  mono- 
maniacs this  fad  of  postscripts  occurring  at  the  end 
of  letters),  gives  notice  of  his  new  edict,  adding,  "  It 
seemed  to  us  fitting  that,  as  a  second  Augustus  provides 
for  the  temporal  profit  of  the  Republic,  he  should  also 
seek  to  favour  and  promote  its  spiritual  welfare."  This, 
if  one  thinks  about  it,  was  a  usurpation  of  the  special 
rights  and  duties  of  the  pontiff,  even  according  to  the  most 
modern  view  of  them,  as  also  when  he  prescribed  to  the 


282  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

clergy  special  ceremonies  and  ecclesiastical  processions  of 
his  own  invention,  and  enacted  decrees  against  the  mem- 
bers of  religious  orders  who  should  fail  to  return  to  Rome. 
This,  in  fact,  was  one  of  the  principal  accusations — and  a 
just  one — levelled  against  him  at  Prague  and  at  Avignon, 
and  one  which  he  only  rebutted  by  false  statements. 

Elsewhere  he  speaks  of  being  inspired  by  the  Holy 
Spirit,  with  a  confidence  which  would  be  altogether 
unintelligible  except  in  a  man  who  was  perfectly  sincere, 
and  therefore  under  the  influence  of  hallucination. 

A  glance  at  other  letters  explains  at  once  that  the  bath 
in  the  vase  of  Constantine  was  for  him  what  the  tattooed 
marks  on  his  forehead  were  to  Lazzaretti — one  of  those 
symbolic  freaks  to  which  the  insane  attach  a  peculiar 
significance  ;  in  fact,  a  kind  of  imperial  investiture. 

A  long  letter  to  Charles  IV.,  written  from  prison  in 
July,  1350,  dwelling  on  a  supposed  intrigue  of  his  mother 
with  the  Emperor  Henry  VII.,  bears,  in  subject-matter 
and  style,  the  unmistakable  impress  of  insanity.1 

A  little  later  (Aug.  15,  1350),  we  find  him  writing  to 
the  emperor  another  letter  full  of  senseless  puns,  in  which 
he  tells  him,  with  doubly  absurd  freaks  of  thought  and 
language,  how,  in  the  idea  that  the  mother  of  Severinus 
Boethius  was  descended  from  the  kings  of  Bohemia  (!)  he 
had  called  Boethius  the  younger  and  himself,  the  Severe  • 
and  how  he  had  adopted  from  them  the  device  of  the 
seven  stars — matters  which  could  neither  interest  the 
emperor  nor  be  of  advantage  to  himself,  but  have  all  the 
characteristics  of  insanity. 

So  also,  when  he  wrote  that  he  was  persuaded  by  the 
prophecies  of  the  Majella  hermits  already  mentioned,  that 
his  second  exaltation  should  be  much  more  glorious 

1  Monomaniacs  while  remaining  constant  to  a  fixed  erroneous  idea, 
vary,  to  a  degree  which  amounts  to  contradiction,  in  the  accessory  details. 
It  is  thus  that  I  explain  the  fact  that,  in  his  second  tribunate  he  claimed 
to  be  the  son,  not  of  the  emperor,  but  of  a  bastard  of  his.  There 
has  been  found,  near  the  Ponte  Senatorio,  in  excavating  the  ruins  of  a 
building,  restored  apparently  by  Rienzi,  this  inscription  dictated  by 
him — according  to  Gabrini — in  order  to  publish  to  the  world  his  dis- 
graceful delusion  :  "  Nicolaus,  Tribunus,  Severus,  Clemens,  Laurentii, 
Teutonic!  filius,  Gabrinius,  Romae  Senator,"  with  a  timid  allusion  to  a 
German,  who  was  not  Henry,  but  an  illegitimate  son  of  his  (Gabrini, 
Osservazioni  storico-critiche  sulla  Vita  di  Rienzi,  170$,  p.  96). 


RELIGIOUS  LUNATICS  AND  MATTOIDS.  283 

than  the  first,  as  the  sun  long  hidden  by  the  clouds  ap- 
pears more  beautiful  to  the  eye  of  the  beholder  ;  Per- 
haps the  Lord,  justly  indignant  at  the  wicked  and  un- 
heard-of murder  of  Rienzi's  illustrious  grandfather,  Henry 
VII.,  and  the  losses  in  souls  and  bodies  suffered  by  the 
world  during  the  Interregnum,  had  raised  up  Cola  for  the 
advantage  of  Charles,  chosen  him  to  re-establish  the 
empire,  and  ordained  that  he  should  be  baptized  in  the 
Later  an,  in  the  Church  of  the  Baptist,  and  in  the  bath  of 
Constantine,  that  he  might  be  the  forerunner  of  the 
emperor,  as  John  the  Baptist  was  of  Christ.  Charles,  it 
is  true,  had  said  that  the  empire  could  only  be  restored 
by  a  miracle  ;  but  was  not  this  a  miracle,  that  one  poor 
man  should  be  able  to  succour  the  falling  empire,  as  St. 
Francis  had  succoured  the  Church  ?  Let  him  awake,  and 
gird  on  his  sword — let  him  not  count  for  anything  the 
revelation  of  the  friars,  since  the  whole  Old  and  New 
Testaments  were  full  of  revelations  :  he  alone  could  become 
master  of  Rome.  If  he  did  not  do  so  at  once,  Charles 
would  lose  at  least  one  hundred  thousand  gold  florins  from 
the  tax  on  salt  and  the  other  revenues  of  the  city  which 
had  been  increased  by  the  approach  of  the  Jubilee.  .  .  . 
Within  a  year  and  a  half,  the  pope  should  die,  and  many 
cardinals  be  slain.  ...  In  fifteen  years  there  should  be 
but  one  shepherd  and  one  faith,  and  the  new  pope,  the 
Emperor  Charles,  and  Cola  should  be,  as  it  were,  a  symbol 
of  the  Trinity  on  earth.  Charles  should  reign  in  the 
west,  the  Tribune  in  the  east.  For  the  present,  he  was 
content  with  supporting  the  emperor  in  his  journey  to 
Rome — he  was  willing  to  open  the  way  for  him  with  the 
Romans  and  the  other  peoples  of  Italy,  who  would  other- 
wise be  averse  to  the  empire  ;  so  that  Charles  might  come 
among  them  peaceably  and  without  bloodshed,  and  his 
arrival  should  not  be  the  signal  for  mourning  to  the  city 
and  the  whole  nation,  as  had  that  of  former  emperors. 

So  far  did  he  go,  that  the  Archbishop  of  Prague  wrote 
to  him,  "  that  he  wondered  how  the  Tribune,  who  had 
done  things  which  at  first  appeared  to  come  from  God, 
could  be  so  far  from  exercising  the  virtue  of  humility  as 
to  consider  his  own  elevation  the  work  of  the  Holy  Spirit, 
and  to  call  himself  the  candidate  of  the  latter  " — words 


284  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

which  may  well  be  noted  by  those  who  see  in  his  mad- 
ness only  the  effect  of  the  superstitions  of  the  period. 

The  emperor  replied,  with  much  common  sense,  advis- 
ing him  to  "  cease  from  ignorant  hermits,  wrho  think 
themselves  to  be  walking  in  the  spirit  of  humility,  with- 
out being  able  even  to  resist  their  sins  and  save  their  own 
souls,  and  who  speak  fantastically  of  knowing  hidden 
things  and  governing  in  the  spirit  all  that  is  under 
heaven  ..."  and  telling  him  that,  out  of  love  to  God 
and  his  neighbours,  he  has  "caused  thee  to  be  im- 
prisoned as  a  sower  of  tares,  and,  withal,  out  of  love  for 
thine  own  soul,  to  cure  it." 

Later  on,  he  counsels  him  to  "lay  aside  all  these 
vagaries,  and,  whatever  his  origin  may  have  been,  to 
remember  that  we  are  all  God's  creatures,  sons  of  Adam, 
made  out  of  the  earth,"  &c.  A  curious  lesson  in 
democracy,  given  by  a  king  of  Bohemia  to  the  ex-tribune 
of  an  Italian  republic  ! 

But  all  was  useless,  and  when,  after  many  vicissitudes, 
he  once  more  acquired  a  shadow  of  his  former  power — by 
the  aid  of  money  obtained  by  sheer  trickery — he  an- 
nounced the  fact  at  Florence,  in  a  pompous  proclama- 
tion, adding  that  "women,  men,  boys,  priests,  and  lay-folk 
had  gone  to  meet  him  with  palms  and  olive-branches, 
and  trumpets,  and  cries  of  welcome." 

These  speeches  seemed  so  very  extravagant  that  their 
genuineness  has  been  doubted  by  Zeffirino  Re,  on  the 
ground  of  the  extreme  improbability  of  Petrarch's  having 
defended  him,  or  the  emperor  regarded  him  with  favour 
for  a  single  moment,  had  he  really  entertained  ideas  so 
eccentric  and  heretical. 

But  that,  however  improbable,  such  is  the  fact  is 
already  evident  a  priori  to  any  one  who — even  without 
examining  these  strange  letters  and  still  stranger  circulars 
— has  observed  the  progressive  development  of  insanity 
in  Cola's  career,  and  knows  that  it  was  just  through  his 
unheard-of  audacity  that  he  triumphed,  and  that  the 
Bohemians  were  not  so  much  scandalized  as  struck  dumb 
by  his  eloquence,1  and  afterwards  astonished  and  deeply 
moved  by  his  recantations. 

1  Anonimo,  p.  92. 


RELIGIOUS  LUNATICS  AND  MATTOWS.  2^5 

Moreover,  these  writings  were  refuted  by  the  Bohemian 
bishops,  in  a  document  which  is  still  extant,  and  after- 
wards retracted  by  himself.  With  a  delicacy  of  which 
historians  have  not  taken  sufficient  account,  they  were 
not  consigned  in  their  entirety  to  the  Papal  Court 
along  with  the  person  of  the  Tribune,  whose  condemna- 
tion, indeed,  could  bring  neither  pleasure  nor  profit  to  the 
host  who  had  been  already  forced  by  political  considera- 
tions to  betray  the  confidence  reposed  in  him. 

He  remained,  meanwhile,  an  isolated  phenomenon,  an 
enigma  to  historians,  since  it  was  not  so  much  history  as 
the  science  of  mental  pathology  which  could  succeed  in 
completely  explaining  him.  That  science  has  pointed  out 
to  us  in  Rienzi  all  the  characteristics  of  the  monomaniac  : 
regular  features  and  handwriting,  exaggerated  tendency 
to  symbolism  and  plays  upon  words — an  activity  dispro- 
portioned  to  his  social  position,  and  original  even  to 
absurdity,  which  entirely  exhausted  itself  in  writing — an 
exaggerated  consciousness  of  his  own  personality,  which 
at  first  aided  him  with  the  populace,  and  supplied  the 
want  of  tact  and  practical  ability,  but  afterwards  led  him 
into  absurdities — a  defective  moral  sense — a  calm  mark- 
ing the  approach  of  dementia,  which  was  only  disturbed 
by  the  abuse  of  alcohol,  or  by  a  spirited  opposition.1 

Campanella. — If  Cola  da  Rienzi  was  a  strange  problem 
for  historians  until  resolved  by  the  modern  psychiatric 
studies  on  monomania,  not  less  strange  has  been  the 
problem  presented  by  Campanella,  who,  from  being  a 
humble  and  disdained  monk  in  a  forgotten  district  of 
Calabria,  claimed  to  be  a  monarch  and,  as  it  were,  a 
demi-god  against  the  power  of  Spain  and  of  the  Pope, 
and  then  suddenly  became  and  died  a  zealot  for  both, 
contradicting  himself,  even  against  his  own  advantage, 
certainly  against  that  of  his  fame. 

At  last,  it  seems  to  me,  the  problem  is  approaching  solu- 
tion, after  the  classical  works  of  Baldacchino,  of  Spaventa, 
of  Fiorentino,  but,  above  all,  of  Amabile,  especially  since 
Carlo  Falletti 2  has  passed  those  powerful  works  through 

1  See  for  other  proofs  my  Tre  Tribuni,  1887. 

2  P.  C.  Falletti,  Del  carattere  di  Fra  Tommaso  Campanella,  Turin, 
1889  ;  Rivista  Storica  Italiana,  vol.  vi.  fascicule  2  ;  Amabile,  Fra  T. 


286  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

the  alembic  of  his  synthetic  criticism  and  removed  from 
this  strange  medal  the  stains  deposited  by  legends  and 
historical  prejudices. 

"  Campanella,"  remarks  Falletti,  u  with  his  badly 
formed  skull,  surmounted  by  seven  inequalities — hills,  as 
he  himself  called  them — possessed  most  sensitive  nerves, 
an  acute  intellect,  and  easily  exalted  emotions."  The 
mystical  education  of  the  order  to  which  he  belonged 
completed  the  work  of  nature  ;  having  entered  a  Domini- 
can monastery  at  the  age  of  fourteen,  he  always  lived 
outside  the  real  world.  He  spent  eight  years  in  the 
schools  of  Calabria  amid  disputes  with  his  masters  and 
fellow-pupils,  and  then  departed,  almost  fled,  from  Cosenza 
and  went  to  Naples.  But  no  good  fortune  met  him  there. 
Soon  after  his  arrival  he  chanced  to  speak  slightingly  of 
excommunication.  He  was  at  once  denounced,  im- 
prisoned, taken  to  Rome,  tried,  and  condemned.  On 
leaving  prison  he  decided  to  go  to  Padua ;  on  the  way  he 
was  robbed  of  his  manuscripts  ;  three  days  after  reaching 
Padua  he  was  accused  of  using  violence  against  the 
General  of  the  Dominicans  ;  hence  a  fresh  imprison- 
ment and  fresh  trial.  Discharged  and  set  at  liberty,  he 
took  part  in  public  discussions,  but  the  doctrines  he 
openly  professed  led  to  another  trial  arid  imprisonment. 
He  was  only  twenty-six,  and  had  already  spent  three 
years  in  prison. 

At  the  age  of  twenty,  in  the  monastery  at  Cosenza,  Cam- 
panella had  associated  with  a  certain  Abramo,from  whom 
he  received  lessons  in  necromancy,  and  who  predicted 
that  he  would  one  day  be  a  king.  This  was  the  starting- 
point  of  his  wild  and  ambitious  imaginations.  It  should 
be  added  that  when  studying  astrology,  especially  in  1597, 
he  talked  with  many  astrologers,  mathematicians,  and 
prelates  who  all  held  that  the  end  of  the  world  was 
approaching.  Excited  by  their  arguments,  he  gave  him- 
self to  the  study  of  prophecy,  seeking  it  in  the  Bible,  the 
Fathers,  and  the  poets  of  antiquity  ;  and  in  the  symbol  of 

Campanella  e  la  sua  congiura,  Naples,  1882;  Fra  T.  C.  nei  Castelli  di 
Napoli,  &c.,  vol.  ii.  ;  Fra  T.  Pignatelli  e  la  sua  congiura,  1887  ;  Berti, 
Lettere  inedite  di  T.  Campanella,  1878 ;  Idem,  Nuovi  documenti  su 
Campanella,  1881. 


RELIGIOUS  LUNATICS  AND  MATTOIDS.  287 

the  white  horses  and  the  white-robed  elders  of  the  New 
Zion  he  saw  the  brothers  of  Saint  Dominic.  Convinced 
that  the  prediction  of  the  Holy  Republic  referred  to  the 
Dominicans,  he  retired  to  Stilo.  All  the  political  and 
social  disorders  of  his  time  were  for  Campanella  manifest 
signs  ;  and  to  these  were  added  earthquakes,  famines, 
floods,  and  comets.  Evidently  the  prophecies  were  being 
fulfilled.  No  doubt  1600  was  the  fatal  year  which  would 
indicate  the  beginning  of  great  changes  and  revolutions. 
Campanella  spread  the  prophecies,  and  prepared  the 
ground  for  the  Holy  Republic.  There  can  be  no  ques- 
tion that  these  predictions  and  preparations  led  to  a  real 
rebellion,  because  they  fitted  in  with  the  miserable  con- 
dition of  Calabria.  Such  prophecies  pleased  many  who 
cherished  desires  of  revenge.  In  the  ears  of  these 
exasperated  people  Campanula's  words  sounded  like  a 
call  to  rebellion.  Maurizio  di  Rinaldi,  the  leader  of  a 
band,  so  understood  it,  as  did  other  bandits.  Rinaldi 
cared  little  for  religious  reforms,  and  knew  nothing  of 
what  the  seven  seals  of  the  Apocalypse  signified.  He 
understood,  however,  that  his  arm  was  needed,  and  per- 
suaded that  it  was  not  possible  to  fight  against  Spain 
with  writings  and  words  and  the  weapons  of  brigands,  he 
sought  the  aid  of  the  Turks.  He  was  the  real  rebel,  the 
real  martyr  in  the  liberation  of  Calabria  from  subjection  to 
Spain.  Of  all  the  chief  persons  concerned  in  this  dis- 
turbance he  alone  confessed  himself  a  rebel ;  the  others 
either  denied  the  existence  of  a  rebellion  or  professed 
their  innocence.  Seeing  the  old  world  doubled  by  the 
discovery  of  new  lands,  and  Europe  turned  upside  down 
by  wars,  Campanella  thought  of  a  universal  monarchy 
with  the  Pope  and  himself  for  king  and  pastor. 

Turn  to  his  Utopia  of  the  City  of  the  Sun,  in  which  all 
are  educated  in  common.  All  the  Solarians  call  each 
other  brother  ;  they  are  all  sons  of  the  great  Father  adored 
on  the  summit  of  the  mountain  on  which  the  city  is 
built.  There  is  not,  and  cannot  be,  among  them  any  sel- 
fishness. All  consider  the  common  good,  and,  under  the 
guidance  of  the  priest  and  head,  live  happily  together  ; 
since  all  are  instructed,  and  knowledge  is  the  foundation 
of  every  honour,  there  is  a  noble  strife  of  intelligence. 


28$  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

The  Solarian  citizens  have  made  wonderful  progress  itl 
the  arts  and  sciences.  They  have  ships  that  plough  the 
seas  without  sails  and  without  oars  ;  and  cars  that  are 
propelled  by  the  force  of  the  wind  ;  they  have  discovered 
how  to  fly,  and  they  are  inventing  instruments  which  will 
reveal  new  stars.  They  know  that  the  world  is  a  great 
animal  in  whose  body  we  live,  that  the  sea  is  produced 
by  the  sweat  of  the  earth,  and  that  all  the  stars  move. 
They  practise  perpetual  adoration,  offer  up  bloodless 
sacrifices,  and  reverence,  but  do  not  worship,  the  sun  and 
the  stars. 

All  this  simplicity,  happiness,  and  prosperity  are  due  in 
the  first  place  to  education  and  to  communism,  and  in  the 
second  place  to  the  magistrates  who  are  all  priests.  The 
spiritual  and  temporal  head  is  Hoch,  who  is  assisted  by 
Pom,  Sim,  and  Mor.  Pom  has  charge  of  all  that  refers 
to  war  ;  Sim  presides  over  the  arts,  industries,  and 
instruction  ;  Mor  directs  human  generation  and  the 
education  of  children  ;  he  regulates  the  sexual  relationships 
in  order  to  produce  healthy  and  robust  offspring,  only 
permitting  the  strong  to  procreate  ;  the  rest  are  allowed 
to  sacrifice  to  the  terrestrial  Venus  after  fecundation  has 
been  ascertained. 

The  City  of  the  Sun  is  not  in  favour  of  war,  but  does 
not  refuse  to  fight  ;  in  battle  her  citizens  are  invincible, 
because  they  fight  in  defence  of  their  country,  natural 
law,  justice,  and  religion. 

The  felicity  of  the  City  of  the  Sun  rested,  therefore,  on 
a  community  of  goods,  of  women,  of  pleasures,  and  of 
knowledge  ;  on  wholesome  generation,  on  sacerdotal 
government,  and  on  simplicity  in  religion.  Campanella 
aimed  at  founding  in  Calabria  a  fac-simile  of  the  City  of 
the  Sun.  The  whole  of  his  trial  for  heresy  showed  that 
he  wished  to  reform  religion  and  to  render  it  more  in 
harmony  with  human  nature  ;  by  his  own  confession  it  is 
proved  that  he  wished  to  establish  a  sacerdotal  govern- 
ment. Nauder  affirms,  in  fact,  that  he  aimed  at  becoming 
King  of  Calabria  in  order  to  extend  his  authority  thence 
over  the  whole  world.  Campanella's  mind  was  in  such  a 
condition  that  it  may  be  held,  with  Amabile,  that  he  saw 
the  possibility  of  founding  a  republic  similar  to  that 


RELIGIOUS  LUNATICS  AND  MATTOIDS.  289 

described  in  the  City  of  the  Sun.  Naturally  the  head  of 
this  little  Holy  Republic,  the  Hoch  of  the  City  of  the 
Sun,  would  be  a  philosopher,  and,  therefore,  himself. 
All  nations,  observing  the  felicity  enjoyed  by  the  citizens 
of  the  New  Sion,  would  accept  the  new  law,  and  thus 
Campanella  would  become  the  monarch  and  guide  of  the 
world. 

Only  a  lunatic  would  consider  it  possible  to  undertake 
the  reorganization  of  society  at  a  stroke,  ab  imis  funda- 
mentis,  changing  the  form  of  government,  and  overturn- 
ing the  most  ancient  customs,  institutions,  laws,  and 
traditions.  But  the  madness  diminishes  if  this  reorgani- 
zation is  the  consequence  of  a  profound  and  general 
upheaval,  like  that  proclaimed  by  the  prophets  for  the 
end  of  the  world.  In  his  writings,  certainly,  we  find 
puerilities  which  go  to  prove  his  insanity  ;  if  he  had  been 
an  ordinary  man  they  would  not  be  remarkable  ;  they 
would  harmonize  with  the  common  prejudices  of  the  day  ; 
but  he  had  broken  with  theology,  and  had  undertaken  to 
examine  its  ratio  ;  he  had  caught  a  glimpse  of  the  modern 
state,  and  he  proposed  reforms  which  for  his  time  were 
most  liberal  and  remarkable.  Thus  he  writes  :  "  Law  is 
the  consent  of  all,  written  and  promulgated  for  the 
common  good  "  (A.  poL,  32).  "  The  laws  should  estab- 
lish equality  "  (Ibid.  40).  "  The  laws  should  be  such  that 
the  people  can  obey  them  with  love  and  fear  "  (Mon.  di 
Spagna,  c.  xi.).  "  Heavy  taxes  should  be  levied  on  articles 
that  are  not  necessary  and  are  of  luxury,  and  light  ones 
on  necessaries  "  (B.  ii.  doc.  197,  p.  91).  "  There  should 
be  unity  of  government  "  (Mon.  di  Spagna,  c.  xii.).  "The 
barons  should  be  deprived  of  the  jus  carcerandi"  (Ibid. 
c.  xiv.).  "They  should  be  deprived  of  fortresses  "  (Ibid.) ; 
a  national  army  should  be  established  ;  education  should 
be  free  (Ibid.)  ;  medical  aid  should  be  gratuitous  (B.  ii. 
doc.  97,  p.  82).  In  fact,  Campanella  proposed  what 
Sully,  Richelieu,  Colbert,  and  Louis  XIV.  did  for  the 
French  nation. 

Now  when  a  man  who  reasons  so  profoundly  fails  to  see 
the  absurdity  and  impossibility  of  becoming,  with  a  few 
followers  in  a  remote  country-side,  the  monarch  and 
reformer  of  the  whole  world,  he  can  only  be  insane.  And 

20 


290  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

so  he  was  judged  by  the  more  sagacious  among  his 
contemporaries.  Thus  Father  Giacinto,  the  confidant  of 
Richelieu,  wrote  :  "  No  one  believes  so  easily  any  story 
that  is  told  him,  and  examines  things  that  he  believes  to 
be  de  facto  with  less  judgment."  And  again  :  "  I  shall 
always  hold  him  for  a  man  wilder  than  a  fly,  and  less 
sensible  in  worldly  affairs  than  a  child."  Peirescio  called 
him  u  bon  hommc" 

Following  human  intellect,  Campanella  reached  Pan- 
theism, the  soul  of  things,  the  transformation  of  animate 
and  inanimate  beings,  veneration  of  the  sun,  that  "  bene- 
ficent star,  living  temple,  statue  and  venerable  face  of  the 
true  God."  Stricken  by  adversity,  not  assisted  by  his  god, 
he  returned  to  Catholicism,  to  the  angels  and  miracles,  to 
the  future  life  which  promises  enjoyments  which  cannot 
be  had  on  earth,  and  the  restoration  of  the  beloved  lost. 

Like  all  madmen,  incapable  of  moderation  he  became 
furiously  intolerant  ;  hence  his  ferocious  suggestions  for 
oppressing  the  Protestants,  and  the  title  which  he  took 
of  emissary  of  Christ  or  of  the  Most  High.  He  imagined 
that  his  works  would  serve  to  confute  the  Protestants, 
wrote  and  disputed  against  Lutherans  and  Calvinists, 
wished  to  found  colleges  of  priests  for  the  diffusion  of 
Catholicism,  gave  advice  to  those  who  would  none  of  it 
for  overthrowing  heresy  and  propagating  the  true  faith. 
In  short,  he  ended  as  he  had  begun,  in  a  delirious  dream 
of  religious  ambition,  which  only  varied  in  subject,  going 
from  one  pole  to  the  opposite. 

But,  I  repeat,  this  phenomenon  of  contradiction,  and 
of  the  passage  from  opposite  excesses  of  feeling,  is  one  of 
the  most  marked  characters  of  monomania,  and  especially 
of  religious  monomania.  I  remember  nuns  of  whom  I 
had  charge  at  the  asylum  at  Pesaro,  who  on  first  becom- 
ing insane  were  violent  and  blasphemous,  and  later  on  in 
the  course  of  their  madness,  apostles  of  Christianity  ;  and 
thus  it  is  easy  to  see  that  the  miserly  may,  under  the 
influence  of  insanity,  develop  extraordinary  prodigality. 
We  have  seen  Lazzaretti,  a  drunkard  and  a  blasphemer, 
become  austere  and  pious  under  the  influence  of  insanity  ; 
and  then  from  being  a  fanatical  Papist  becoming  and 
dying  an  Anti-Papist,  when  he  found  himself  repulsed  by 


RELIGIOUS  LUNATICS  AND  MATTOIDS.  291 

the  Vatican.  Recently  De  Nino,  in  his  book  //  Messia 
degli  Abruzzt,  has  described  a  certain  priest,  become  a 
Messiah,  who,  while  insane,  attempted  reforms,  at  all 
events  in  rites,  and  who,  during  the  last  months  of  his 
life,  like  Campanella,  starved  himself  in  penitence  for  his 
revolutionary  sins,  and  in  spite  of  fasts  and  penances 
believed  that  he  was  damned. 

San  Juan  de  Dtos. — Juan  Ciudad  was  born  on  March 
8,  1495,  in  the  town  of  Montemor-o-Novo,  in  Portugal.1 
He  seems  to  have  been  tormented  by  the  spirit  of  adven- 
ture from  his  childhood,  as  he  left  his  father's  house  at 
the  age  of  eight.  A  priest  took  him  as  far  as  Oropesa, 
where  he  entered  the  service  of  a  Frenchman  in  the  capa- 
city of  shepherd.  After  some  years  he  became  tired  of 
this  work,  and,  being  tall  and  strong,  enlisted  as  a  soldier. 

The  life  he  led  in  the  army  cannot  be  described  ;  the 
officers  set  the  example,  and  plundered  as  greedily  as  the 
privates.  One  of  the  former  entrusted  his  share  of 
the  booty  to  Juan,  who  either  lost  or  stole  it.  He  was 
condemned  to  death,  and  was  just  going  to  be  hanged, 
when  a  superior  officer,  passing  by,  granted  him  his  life, 
but  dismissed  him  from  the  army.  He  then  returned  to 
Oropesa,  and  resumed  his  former  position.  Towards 
1528,  he  enlisted  a  second  time,  and  marched  under  the 
orders  of  the  Count  of  Oropesa.  When  the  war  was 
over,  he  returned  to  Montemor-o-Novo,  to  see  his  parents  ; 
but  he  lost  his  memory,  and  forgot  his  father's  name.  He 
then  left  the  place,  and  went  to  Ayamonte  in  Andalusia, 
where  he  became  a  shepherd.  It  was  there  that  he  believed 
himself  to  have  been  called,  and,  later  on,  to  have  had  a 
dream  in  which  he  dedicated  himself  to  God  and  to  the 
poor. 

Those  were  the  days  when  the  Barbary  pirates  nourished, 
making  descents  on  ill-defended  countries,  and  kidnapping 
their  inhabitants,  whom  they  sold  at  Fez,  Algiers,  and 
Tunis.  Two  religious  orders  had  made  it  their  special 
task  to  collect  alms  for  the  ransom  of  the  Catholics  who 
were  being  sold  in  the  slave-market. 

It  seems  that  Juan  Ciudad  had  the  intention  of  conse- 

1  Abbe  Saglier,  Vie  dc  Saint  Jean  de  Dios  ;  M.  duCamp,  La  Charilt 
brat-is,  1885. 


tgt  T£E  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

crating  himself  to  this  sacred  duty.  He  embarked  for 
Ceuta,  where  he  entered  the  service  of  an  exiled  and 
ruined  Portuguese  family,  whom,  it  is  said,  he  supported 
by  his  labour  as  an  artizan.  After  a  time,  he  grew  weary 
of  this  life  ;  he  left  his  master  and  sailed  for  Gibraltar, 
where  he  established  a  small  trade  in  relics  and  other 
sacred  objects. 

The  sale  of  these  having  brought  him  some  money,  he 
left  Gibraltar  and  settled  at  Granada,  where  he  opened  a 
shop.  He  was  then  aged  43,  and  was  just  about  to  un« 
dergo  that  mental  convulsion  which  determined  his 
vocation. 

On  the  20th  of  January,  1 539,  after  hearing  a  sermon  by 
Juan  d'Avila,  he  was  seized  with  a  fit  of  frantic  devotion. 
He  confessed  his  sins  in  a  loud  voice,  rolled  in  the  dust, 
pulled  out  the  hair  of  his  head,  tore  his  clothes,  and 
rushed  through  the  streets  of  Granada,  imploring  the 
mercy  of  God,  and  followed  by  boys  shouting  after  him  as 
a  madman.  He  entered  his  library,  destroyed  all  the 
secular  books  in  his  possession,  gave  away  the  sacred  ones, 
distributed  his  furniture  and  clothes  to  any  one  who  was 
willing  to  have  them,  and  remained  in  his  shirt,  beating 
his  breast  and  calling  on  every  one  to  pray  for  him.  The 
crowd  followed  him  noisily  as  far  as  the  cathedral,  where, 
half-naked,  he  again  began  his  vociferations  and  bursts 
of  despair.  The  preacher,  Juan  d'Avila,  having  been 
informed  of  the  conversion  occasioned  by  his  words, 
listened  to  the  poor  man's  confession,  consoled  him,  and 
gave  him  advice,  which  does  not  appear  to  have  had  much 
effect,  since,  on  leaving  him,  Ciudad  rolled  himself  on  a 
dung-heap,  proclaiming  his  sins  in  a  loud  voice.  The 
crowd  amused  themselves  by  hissing  him,  throwing  stones 
and  mud,  and  otherwise  maltreating  him.  Some,  how- 
ever, took  pity  on  him,  and  conducted  him  to  the  place 
set  apart  for  the  insane  in  the  Royal  Hospital.  He  was 
subjected  to  the  treatment  then  in  vogue,  that  is,  he  was 
bound  and  scourged,  in  order  to  deliver  him  from  the 
evil  spirit  supposed  to  possess  him. 

This  attack  of  mania  appears  to  have  been  one  of  great 
violence.  In  general,  with  regard  to  mental  maladies, 
the  more  excessive  the  alienation,  the  more  easily  it 


RELIGIOUS  LUNATICS  AND  MATTOIDS.  293 

ceases.  It  is  said  that,  in  the  midst  of  the  blows  inflicted 
on  him,  he  took  avow  "to  receive  poor  madmen,  and 
treat  them  as  is  fitting." 

When  the  nervous  exacerbation  was  calmed,  he  em- 
ployed himself  in  attending  on  the  sick,  and,  later  on, 
obtained  his  liberty,  and  a  certificate  attesting  his  sanity. 
Having  made  a  vow  to  go  on  pilgrimage  to  the  shrine  of 
the  Virgin  of  Guadalupe,  he  started  barefoot,  without 
a  farthing,  in  the  middle  of  winter.  On  his  way  through 
the  forests  and  across  the  moors,  he  picked  up  dry  sticks 
and  made  them  into  a  faggot,  which,  when  he  reached  an 
inhabited  place,  he  gave  in  exchange  for  a  little  food  and 
a  night's  lodging. 

It  is  said  that,  when  he  reached  Guadalupe,  he  had  a 
vision  which  exercised  a  decisive  influence  on  him.  The 
Virgin  appeared  to  him,  and  gave  him  the  Child  Jesus, 
naked,  with  clothes  to  cover  him.  This  was  to  show  him 
that  he  ought  to  have  pity  on  the  weak,  shelter  the  desti- 
tute, and  clothe  the  poor — at  least  such  was  his  interpreta- 
tion. His  mission  dates  from  that  day,  and  he  executed  it 
with  so  much  the  more  zeal,  as  he  believed  it  to  have  been 
laid  upon  him  by  the  Virgin  whom  he  adored. 

Dressed  in  a  white  garment,  which  an  Hieronymite 
monk  had  given  him,  with  a  wallet  on  his  back,  and  a 
pilgrim's  staff  in  his  hand,  he  returned  to  Oropesa,  and 
went  to  lodge  in  the  poor-house. 

The  misery  of  the  inmates  so  touched  him,  that  he 
went  outside  the  city,  begged  alms  for  them,  and  gave 
them  all  that  he  received.  Later  on,  he  took  to  selling 
faggots  in  the  public  square,  gave  to  the  poor  and  sick  all 
that  he  gained,  and  slept  in  stables,  through  the  charity  of 
their  owners. 

One  day,  having  seen  a  notice  posted  up  in  the  square, 
"  House  to  let  for  the  poor,"  he  conceived  the  idea  of 
making  it  into  an  asylum.  Having  begged  money  from 
the  rich,  with  which  he  bought  mats,  blankets,  and  uten- 
sils, he  received  and  sheltered  forty-six  sick  and  crippled 
paupers.  In  order  to  maintain  them,  he  went  about  the 
streets  at  the  dinner  hour,  to  collect  from  the  rich  the 
remnants  of  their  meals,  crying,  "  Do  good,  my  brethren  ; 
it  will  return  in  blessing  to  yourselves," 


294  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

Juan  de  Dies'  example  provoked  emulation  ;  several 
men  offered  themselves  to  help  him.  He  instructed  them 
in  their  new  duties,  and  thus  became  the  head  of  a 
group,  which,  by  multiplying,  has  become  the  great  con- 
gregation now  in  existence. 

The  resources  now  put  at  his  disposal  permitted  him  to 
treat  the  sick,  "  as  is  fitting." 

It  is  worthy  of  attention  that  Juan  de  Dios  was  a  re- 
former in  the  manner  of  treating  the  sick,  only  placing 
one  patient  in  each  bed.  He  was  the  first  to  divide  the 
sick  into  classes — he  was,  in  short,  the  creator  of  the 
modern  hospital,  and  the  founder  of  casual  wards  ;  for  he 
opened,  in  connection  with  his  hospital,  a  house  where  the 
homeless  poor  and  travellers  without  money  could  "sleep. 
It  was  at  this  period  that  he  took  the  name  of  Juan  de 
Dios.  The  good  done  by  him  did  not  remain  unknown, 
and  the  name  of  Juan  de  Dios,  father  of  the  poor,  was  spread 
abroad  through  Spain.  Profiting  by  this,  he  made  a 
journey  as  far  as  Granada,  and  returned  with  abundant 
contributions. 

He  was  exhausted  by  hard  work  and  exposure  rather 
than  by  years.  He  treated  himself  with  exaggerated 
austerity — always  travelling  on  foot  without  shoes,  hat, 
or  linen — only  covered  with  a  single  grey  garment  ;  he 
fasted  with  extreme  frequency,  and  imposed  on  himself 
the  most  trying  exertions.  He  would  rush  through  a 
burning  house  to  save  the  sick,  he  often  threw  himself 
into  the  water  to  save  children  ;  he  may  be  said  to  have 
died  of  the  hardships  he  endured. 

During  his  last  days,  he  sent  for  Antonio  Martin,  his 
earliest  disciple,  and  recommended  the  work  to  his  care. 
Feeling  the  approach  of  death,  he  left  his  bed  to  pray, 
and  died  on  his  knees. 

He  was  born  on  March  8,  1495,  and  died  on  Saturday, 
March  8,  1550. 

He  had  a  splendid  funeral  ;  sick  men  touched  the  bier 
in  the  hope  of  being  healed  ;  the  sheet  which  covered  the 
corpse  was  torn  to  pieces,  and  each  rag  became  a  relic. 
He  was  canonised  on  September  21,  1630,  by  Urban 
VIII.,  and  is  now  known  as  San  Juan  de  Dios.1 

1  It  is  a  curious  point,  that  all  these  saints  (Lazzaretti,  Loyola,  &c.) 
began  by  leading  a  wild  life. 


RELIGIOUS  LUNATICS  AND  MATTOIDS.  295 

Prosper  Enfantin.  —  Prosper  Enfantin,  though  an 
engineer,  a  railway  director,  and  otherwise  connected 
with  such  rational  and  prosaic  subjects  as  mathematics, 
nevertheless,  in  1850,  believed  himself  to  be,  and  in  fact 
was,  the  head  of  a  new  religion,  a  variation  of  that  of 
Saint  Simon.  He  had  a  handsome  face  and  large  forehead 
of  an  Olympian  cast ;  he  was  very  kind-hearted,  but  pro- 
foundly convinced  of  his  own  infallibility  on  all  subjects — 
on  industrial  and  philosophical  questions — on  painting  as 
well  as  on  cooking.1  He  had  what,  in  the  peculiar  language 
of  monomaniacs,  he  called  circumferential  ideas,  in 
which  every  new  fact  found,  in  its  pre-established  place, 
the  proper  solution.  The  new  religion  was  to  equalize 
men  and  women,  and  to  make  the  language  of  finance 
and  industry  poetical.  He  himself  represented  the 
Father,  and  was  always  hoping  to  find  the  Mother, 
the  free  woman,  the  Eve, — a  woman,  reasoning  like 
man,  who,  knowing  the  needs  and  capabilities  of  women, 
would  make  the  confession  of  her  sex  without  restric- 
tion, so  as  to  furnish  the  elements  for  a  declaration  of 
the  rights  and  duties  of  women.  But  the  right  woman 
was  never  found,  for  Madame  de  Stael  and  George  Sand, 
to  whom  he  and  his  friends  first  turned,  laughed  at 
them  ;  they  sought  her  in  the  East,  at  Constantinople, 
and  found,  instead,  a  prison  !  But  for  all  that,  he  never 
lost  his  illusion.  He  used  to  say  that  only  great  men 
could  found  a  new  religion. 

His  goodness  was  exquisite  ;  he  constantly  sacrificed  him- 
self for  his  followers — his  sons,  as  he  called  them.  These 
wore  at  one  time,  like  certain  monomaniacs,  a  symboli- 
cal uniform — white  trousers  to  represent  love,  red  waist- 
coat for  ivork,  and  blue  coat  ior  faith.  This  signified  that 
his  religion  was  founded  on  love,  strengthened  the  heart 
with  work,  and  was  wholly  encompassed  by  faith.  Every 
one  was  to  have  his  name  written  on  his  shirt-front,  and 
to  wear,  in  addition,  a  collar  adorned  with  triangles, 
and  a  semi-circle  which  was  to  become  a  circle  as  soon  as 
the  Mother,  the  Eve  aforesaid,  had  been  found. 

These  are  the  symbols  usual  with  the  monomaniac  and 
the  mattoid. 

This   is   seen   in   their   programmes,   in    which    they 


296  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

announced — in  type  of  various  sizes — that :  u  Man  recalls 
the  Past,  Woman  represents  the  Future, — the  two  united 
see  the  present."  Yet,  in  spite  of  all  this,  he  foresaw — 
and  even  tried  to  undertake — the  Suez  Canal,  and  counted 
among  his  followers  such  men  as  Chevalier,  Lambert,  and 
Jourdan.1 

Lazzaretti. — An  example  the  more  curious  as  well  as 
authentic,  as  it  has  manifested  itself  in  recent  years,  under 
the  eyes  of  all,  and  has  arrived  at  the  dignity  of  an 
historic  event,  is  the  case  of  David  Lazzaretti.2 


This  man  was  born  at  Arcidosso,  in  1 834.  His  father, 
a  carter,  appears  to  have  been  given  to  drink,  but  was  of 
great  strength.  He  had  some  relatives  who  were  suicidal, 
and  others  insane  ;  one,  in  particular,  died  a  religious 
maniac,  and  believed  himself  to  be  the  Eternal  Father. 
Lazzaretti's  six  brothers  were  all  strong  men,  of  gigantic 
stature,  ranging  from  1*90  to  1*95  m.  in  height  (which, 

1  Maxima  du  Camp,  Souvenirs  Litttraires,  1882  (2nd  ed.) 

2  See  the  paper  on  David  Lazzaretti,  by  Nocito  and  Lombroso,  in 
the    Archivio    di    Psichiatria,    1881,    vol.    i.    fasc.   ii.   iii.  ;     Verga, 
Lazzaretti  e  la  pazzia  sensoria,   Milan,  1880;  Caravaggio,  Inchiesta  e 
Relazione  su  Arcidosso,  1878,  Gazzetta  Ufficiale,  for  October  I,  No.  321. 


RELIGIOUS  LUNATICS  AND  MATTOIDS.  297 

however,  is  not  uncommon  in  that  part  of  the  country), 
of  quick  wits  and  tenacious  memory. 

David  was  distinguished  from  the  rest  by  his  superior 
stature,  by  the  distinction  and  regularity  of  his  features,  by 
greater  intelligence,  by  the  large  size  of  his  head,  which 
was  dolichocephalic  in  form,  and  by  his  eyes,  which 
some  found  fascinating,  though  to  many  (says  the  advocate 
Pugno)  they  seemed  to  have  the  character  of  possession 
and  of  insanity.  It  is  asserted  that  he  was  hypospadic  and 
perhaps  impotent  in  his  youth — anomalies  of  no  slight 
importance,  if  we  remember  that  Morel  and,  especially, 
Legrand  du  Saulle l  have  often  discovered  them  in 
hereditary  madmen. 

Even  from  his  childhood,  he  showed  those  contradic- 
tions, those  tendencies  to  extremes  in  character,  which 
are  frequent  precursors  of  insanity.  Thus,  when  a  boy 
he  wished  to  become  a  monk  ;  later  on,  after  he  had 
taken  to  his  father's  trade,  he  began  to  lead  an  irregular 
life,  and  gave  himself  up  to  alcoholic  intemperance.  In 
the  meantime,  however,  he  cultivated  his  mind  by  a 
course  of  reading  which  was  singular  for  a  man  in  his 
position,  including  Dante  and  Tasso  ;  and  at  fifteen  he 
was  called  "  Thousand  Ideas  "  from  the  strange  songs  he 
invented,2  though  he  could  never  succeed  in  learning 
the  rules  of  grammar.  He  was  quarrelsome,  used  the 
foulest  language,  and  was  dreaded  by  all,  so  much  so  that, 
one  day,  on  the  occasion  of  a  festival,  unarmed  and 
followed  only  by  his  brothers,  he  put  to  flight  the 
entire  population  of  Castel  del  Piano.  Yet  he  was  easily 
excited  by  a  speech,  a  poem,  a  sermon,  a  play — any- 
thing  that  appeared  noble  and  great.  He  had  an  ex- 
treme  veneration  for  Christ  and  Mahomet,  whom  he 
used  to  call  the  two  greatest  men  that  had  ever  appeared 
in  the  world. 

According  to  his  own  confessions,  he  had,  at  the  age 
of  fourteen,  various  hallucinations  of  the  same  kind  as 
those  which  proved  so  fatal  to  him  in  1878.  It  is  certain, 
besides,  that,  at  one  time  in  his  youth,  he  had  a  strong 
sympathy  for  a  Jewess  of  Pittigliano,  awakened  by  the 

1  Signes  physiques  des  manies  raisonnantes,  1876, 
*  Verga,  Lazzaretti,  i88q. 


298  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

eloquence  with  which  she  defended  her  religion.  Yet  at 
that  time  he  was  accustomed  to  say  that  there  were  three 
things  he  abhorred — women,  churches,  and  dancing. 

In  1859,  at  twenty-five,  he  enlisted  as  a  volunteer  in  the 
cavalry  ;  and  in  1860,  he  took  part  in  Cialdini's  campaign, 
but  rather  as  an  officer's  servant  than  as  a  soldier.  Before 
starting,  he  wrote  a  patriotic  hymn,  which  was  sent  to 
BrofTerio,  and  surprised  him  by  the  novelty  of  its  thoughts 
and  the  beauty  of  some  of  the  verses,  contrasting  strangely 
with  the  roughness  of  the  phraseology,  and  the  numerous 
grammatical  errors. 

After  this,  he  again  returned  to  his  trade  as  a  carter, 
and  at  the  same  time  to  his  habits  of  debauchery  and 
foul  language.  He  also  rejoined  his  wife,  whom  he  had 
married  three  years  previously,  and  for  whom  he  felt  a 
poetic  affection  which  he  carried  so  far  as  to  write  love- 
songs  to  her.  Here,  again,  his  ambitious  ideas  reappeared, 
and  induced  him  anew,  though  so  uncultivated,  to  seek 
fame  through  his  verses  and  tragedies,  which  read  like 
burlesques. 

Gradually,  his  fantastic  delusions  took  another  direction. 
In  1867,  at  thirty-three,  he  had — whether  as  an  effect  |of 
drink,  or  of  political  excitement — a  return  of  the  religious 
hallucinations  of  1848,  in  a  more  marked  form  than 
previously.  One  day  he  disappeared,  in  consequence 
of  a  vision  of  the  Madonna,  who  had  commanded  him  to 
go  to  Rome,  and  remind  the  Pope  (who  at  first  refused 
to  receive  him,  but  afterwards  treated  him  with  courtesy, 
though,  it  is  said,  not  without  advising  him  to  try  the 
remedy  of  a  good  shower-bath)  of  his  divine  mission. 
He  then  went  to  the  hermitage  of  Montorio  Romano,  in 
the  Sabine  mountains,  inhabited  by  a  Prussian  monk 
named  Ignazio  Micus.  The  latter  kept  him  with  him 
for  three  months  in  the  "Grotto  of  the  Blessed  Amadeus," 
directing  him  in  his  theological  studies. 

It  is  very  probable — though  on  this  point  we  can  only 
conjecture,  as  all  direct  evidence  is  wanting — that  this 
monk  assisted  him  to  make  the  tattoo-marks  on  his  fore- 
head, which  he  claimed  to  have  received  from  the  hand  of 
St.  Peter,  and  which  he  hid  under  a  lock  of  hair  from  the 
gaze  of  the  profane,  showing  them  only  to  true  believers. 


RELIGIOUS  LUNATICS  AND  MATTOIDS.  299 

This  tattooing,  according  to  the  testimony  of  medical 
men,  consists  of  an  irregular  parallelogram,  on  the  upper 
side  of  which  are  thirteen  dots,  disposed  in  the  form  of 
a  cross.  To  this  mark,  and  to  two  others  which  he 


afterwards  produced  on  himself,  on  the  deltoid  muscle 
and  the  inside  of  the  leg,  he  attributed — through  a 
tendency  common  among  the  insane — a  strange  and 
mysterious  significance,  as  seals  of  a  special  covenant  with 
God. 

From  that  moment  a  complete  change  took  place  in 
him,  such  as  is  often  observed  in  the  insane.1  From 
being  quarrelsome,  blasphemous,  and  intemperate,  he 
became  tractable,  gentle,  and  abstemious  to  the  point  of 
living  on  bread  and  water  in  Sabina,  and,  in  the  tempora 
on  the  mountains,  on  herbs  with  salt  and  vinegar.  At 
other  times  he  had  no  other  food  but  polenta,  or  soupc- 
maigre,  or  bread  with  onions  or  garlic.  On  the  island 
of  Monte  Cristo,  in  1870,  he  lived  for  over  a  month  on 
six  loaves,  garnished  with  a  few  herbs  ; 2  and  in  the 
French  monastery,  he  got  through  several  days  on  two 
potatoes  a  day.  What  must  have  appeared  still  more 
strange,  and  surprised  even  cultured  minds,  was  the  fact 
that  the  chaotic  and  burlesque  writer  became  sometimes 
elegant,  always  effective — full  of  vigorous  images  supplied 
by  a  piety  comparable  alone  to  that  of  the  early  Christians. 

This,  in  fact,  struck  the  clergy  of  the  district,  who, 

1  At  Pesaro  I  had  under  my  care  several  nuns  from  Roman  convents, 
whose  language  I  never  heard  surpassed  in  obscene  blasphemy.    I  have 
also  attended  exceedingly  devout  Jews,  whose  first  symptom  was  the 
wish  to  be  baptised,  and  who,  immediately  after  their  recovery,  became 
more  orthodox  than  before. 

2  Deposition  of  the  witness  Vichi. 


300  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

rightly  seeing  in  him  a  repetition  of  the  ancient  prophets, 
took  him  seriously,  all  the  more  that,  according  to  their 
usual  custom,  they  perceived  the  means  of  making  a 
profit  out  of  him  and  getting  a  church  rebuilt. 

The  people,  already  justly  astonished  at  his  changed 
ways  of  life,  no  less  than  by  his  tattooings,  his  inspired 
speech,  his  long  neglected  beard  and  grave  bearing, 
rushed  in  masses  to  hear  him,  encouraged  by  the  priests. 

A  procession  was  then  organized,  in  which  Lazzaretti, 
accompanied  by  priests  and  by  some  of  the  most  in- 
fluential among  the  laity,  marched  to  Arcidosso,  RoccaU 
begna,  Castel  del  Piano,  Pian  Castagnaio,  Cinigiano,  and 
Santafiora.  In  all  these  places  he  was  received  with 
rejoicings  by  the  people  on  their  knees  ;  and  the  parish 
priests  kissed  his  face  and  his  hands  and  even  his  feet. 
The  construction  of  the  church  was  begun,  and  contribu- 
tions to  the  building  fund  flowed  in  abundantly.  But 
though  numerous,  the  amounts  were  small,  the  moun- 
taineers being  unable  to  give  much.  The  notion  was 
then  suggested  of  employing  the  labour  of  their  arms. 

The  site  of  the  church  had  been  selected  not  far  from 
Arcidosso — about  a  hundred  paces  from  the  village,  at 
the  spot  called  La  Croce  dei  Canzacchi,  where,  by  a 
strange  fatality,  he  was  to  receive  his  death-shot. 

The  faithful  assembled  by  thousands  to  begin  the 
building.  Men,  women  and  children  were  employed  in 
carrying  fascines,  beams  of  wood,  and  stones.  But,  un- 
fortunately, architecture,  like  grammar,  has  rules  ;  and  in 
carrying  them  out  prophetic  inspiration  is  of  little  use 
without  training.  Thus,  as  Lazzaretti's  verses  remained 
lame,  so  the  materials  collected  with  so  much  labour 
remained  a  useless  heap,  like  the  tower  which  was  to  reach 
to  heaven,  and  never  became  more  than  a  pile  of  stones. 

In  January,  1870,  he  founded  the  "  Society  of  the  Holy 
League,"  a  mutual  assistance  society  which  he  called  the 
symbol  of  charity.  In  March  of  the  same  year,  after 
having  assembled  his  followers  at  a  Last  Supper,  he  set 
out,  accompanied  by  Rafifaello  and  Giuseppe  Vicni,  for 
the  island  of  Monte  Cristo,  where  he  remained  for  some 
months,  writing  epistles,  prophecies,  and  sermons.  He 
then  returned  to  Montelabro,  where  he  wrote  down  the 


RELIGIOUS  LUNATICS  AND  MATTOIDS.  301 

visions  or  prophetic  inspirations  which  he  had,  and  where 
he  was  arrested  for  sedition  (April  27th).  After  his  libera- 
tion,1  he  founded  a  society  to  which  he  gave  the  name 
of  "  Christian  Families."  This  was  considered,  very 
erroneously,  as  a  proof  of  continued  fraud  ;  and  he  was 
arrested,  but  discharged,  through  the  efforts  of  the  advo- 
cate Salvi,  after  seven  months'  imprisonment. 

In  1873,  Lazzaretti,  in  obedience  to  other  divine  com- 
mands, started  on  a  journey,  passing  through  Rome, 
Naples,  and  Turin,  whence  he  proceeded  to  the  Chartreuse 
at  Grenoble.  Here  he  wrote  the  Rules  and  Discipline  of 
the  Order  of  Penitent  Hermits,  invented  a  system  of 
cipher,  with  a  numerical  alphabet,  and  dictated  the  "  Book 
of  the  Heavenly  Flowers,"  in  which  it  is  written  that 
"  The  great  man  shall  descend  from  the  mountains, 
followed  by  a  little  band  of  mountain  burghers."  To 
which  are  added  the  visions,  dreams,  and  divine  commands 
which  he  believed  himself  to  have  received  in  that  place. 

On  his  return  to  Montelabro  he  found  an  immense 
crowd,  attracted  both  by  devotion  and  curiosity,  encamped 
on  the  summit  of  the  mountain,  to  whom  he  addressed  a 
sermon  on  the  text,  ( '  God  sees  us,  judges  us,  condemns 
us."  For  this  he  was  denounced  to  the  authorities  as 
tending  to  overthrow  the  government  and  promote  civil 
war. 

In  the  night  of  Nov.  19,  1874,  ne  was  arrested  a  second 
time,  and  brought  before  the  court  at  Rieti.  This  time 
the  authorities  were  desirous  of  obtaining  the  opinion  of 
non-specialist  experts,  who,  with  inexplicable  want  of 
perception,  pronounced  him  to  be  of  sound  mind  and  a 
cunning  knave.2  Thus,  in  spite  of  his  strange  publica- 
tions and  his  tattoo  marks,  he  was  condemned  to  fifteen 
months'  imprisonment,  and  one  year  of  police  supervision, 
for  fraud  and  vagabondage. 

The  sentence,  however,  was  referred  to  the  Court  of 

1  His   first   arrest   took   place   in   the   island   of  Monte  Cristo,  for 
preaching  sedition  among  the  fishermen.     Thence,  he  was  transferred 
to  Orbetello  (see  Verga,  Sti  Lazzaretti  e  lafollia  sensoria,  1880). 

2  Nocito  and  Lombroso,  Davide  Lazzaretti  (Archivio  di  Psichiatria, 
1880,  ii.  Turin).     In  this  article  are  detailed  the  causes  of  the  error  into 
which  the  experts  fell — an  error,  which  cost  the  country  an  enormous 
expenditure  and  several  human  lives. 


302  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

Appeal  at  Perugia  ;  and  on  the  2nd  of  August,  1875,  he 
was  allowed  to  return  to  Montelabro,  where  he  recon- 
stituted his  society,  and  placed  the  priest  Imperiuzzi  at 
the  head  of  it.  His  health  had  suffered  in  prison,  and  for 
this  reason — perhaps,  also,  to  avoid  new  arrests,  and  to 
enjoy  the  glory  of  easy  martyrdom  among  the  Legitimist 
fanatics — he  went  to  France  in  October.  Being  mysteri- 
ously carried,  as  he  expresses  it,  by  the  Divine  power, 
into  the  environs  of  a  town  in  Burgundy,  he  produced  a 
book,  which  with  good  reason  he  calls  "  mysterious," 
entitled  "  My  Wrestling  with  God,"  or  "  The  Book  of  the 
Seven  Seals,  with  the  description  and  nature  of  the  Seven 
Eternal  Cities " — a  mixture  of  Genesis  and  Revelation, 
with  sentences  and  rhapsodies  entirely  of  an  insane 
character.  He  also  wrote  a  manifesto  addressed  to  all  the 
princes  of  Christendom,  in  which  he  calls  himself  the 
great  Monarch,  and  invites  them  to  make  alliance  with 
him,  for,  u  at  an  unexpected  time  the  end  of  the  world 
shall  be  manifested  to  the  Latin  nation  in  a  way  quite 
opposed  to  human  pride."  In  the  same  document  he 
declares  himself  Leader,  Master,  Judge,  and  Prince  over 
all  the  potentates  of  earth.  These  writings  were  copied 
for  him  by  the  priest  Imperiuzzi,  who  corrected  the  most 
conspicuous  mistakes  ;  and  many  of  them  attained  not 
only  the  undeserved  honour  of  appearing  in  print,  but 
also  that  of  being  translated  into  French,  by  the  aid  of 
M.  L£on  du  Vachat,  and  various  Italian  and  foreign 
reactionaries,  who  had  taken  Lazzaretti  seriously. 

However,  a  short  time  after,  he  was  so  far  carried  away 
by  delirium  as  to  begin  inveighing  against  the  corruptions 
of  the  priesthood  and  the  practice  of  auricular  confession, 
for  which  he  wished  to  substitute  a  public  one.  There- 
upon the  Holy  See  declared  his  doctrines  false  and  his 
writings  subversive,  and  the  same  man  who  had  formerly 
written  a  work x  in  favour  of  the  Pope,  now  wrote,  and 
despatched  on  May  14,  1878,  an  exhortation  addressed  to 
his  brethren  of  the  Order  of  Hermits,  against  Papal  idolatry, 
and  the  beast  of  the  seven  heads.  After  all  this,  with  the 
usual  contradictoriness  of  the  insane,  he  went  to  Rome  to 

1  Lo  Statute  Civile  del  Regno  Pontijlcio  in  Italia. 


RELIGIOUS  LUNATICS  AND  MATT01DS.  303 

lay  aside  his  symbolic  seal  and  his  rod,  and  retracted  before 
the  Holy  Office  ;  yet,  afterwards,  returning  to  Montelabro, 
he  continued  to  deliver  addresses  against  the  Catholic 
Church,  which,  he  said,  had  become  a  shopkeeping 
church,  and  against  the  priests,  true  atheists  in  prac- 
tice, who,  not  believing  themselves,  profit  by  the  belief  of 
others.  Preaching  the  Holy  Reformation,  and  declaring 
himself  the  Man  of  Mystery,  the  New  Christ,  Leader  and 
Avenger,  he  exhorted  believers  to  separate  themselves 
from  the  world,  and  prove  their  separation  by  abstain- 
ing from  food  and  from  sexual  intercourse,  even  in  the 
case  of  married  persons,  who,  however,  if  they  indulged, 
were  required  to  pray  for  at  least  two  hours,  naked,  out- 
side their  bed,  before  the  act.  He  issued  paper  money  for 
considerable  sums,  in  proportion  to  the  means  at  the 
disposal  of  the  community,  i.e.,  up  to  104,000  francs  ;  but 
it  should  be  noted  that  this  was  absolutely  useless,  being 
kept  shut  up  in  a  closed  vase.  This  idea  savours  unmis- 
takably of  insanity. 

After  announcing  a  great  miracle,  he  caused  to  be  pre- 
pared, with  a  part  of  the  money  collected,  banners  and 
garments  for  the  members,  embroidered  with  the  animals 
which  had  appeared  to  him  in  his  hallucinations — all  of 
strange  and  grotesque  shapes.  He  had  a  richer  one  made 
for  himself,  and,  for  the  rank  and  file,  a  square  piece  of 
stuff  to  wear  on  the  breast,  which  showed  a  cross,  with 
two  C's  reversed,  0  t  C,  the  usual  emblem  of  the  associa- 
tion. 

In  August,  1878,  he  assembled  a  larger  number  than 
ever,  and,  having  prescribed  prayers  and  fasts  for  three 
days  and  three  nights,  delivered  addresses,  some  of  which 
were  public,  others  private  and  reserved  for  believers 
(who  were  divided  into  the  various  classes  of  Priest- 
Hermits,  Penitentiary  Hermits,  Penitent  Hermits,  and 
simple  associations  of  the  Holy  League  and  Christian 
Brotherhood)  and  caused  the  so-called  Confession  of 
Amendment  to  be  made  on  the  I4th,  J5th,  and  i6th 
August.  On  the  iyth,  the  great  banner  with  the  in- 
scription, "  The  Republic  is  the  Kingdom  of  God,"  was 
raised  on  the  tower.  Then,  having  assembled  all  the 
members  at  the  foot  of  a  cross,  erected  for  the  purpose, 


3<>4  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

the  Prophet  administered  the  solemn  oath  of  fidelity  and 
obedience.  At  this  point,  one  of  David's  brothers  tried 
to  persuade  him  to  renounce  his  perilous  enterprise,  but 
in  vain  ;  for,  on  the  contrary,  he  replied  to  those  who 
pointed  out  the  possibility  of  a  conflict,  a  He  would,  on 
the  following  day,  show  them  a  miracle  to  prove  that  he 
was  sent  from  God  in  the  form  of  Christ,  a  judge  and 
leader,  and  therefore  invulnerable,  and  that  every  power 
on  earth  must  yield  to  his  will  ;  a  sign  from  his  rod  of 
command  was  enough  to  annihilate  all  the  forces  of  those 
who  dared  oppose  him."  A  member  having  remarked 
on  the  opposition  of  the  government,  he  added  that 
"  he  would  ward  off  the  balls  with  his  hands,  and  render 
harmless  the  weapons  directed  against  himself  and  his 
faithful  followers  ;  and  the  Government  Carbineers  them- 
selves would  act  as  a  guard  of  honour  to  them."  More 
and  more  intoxicated  with  his  delirium,  he  wrote  in  all 
seriousness  to  the  Delegate  of  Public  Safety — to  whom 
he  had  already  shown  the  preparations,  and,  later  on, 
given  a  half-promise  to  countermand  the  procession — 
"  That  he  was  no  longer  able  to  do  so,  having  received 
superior  orders  to  the  contrary  from  God  Himself."  He 
threatened  unbelievers  with  the  Divine  wrath,  if,  through 
want  of  faith,  they  rebelled  against  his  will. 

With  such  intentions,  on  the  morning  of  August  i8th, 
he  set  out  from  Montelabro  at  the  head  of  an  immense 
crowd,  going  down  towards  Arcidosso.  He  was  dressed 
in  a  royal  cloak  of  purple  embroidered  with  gold  orna- 
ments, and  crowned  with  a  kind  of  tiara  surmounted  by 
a  crest  adorned  with  plumes  ;  and  he  held  in  his  hand  the 
staff  which  he  called  his  rod  of  command.  His  principal 
associates  were  dressed,  less  richly  than  himself,  in 
strangely-fashioned  robes  of  various  colours,  according  to 
their  position  in  the  hierarchy  of  the  Holy  League.  The 
ordinary  members  were  dressed  in  their  every-day  clothes, 
without  other  mark  of  distinction  than  the  emblematic 
breastplate  previously  described.  Seven  of  the  graduates 
of  the  Brotherhood  carried  as  many  banners  with  the 
motto,  "The  Republic  is  the  Kingdom  of  God."  They 
sang  the  Davidian  hymn,  each  stanza  of  which  ended  with 
the  refrain,  "  Eternal  is  the  Republic,"  &c.  It  is  needless 


RELIGIOUS  LUNATICS  AND  MATTOIDS.  305 

to  relate  what  took  place  in  those  last  hours.  The  man 
who  had  shortly  before  called  himself  the  King  of  kings, 
and  believed  himself  invulnerable,  fell,  struck  by  a  shot 
fired  by  the  orders,  perhaps  by  the  hand,  of  a  delegate 
who  had  many  a  time  been  his  guest.  It  appears  that  he 
exclaimed  as  he  fell,  under  the  influence  of  a  last  delusion, 
u  The  victory  is  ours  !  " 

It  is  certain  that  the  procession  he  had  arranged  was 
not  only  unarmed,  but  appeared  to  be  in  every  way 
calculated  to  turn  out  perfectly  harmless.  Nocito  has 
well  remarked  that  an  examination  of  the  strange  emble- 
matic properties  of  the  League  proved  beyond  all  doubt 
that  the  Government  had  mistaken  a  monomaniac  for  a 
rebel. 

He  took  his  stand  on  that  passage  of  the  Nicene  Creed, 
which  states  that  Christ  rose  from  the  dead,  and  ascended 
to  the  right  hand  of  the  Father,  "  Whence  He  shall  come 
to  judge  the  quick  and  the  dead."  Having  waited  in  vain 
for  the  appearance  of  Christ,  he  came  to  believe  that  this 
part  must  be  reserved  for  him.  Christ  had  twelve  apostles, 
therefore  he  wished  to  have  twelve.  Christ  had  included 
St.  Peter  among  the  number,  and  Lazzaretti  also  deter- 
mined to  have  a  St.  Peter,  who  was  distinguished  by  the 
badge  of  a  pair  of  crossed  keys  on  his  breast.  In  imitation 
of  the  forty  days'  fast,  Lazzaretti  fasted  in  mid-winter,  in 
the  island  of  Monte  Cristo,  and  there  received  communi- 
cations from  God  amid  the  noise  of  the  tempest,  the  crash 
of  thunders,  and  the  shaking  of  the  whole  island.  There, 
too,  he  held  a  sort  of  Last  Supper  with  his  disciples,  on 
January  15, 1870,  in  the  course  of  which  he  said,  u  Thus  it 
has  pleased  Him  who  directs  me  in  all  my  works.  Know 
that  this  supper  carries  with  it  the  greatest  of  mysteries  ; 
think  that  you  are  in  a  place  which  God  has  chosen  for 
His  dwelling — or,  to  speak  more  correctly,  for  His  adora- 
tion. Here,  here,  not  far  from  us,  on  this  soil,  shall  be 
raised  marvellous  pyramids  in  honour  of  His  most  Holy 
Name,  and  the  said  pyramids  shall  be  an  oracle  of  the 
Divine  Majesty." 

To  say  the  truth,  he  did  not,  at  this  supper,  institute 
any  sacrament.  But  that  nothing  might  be  wanting  in 
his  mad  idea  of  imitating  Jesus  Christ,  he  evolved  a 

21 


3o6  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

sacrament  of  his  own — that  of  the  Confession  of  Amend- 
ment— at  bottom  a  slight  variation  of  auricular  con- 
fession. 

All  this,  however,  was  not  sufficient.  David  Lazzaretti 
was  determined  to  have  his  transfiguration  and  his  earth- 
quake, and  promised  them  for  August  18,  1878. 

When  the  surgeon  was  hesitating  to  operate  on  one  of 
his  sons  for  calculus,  he  took  the  knife  out  of  his  hand, 
and  performed  the  operation.  The  boy  died  under  it, 
but  Lazzaretti,  quite  undisturbed,  kept  on  repeating, 
"  The  son  of  David  cannot  die." 

At  the  post-mortem  examination,  a  second  tattoo  mark 
was  discovered  on  his  body.  This  was  the  usual  cross, 
placed  inside  a  reversed  tiara.  His  brothers,  questioned 
on  the  subject,  replied  that  he  had  had  a  golden  seal 
made  in  France,  which  he  called  the  imperial  seal,  and 
that  after  immersing  it  in  boiling  oil,  he  had  branded, 
first  his  own  flesh,  and  then  that  of  his  sons  and  his  wife. 
With  this  impression  (which  is,  in  fact,  a  convincing 
proof  of  the  insensibility  to  pain  peculiar  to  the  insane, 
and  of  their  tendency  to  express  their  eccentric  ideas  by 
means  of  figures  and  symbols)  he  claimed  to  leave  a 
visible  sign  of  the  descent  which,  in  common  with  all  his 
family,  he  boasted  from  the  Emperor  Constantine. 

However,  not  satisfied  with  descent  from  a  royal  race, 
he  also  wanted  to  rule  the  world  in  his  own  person, 
though  afterwards  he  was  willing  to  content  himself 
with  the  creation  of  a  prince  whom  he  would  invest 
with  it.  In  a  manifesto  addressed  "to  all  Christian 
princes,"  he  makes  the  following  proclamation  : — 

"  I  address  myself  to  all  the  princes  of  Christendom — 
Catholics,  schismatics,  or  heretics — provided  only  they 
have  been  baptized.  It  matters  little  whether  or  not 
they  have  been  invested  with  power  or  the  govern- 
ment of  nations,  so  long  as  they  are  sprung  from  royal 
blood.  I  call  them  all,  and  the  first  one  who  shall  present 
himself  to  me,  who  is  not  under  twenty  years  of  age,  or 
over  fifty,  and  has  no  bodily  imperfection,  I  constitute 
him  king  in  my  stead." 

The  strange  thing  is,  that  he  was  taken  at  his  word  by 
the  Comte  de  Chambord,  who  sent  an  embassy  to  him. 


RELIGIOUS  LUNATICS  AND  MATTOIDS.  307 

"  I  have  need,"  he  continued,  u  of  a  Christian  alliance. 
I  am  decided,  to-day,  to  hasten  this  great  enterprise  ;  and 
if  they  (the  Christian  princes)  do  not  come  to  me  within 
the  fixed  time  of  three  years,  from  the  date  of  publication 
of  this  programme,  I  will  leave  Europe  and  go  to  the 
unbelieving  nations  to  do  with  them  what  I  have  not 
been  able  to  do  with  Christians. 

"  But  in  that  case,  woe  to  all  of  you,  princes  of  Christen- 
dom. Ye  shall  be  punished  by  the  seven  heads  of  the 
great  Antichrist,  which  shall  arise  in  the  midst  of  Europe, 
and,  above  all,  by  a  youth,  who,  after  my  departure,  shall 
advance  from  the  regions  of  the  north  towards  Central 
France,  and  shall  pretend  to  be  that  which  I  myself  am." 

From  henceforward,  there  appears  in  David  Lazzaretti, 
the  fixed  idea  of  being  the  King  of  kings  and  Prince  of 
all  princes.  To  the  head  of  the  municipal  body  of 
Arcidosso,  who  would  not  obey  him,  he  said,  "  I  am  the 
King  of  kings,  the  Monarch  of  all  monarchs,  I  bear  on 
my  shoulders  all  the  princes  of  the  world.  All  the 
carbineers  and  soldiers  there  are,  are  mine,  and  dependent 
on  me,  and  there  are  no  ropes  that  can  bind  me."  To 
Minucci,  who  was  trying  to  escape  unnoticed,  he  said, 
"  You  do  not  know  that  I  am  the  Prince  of  princes,  the 
King  of  all  the  earth,  and  if  you  try  to  run  away,  I  will 
have  you  stoned  alive." 

The  witness  G.  B.  Rossi  was  present  at  the  sermon  on 
the  iyth,  and  heard  David  say  that  he  was  the  King  of 
kings,  Christ  the  Judge  ;  that  the  Pope  was  no  longer  to 
reside  at  Rome,  but  that  he  (Lazzaretti),  on  certain  con- 
ditions, would  provide  him  with  another  residence,  and 
that  the  king  of  Italy,  too,  would  be  his  subject. 

The  witness  Mariotti  also  deposed  that  he  had  heard 
David  say  in  his  sermon,  "  that  he  had  no  fear  of  force, 
and  that,  even  with  a  million  of  soldiers,  it  was  impossible 
for  a  subject  to  arrest  his  monarch." 

Lastly — not  to  lengthen  the  series  of  proofs — the  witness 
Giuseppe  Tonini  heard  him  assert,  in  the  sermon,  that 
he  was  "  the  King  of  kings,  and  commanded  the  whole 
world  ; "  while  the  witness  Valentino  Mazzetti  says  that 
Lazzaretti  was  determined  to  hold  the  procession  of 
Aug.  1 8th  at  any  cost,  and  said,  u  Do  you  think  they  are 


3o8  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

going  to  arrest  us  ?     No,  no,  it  is  not  possible  for  subjects 
to  arrest  their  monarch." 

The  emblematic  device  he  adopted  is  worth  noting  : 
the  double  C,  to  which  he  attached  so  much  importance, 
representing  the  first  and  second  Christ,  i.e.,  Christ,  the 
son  of  St.  Joseph  of  Nazareth,  and  Christ,  the  son  of  the 
late  Joseph  Lazzaretti  of  Arcidosso.  In  truth,  it  is  not  in 
any  way  comprehensible  what  relation  Christ  could  hold 
to  Constantine,  the  latter  to  David,  and  all  these  to 
Lazzaretti.  But  the  relation  exists  precisely  in  those 
strange  contradictions  and  absurdities,  which — amid  the 
persistence  of  the  Prince  idea — constantly  come  to  the 
surface  in  monomaniacs,  so  that  some  have  wished  to 
class  their  disease  as  dementia.  In  fact,  although  they 
keep  up  the  character,  so  to  speak,  far  better  than 
general  paralytics,  and  try  to  give  a  plausible  appearance 
to  their  delirium,  yet,  oftentimes,  when  overpowered  with 
the  necessity  of  finding  a  vent  for  their  persistent  am- 
bitious idea,  they  pay  no  attention  to  the  contradictions 
they  fall  into.  A  Pavia  embroideress,  believing  herself  a 
descendant  of  the  Bonaparte  family,  modelled  her  dress, 
language,  and  aspect  with  great  success  on  those  of  the 
members  of  the  reigning  families.  Yet,  while  she  asserted 
herself  to  be  the  daughter  of  Marie  Louise,  she  at  the 
same  time  claimed  Victor  Emmanuel  as  her  father  ;  as, 
on  other  occasions,  she  tried  to  persuade  us  that  she  had 
found  the  poison  of  vipers  in  the  eggs  she  was  eating. 

Thus,  though  at  first  calling  on  the  Pope  to  liberate 
Italy,  Lazzaretti,  when  excommunicated,  or  merely  treated 
with  contempt  by  the  Pope,  wrote  against  Papal  idolatry. 
Though  he  wished  to  die  a  member  of  the  Catholic 
Apostolic  Church,  he  inveighed  against  auricular  confes- 
sion, which  is  the  very  pivot  of  Catholicism  ;  and,  while 
he  called  himself  the  son  of  David,  he  also  wished  to  be 
thought  the  son  of  Constantine. 

Passanante. — Passanante,  the  would-be  regicide  of 
Naples,  has  no  morbid  hereditary  antecedents.1  At  the 
age  of  29,  his  height  was  1*63  m.,  and  his  weight  51^-  kilo- 
grammes, z>.,  14  kilogrammes  less  than  the  Neapolitan 
average.  His  head  may  be  described  as  almost  sub- 
1  See  Lombroso,  Re  s  on  the  Passanante  Trial,  1876,  pp.  16,  17. 


RELIGIOUS  LUNATICS  AND  MATTOIDS.  309 

microcephalic — cephalic  index  82,  probable  capacity  1513. 
His  features  show  the  characteristics  of  the  Mongol 
and  the  cretin — small  and  deeply-set  eyes  abnormally  far 
apart,  zygomatic  bones  highly  developed,  beard  scanty. 
The  pupils  show  a  low  degree  of  mobility  ;  and  the 
genitals  are  atrophied — a  fact  connected  with  that  of 
almost  complete  anaphrodisia.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
liver  and  spleen  are  hypertrophied,  which  partly  explains 
the  increase  of  the  temperature  (varying  from  38°  to 
37-8°  at  the  arm-pits)  the  weakness  of  the  pulse  (88),  and 
the  very  slight  degree  of  strength,  which,  moreover,  is 
less  on  the  right  side  (.60  kil.)  than  on  the  left  (78  kil.). 
This  last  fact — which  perhaps  arises  from  an  old  burn  on 
the  hand — is  most  important,  because  rendering  the  com- 
plete carrying  out  of  the  crime  improbable,  especially 
taking  into  account  the  clumsy  weapon  with  which  he  was 
armed,  and  the  unfavourable  position  which  was  the  only 
one  he  could  take.  The  sensibility  was  perverted — the 
tactile  presenting  5  mm.  on  the  back  of  the  hand  (where 
the  normal  sensitiveness  is  from  16  to  20),  and  7  on  the 
forehead,  where  it  is  usually  from  20  to  22  (that  on  the 
palm  of  the  hand  was  not  registered).  On  the  contrary, 
the  sensitiveness  of  the  skin  to  puncture  was  much  weak- 
ened. In  prison  he  had  attacks  of  delirium  accompanied 
by  hallucinations. 

All  these  characteristics  are  clear  indications  of  disease, 
both  in  the  abdominal  viscera,  and  in  the  nervous  centres. 
This  result  is  even  more  evident  from  the  psychological 
study  of  the  case.  A  merely  superficial  examination 
might  have  induced  the  belief  that  his  affections  and 
moral  sentiments  were  normal.  He  showed,  indeed,  a 
horror  of  crime,  lived  a  most  frugal  and  abstemious  life  ; 
and,  while  sometimes  over-religious,  sometimes  exagge- 
ratedly patriotic,  always  appeared  to  prefer  the  advantage 
of  others  to  his  own.  He  thus  presented  to  those  un- 
versed in  the  study  of  mental  pathology,  the  appearance, 
as  it  were,  of  a  martyr  to  an  idea  which  had  been 
maturing  for  years,  the  mouthpiece  and  tool  of  a  power- 
ful sect,  who  might  call  for  execration  politically,  but  as 
an  individual  commanded  respect. 

This  view,  however,  is  at  once  seen  to  be  fallacious, 


310  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

(even  leaving  aside  the  delirium,  which  might  have  been 
the  effect  of  imprisonment),  if  we  remember  that,  as  has 
already  been  said,  frugality  and  unselfishness  are  special 
characteristics  of  the  mattoid,  and,  not  seldom,  also  of 
the  insane,  some  of  whom  seem  to  have  more  affection 
for  their  country,  and  for  humanity  in  general,  than  for 
their  families  and  themselves,  and  if  we  notice  the 
indifference  or  even  pleasure  with  which,  in  his  writings, 
he  refers  to  the  murders  committed  by  his  countrymen, 
when,  "  to  the  sound  of  axes,  they  make  foreigners  give 
them  money,"  above  all,  the  enjoyment  with  which  he 
records  the  cruel  practical  joke  played  on  a  poor  man  who 
was  very  fond  of  his  cherry  tree,  by  digging  up  the  latter, 
bringing  it  back  stripped  of  its  fruit,  and  leaving  it  at  his 
front  door.  This  morbid  apathy  is  especially  revealed  in 
the  want  of  emotion  shown  after  the  crime,  in  the  face  of 
the  anger  of  the  populace  which  was  let  loose  against 
him.  Yet  even  the  greatest  fanatics  among  political 
assassins,  such  as  Orsini,  Sand,  and  Nobiling,  have  been 
overwhelmed  by  emotion  after  the  deed,  and  have  often 
attempted  suicide. 

The  true  motive  of  the  act  is  quite  sufficient  to  prove 
this  :  being  dismissed  from  his  situation  on  account  of  his 
political  vagaries,  arrested  as  a  vagabond,  and,  in  addi- 
tion, ill-used  by  the  police,  he  thought — with  a  vanity  as 
boundless  as  his  impotence  to  gratify  it,  or  even  to  live — 
of  imitating  the  heroes  he  had  heard  talked  of  in  the 
clubs  (and  against  whom  he  had  himself  declaimed), 
so  as  to  find  a  way  of  ending  his  life  by  the  hand  of 
another. 

"  As  I  found  myself  ill-used  by  my  employers,  and  felt 
a  horror  of  life,  I  formed  the  design  of  assassinating  the 
king,  so  as  not  to  have  to  kill  myself,"  he  said  to  the 
magistrate,  immediately  after  his  arrest.  To  the  judge 
Azzaritti,  "  I  attempted  the  king's  life  in  the  certainty 
that  I  should  be  killed."  In  fact,  two  days  previously,  he 
had  been  much  more  occupied  with  his  dismissal  from 
his  place  than  with  projects  of  regicide  ;  and  at  his  arrest 
he  did  all  he  could  to  make  his  situation  more  serious, 
reminding  the  delegate  that  he  had  forgotten  his  revo- 
lutionary card  on  which  was  written,  (i  Death  to  the 


RELIGIOUS  LUNATICS  AND  MATTOIDS.  311 

King  !  long  live  the  Republic  !  "  It  was  a  case  of  indirect 
suicide,  such  asMaudsley,  Crichton,  Esquirol,1  and  Krafft- 
Ebing  have  recorded  in  great  numbers.  These,  however, 
are  only  committed  by  the  insane,  or  by  cowardly  and 
immoral  men  ;  and  I  insist  upon  this  motive  all  the  more 
that  he  formed  at  the  same  time  the  means  of  satisfying 
that  incoherent  vanity  which  in  him  predominated  over 
the  love  of  life.  It  is  well  known  that  many  vain  suicidal 
maniacs  enjoy  the  sight  of  their  own  death  surrounded 
by  pomp,  like  the  Englishman  who  had  a  mass  composed 
and  executed  in  public,  and  shot  himself  while  the 
Requiescat  was  being  chanted. 

If,  therefore,  we  find  in  him  any  fanaticism,  it  is  not 
for  politics,  but  for  his  own  ridiculous  and  ungrammatical 
effusions.  When  he  lost  his  temper  and  shed  tears  at  the 
trial,  the  outburst  was  not  provoked  by  any  insult  to 
his  party,  but  by  a  refusal  to  permit  the  reading  of  one  of 
his  letters,  and  when  his  reputation  as  a  scullion  was 
attacked  by  the  assertion  that  he  was  continually  reading 
instead  of  washing  up  the  dishes,  which  he  flatly  denied, 
though  the  implied  proof  of  unsoundness  of  mind  would 
have  been  entirely  in  his  favour. 

His  intelligence  might  be  called  unusual  and  original 
rather  than  superior  to  the  average  ;  and  appeared  much 
more  brilliant  in  his  conversation  than  in  his  writings — 
in  which  it  is  difficult  to  find  a  vigorous  expression,  such 
as  we  so  frequently  meet  with  in  the  works  of  the  insane, 
as  distinguished  from  mattoids. 

However,  searching  here  and  there  amid  the  enormous 
mass  of  his  writings,  and  piecing  out  their  gaps,  we  meet 
with  some  few  fragments  which  are  both  original  and 
curious.  For  example,  though  grotesque  enough,  his  idea 
of  having  deputies  and  officials  chosen  by  lot,  like  soldiers 
for  the  conscription,  "  that  they  may  not  be  so  proud," 
is  not  without  originality.  Equally  striking  is  the  idea  of 
forcing  the  convicts,  who  pass  their  time  in  enforced 
idleness,  to  cultivate  waste  lands,  of  calling  out  the  young 


1  Esquirol  mentions  a  madwoman  who  said  to  him,  "  I  have  not  the 
courage  to  kill  myself;  I  must  kill  some  one  else,  so  that  I  can  die." 
She  attempted  the  life  of  her  daughter. 


312     .  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

men  for  conscription  before  they  have  chosen  a  trade,  and 
of  crying  after  the  Emperor  William  who  u  wants  five 
milliards  from  France  "  :  "  He  who  sows  thorns  should 
be  made  to  walk  barefoot."  Good,  too,  in  its  way,  though 
somewhat  Turkish,  is  that  of  establishing  a  free  inn  for 
travellers  in  every  village. 

Still  more  remarkable  is  this,  which,  if  it  had  not  been 
written  some  time  previously,  might  be  taken  as  referring 
to  his  own  case  :  "  It  is  blamable  that  the  authorities 
should  exercise  severity  of  punishment  towards  a  man 
whose  only  idea  is  to  change  the  form  of  government  and 
attack  the  head  of  the  State.  The  country  is  the  mother 
of  all  without  distinction  ;  to  all,  without  distinction,  the 
law  should  be  sister  of  death,  which  has  no  respect  for  any, 
but  cuts  them  down  when  their  time  has  come." 

His  contrast  between  man  isolated  and  man  in  associa- 
tion with  his  fellows  is  worthy  of  Giusti.  ''  When  you 
see  him  alone  he  is  weak  as  a  glass  tumbler — if  you  see  a 
glass,  think  of  the  strength  of  man,  there  is  no  great  diffe- 
rence ;  but,  united,  men  become  hard  and  have  the  strength 
of  a  thousand  Samsons." 

Where  he  really  appeared  superior  to  the  average  was 
in  his  viva-voce  answers.  Thus  :  "  History  studied 
practically  among  the  people  is  more  instructive  than  the 
history  studied  in  books.  The  people  is  the  best  teacher 
of  history,"  &c.  To  justify  the  literary  pretensions 
which  seemed  so  inconsistent  with  his  position  as  a  poor 
cook,  he  replied,  "  Where  the  learned  man  goes  astray, 
the  ignorant  often  triumphs." 

When  asked  what  takes  place  in  the  conscience  when 
one  is  about  to  commit  a  bad  action,  he  replied,  "  In  us 
there  are,  as  it  were,  two  wills — one  pushing  us  on,  the 
other  holding  us  back, — and  the  one  that  proves  strongest 
determines  the  action." 

But  it  is  precisely  in  his  intermittent  flashes  of 
political  insight,  so  strange  in  his  position,  that  a  morbid 
abnormality  becomes  evident.  For  it  must  be  remarked 
that  they  constitute  rather  the  exception  than  the  rule. 
What  we  find,  as  a  rule,  is  the  commonplace  and  the 
absurd.  In  the  same  code  he  proposes  to  hang  coiners 
and  burn  thieves,  and  abolish  the  death  penalty  !  He 


RELIGIOUS  LUNATICS  AND  MATTOIDS.  313 

wishes  to  kill  the  king,  yet  in  another  article  he  demands 
for  him  a  pension  of  two-and-a-half  millions  !  x 

Guiteau. — The  same  thing  may  be  said  of  Guiteau,  who 
presented  an  enormous  number  of  degenerative  charac- 
teristics. His  handwriting  is  quite  that  of  the  mattoid  ; 
and  he  was  descended  from  a  family  which  counted 
among  its  members  many  lunatics  and  fanatics.  Advocate, 
theologian,  politician,  and  swindler,  he  had  tried  all 
trades,  and  claimed  to  have  made  a  great  discovery 
about  the  birth  of  Christ.  The  fact  is  that  he  had 
spoilt  a  great  deal  of  paper,  and  issued  one  or  two  journals 
and  ridiculous  works  on  The  Existence  of  Hell  and  on 
Truth  which  he  believed  to  be  written  under  Divine  dic- 
tation. He  thought  that  God  would  pay  his  debts  as 
a  reward  for  his  eccentric  preachings  ;  it  was  in  obedience 
to  a  Divine  command  that  he  killed  Garfield — yet  it  was 
only  done  in  revenge  for  his  failure  to  appoint  him  U.S. 
consul  at  Liverpool,  ambassador  to  Austria,  &c. — which 
showed  great  ingratitude  on  Garfield's  part,  considering 
the  trouble  Guiteau  had  taken,  in  his  own  belief,  to  secure 
his  election  as  President.2 

South  Americans. — The  number  of  great  men  in  the 
Argentine  Republic  suffering  from  cerebral  affections  is 
so  considerable  that  it  has  enabled  Mejia  to  compose  on 
this  subject  a  work  which  is  among  the  most  curious  and 
valuable  produced  in  the  New  World. 3 

Thus,  according  to  Mejia,  Rivadura  was  a  hypochon- 
driac, and  died  of  softening  of  the  brain.  Manuel  Garcia 
also  suffered  from  hypochondria,  and  finally  succumbed 
to  a  brain  affection.  Admiral  Brown  was  subject  to  the 
delusion  that  he  was  persecuted.  Varela  was  epileptic, 
Francia  was  a  melancholiac,  Rosas  was  morally  insane, 
and  Monteagudo  was  hysterical. 

1  In  spite  of  all  this,  six  Italian  mental  specialists  have  declared 
Passanante  free  from  all  suspicion  of  insanity  ;  and  he  is  still  confined 
in  a  convict  prison. 

2  See,  for  further  details,  Archivio  di  Psichiatria,  vol.  iv. 

3  Las  Neurosis  de  los  Hombres  celebres  en  la  Historia  Argentina,  by 
Jose  Maria  Ramon  Mejia,  Buenos  Ayres,  1878. 


PART  IV. 

SYNTHESIS.      THE   DEGENERATIVE 
PSYCHOSIS  OF  GENIUS. 

CHAPTER  I. 
CHARACTERISTICS  OF  INSANE  MEN  OF  GENIUS. 

Characterlessness  —  Vanity — Precocity  —  Alcoholism  — Vagabondage — 
Versatility— Originality— Style— Religious  doubts— Sexual  abnor- 
malities— Egoism — Eccentricity — Inspiration. 

THE  conception  of  the  morbid  and  degenerative  character 
of  genius  is  confirmed  and  completed  more  and  more 
when  its  isolated  phenomena  are  subjected  to  a  more 
rigorous  examination,  and,  as  in  chemical  reactions,  to 
mutual  contact.  If,  in  fact,  we  analyze  the  lives  and 
works  of  those  great  diseased  minds  which  have  become 
famous  in  history,  we  find  that  they  can  at  once  be  dis- 
tinguished by  many  characteristic  traits  from  the  average 
man,  and  also,  in  part,  from  other  geniuses,  who  have 
completed  their  life's  orbit  without  trace  of  madness. 

I.  These  insane  geniuses  have  scarcely  any  character. 
The  full,  complete  character,  "which  bends  not  for  any 
winds  that  blow,"  is  the  distinctive  mark  of  honest  and 
sound-minded  men. 

Tasso,  on  the  contrary,  declaims  against  courts,  and 
yet,  even  to  his  last  hour,  we  find  him  perpetually  coming 
back  to  beg  their  grudging  favours.  Cardan  accuses 
himself  of  lying,  evil-speaking,  and  gambling.  Rousseau, 
though  so  sensitive,  abandons  to  want  the  tenderest  and 
kindest  of  friends,  casts  off  his  children,  calumniates 
others  and  himself,  and  apostatizes  three  times  over — 


CHARACTERISTICS  OF  INSANE  GENIUS.  315 

from    Catholicism,    from    Protestantism,    and,    what    is 
worse,  from  the  religion  of  philosophy. 

Swift,  though  an  ecclesiastic,  wrote  the  obscene  poem 
of  the  loves  of  Strephon  and  Chloe,  and  belittled  the 
church  of  which  he  was  a  dignitary,  though  his  pride 
reached  the  proportions  of  delirium. 

Lenau,  religious  to  fanaticism  in  Savonarola,  shows 
himself  in  the  Albigenses  even  cynically  sceptical  ;  he 
knows  it,,  confesses  it,  and  laughs  at  it. 

Schopenhauer  denounced  women,  and  at  the  same 
time  was  too  warm  an  admirer  of  the  sex  ;  he  professed 
to  believe  in  the  happiness  of  Nirvana,  and  then  pre- 
dicted for  himself  more  than  a  hundred  years  of  life. 

II.  Genius  is  conscious  of  itself,  appreciates  itself,  and, 
certainly,  has  no  monkish  humility.  Yet  the  conceit 
seething  in  diseased  brains  passes  the  limits  of  all  truth  and 
probability.  Tasso  and  Cardan  covertly,  and  Mahomet 
openly,  declared  themselves  inspired  by  God,  and  the 
slightest  criticism,  therefore,  appeared  to  them  as  deadly 
persecution.  Cardan  wrote  of  himself,  "  My  nature  is 
placed  on  the  very  limits  of  human  substance  and  con- 
ditions, and  within  the  confines  of  the  immortals."  x 
Rousseau  believed  that  all  men,  and  sometimes  even  the 
elements,  were  in  a  conspiracy  against  him.  Perhaps  it 
is  on  this  very  account  that  we  have  seen  almost  all  these 
unhappy  great  spirits  fly  from  association  with  other  men. 
Swift  humiliated  and  insulted  cabinet  ministers,  and  wrote 
to  a  duchess  desirous  of  making  his  acquaintance  that 
the  greater  men  were,  the  lower  must  they  bow  before 
him.  Lenau  had  inherited  the  pride  of  rank  from  his 
mother,  and  in  his  delirium  believed  himself  king  of 
Hungary. 

III.  Some  of  these  unfortunate  men  have  given  strangely 
precocious  proofs  of  their  genius.  Tasso  could  speak 
when  six  months  old,  and  knew  Latin  at  the  age  of 
seven.  Lenau,  at  a  very  early  age,  composed  most 
touching  sermons,  and  played  the  bagpipes  and  the 
violin  with  astonishing  skill.  Cardan  at  eight  had 
apparitions  and  revelations  of  genius.  Ampere  was 
a  mathematician  at  thirteen.  Pascal,  at  ten,  inspired  by 
1  De  Vita  Propria. 


316  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

the  noise  made  by  a  plate  struck  with  a  knife,  worked 
out  a  theory  of  sound,  and  at  fifteen  composed  his 
celebrated  treatise  on  Conic  Sections.  Haller  preached  at 
four,  and  devoured  books  at  five. 

IV.  Many  of  them  have  been  excessive  in  their  abuse 
of  narcotics,  or   of  stimulants   and    intoxicants.     Haller 
was  in  the  habit  of  taking  enormous  doses  of  opium,  and 
Rousseau  was  excessive  in  his  use  of  coffee.     Tasso  was 
renowned  as  a  drinker,  as  also  the  modern  poets  Kleist, 
Gerard  de  Nerval,  Musset,  Murger,  Majlath,  Praga,  and 
Rovani,  as  well  as  the  very  original  Chinese  writer  Li- 
Tai-Po,  who   was   inspired  by   alcohol,  and   died  of  it. 
Lenau    also,  in    his    latter    years,  was   an    immoderate 
consumer    of    wine,    coffee,    and    tobacco.      Baudelaire 
abused   opium,    tobacco,    and    wine.     Cardan  confessed 
himself    an    indefatigable    drinker.     Poe   was   a   dipso- 
maniac ;  so  was  Hoffmann. 

V.  Nearly  all  of  these  great  men,  moreover,  showed 
anomalies   of  the    reproductive    functions.     Tasso,  who 
was  guilty  of  exaggerated  licentiousness  in  his  youth,  was 
rigidly  chaste  after  his  thirty-eighth  year.     On  the  other 
hand,  Cardan,  impotent  in  his  youth,  gave  himself  up  to 
excess  at  thirty-five.     Pascal,  sensual  in  his  early  youth, 
afterwards  believed  even  a  mother's  kiss  to  be  a  crime. 
Rousseau  was  affected  by  hypospadias  and  spermatorrhoea, 
and,  like  Baudelaire,  was  subject  to  a  sexual  perversion. 
Newton  and  Charles  XII.,  so  far  as  is  known,  were  abso- 
lutely continent.      Lenau   wrote,  "  I   have   the   painful 
conviction  that  I  am  unsuitable  for  marriage."  z 

VI.  Instead   of  preferring  the   quiet  seclusion   of  the 
study,  they   cannot  rest   in  any   place,  and  have  to  be 
continually  travelling.     Lenau  removed  from  Vienna  to 
Stokerau,  and  then  to  Gmiinden,  and  finally  emigrated 
to  America.     "I  need,"  he  said,   ua  change  of  climate 
every  now  and  then  to  stir  up  my  blood."  2     Tasso  was 
continually  travelling  from  Ferrara  to  Urbino,  Mantua, 
Naples,  Paris,  Bergamo,  Rome,  and  Turin.     Poe  was  the 
despair  of  his  editors,  because  he  was  continually  wander- 
ing about  between  Boston,  New  York,  Richmond,  Phila- 
delphia, and  Baltimore.     Giordano  Bruno  wandered  to 

1  Schurz,  ii.  2  7&V/.,p.  283. 


CHARACTERISTICS  OF  INSANE  GENIUS.  317 

Padua,    Oxford,    Wittenberg,    Magdeburg,     Helmstadt, 
Prague,  and  Geneva. 

Rousseau,  Cardan,  Cellini  were  constantly  staying  now 
at  Turin,  now  at  Paris,  now  at  Florence,  Rome,  Bologna, 
or  Lausanne.  u  Change  of  place,"  says  Rousseau,1  "  is  a 
necessity  for  me.  In  the  fine  season,  I  find  it  impossible 
to  remain  for  more  than  two  or  three  days  in  one  place 
without  suffering." 

VII.  Sometimes  they  change  their  career  and  course 
of    study    several    times   in    succession,    as   though    the 
mighty  intellect  could  not  find  rest  and  relief  in  a  single 
science.2     Swift,  in  addition  to  his  satiric  poems,  wrote  on 
the  manufactures  of  Ireland,  on  theology,  on  politics,  and 
on  the  history  of  the  reign  of  Queen  Anne.     Cardan  was 
at  the  same  time  a  mathematician,  physician,  theologian, 
and  literary  man.     Rousseau  was  painter,  music-master, 
charlatan,    philosopher,   botanist,    and  poet  ;    and   Hoff- 
mann, magistrate,  caricaturist,  musician,  romance-writer, 
and  dramatist. 

Tasso — as  did  Gogol  after  him — attempted  all  varieties 
of  poetry,  epic,  dramatic,  and  didactic,  in  all  metres. 
Newton  and  Pascal,  in  moments  of  aberration,  abandoned 
physics  for  theology.  Lenau  cultivated  medicine,  agri- 
culture, law,  poetry,  and  theology. 

VIII.  These  energetic  and  terrible  intellects  are   the 
true  pioneers  of  science  ;  they  rush  forward  regardless  of 
danger,  facing  with   eagerness  the  greatest  difficulties — 
perhaps  because  it  is  these  which  best  satisfy  their  morbid 
energy.     They  seize  the  strangest  connections,  the  newest 
and  most  salient  points  ;  and  here  1  may  mention  that 
originality,  carried  to  the  point  of  absurdity,  is  the  prin- 
cipal characteristic  of  insane  poets  and  artists.     Ampere 
always  sought  out  the  most  difficult  problems  in  mathe- 
matics— the  abysses — as  Arago  has  noted. 

Rousseau,  in  the  Devin  du  Village,  had  attempted  the 

1  January,  1765. 

2  Of  45  insane  writers  referred  to    by  Philomneste    (pp.  cit.}  there 
were — 15   who   devoted  themselves   to  poetry,  12  to  theology,   5   to 
prophecy,    3    to    autobiography,    2    to    mathematics,    2    to    mental 
pathology,  2  to  politics.     Poetry  predominates  for  the  reason   above 
given,  while,  on  the  other  hand,  theology,  philosophy,  and  the  like  are 
more  prominent  in  the  mattoids. 


3 1 8  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

music  of  the  future,  afterwards  tried  again  by  another 
insane  genius,  Schumann.  Swift  used  to  say  that  he 
only  felt  at  his  ease  when  treating  the  most  difficult 
subjects,  and  those  most  out  of  the  line  of  his  habitual 
occupations.  In  fact,  in  his  Directions  to  Servants,  he 
seems,  not  a  theologian  or  a  politician,  but  a  servant  him- 
self. His  Confession  of  a  T/n'ef  \VSLS  believed  to  have  been 
really  written  by  a  well-known  criminal,  so  that  the  latter's 
accomplices,  thinking  that  they  were  discovered,  gave 
themselves  up  to  justice.  In  the  prophecies  of  Bickerstaff, 
he  assumed  the  character  of  a  Catholic,  and  succeeded  in 
deceiving  the  Roman  Inquisition. 

Walt  Whitman  is  the  creator  of  a  rhymeless  poetry, 
which  the  Anglo-Saxons  regard  as  the  poetry  of  the 
future,  and  which  certainly  bears  the  imprint  of  strange 
and  wild  originality. 

Poe's  compositions  (says  Baudelaire,  one  of  his  greatest 
admirers)  seem  to  have  been  produced  in  order  to  show 
that  strangeness  may  enter  into  the  elements  of  the 
beautiful  ;  and  he  collected  them  under  the  title  of 
Arabesques  and  Grotesques,  because  these  exclude  the 
human  countenance,  and  his  literature  was  extra-human. 
Here,  too,  we  note  the  predilection  of  insane  artists  for 
arabesques,  and,  moreover,  for  arabesques  which  suggest 
the  human  figure.1 

Baudelaire  himself  created  the  prose  poem,  and  carried 
to  the  highest  point  the  adoration  of  artificial  beauty. 
He  was  the  first  to  find  new  poetic  associations  in  the 
olfactory  sense.2 

IX.  These  morbid  geniuses  have  a  style  peculiar  to 
themselves — passionate,  palpitating,  vividly  coloured — 
which  distinguishes  them  from  all  other  writers,  perhaps 
because  it  could*  only  arise  under  maniacal  influences. 
So  much  so  that  all  of  them  confess  their  inability  to 
compose,  or  even  to  think,  outside  the  moments  of 
inspiration.  Tasso  wrote,  in  one  of  his  letters,  "  I  am 
unsuccessful,  and  find  difficulty  in  everything,  especially 

1  Page  200. 

2  He  declares   that  musk  reminds  him   of   scarlet   and  gold,    and 
describes  "  perfumes  which  have  the  smell  of  infants'  flesh,  or  of  the 
dawn,"  £c.,  &c. 


CHARACTERISTICS  OF  INSANE  GENIUS.  319 

in  composition."  x  "  My  ideas, '^Rousseau  confesses,  u  are 
confused,  slow  in  arising  and  developing  themselves,  nor 
can  I  express  myself  well  except  in  moments  of  passion." 
The  eloquent  and  vivid  exordiums  of  Cardan's  works,  so 
different  from  the  rest  of  his  tedious  books,  show  what  a 
difference  there  was  between  the  first  and  last  moments 
of  his  inspiration.  Haller,  though  a  successful  poet 
himself,  used  to  say  that  the  whole  art  of  poetry  con- 
sisted in  its  difficulty.  Pascal  began  his  i8th  Provincial 
Letter  thirteen  times. 

Perhaps  it  was  this  analogy  in  character  and  style  that 
was  the  cause  of  Swift's  and  Rousseau's  predilection  for 
Tasso,  and  drew  the  severe  Haller  towards  Swift ;  while 
Ampere  was  inspired  by  Rousseau's  eccentricities,  and 
Baudelaire  by  those  of  Poe  (whose  works  he  translated) 
and  of  Hoffmann,  whom  he  idolized.2 

X.  Nearly  all  these  great  men  were  painfully  preoccupied 
by  religious  doubts,  raised  by  the  intellect,  and  combated, 
as  a  crime,  by  the  timid  conscience  and  morbid  emotions. 
Tasso  was   tormented   by  the  fear   of  being   a   heretic. 
Ampere  often  said  that  doubts  are  the  worst  torture  of 
man.     Haller  wrote  in  his  journal,  "  My  God  !  give  me — 
oh  !  give  me  one  drop  of  faith  :  my  mind  believes  in  Thee, 
but  my  heart  refuses — this  is  my  crime."     Lenau  used  to 
repeat,  towards  the  end  of  his  life,  "  In  those  hours  when 
my  heart  is  suffering,  the  idea  of  God  passes  away  from 
me."     In  fact,  the  real  hero  of  his  Savonarola  is  Doubt,3 
as  is  now  admitted  by  all  critics. 

XI.  All  insane  men  of  genius,   moreover,    are   much 
preoccupied    with    their    own   Ego.       They    sometimes 
know  and  proclaim  their  own  disease,  and  seem  as  though 
they  wished,  by  confessing  it,  to  get  relief  from  its  inexor- 
able attacks. 

It  is  quite  natural  that,  being  men  of  great  intellect 
and  therefore  acute  observers,  they  should  at  last  notice 
their  own  cruel  anomalies  and  be  struck  by  the  spectacle  of 
the  Ego  which  obtruded  itself  so  painfully  on  their  notice. 
Men  in  general,  but  more  particularly  the  insane,  love 
to  speak  of  themselves,  and  on  this  theme  they  even 

1  Manso;  Vita,  p.  249.  2  Du  Vin,  i.  1880. 

3  Schurz,  i.  328. 


32o  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

become  eloquent.  All  the  more  should  we  expect  it  in 
those  whose  genius  is  accompanied  and  quickened  by 
mania.  It  is  thus  we  get  those  wonderful  records  of 
passion  and  grief,  monuments  of  phrenopathic  poetry, 
which  reveal  the  great  and  unhappy  personality  of  the 
writer.  Cardan  wrote,  not  only  his  autobiography,  but  also 
poems  on  his  misfortunes,  and  the  work  De  Somniis, 
entirely  composed  of  his  dreams  and  hallucinations.  The 
poems  of  Whitman  are  the  glorification  of  the  Ego. 
Rousseau,  in  his  Confessions, Dialogues,  Reveries,\\^Q  De 
Musset  in  his  Confessions,  and  Hoffmann  in  KreislerJ- 
only  give  a  minute  description  of  themselves  and  their  own 
madness. 

Thus  also  Poe,  as  Baudelaire  has  well  remarked,  took 
as  his  text  the  exceptions  of  human  life,  the  hallucination 
which,  at  first  doubtful,  afterwards  becomes  a  reasoned 
conviction  ;  absurdity  enthroned  in  the  region  of  intellect 
and  governing  it  with  a  terrible  logic  ;  hysteria  occupying 
the  place  of  the  will  ;  the  contradiction  between  the 
nerves  and  the  mind  carried  so  far  that  grief  is  driven  to 
utter  itself  in  laughter. 

Pascal,  who  was  driven  by  delirium  into  exaggerated 
humility,  who  said  that  Christianity  suppressed  the  Ego, 
has  not  written  his  autobiography  ;  yet  he,  too,  showed 
traces  of  his  hallucinations  in  the  celebrated  Amulet,  and, 
in  his  Pensees,  subtly  described  himself  when  speaking  of 
others.  It  is  certain  that  he  was  alluding  to  himself  when 
he  wrote  that  "  extreme  genius  is  close  to  extreme  folly, 
and  men  are  so  mad  that  he  who  should  not  be  so  would 
be  a  madman  of  a  new  kind  ;"  and  when  he  observed  that 
"  maladies  influence  our  judgment  and  sense  ;  and  while 
great  ones  perceptibly  alter  them,  even  slight  ones  cannot 
but  influence  them  in  proportion  ; "  and  that  "  men  of 
genius  have  their  heads  higher,  but  their  feet  lower  than 
the  rest  of  us ;  they  are  all  on  the  same  level,  and  stand 
on  the  same  clay  as  ourselves,  children,  and  brutes." 

Haller,  in  his  diary,  gives  detailed  notes  of  his  own  re- 
ligious delusions,  and  often  confesses  to  having  completely 
changed  his  character  in  the  course  of  twenty-four  hours, 

1  Kreisler  is,  like  himself,  full  of  strange  ideals,  always  at  war  with 
reality,  and  ends  by  becoming  insane. 


CHARACTERISTICS  OF  INSANE  GENIUS.  321 

and  being  "  giddy,  mad,  persecuted  by  God,  and  scorned 
and  despised  by  men." 

Lessmann  who,  at  a  later  time,  hanged  himself,  wrote 
the  humorous  Diary  of  a  MeJancholiac  (1834).  Tasso,  in 
his  letter  to  the  Duke  of  Urbino,  and  in  the  stanza  already 
quoted,  clearly  depicted  his  own  insanity.  "Francesco," 
he  says  elsewhere,  "  O  Francesco,  within  my  infirm  limbs 
I  have  an  infirm  soul."  x  It  is  a  curious  fact  that,  shortly 
before  his  first  attack  of  mania,  he  wrote  these  words,  aAs 
I  do  not  deny  that  I  am  mad,  I  must  believe  that  my 
madness  has  been  caused  by  drunkenness  or  love,  since  I 
know  well  that  I  drink  to  excess,"  &c.2 

Dosto'iefTsky  continually  introduces  semi-insane  charac- 
ters, and  especially  epileptics,  in  Besi  and  The  Idiot,  and 
moral  lunatics  in  Crime  and  Punishment. 

Gerard  de  Nerval  was  the  author  of  Aurclia,  which  has 
been  well  called  the  "  Song  of  Songs  of  Fever,"  and  is  a 
mixture  of  poetry  and  gibberish.  Barbara  wrote  Les 
Detraques.  Buston  described  his  own  hallucinations. 
Allix,  though  not  a  medical  man,  wrote  on  the  treatment 
of  the  insane.  Lenau,  twelve  years  before  he  actually 
succumbed  to  the  attacks  of  insanity,  had  foreseen  and 
described  it.  All  his  poems  depict,  in  colours  painfully 
vivid,  suicidal  and  melancholic  tendencies.  The  reader 
may  judge  of  this  from  the  mere  titles  of  some  of  his  lyrics, 
"  To  a  Hypochrondriac,"  "  The  Madman,"  "  The  Diseased 
in  Soul,"  "  The  Violence  of  a  Dream,"  "  The  Moon  of 
Melancholy." 

I  do  not  think  that  it  is  possible  to  find,  in  the  most 
doleful  pages  of  J.  Ortis  so  accurate  and  vividly  coloured 
a  description  of  suicidal  tendencies  as  in  the  following  ex- 
tract  from  the  Seelenkranke,  "  I  carry  a  deep  wound  in 
my  heart,  and  will  carry  it  in  silence  to  the  grave  ;  my 
life  is  broken  from  hour  to  hour.  One  alone  could  comfort 
me,  .  .  .  but  she  lies  in  the  grave.  .  .  .  O  my  mother  ! 
let  thyself  be  moved  by  my  entreaties,  if  thy  love  still 
survives  death,  if  it  is  still  permitted  thee  to  care  for  thy 
child.  .  .  .  Oh  !  let  me  soon  escape  from  life  !  I  long 

1  "  Francesco,  inferma,  entro  le  membra  infertile 

Ho  fanima. ' 
*  EpistolariO)  iii.  I. 

22 


322  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

for  the  night  of  death  !  Oh  !  only  help  thy  crazy  son  to 
lay  aside  his  grief."  His  Traumgevoalten  is,  as  I  have 
already  observed,  a  terribly  truthful  picture  of  that 
hallucination  which  preceded  or  accompanied  the  first 
attack  of  suicidal  mania  ;  and  here  the  reader  can  easily 
trace  in  the  phrases  and  ideas  that  disconnected  and 
fragmentary  character  which  is  the  mark  of  the  delirious 
paralytic. 

Here  is  a  specimen — "  The  dream  was  so  terrible,  so 
wild,  so  frightful,  that  I  wish  I  could  tell  myself  it  was 
nothing  but  a  dream  ;  .  .  .  yet  I  continue  to  weep,  and  to 
feel  that  my  heart  beats  ;  I  awaken,  and  find  the  sheets 
and  the  pillow  wet.  .  .  .  Did  I  seize  them  in  my  dream 
and  wipe  my  face  ?  I  do  not  know.  .  .  .  While  I  was 
sleeping,  my  hostile  guests  have  been  holding  an  orgy 
here.  .  .  .  Now  they  are  gone,  those  savages,  they  are 
gone,  but  I  find  their  traces  in  my  tears.  They  have  fled, 
and  left  the  wine  on  the  table,"  &c. 

He  had  previously,  in  the  Albigenscs,  dropped  some 
allusions  to  the  terrible  impression  made  on  him  by  his 
dreams:  "Terrible,  often,  is  the  might  of  dreams;  it 
shakes,  pains,  presses,  threatens,  and  if  the  sleeper  does 
not  awaken  in  time,  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  he  is  a 
corpse."  T 

XII.  The  principal  trace  of  the  delusions  of  great  minds 
is  found  in  the  very  construction  of  their  works  and 
speeches,  in  their  illogical  deductions,  absurd  contradic- 
tions, and  grotesque  and  inhuman  fantasies.  Thus 
Socrates  was  clearly  of  unsound  mind  when,  after  having 

1  "  Mad  Nat  Lee,"  who  was  for  a  long  time  an  inmate  of  Bedlam, 
minutely  describes  the  insanity  of  genius  in  his  poems  j  e.g.,  in  Cccsar 
Borgia : — 

"  Like  a  poor  lunatic  that  makes  his  moan, 
And,  for  a  while,  beguiles  his  lookers-on, 
He  reasons  well.     His  eyes  their  wildness  lose, 
He  vows  his  keepers  his  wronged  sense  abuse, 
But  if  you  hit  the  cause  that  hurts  his  brain, 
Then  his  teeth  gnash,  he  foams,  he  shakes  his  chain." 

See  Winslow,  Obscure  Diseases  of  the  Brain,  p.  210,  London,  1863. 
See  also  the  chapter  "  On  the  Art  of  Insanity,"  for  proofs  of  a  like  ten- 
dency on  th.2  part  of  insane  painters. 


CHARACTERISTICS  OF  INSANE  GENIUS.  323 

all  but  arrived,  intuitively,  at  Christian  morality  and 
Judaic  monotheism,  he  directed  his  steps  in  accordance 
with  a  sneeze,  or  the  voice  and  signs  of  his  imaginary 
genius.  Thus  Cardan,  who  had  anticipated  Newton  in 
discovering  the  laws  of  gravitation,  and  Dupuis  in 
theology — who,  in  his  book  De  Subtilitatc,  explains  as 
hallucinations  the  strange  and  portentous  symptoms  of 
the  possessed,  and  also  of  some  of  those  hermits  who  were 
accounted  saints,  comparing  them  to  the  delirium  of 
quartan  fever — Cardan  was  insane,  when  he  attributed  to 
the  influence  of  a  genius,  not  only  his  scientific  inspirations, 
but  the  creaking  of  the  table  and  the  vibration  of  the  pen, 
when  he  declared  that  he  had  been  several  times  bewitched, 
and  when  he  produced  his  book  On  Dreams,  which 
speaks  to  the  mental  pathologist  as  a  pseudo-membrane 
would  to  the  physical.  In  this,  at  first,  he  puts  on  record 
the  most  accurate  and  curious  observations  on  the  pheno- 
mena of  dreams — e.g.,  how  severe  physical  pains  act  with 
less  energy,  slight  ones  with  greater — a  fact  recently  con- 
firmed by  psychiatrists  ;  that  the  insane  are  much  given  to 
dreaming;  that  in  a  dream,  as  on  the  stage,  a  long  series 
of  ideas  passes  in  a  very  short  space  of  time  ;  and  finally 
(and  this  is  a  remark  of  much  justice)  that  men  have 
dreams  either  entirely  analogous  to,  or  entirely  at  variance 
with,  their  own  habits.  But,  after  these  clear  and  un- 
doubted proofs  of  genius,  he  re-affirms  one  of  the  most 
absurd  and  contemptible  theories  ever  held  by  the  popu- 
lace of  ancient  times,  namely,  that  the  slightest  accidental 
circumstance  of  a  dream  must  be  the  revelation  of  a  more 
or  less  distant  future.  Thus  he  draws  up,  with  the 
sincerest  conviction,  a  dictionary,  identical  in  form  and 
origin  (which  last  is  undoubtedly  pathological)  with 
Cabalistic  productions.  Every  object,  every  word,  which 
may  find  a  place  in  a  dream,  is  there  attached  to  a 
series  of  allusions  which  serve  to  interpret  each  other. 
Father  may  signify  author,  husband,  son,  commander. 
Feet,  foundation  of  a  house,  arts,  workmen,  &c.  '  A  horse, 
appearing  in  a  dream,  may  signify  flight,  riches,  or  a  wife. 
Shoemaker  and  physician  are  interchangeable  in  meaning. 
In  short,  it  is  not  actual  analogies  which  prevail,  but 
analogies  in  words,  in  sounds,  even  in  terminations.  Orior 


324  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

and  morior  have  an  equal  prophetic  value,  because  "  since 
they  differ  from  each  other  only  by  a  single  letter,  the 
one  passes  over  to  the  other."  We  are  seized  with  com- 
passion for  human  nature  and  for  ourselves,  when  we  find 
him  relating  that  a  knight  who  suffered  from  the  stone 
always,  if  he  dreamed  of  food,  had  an  attack  on  the  follow- 
ing day,  and  adding  cibos  cnim  ct  dolores  degustare 
dicimus — as  though  nature  were  in  the  habit  of  amusing 
herself  by  making  puns  in  Latin.  Yet  this  was  the  man 
who  had  intuitively  divined  the  admirable  theory  of  pain- 
ful sensations  in  sleep  already  alluded  to,  and  who,  a 
physician,  and  one  of  no  mean  distinction,  had  clearly 
conceived  the  sympathetic  action  of  the  solar  plexus. 

Newton  himself  can  scarcely  be  said  to  have  been  sane 
when  he  demeaned  his  intellect  to  the  interpretion  of  the 
Apocalypse,  or  the  horns  of  Daniel  ;  nor,  again,  when 
he  wrote  to  Bentley,  u  By  means  of  the  law  of  attraction, 
one  can  very  well  understand  the  elongated  orbits  of 
comets  ;  but  as  to  the  nearly  circular  orbits  of  planets,  I 
see  no  possibility  of  obtaining  their  lateral  difference,  and 
this  can  only  be  accomplished  by  God."  Yet  in  his 
Optics,  Newton  had  inveighed  against  those  who,  after  the 
manner  of  the  Aristotelians  admit  occult  properties  in 
matter,  thus  arresting  the  researches  of  natural  philo- 
sophers, without  leading  to  any  conclusion.  In  fact,  a 
century  later,  the  true  cause,  which  had  escaped 
Newton's  observations,  was  discovered  by  La  Place. 

Ampere  believed,  in  all  sincerity,  that  he  had  found  the 
method  of  squaring  the  circle. 

Pascal,  though  he  had  been  the  first  to  study  the  laws 
of  probability,  believed  that  the  touch  of  a  relic  had 
power  to  cure  a  lachrymal  fistula — a  statement  which  he 
printed  in  one  of  his  works. 

Rousseau  makes  of  his  own  maniacal  savagery  the  ideal 
type  of  man,  and  believes  that  every  natural  production, 
if  agreeable  to  the  sight  or  taste,  must  be  innocuous,  so 
that  arsenic,  according  to  him,  could  not  be  harmful. 
His  life  is  made  up  of  contradictions  :  he  prefers  the 
country,  and  lives  in  the  Rue  Platoniere  ;  he  writes  a 
treatise  on  education,  and  sends  his  children  to  the  found- 
ling hospital ;  he  adjudicates  on  the  claims  of  the  various 


CHARACTERISTICS  OP  INSANE  GENIUS.  325 

religions  with  the  acuteness  of  an  unbiassed  sceptic,  and 
throws  stones  at  trees  in  order  to  divine  the  future  and 
decide  the  question  of  his  own  salvation  ;  nay,  he  writes 
to  the  Deity,  and  lays  his  letters  on  the  altars  of  churches, 
as  though  they  were  His  exclusive  abode. 

Baudelaire  finds  the  sublime  in  the  artificial — "  like  the 
rouge  which  enhances  the  beauty  of  a  handsome  woman." 
He  carries  out  an  insane  idea  by  describing  a  metallic 
landscape,  with  neither  water  nor  vegetation.  "  All  is 
rigid,  polished,  shining  ;  without  heat  and  without  sun  ;  in 
the  midst  of  the  eternal  silence  the  blue  water  is  enclosed, 
like  the  ancient  mirrors,  in  a  golden  basin."  He  finds  his 
ideal  in  the  Latin  of  the  Decadence,  "  the  only  tongue 
which  can  thoroughly  render  the  language  of  passion,"  and 
adores  cats  to  such  a  degree  as  to  address  three  poems  to 
them. 

Lenau,  in  his  "  Moon  of  the  Hypochondriac,"  sees,  con- 
trary to  the  usual  practice  of  poets,  in  the  cold  moon, 
without  water  and  without  atmosphere,  "  the  sexton  of 
the  planets,  who,  with  a  silver  thread  entwined,  enchains 
the  sleepers  and  draws  them  to  death  ;  she  beckons  with 
her  finger,  leads  sleep-walkers  astray,  and  counsels  the 
thief."  Though,  as  a  young  man,  he  had  frequently 
expressed  his  opinion  that  "  mysticism  is  a  symptom  of 
insanity,"  he  often  showed  mystical  tendencies,  espe- 
cially in  his  later  poems. 

In  the  Koran,  there  is  not  a  single  chapter  which 
has  any  connection  with  another  ;  on  the  contrary,  it 
often  happens  that,  in  the  course  of  a  single  sura,  the  ideas 
are  interrupted,  and  follow  each  other  almost  at  random. 
"  On  Mahomet,"  writes  Morkos,  u  the  most  contradictory 
verdicts  may  be  pronounced,  for  it  is  impossible  to  deny 
his  great  excellence,  while  at  the  same  time  there  is  no 
disguising  the  fact  that  we  find  in  him  the  most  signal 
artifices  of  imposture,  the  grossest  ignorance,  and  the 
greatest  imprudence." 

It  appears  to  me,  moreover,  that  the  great  writers 
who  have  been  under  the  dominion  of  alcohol,  have 
a  style  peculiar  to  themselves,  whose  characteristics 
are  a  deliberate  eroticism,  and  an  inequality  which  is 
rather  grotesque  than  beautiful,  owing  to  too  unre- 


326  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

strained  fancy,  frequent  imprecations  and  abrupt  transi- 
tions from  the  deepest  melancholy  to  obscene  gaiety,  and 
a  marked  preference  for  such  subjects  as  madness,  drink, 
and  the  gloomiest  scenes  of  death.  "  Poe,"  says  Baude- 
laire, "  likes  to  place  his  figures  against  greenish  or  violet 
backgrounds,  surrounded  by  the  phosphorescence  of  decay, 
and  the  atmosphere  of  storms  and  orgies.  He  throws 
himself  into  grotesquery  for  the  love  of  the  grotesque, 
into  horror  for  the  love  of  the  horrible." 

The  same  thing  is  done  by  Baudelaire  himself,  who 
loves  to  describe  the  effects  of  alcohol  or  opium. 

"  There  are  days  when  my  heart  faints  in  me,  and  the 
mud  overwhelms  me,"  J  sang  poor  Praga,  who  killed  him- 
self with  alcohol,  and  who,  singing  the  praises  of  wine, 
blasphemed  thus  : 

"  Let  it  come — the  reproach  of  the  sober  man  ;  come — 
the  contempt  of  the  human  race, — come,  the  hell  of  the 
Eternal  Father  :  I  will  go  down  into  it  with  my  glass  in 
hand."  2 

Steen,  the  drunken  painter,  usually  painted  drinking 
scenes.  Hoffmann's  drawings  ended  in  caricatures,  his 
tales  in  extra-human  extravagancies,  his  music  in  a  sense- 
less succession  of  sounds. 

Alfred  de  Musset  saw  in  the  ladies  of  Madrid, 

"  sous  nn  col  de  cigne 
Un  sein  vierge  et  dort  comme  lajeune  vigne" 

Murger  admired  women  with  green  lips  and  yellow 
cheeks — no  doubt  through  a  species  of  colour-blindness, 
such  as  we  have  already  met  with  among  painters. 

XIII.  Nearly  all  of  these  great  men — for  instance, 
Cardan,  Lenau,  Tasso,  Socrates,  Pascal — attached  great 
importance  to  their  dreams,  which,  no  doubt,  assumed 
a  more  vivid  and  powerful  colouring  than  those  of  sane 
persons. 

1  "  Vi  son  del  giorni  che  il  mio  cor  vien  meno 

E  ilfango  miconquisla" 
8  "  Venga  Tobbrobrio — delfuomo  sobrio  ; 

Venga  il  disprezzo  del  gen  ere  umano  ; 

Venga  F  inferno— del  Padre  Eterno  ; 

Vi  scenderb  col  mio  bicchiere  in  mano." 


CHARACTERISTICS  OF  INSANE  GENIUS.  327 

XIV.  Many  presented  voluminous  but  very  irregular 
skulls  ;  and,  like  madmen,  have  ended  by  serious  altera- 
tions of  the  nervous  centres.     Pascal's  cerebral  substance 
was  harder  than  is  normally  the  case,  and  the  left  lobe 
had  suppurated.     The  brain  of  Rousseau  revealed  dropsy 
in  the  ventricles.    Byron  and  Foscolo,  great  but  eccentric 
geniuses,  both  showed  premature  ossification  of  the  su- 
tures.   Schumann  died  of  chronic  meningitis  and  cerebral 
atrophy. 

XV.  The  insane  characters  of  men  of  genius  are  scarcely 
ever  found  alone.     Thus  melancholia  was  associated  and 
alternated  with  exaggerated  self-esteem  in  Chopin,  Comte, 
Tasso,  Cardan,  Schopenhauer  ;  with  alcoholic  mania,  im- 
pulsive insanity,  or  sexual  perversion  in  Baudelaire  and 
Rousseau  ;  with  erratic  and  alcoholic  mania  and  that  of 
self-esteem,  in  Gerard   de    Nerval.      In    Coleridge,    the 
mania  of  morphia  was  associated  with  foh'e  du  doute. 

XVI.  But  the  most  special  characteristic  of  this  form 
of  insanity  appears  to  reduce  itself  to  an  extreme  exag- 
geration  of   two  alternating  phases,  viz.,  erethism  and 
atony,  inspiration  and  exhaustion,  which  we  see  physio- 
logically manifested  in  nearly   all  great  intellects,  even 
the  sanest — phases  to  which  they,  all  alike,  give  a  wrong 
interpretation,    according  as  their  pride    is   gratified   or 
offended.      u  An  indolent  soul,   afraid  of  every  kind  of 
business,  a  bilious  temperament,  which  suffers  easily  and 
is  sensitive  to  every  discomfort,    seem   as  though   they 
could  not  be  combined  in  one  character — yet  they  form 
the  groundwork  of  mine."     Such  is  Rousseau's  confession 
in  Letter  II.     Therefore,  as  the  ignorant  man  explains 
the  modifications  of  his  own  ego  by  means  of  material  and 
external  objects,  they  often  attribute  to  a  devil,  a  genius, 
or  a  God,  the  happy  inspiration  of  their  exalted  moments. 
Tasso,  speaking  of  his  familiar  spirit,  genius,  or  messenger, 
says,  "  It  cannot  be  a  devil,  since  it  does  not  inspire  me 
with  a  horror  for  sacred  things  ;  nor  yet  a  natural  crea- 
ture, for  it  causes  to  arise  in  me  ideas  which  I  never  had 
before."      A  genius   inspires   Cardan   with   his   written 
works,   his  knowledge  of  spiritual  matters,  his  medical 
opinions  ;  Tartini  with  his  Sonata,  Mahomet  with  the 
pages  of  the  Koran.     Van  Helmont  asserted  that  he  had 


328  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

seen  a  genius  appear  before  him  at  all  the  most  important 
moments  of  his  life  ;  and,  in  1633,  ne  discovered  his 
own  soul  under  the  form  of  a  shining  crystal.  William 
Blake  often  retired  to  the  sea-shore  to  converse  with 
Moses,  Homer,  Virgil,  and  Milton,  with  whom  he  believed 
himself  to  have  been  previously  acquainted.  When 
questioned  as  to  their  appearance,  he  replied,  "  They  are 
shades  full  of  majesty  —  grey,  but  luminous,  and  much 
taller  than  the  generality  of  men."  Socrates  was  coun- 
selled in  his  actions  by  a  genius  who,  as  he  expressed  it, 
was  better  than  ten  thousand  teachers  ;  and  he  often 
advised  his  friends  as  to  what  they  ought,  or  ought  not  to 
do,  according  as  he  had  received  instructions  from  his 


It  is  certain  that  the  vivid  and  richly-coloured  style  of 
all  these  great  men  —  the  clearness  with  which  they  describe 
their  most  grotesque  eccentricities,  such  as  the  Liliputian 
Academies,  or  the  horrors  of  Tartarus,  denote  that  they 
saw  and  touched,  as  it  were,  with  the  certainty  of  hallu- 
cination, all  that  they  describe  ;  that,  in  short,  in  them 
inspiration  and  insanity  became  fused,  and  resulted  in  a 
single  product. 

It  may  be  said,  indeed,  of  some  —  as  of  Luther,  Mahomet, 
Savonarola,  Molinos,  and,  in  modern  times,  the  chief  of 
the  Taeping  rebels  —  that  this  false  explanation  of  the 
afflatus  was  of  great  service  to  them,  giving  to  their 
speeches  and  prophecies  that  air  of  truth  only  resulting 
from  a  profound  conviction,  which  alone  can  shake  the 
popular  ignorance  and  carry  it  in  the  wake  of  a  new 
doctrine.  This  characteristic  is  common  to  the  insanity 
of  genius  and  the  most  trivial  aberrations  of  eccentri- 
city. 

When  inspiration  and  high  spirits  fail  together,  and 
depression  of  mind  prevails,  then  these  great  unfortunate 
ones,  interpreting  their  own  condition  still  more  strangely, 
believe  themselves  to  have  been  poisoned,  like  Cardan  ;  or 
to  be  condemned  to  eternal  fire,  like  Haller  and  Ampere  ; 
or  persecuted  by  inveterate  enemies,  like  Newton,  Swift, 
Barthez,  Cardan,  and  Rousseau. 

Moreover,  in  all  these  cases,  religious  doubt,  raised  by 
the  intellect  in  despite  of  the  heart,  appears  to  the  subject 


CHARACTERISTICS  OF  INSANE  GENIUS.  329 

himself  as  a  crime,  and  becomes  both  cause  and  instru- 
ment of  new  and  real  misfortunes. 

XVII.  Yet  the  temper  of  these  men  is  so  different 
from  that  of  average  people  that  it  gives  a  special  cha- 
racter to  the  different  psychoses  (melancholia,  monomania, 
&c.)  from  which  they  suffer,  so  as  to  constitute  a  special 
psychosis,  which  might  be  called  the  psychosis  of  genius. 


CHAPTER  II. 
ANALOGY  OF  SANE  TO  INSANE  GENIUS. 

Want   of    character — Pride  —  Precocity  —  Alcoholism  —  Degenerative 
signs — Obsession — Men  of  genius  in  revolutions. 

BUT  these  characteristics  are  not  confined  to  insane 
genius  ;  they  are  also  met  with,  though  far  less  con- 
spicuously among  the  great  men  freest  from  any  sus- 
picion of  insanity,  those  of  whom  the  insane  geniuses 
just  mentioned  are  but  the  exaggeration  and  caricature. 
It  is  thus  that  the  complete  and  perfect  character,  while 
conspicuously  seen  in  Socrates,  Columbus,  Cavour,  Christ, 
Galileo,  Spinoza,  is  not  to  be  found  in  Napoleon,  Bacon, 
Cicero,  Seneca,  Alcibiades,  Alexander,  Julius  Caesar, 
Machiavelli,  Carlyle,  Frederick  II.,  Dumas,  Byron,  Comte, 
Bulwer  Lytton,  Petrarch,  Aretino,  Gibbon. 

Self-esteem,  carried  to  an  almost  incredible  point,  has 
been  noticed  in  Napoleon,  Hegel,  Dante,  Victor  Hugo, 
Lassalle,  Balzac,  and  Comte  ;  and,  as  we  have  already 
seen,  even  in  men  of  talent,  but  not  of  genius,  as  Cagnoli, 
Lucius,  Porta,  &c. 

Precocity,  moreover,  does  not  fail  to  appear  in  normal 
men  of  genius,  such  as  Mozart,  Raphael,  Michelangelo, 
Charles  XII.,  Stuart  Mill,  D'Alembert,  Lulli,  Cowley, 
Otway,  Prior,  Pope,  Addison,  Burns,  Keats,  Sheffield, 
Hugo. 

Among  these  we  also  find  the  abuse  of  alcohol,  sexual 
deficiencies,  or  excesses  followed  by  sterility,  the  tendency 
to  vagrancy,  and  impulsive  acts  of  violence,  alternating, 
or  associated,  with  convulsive  movements.  Bismarck  once 
said  to  Beust,  "  Do  you  ever  feel  the  wish  to  break  any- 
thing as  an  amusement  ?  "  Like  Gladstone  and  the  Belgian 


ANALOGY  OF  SANE  TO  INSANE  GENIUS.  331 

Malon,  he  often  takes  exercise  by  cutting  down  trees  like 
a  woodman. 

We  have  also  found,  in  some  of  them,  numerous 
anomalies  in  the  shape  of  the  skull  and  conformation  of 
the  brain.  Degenerative  symptoms,  such  as  stammering, 
lefthandedness,  precocity,  sterility,  abound  in  both,  as  well 
as  divergences  from  ancestral  character. 

There  is  also  seen  in  them  that  invasion,  or  rather  pos- 
session, by  their  subject  which  transforms  the  creature  of 
the  imagination  into  a  true  hallucination,  or  an  auto-sug- 
gestion. Flaubert  says  that  his  characters  seized  upon 
him,  and  pursued  him,  or  that,  more  correctly  speaking,  he 
lived  through  them.  When  he  described  the  poisoning  of 
Madame  Bovary,  he  felt  the  taste  of  arsenic  on  his  tongue, 
and  showed  symptoms  of  actual  poisoning  so  far  as  to 
vomit.  Dickens,  too,  was  affected  by  sorrow  and  com- 
passion for  his  characters,  as  if  they  had  been  his  own 
children.1 

11  To  my  mind,"  writes  Edmond  de  Goncourt,  a  my 
brother  died  of  over-work,  and  more  especially  the 
elaboration  of  literary  form,  the  chiselling  of  phrases,  the 
labour  of  style.  I  can  still  see  him  taking  up  again 
pieces  which  we  had  written  together,  and  which,  at  first, 
had  satisfied  us,  working  at  them  for  hours,  for  half  a 
day  at  a  time,  with  an  almost  angry  persistency.  .  .  . 

"  You  must  remember,  in  short,  that  all  our  work — 
and  in  this,  perhaps,  consists  its  originality,  an  originality 
dearly  bought — has  its  root  in  nervous  illness  ;  that  we 
drew  our  pictures  of  disease  from  our  own  experience, 
and  that,  by  dint  of  analyzing,  studying,  dissecting  our- 
selves, we  at  last  attained  a  kind  of  super-acute  sensitive- 
ness, which  was  wounded  on  all  sides  by  the  infinite 
littlenesses  of  life.  I  say  ive}  for,  when  we  wrote  Charles 
Demailly,  I  was  more  diseased  than  he.  Alas  !  he  took 
the  first  place,  later  on.  Charles  Demailly  ! — it  is  a 
strange  thing  to  write  one's  own  history  fifteen  years  in 
advance."  2 

1  See  Dilthey,  Dichlerische  Einbildungskraft  mid  Wahnsinn,  Leipzig, 
1886. 

2  Letter  from  Edmond  de  Goncourt  to  Emile  Zola  (Lettres  de  Jules 
de  Gonconrt)  Paris,  1885). 


332  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

The  obsession  of  genius  sometimes  attains  such  a  point 
as  actually  to  create  a  double  personality,  and  transform  a 
philanthropist  into  an  overbearing  tyrant,  a  melancholy 
man  into  a  jovial  reveller. 

Finally,  we  have  found,  even  in  the  sanest  and  most 
complete  genius,  the  incomplete  and  rudimentary  forms 
of  mania — as  melancholy,  megalomania,  hallucinations, 
&c. — a  fact  which  helps  to  explain  the  convictions  of 
certain  prophets  and  founders  of  dynasties,  convictions 
so  deeply  rooted  as  to  serve  the  purpose  of  inspiration,  as 
far  as  the  mass  of  the  people  were  concerned.  Maudsley 
says  that  one  of  the  conditions  essential  to  the  originality 
of  genius  is  a  disposition  to  be  dissatisfied  with  the 
existing  state  of  things. 

We  have  also  met  with  the  use  of  peculiar  words  which 
is  so  frequent  a  characteristic  of  monomania,  and  also 
those  uncertainties  which  reach  their  extreme  point  in  the 
madness  of  doubt. 

The  whole  difference  resolves  itself,  at  bottom,  into 
this  :  that  in  sane  genius  the  symptoms  are  less  ex- 
aggerated, the  double  personality  is  less  conspicuous, 
the  choice  of  subjects  connected  with  madness  less  fre- 
quent (Shakespeare,  Goncourt,  and  Daudet  being  excep- 
tions), and  the  note  of  absurdity  less  emphasized.  This, 
however,  is  scarcely  ever  wanting,  inasmuch  as  nothing 
is  closer  to  the  ridiculous  than  the  sublime. 

It  is  also  not  without  importance  to  note  that,  when- 
ever genius  appears  in  a  race,  the  number  of  the  insane 
also  increases.  Of  this  fact  we  have  found  remarkable 
proofs  among  the  Italian,  German,  and  English  Jews.  So 
much  is  this  the  case,  that  it  is  the  custom,  in  German 
lunatic  asylums,  to  reckon  genius  in  the  parents  among 
the  etiological  elements  of  insanity.  Both  genius  and 
insanity  are  influenced  by  violent  passions  at  the  time  of 
conception,  by  advanced  age,  or  alcoholism  in  the  parents  ; 
and  as,  in  all  degenerate  natures,  genius  is  only  excep- 
tionally transmitted,  it  almost  always  assumes  the  form 
of  more  and  more  aggravated  neurosis,  and  rapidly  dis- 
appears, thanks  to  that  beneficent  sterility  through  which 
nature  provides  for  the  elimination  of  monsters.  Though 
all  the  proofs  we  have  given  should  have  been  forgotten, 


ANALOGY  OF  SANE  TO  INSANE  GENIUS.  333 

the  fact  would  be  quite  sufficiently  demonstrated  by  the 
pedigrees  of  Peter  the  Great,  the  Csesars,  and  Charles  V., 
in  which  epileptics,  men  of  genius,  and  criminals,  alter- 
nate with  ever  greater  frequency,  till  the  line  ends  in 
idiocy  and  sterility.1 

In  all  these  three  types  (insanity,  insane  genius,  and 
sane  genius),  we  see  at  work,  with  nearly  equal  intensity, 
the  influence  of  race,2  of  hot  climates,  of  diminutions 
(unless  greatly  exaggerated),  in  the  degree  of  atmospheric 
pressure,  and,  in  frequent  cases,  of  maladies  accompanied 
by  a  high  temperature. 

But  the  most  convincing  proof  of  all  is  offered  by  the 
insane  who,  though  not  possessed  of  genius,  apparently 
acquire  it,  for  a  time,  while  under  treatment.  These 
cases  prove  that  geniality,  originality,  artistic  and  aesthetic 
creation  may  show  themselves  in  the  least  predisposed 
natures,  as  a  consequence  of  mental  alienation.  Finally, 
not  the  least  important  proof  is  contained  in  the  singular 
phenomenon  of  the  mattoid,  who,  as  distinguished  from 
the  really  insane,  has  all  the  appearances,  without  the 
reality,  of  genius. 

Taking  all  this  into  consideration,  we  may  confidently 
affirm  that  genius  is  a  true  degenerative  psychosis  be- 
longing to  the  group  of  moral  insanity,  and  may  tem- 
porarily spring  out  of  other  psychoses,  assuming  their 
forms,  though  keeping  its  own  special  peculiarities,  which 
distinguish  it  from  all  others. 

The  identity  of  genius  with  moral  insanity  is  seen  in 
that  general  alteration  of  the  affective  instincts,  which 
shows  itself,  more  or  less  disguised,  in  all, 3  even  in  those 

1  Dejerine,    De   tHcrcditc   dans    les   Maladies,    1886;    Ribot,    De 
rHereditc,  1878;  Ireland,  The  Blot  upon  the  Brain,  1885. 

2  See  Part  II.,  pp.  126-132.  I  must  rectify  a  mistake  I  have  made  in 
not  assigning  sufficient  importance  to  the  influence  of  race  in  France. 
In  fact,  in  revising  my  studies  on  a  large  scale,  I  find  that  the  depart- 
ments peopled  by  the  Belgio-Germanic  race  yield  the  maximum  pro- 
portion of  geniuses  as  40  percent.,  while  the  Celtic  departments  yielded 
only  I3'5  per  cent.,  and  the  Iberian  20  per  cent. 

3  T.  Gautier,  according  to  the  Goncourts,  often  declared  that  he  could 
not — on  account  of  his  youth — convince  himself  that  he  was  really  the 
father  of  his  daughter  (Journal  des  Goncourt,   1888).     "  La  Fontaine 
was  not  far  removed  from  a  bad  man,"  says  Bourget.     "  What  are  we 
to  think  of  a  husband  who  deserts  his  young  wife  and  his  child,  with- 


334  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

rare  altruistic  persons  with  a  genius  for  goodness  to  whom 
the  name  of  saints  has  been  given.  This  also  explains  their 
longevity. 

There  is,  beyond  all  doubt,  some  connection  between  all 
these  observations,  and  the  fact,  established  by  Tamburini 
and  myself,  that  the  best  artists  of  the  asylums  were 
all  morally  insane. 

It  should  be  remembered  here,  that  the  Klephts  were 
brigands,  and  that  the  moral  character  of  many  great 
conquerors  has  been  so  far  subject  to  alteration  as  to 
make  of  them  true  brigands  on  a  large  scale.  Arved 
Barine,  in  noticing  the  beauty  of  countenance  of  certain 
brigands  figured  in  my  work  in  L'uomo  Delinquent,  has 
very  justly  observed  J  that  "  such  a  profession  requires 
high  intellectual  endowments,  and  precisely  the  same  as 
those  needed  by  conquerors,  who  certainly  have  had  no 
superabundance  of  moral  sense.  History  proves  that  the 
moral  sense  is  in  no  degree  a  function  of  the  intellect. 
Great  men  have  been  so  often  devoid  of  it,  that  the  world 
has  been  forced  to  invent  for  them  a  special  morality 
which  may  be  summed  up  in  five  words,  frequently 
uttered  by  such — from  Napoleon  down  to  Benvenuto 
Cellini  :  Everything  is  permitted  to  genius" 

Men  of  genius  are  among  the  principal  factors  in  true 
revolutions.2  History  records  the  saying  of  Tarquin  that 
for  the  preservation  of  despotism  it  was  necessary  to  cut 
down  the  tallest  heads.  Carlyle  believed  that  the  whole 
of  history  is  that  of  great  men.  Emerson  wrote  that 
every  new  institution  might  be  regarded  as  the  prolonged 
shadow  of  some  man  of  genius,  Islamism  of  Mahomet, 
Protestantism  of  Calvin,  Quakerism  of  Fox,  Methodism 
of  Wesley,  Abolitionism  of  Clarkson,  &c.  Men  of  genius, 
wrote  Flaubert,3  summarise  in  a  single  type  many 

out  any  motive  whatever  ?  "  Stendhal  (Beyle)  hated  his  father  and  was 
hated  by  him  ;  he  always  declared  his  invincible  repugnance  towards 
compulsory  family  affection  (Bourget,  Essais  de  Psychologic,  p.  310). 
"  I  consecrated  myself  to  grief  for  her,"  wrote  Chateaubriand  of  Pauline 
de  Baumont.  "...  She  had  not  been  dead  six  months,  when  her  place 
was  filled  in  my  heart  "  (Ibid.}. 

1  Revue  Litteraire,  Aug.  15,  1887,  No.  3. 

2  Lombroso,  Delitti  politici,  1890. 

3  Correspoiidance,  1889,  p.  538. 


ANALOGY  OF  SANE  TO  INSANE  GENIUS.  335 

separate  personalities,  and  bring  new  persons  to  conscious- 
ness in  the  human  race.  This  is  one  of  the  causes  of  their 
immense  influence.  And  not  only  are  they  not  misoneis- 
tic  ;  they  are  haters  of  old  things  and  ardent  lovers  of 
the  new  and  the  unknown.  Garibaldi,  when  he  pushed  on 
into  almost  unknown  regions  of  America,  said,  "  I  love 
the  unknown."  J  And  Christ  carried  his  idea  of  the  new 
world,  that  was  about  to  appear,  as  far  as  complete  com- 
munism. Many  men  of  genius  rule  beyond  the  tomb  : 
Caesar  was  never  so  powerful  (wrote  Michelet)  as  when  he 
was  a  corpse  ;  and  so  William  the  Silent.  Max  Nordau 
even  claims  that  all  human  progress  is  owing  to  despots  of 
genius.  "  Every  revolution  is  the  work  of  a  minority 
whose  individuality  cannot  conform  to  conditions  which 
were  neither  calculated  nor  created  for  them."  The  only 
real  innovators  known  to  history  are  tyrants  endowed 
with  ability  and  knowledge.  "  No  revolution  succeeds 
without  a  leader,"  wrote  Machiavelli  ;  and  elsewhere,  "  A 
multitude  without  a  head  is  useless."  This  is  natural,  be- 
cause the  man  of  genius,  being  essentially  original  and  a 
lover  of  originality,  is  the  natural  enemy  of  traditions 
and  conservatism  :  he  is  the  born  revolutionary,  the  pre- 
cursor and  the  most  active  pioneer  of  revolutions. 

1  Feeri,  Nuova  Antologia,  1889. 


CHAPTER    III. 
THE  EPILEPTOID  NATURE  OF  GENIUS. 

Etiology — Symptoms — Confessions  of  men  of  genius — The  life  of  a 
great  epileptic — Napoleon — Saint  Paul — The  saints — Philanthropic 
hysteria. 

WE  may,  however,  enter  more  deeply  into  the  study  of  the 
phenomena  of  genius  by  the  light  of  modern  theories  on 
epilepsy.  According  to  the  entirely  harmonious  researches 
of  clinical  and  experimental  observers,  this  malady  resolves 
itself  into  localised  irritation  of  the  cerebral  cortex,  mani- 
festing itself  in  attacks  which  are  sometimes  instantaneous, 
sometimes  of  longer  duration,  but  always  intermittent  and 
always  resting  on  a  degenerative  basis — either  hereditary  or 
predisposed  to  irritation  by  alcoholic  influence,  by  lesions 
of  the  skull,  &C.1  In  this  way  we  catch  a  glimpse  of  another 
conclusion,  viz.,  that  the  creative  power  of  genius  may 
be  a  form  of  degenerative  psychosis  belonging  to  the 
family  of  epileptic  affections. 

The  fact  that  genius  is  frequently  derived  from  parents 
either  addicted  to  drink,  of  advanced  age,  or  insane,  cer- 
tainly points  to  this  conclusion,  as  also  does  the  appear- 
ance of  genius  subsequently  to  lesions  of  the  head.  It  is 
also  indicated  by  frequent  anomalies,  especially  of  cranial 
asymmetry  ;  the  capacity  of  the  skull  being  sometimes 
excessive,  sometimes  abnormally  small  ;  by  the  frequency 
of  moral  insanity,  and  of  hallucinations  ;  by  sexual  and 
intellectual  precocity,  and  not  rarely  by  somnambulism. 
To  these  we  may  add  the  prevalence  of  suicide,  which  is, 
on  the  other  hand,  very  common  among  epileptic  patients  ; 
the  intermittence  of  bodily  and  mental  functions,  more 
particularly  the  occurrence  of  amnesia  and  analgesia  ;  the 

1  See  Archivio  di  Psichiatria,  vol.  ii. ;  L1 Uomo  Delinquente,  part  iii, 


THE  ZPILEPTOID  MATURE  oP  &ENIUS.  337 

frequent  tendency  to  vagabondage  ;  religious  feeling, 
manifesting  itself  even  in  the  case  of  atheists,  as  with 
Comte  ;  the  strange  terrors  by  which  they  are  often  seized 
(W.  Scott,  Byronj  Haller)  ;  the  double  personality,  the 
multiplicity  of  simultaneous  delusions,  so  common  in 
epileptic  cases  ;  *  the  frequent  recurrence  of  delusions 
produced  by  the  most  trifling  causes ;  the  same  miso- 
neism  ;  and  the  same  relation  to  criminality,  which  finds 
its  point  of  union  in  moral  insanity.  Add  to  this  the 
origin  and  ancestry  of  criminals  and  imbeciles,  which  con- 
stantly show  traces  both  of  genius  and  epilepsy,  as  may 
be  seen  in  the  genealogical  charts  given  of  the  families 
of  the  Caesars  and  Charles  V. ; 2  and  the  strange  passion 
for  wandering,  and  for  animals,  which  I  have  also  often 
found  in  degenerated,  and  especially  in  epileptic,  subjects. 3 

The  distractions  of  mind  for  which  great  men  are  so 
famous,  are  often,  writes  Tonnini,  nothing  else  but  epi- 
leptic absences.4 

The  greatest  proof  of  all,  however,  is  that  affective  in- 
sensibility, that  loss  of  moral  sense,  common  to  all  men 
of  genius,  whether  sane  or  insane,  which  makes  of  great 
conquerors,  even  in  the  most  recent  times,  nothing  else 
than  brigands  on  a  large  scale. 

Such  conclusions  may  seem  strange  to  persons  unac- 
quainted with  the  way  in  which  the  region  of  epilepsy 
has  been  extended  in  modern  times,  so  that  many  cases 
of  headache  (hemicrania)  or  simple  loss  of  memory, 
are  now  recognized  as  forms  of  epilepsy,  though 
in  disguise  ;  their  manifestation  —  as  Savage  has  ob- 
served— causing  the  disappearance  of  every  trace  of  the 
pre-existing  epilepsy.  It  is  sufficient,  however,  to  recall  to 
the  reader  the  numerous  men  of  genius  of  the  first  order 
who  have  been  seized  by  motory  epilepsy,  or  by  that  kind 

1  Enc&phale,  No.  5,  1887. 

a  See  the  table  in  Dejerine,  op.  cit. 

3  Mahomet  had  a  strange  fondness  for  his  monkey  ;  Richelieu  for  his 
squirrel ;  Crebillon,  Helvetius,  Bentham,  Erskine,  for  cats — the  latter 
also  for  a  leech.      Schopenhauer  was  very  fond  of  dogs,  and   named 
them  his  heirs  ;  and  Byron  had  a  regular  menagerie  of  ten  horses,  eight 
dogs,  three  monkeys,  five  cats,  five  peacocks,  an  eagle,  and  a  bear. 
Alfieri  had  a  passion  for  horses.     (Smiles,  op.  cit.} 

4  Le  Epilessie,  p.  19,  Turin,  1880. 

23 


338  THE  MAN  OP 

of  morbid  irritability  which  is  well  known  to  supply  its 
place.  Among  these  we  find  such  names  as  Napoleon, 
Moliere,  Julius  Caesar,  Petrarch,  Peter  the  Great, 
Mahomet,  Handel,  Swift,  Richelieu,  Charles  V.,  Flaubert, 
Dostoieffsky,  and  St.  Paul.1 

To  those  acquainted  with  the  so-called  binomial  or 
serial  law,  according  to  which  no  phenomenon  occurs 
singly — each  one  being,  on  the  contrary,  the  expression  of 
a  series  of  less  well-defined  but  analogous  facts — such 
frequent  occurrence  of  epilepsy  among  the  most  dis- 
tinguished of  distinguished  men  can  but  indicate  a 
greater  prevalence  of  this  disease  among  men  of  genius 
than  was  previously  thought  possible,  and  suggests  the 
hypothesis  of  the  epileptoid  nature  of  genius  itself. 

In  this  connection,  it  is  important  to  note  how,  in  these 
men,  the  convulsion  made  its  appearance  but  rarely  in 
the  course  of  their  lives.  Now  it  is  well  known  that,  in 
such  cases,  the  psychic  equivalent  (here  the  exercise  of 
creative  power)  is  more  frequent  and  intense.2 

But,  above  all,  the  identity  is  proved  to  us  by  the 
analogy  of  the  epileptic  seizure  with  the  moment  of  in- 
spiration. This  active  and  violent  unconsciousness  in  the 
one  case  manifests  itself  by  creation,  and  in  the  other  by 
motory  agitation. 

The  demonstration  is  completed  when  we  come  to  analyse 
this  creative  inspiration  or  cestrus  which  has  often  suggested 
epilepsy,  even  to  those  ignorant  of  the  recent  discoveries 
with  regard  to  its  nature.  And  this,  not  only  on  account 
of  its  frequent  association  with  insensibility  to  pain,  with 
irregularity  of  the  pulse,  and  with  an  unconsciousness 
which  is  often  that  of  a  somnambulist,  of  its  instan- 
taneous occurrence  and  intermittent  character  ;  but  also 
because  it  is  not  seldom  accompanied  by  convulsive  move- 
ments of  the  limbs,  followed  by  amnesia,  and  provoked 
by  substances  or  conditions  which  cause  or  increase  the 
excessive  flow  of  blood  to  the  brain  ;  or  by  powerful  sen- 
sations ;  and  also  because  it  may  succeed  or  pass  into 
hallucinations. 

This  resemblance  between  inspiration  and  the  epileptic 

1  Shenstone,  Darwin,  Swift,  and  Walter  Scott  were  subject  to  giddiness 
(Smiles).  2  See  L'Uomo  Delinqitente,  part  iii.  p.  623. 


THE  EPILEPTOID  NATURE  OF  GENIUS.  339 

seizure,  moreover,  is  demonstrated  by  an  even  directer 
and  more  cogent  proof — the  confessions  of  eminent 
men  of  genius,  which  show  how  completely  the  one 
may  be  confounded  with  the  other.  Such  confessions  are 
those  of  Goncourt1  and  Buffon,  and  especially  of 
Mahomet  and  Dostoieffsky. 

"  There  are  moments,"  writes  the  latter  (in  Besi) — 
u  and  it  is  only  a  matter  of  five  or  six  seconds — when  you 
suddenly  feel  the  presence  of  the  eternal  harmony.  This 
phenomenon  is  neither  terrestial  nor  celestial,  but  it  is  an 
indescribable  something,  which  man,  in  his  mortal  body, 
can  scarcely  endure — he  must  either  undergo  a  physical 
transformation  or  die.  It  is  a  clear  'and  indisputable 
feeling :  all  at  once,  you  feel  as  though  you  were  placed  in 
contact  with  the  whole  of  nature,  and  you  say,  '  Yes  !  this 
is  true.'  When  God  created  the  world,  He  said,  at  the 
end  of  every  day  of  creation,  '  Yes  !  this  is  true  !  this  is 
good  !  '  .  .  .  And  it  is  not  tenderness,  nor  yet  joy.  You 
do  not  forgive  anything,  because  there  is  nothing  to  for- 
give. Neither  do  you  love — oh  !  this  feeling  is  higher 
than  love  !  The  terrible  thing  is  the  frightful  clearness 
with  which  it  manifests  itself,  and  the  rapture  with  which 
it  fills  you.  If  this  state  were  to  last  more  than  five 
seconds,  the  soul  could  not  endure  it,  and  would  have  to 
disappear.  During  those  five  seconds,  I  live  a  whole 
human  existence,  and  for  that  I  would  give  my  whole 
life  and  not  think  I  was  paying  it  too  dearly.' 

"  *  You  are  not  epileptic  ?  ' 

"'No.' 

u  '  You  will  become  so.     I  have  heard  that  it  begins 

1  "There  is  a  fatality,"  says  Goncourt,  "  in  the  first  chance  which 
suggests  your  idea.  Then  there  is  an  tinknow)i  force,  a  superior  will,  a 
sort  of  necessity  of  writing  which  command  your  work  and  guide  your 
pen  ;  so  much  so,  that  sometimes  the  book  which  leaves  your  hands  does 
not  seem  to  have  come  out  of  yourself ;  it  astonishes  you,  like  some- 
thing which  was  in  you,  and  of  which  you  were  unconscious,  That 
is  the  impression  which  Stxitr  Philomcne  gives  me  "  (Journal  dcs  Gon* 
court,  Paris,  1888).  Even  Buffon,  who  had  said  that  invention  depends 
on  patience,  adds,  "  One  must  look  at  one's  subject  for  a  long  time ; 
then  it  gradually  unfolds  and  develops  itself ;  you  feel  a  slight  electric 
shock  strike  your  head  and  at  the  same  lime  seize  you  at  the  heart  j  that 
is  the  moment  of  genius." 


340  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

just  in  that  way.  A  man  subject  to  this  malady1  has 
minutely  described  to  me  the  sensation  which  precedes 
the  attack  ;  and  in  listening  to  you,  I  thought  I  heard 
him  speaking.  He,  too,  spoke  of  a  period  of  five  seconds, 
and  said  it  was  impossible  to  endure  this  condition  longer. 
Remember  Mahomet's  water-jar  ;  for  the  space  of  time  it 
took  to  empty  it,  the  prophet  was  rapt  into  Paradise. 
Your  five  seconds  are  the  jar — Paradise  is  your  harmony 
— and  Mahomet  was  epileptic  !  Take  care  you  do  not 
become  so  also,  Kiriloff !  '  " 2 

And  in  the  Idiot  (vol.  i.  p.  296)  : — 
"...  I  remember,  among  other  things,  a  phenomenon 
which  used  to  precede  his  epileptic  attacks,  when  they 
came  on  in  a  waking  state.  In  the  midst  of  the  dejec- 
tion, the  mental  marasmus,  the  anxiety,  which  the  mad- 
man experienced,  there  were  moments  in  which,  all  of  a 
sudden,  his  brain  became  inflamed,  and  all  his  vital  forces 
suddenly  rose  to  a  prodigious  degree  of  intensity.  The 
sensation  of  life,  of  conscious  existence,  was  multiplied 
almost  tenfold  in  these  swiftly-passing  moments. 

"  A  strange  light  illuminated  his  heart  and  mind.  All 
agitation  was  calmed,  all  doubt  and  perplexity  resolved 
itself  into  a  superior  harmony,  a  serene  and  tranquil 
gaiety,  which  yet  was  completely  rational.  But  these 
radiant  moments  were  only  a  prelude  to  the  last  instant 
— that  immediately  succeeded  by  the  attack.  That 
instant  was,  in  truth,  ineffable.  When,  at  a  later  time, 
after  his  recovery,  the  prince  reflected  on  this  subject,  he 
said  to  himself,  '  Those  fleeting  moments,  in  which  our 
highest  consciousness  of  ourselves  —  and  therefore  our 
highest  life — is  manifested,  are  due  only  to  disease,  to  the 
suspension  of  normal  conditions  ;  and,  if  so,  it  is  not  a 
higher  life,  but,  on  the  contrary,  one  of  a  lower  order.' 
This,  however,  did  not  prevent  his  reaching  a  most  para- 
doxical conclusion.  '  What  matter,  after  all,  though  it 
be  a  disease — an  abnormal  tension — if  the  result,  as  I 
with  recovered  health  remember  and  analyze  it,  includes 
the  very  highest  degree  of  harmony  and  beauty  ;  if  at 
this  moment  I  have  an  unspeakable,  hitherto  unsuspected 

1  Evidently  the  author  himself. 
8  Dostoieffsky,  Besi,  Paris. 


THE  EPILEPTOID  NATURE  OF  GENIUS.  341 

feeling  of  harmony,  of  peace,  of  my  whole  nature  being 
fused  in  the  impetus  of  a  prayer,  with  the  highest  synthesis 
of  life?' 

"  This  farrago  of  nonsense  seemed  to  the  prince  per- 
fectly comprehensible  ;  and  the  only  fault  it  had  in  his 
eyes  was  that  of  being  too  feeble  a  rendering  of  his 
thoughts.  He  could  not  doubt,  or  even  admit  the  pos- 
sibility of  a  doubt,  of  the  real  existence  of  this  condition 
of '  beauty  and  prayer,'  or  of  its  constituting  'the  highest 
synthesis  of  life.' 

u  But  did  he  not  in  these  moments  experience  visions 
analogous  to  the  fantastic  and  debasing  dreams  produced  by 
the  intoxication  of  opium,  haschisch,  or  wine  ?  He  was  able 
to  form  a  sane  judgment  on  this  point  when  the  morbid 
condition  had  ceased.  These  moments  were  only  dis- 
tinguished— to  define  them  in  a  word — by  the  extraor- 
dinary heightening  of  the  inward  sense.  If  in  that  instant 
— that  is  to  say,  in  the  last  moment  of  consciousness 
which  precedes  the  attack — the  patient  was  able  to  say 
clearly,  and  with  full  consciousness  of  the  import  of  his 
words,  '  Yes,  for  this  moment  one  would  give  a  whole 
lifetime,'  there  is  no  doubt  that,  as  far  as  he  alone  was 
concerned,  that  moment  was  worth  a  lifetime. 

"  No  doubt,  too,  it  is  to  this  same  instant  that  the 
epileptic  Mahomet  alluded,  when  he  said  that  he  used  to 
visit  all  the  abodes  of  Allah  in  less  time  than  it  would 
take  to  empty  his  water-jar." 

I  will  add  here  some  lines  from  the  Correspondence  of 
Flaubert  :— 

"If  sensitive  nerves  are  enough  to  make  a  poet,  I 
should  be  worth  more  than  Shakespeare  and  Homer.  .  .  . 
I  who  have  heard  through  closed  doors  people  talking  in 
low  tones  thirty  paces  away,  across  whose  abdomen  one 
may  see  all  the  viscera  throbbing,  and  who  have  some- 
times felt  in  the  space  of  a  minute  a  million  thoughts, 
images,  and  combinations  of  all  kinds  throwing  them- 
selves into  my  brain  at  once,  as  it  were  the  lighted  squibs 
of  fireworks." 

Let  us  now  compare  these  descriptions  of  an  attack, 
which  might  be  called  one  of  psychic  epilepsy  (and  which 
corresponds  exactly  to  the  physiological  idea  of  epilepsy — 


342  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

i.e.,  cortical  irritation),  with  all  the  descriptions  given 
us  by  authors  themselves  of  the  inspiration  of  genius. 
We  shall  then  see  how  perfect  is  the  correspondence 
between  the  two  sets  of  phenomena. 

In  order  the  better  to  illustrate  these  strange  displace- 
ments of  function  in  epileptic  subjects,  I  should  call 
attention  to  an  example,  cited  by  Dr.  Frigerio,  of  an 
epileptic  patient  who,  at  the  moment  of  seizure,  felt  the 
venereal  desire  awaken,  not  in  the  generative  organs,  but 
in  the  epigastrium,  accompanied  by  ejaculation.1 

Let  me  add  that,  in  certain  cases,  it  is  not  only  isolated 
paroxysms  which  recall  the  psychic  phenomenology  of 
the  epileptic,  but  the  whole  life.  Bourget  remarks  that, 
"  for  the  Goncourts,  life  reduces  itself  to  a  series  of  epileptic 
attacks,  preceded  and  followed  by  a  blank."  And  what 
the  Goncourts  wrote  has  always  been  autobiography. 
Zola  in  his  Romanciers  Naturah'stes  gives  us  this  confes- 
sion by  Balzac  :  "  He  works  under  the  influence  of  cir- 
cumstances, of  which  the  union  is  a  mystery  ;  he  does 
not  belong  to  himself ;  he  is  the  plaything  of  a  force 
which  is  eminently  capricious  ;  on  some  days  he  would 
not  touch  his  brush,  he  would  not  write  a  line  for  an 
empire.  In  the  evening  when  dreaming,  in  the  morning 
when  rising,  in  the  midst  of  some  joyous  feast,  it  happens 
that  a  burning  coal  suddenly  touches  this  brain,  these 
hands,  this  tongue  :  a  word  awakens  ideas  that  are  born, 
grow,  ferment.  Such  is  the  artist,  the  humble  instru- 
ment of  a  despotic  will  ;  he  obeys  a  master." 

Let  us  glance  at  the  pictures  which  Taine  has  given 
us  of  the  greatest  of  modern  conquerors,  and  Renan  of 
the  greatest  of  the  apostles  : — 

"  The  principal  characteristics  of  Napoleon's  genius," 
says  Taine,  "  are  its  originality  and  comprehensiveness. 
No  detail  escapes  him.  The  quantity  of  facts  which  his 
mind  stores  up  and  retains,  the  number  of  ideas  which  he 
elaborates  and  utters,  seem  to  surpass  human  capacity. 

''  In  the  art  of  ruling  men  his  genius  was  supreme. 
His  method  of  procedure — which  is  that  of  the  experi- 
mental sciences — consisted  in  controlling  every  theory  by 
a  precise  application  observed  under  definite  conditions. 
1  Archivio  di  Psichiatria,  ix.  1.,  p.  89. 


THE  EPILEPTOID  NATURE  OF  GENIUS.  343 

AH  his  sayings  are  fire-flashes.  '  Adultery,'  said  he  to 
the  Conseil  d'Etat,  when  the  question  of  divorce  was 
under  discussion,  '  is  not  exceptional  ;  it  is  very  com- 
mon—  Jest  line  affaire  de  canape?  '  Liberty,'  he  ex- 
claimed, on  another  occasion  (and  he  remained  faithful 
all  his  life  to  the  spirit  of  this  exclamation),  'is  the  neces- 
sity of  a  small  and  privileged  class,  endowed  by  nature 
with  faculties  higher  than  those  of  the  mass  of  mankind  ; 
it  may  therefore  be  abridged  with  impunity.  Equality,  on 
the  contrary,  pleases  the  multitude." 

"He  possesses  a  faculty  which  carries  us  back  to  the 
Middle  Ages — an  astounding  constructive  imagination. 
What  he  accomplished  is  surprising ;  but  he  undertook 
far  more,  and  dreamed  much  more  even  than  that.  How- 
ever vigorous  his  practical  faculties  may  have  been,  his 
poetic  faculty  was  still  stronger  ;  it  was  even  greater  than 
it  ought  to  have  been  in  a  statesman.  We  see  greatness 
in  him  exaggerated  into  immensity,  and  immensity  de- 
generating into  madness.  What  aspiring,  monstrous  con- 
ceptions revolved,  accumulated,  superseded  each  other 
in  that  marvellous  brain  !  '  Europe,'  he  said,  '  is  a 
mole-hill  ;  there  have  never  been  great  empires  or  great 
revolutions  save  in  the  East,  where  there  are  six  hun- 
dred millions  of  men.'  " 

In  Egypt,  he  was  thinking  of  conquering  Syria,  re- 
establishing the  Eastern  Empire  at  Constantinople,  and 
returning  to  Paris  by  way  of  Adrianople  and  Vienna. 
The  East  allured  him  with  the  mirage  of  omnipotence  ; 
in  the  East  he  caught  a  glimpse  of  the  possibility 
that,  a  new  Mahomet,  he  might  found  a  new  religion. 
Confined  to  Europe,  his  dream  was  to  re-create  the  em- 
pire of  Charlemagne ;  to  make  Paris  the  physical,  intel- 
lectual, and  religious  capital  of  Europe,  and  assemble 
within  its  precincts  the  princes,  kings,  and  popes,  who 
should  have  become  his  vassals.  By  way  of  Russia,  he 
would  then  advance  towards  the  Ganges,  and  the  supre- 
macy of  India.  u  The  artist  enclosed  within  the  politician 
has  issued  from  his  sheath  ;  he  creates  in  the  region  of 
the  ideal  and  the  impossible.  We  know  him  for  what  he 
is — a  posthumous  brother  of  Dante  and  Michelangelo  ; 
only  these  two  worked  on  paper  and  in  marble  ;  it  was 


344  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

living  man,  sensitive  and  suffering  flesh,  that  formed  his 
material." 

"  Napoleon  differs  from  modern  men  in  character  as 
much  as  do  the  contemporaries  of  Dante  and  Michelangelo. 
The  sentiments,  habits,  and  morality  professed  by  him 
are  the  sentiments,  habits,  and  morality  of  the  fifteenth 
century.  '  I  am  not  a  man  like  other  men,'  he  ex- 
claimed ;  l  the  laws  of  morality  and  decorum  were  not 
made  for  me.' 

uMme.  de  Stael  and  Stendhal  compare  Napoleon 
psychologically  to  the  lesser  tyrants  of  the  fourteenth 
century — Sforza  and  Castruccio  Castracani.  Such,  in  fact, 
he  was. 

"On  the  evening  of  the  1 2th  Vendemiaire,  being  pre- 
sent at  the  preparations  made  by  the  Sections,  he  said  to 
Junot,  'Ah  !  if  the  Sections  would  only  place  me  at 
their  head,  I  would  answer  for  it  that  they  should  be  in 
the  Tuileries  within  two  hours,  and  all  these  wretched 
Conventionnels  out  of  it ! '  Five  hours  later,  being  called 
to  the  assistance  of  Barras  and  the  Convention,  he  opened 
fire  on  the  Parisians,  like  a  good  condotti'ere,  who  does 
not  give  but  lends  himself  to  the  first  who  offers,  to  the 
highest  bidder,  reserving  for  himself  full  liberty  of 
action,  and  the  power  of  seizing  everything,  should  the 
occasion  present  itself.  .... 

"  Never,  even  among  the  Borgias  and  Malatestas,  was 
there  a  more  sensitive  and  impulsive  brain,  capable  of  such 
electric  accumulations  and  discharges.  ...  In  him,  no 
idea  remained  purely  speculative  ;  each  one,  as  it  occurred, 
had  a  tendency  to  embody  itself  in  action,  and  would 
have  done  so,  if  not  prevented  by  force.  .  .  .  Sometimes 
the  outburst  was  so  sudden  that  restraint  did  not  come 
in  time.  One  day,  in  Egypt,  he  upset  a  decanter  of  water 
over  a  lady's  dress,  and,  taking  her  into  his  own  room, 
under  the  pretext  of  remedying  the  accident,  remained 
there  with  her  for  some  time — too  long — while  the  other 
guests,  seated  around  the  table,  waited,  gazing  at  each 
other.  On  another  occasion  he  threw  Prince  Louis 
violently  out  of  the  room  ;  on  yet  another,  he  kicked 
Senator  Volney  in  the  stomach. 

"  At  Campo-Formio,  he  threw  down  and  broke  a  china 


THE  EPILEPTOID  NATURE  OF  GENIUS.  345 

ornament,  to  put  an  end  to  the  resistance  of  the  Austrian 
plenipotentiary.  At  Dresden,  in  1813,  when  Prince 
Metternich  was  most  necessary  to  him,  he  asked  him, 
brutally,  how  much  he  received  from  England  for 
defending  her  interests. 

u  Never  was  there  a  more  impatient  sensibility.  He 
throws  garments  that  do  not  fit  him  into  the  fire.  His 
writing — when  he  tries  to  write — is  a  collection  of  dis- 
connected and  indecipherable  characters.  He  dictates  so 
quickly  that  his  secretaries  can  scarcely  follow  him — if 
the  pen  is  behindhand,  so  much  the  worse  for  it ;  if  a 
volley  of  oaths  and  exclamations  give  it  time  to  catch 
up,  so  much  the  better.  His  heart  and  intellect  are  full 
to  overflowing  ;  under  pressure  like  this,  the  extempore 
orator  and  the  excited  controversialist  take  the  place  of 
the  statesman." 

"My  nerves  are  irritable,"  he  said  of  himself;  and,  in 
fact,  the  tension  of  accumulated  impressions  sometimes 
produced  a  physical  convulsion  ;  he  was  not  seldom  seen 
to  shed  tears  under  strong  emotion.  Napoleon  wept, 
not  on  account  of  true  and  deep  feeling,  but  because  "  a 
word — an  idea  by  itself  is  a  stimulus  which  reaches  the 
inmost  depth  of  his  nature."  Hence,  certain  distractions, 
consequent  upon  vomitings  or  fainting  fits,  which  caused, 
it  is  said,  the  loss  of  General  Vandamme's  corps,  after  the 
battle  of  Dresden.  Though  the  regulator  is  so  powerful, 
the  balance  of  the  works  is,  from  time  to  time,  in  danger 
of  being  deranged. 

"An  enormous  degree  of  strength  was  necessary,  to 
co-ordinate,  to  guide  and  to  dominate  passions  of  such 
vitality.  In  Napoleon,  this  strength  is  an  instinct  of 
extraordinary  force  and  harshness — an  egoism,  not  inert, 
but  active  and  aggressive,  and  so  far  developed  as  to  set 
up  in  the  midst  of  human  society  a  colossal  /,  which  can 
tolerate  no  life  that  is  not  an  appendix,  or  instrument 
of  its  own.  Even  as  a  child,  he  showed  the  germs  of 
this  personality  ;  he  was  impatient  of  all  restraint,  and 
had  no  trace  of  conscience  ;  he  could  brook  no  rivals, 
beat  those  who  refused  to  render  homage  to  him,  and  then 
accused  his  victims  of  having  beaten  him. 

"  JJe  looks  upon  the  world  as  a  great  banquet,  open  to 


346  THE  MAN  OP  GENIUS. 

every  comer,  but  where,  to  be  well  served,  it  is  necessary 
for  a  man  to  have  long  arms,  help  himself  first,  and  let 
others  take  what  he  leaves. 

"  '  One  has  a  hold  over  man  through  his  selfish  passions 
— fear,  greed,  sensuality,  self-esteem,  emulation.  If  there 
are  some  hard  particles  in  the  heap,  all  one  has  to  do  is 
to  crush  them.'  Such  was  the  final  conception  arrived 
at  by  Napoleon  ;  and  nothing  could  induce  him  to  change 
it,  because  this  conception  is  conditioned  by  his  character  ; 
he  saw  man  as  he  needed  to  see  him.  His  egoism  is 
reflected  in  his  ambition — '  so  much  a  part  of  his  inmost 
nature  that  he  cannot  distinguish  it  from  himself;  it 
makes  his  head  swim.  France  is  a  mistress  who  is  his  to 
enjoy.'  In  the  exercise  of  his  power  he  acknowledges 
neither  intermediaries,  nor  rivals,  nor  limits,  nor  hin- 
drances. 

"  To  fill  his  office  with  zeal  and  success  is  not  enough  for 
him  ;  above  and  beyond  the  functionary,  he  vindicates 
the  rights  of  the  man.  All  who  serve  him  must  ex- 
tinguish the  critical  sense  in  themselves  ;  their  scarcely 
audible  whispers  are  a  conspiracy,  or  an  attack  on  his 
majesty.  He  requires  of  them  anything  and  everything — 
from  the  manufacture  of  false  Austrian  and  Russian 
bank-notes  in  1809  and  1812,  to  the  preparation  of  an 
infernal  machine,  to  blow  up  the  Bourbons  in  1814.  He 
knows  nothing  of  gratitude  ;  when  a  man  is  of  no  further 
use  to  him  as  a  tool,  he  throws  him  away.  .  .  . 

"  During  a  dance,  he  would  walk  about  among  the  ladies, 
in  order  to  shock  them  with  unpleasant  witticisms  ;  he  was 
always  prying  into  their  private  life,  and  related  to  the 
empress  .herself  the  favours  which,  more  or  less  spon- 
taneously, they  granted  him. 

"  What  is  still  stranger,  he  carried  the  same  methods  of 
proceeding  into  his  relations  with  sovereigns  and  ambas- 
sadors of  foreign  states.  In  his  correspondence,  in  his 
proclamations,  in  his  audiences,  he  provoked,  threatened, 
challenged,  offended  ;  he  divulged  their  real  or  supposed 
amorous  intrigues  (the  bulletins  9,  17,  18,  19,  after  the 
battle  of  Jena,  evidently  accuse  the  Queen  of  Prussia  of 
having  had  an  intrigue  with  the  Emperor  Alexander), 
and  reproaches  them  with  a  personal  insult  to  himself,  in 


THE  EPILEPTOID  NATURE  OF  GENIUS.  347 

the  employment  of  such  or  such  a  man.  He  requires  of 
them,  in  short,  to  modify  their  fundamental  laws  :  he 
has  but  a  poor  opinion  of  a  government  without  the 
power  of  prohibiting  things  which  may  displease  foreign 
.governments."1 

This  is  the  completest  view  of  Napoleon  ever  given  by 
any  historian.  To  any  one  acquainted  with  the  psycho- 
logical constitution  of  the  epileptic,  it  becomes  clear  that 
Taine  has  here  given  us  the  subtlest  and  precisest  patho- 
logical diagnosis  of  a  case  of  psychic  epilepsy,  with  its 
gigantic  megalomaniacal'  illusions,  its  impulses,  and  com- 
plete absence  of  moral  sense. 

It  is  not,  therefore,  only  in  moments  of  inspiration 
that  genius  approaches  epilepsy  ;  and  the  same  thing  may 
be  said  of  St.  Paul. 

St.  Paul 2  was  of  low  stature,  but  stoutly  made.  His 
health  was  always  poor,  on  account  of  a  strange  infirmity 
which  he  calls  u  a  thorn  in  the  flesh,"  and  which  was 
probably  a  serious  neurosis. 

His  moral  character  was  anomalous  ;  naturally  kind  and 
courteous,  he  became  ferocious  when  excited  by  passion. 
In  the  school  of  Gamaliel,  a  moderate  Pharisee,  he  did  not 
learn  moderation  ;  as  the  enthusiastic  leader  of  the  younger 
Pharisees,  he  was  among  the  fiercest  persecutors  of  the 
Christians.  .  .  .  Hearing  that  there  was  a  certain  number 
of  disciples  at  Damascus,  he  demanded  of  the  high  priest 
a  warrant  for  arresting  them,  and  left  Jerusalem  in  a  dis- 
turbed state  of  mind.  On  approaching  the  plain  of 
Damascus  at  noon,  he  had  a  seizure,  evidently  of  an  epi- 
leptic nature,  in  which  he  fell  to  the  ground  unconscious. 
Soon  after  this,  he  experienced  a  hallucination,  and  saw 
Jesus  himself,  who  said  to  him  in  Hebrew,  "  Paul,  Paul, 
why  persecutest  thou  me  ?  "  For  three  days,  seized  with 
fever,  he  neither  ate  nor  drank,  and  saw  the  phantom  of 
Ananias,  whom,  as  head  of  the  Christian  community,  he 
had  come  to  arrest,  making  signs  to  him.  The  latter  was 
summoned  to  his  bed,  and  calm  immediately  returned  to 
the  spirit  of  Paul,  who  from  that  day  forward  became 
one  of  the  most  fervid  Christians.  Without  desiring  any 

1  Taine,  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes—Dec.  1 886,  and  Jan.  1887. 

2  Renan,  in  Les  Apdtres, 


348  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

more  special  instruction — as  having  received  a  direct 
revelation  from  Christ  himself — he  regarded  himself  as 
one  of  the  apostles,  and  acted  as  such,  to  the  enormous 
advantage  of  the  Christians.  The  immense  dangers  oc- 
casioned by  his  haughty  and  arrogant  spirit  were  com- 
pensated a  thousand  times  over  by  his  boldness  and 
originality,  which  would  not  allow  the  Christian  idea  to 
remain  within  the  bounds  of  a  small  association  of  people 
"  poor  in  spirit,"  who  would  have  let  it  die  out  like  Helle- 
nism, but,  so  to  speak,  steered  boldly  out  to  sea  with  it. 
At  Antioch  he  had  a  hallucination  similar  to  that  of 
Mahomet  at  a  later  period  ;  he  felt  himself  rapt  into  the 
third  heaven,  where  he  heard  unspeakable  words,  which 
it  is  not  lawful  for  a  man  to  utter. 

Anomalies  are  also  observable  in  his  writings.  "  He  lets 
himself  be  guided  by  words  rather  than  ideas  ;  some  one 
wordiwhich  he  has  in  his  mind  overpowers  him  and  draws 
him  off  into  a  series  of  ideas  very  far  removed  from  his 
main  subject.  His  digressions  are  abrupt,  the  develop- 
ment of  his  ideas  is  suddenly  cut  short,  his  sentences  are 
often  unfinished.  No  writer  was  ever  so  unequal  ;  no 
literature  in  the  world  presents  a  sublime  passage  like 
i  Corinthians  xiii.,  side  by  side  with  futile  arguments  and 
wearisome  detail." x 

Epilepsy  in  men  of  genius,  therefore,  is  not  an  acci- 
dental phenomenon,  but  a  true  morbus  totius  substantive, 
to  express  it  in  medical  language.  Hence  we  gather  a 
fresh  indication  of  the  epileptoid  nature  of  genius. 

If,  as  seems  certain,  Dostoieffsky  described  himself  in 
the  Idiot,  we  have  another  example  of  an  epileptic  genius, 
whose  whole  course  of  life  is  determined  by  the  psycho- 
logy peculiar  to  the  epileptic — impulsivity,  double  per- 
sonality, childishness,  which  goes  back  even  to  the  earliest 
periods  of  human  life,  and  alternates  with  a  prophetic 
penetration,  and  with  morbid  altruism  and  the  exag- 
gerated affectivity  of  the  saint.  This  last  fact  is  most 
important,  as  bearing  on  the  objection  that  the  usual 
immorality  of  the  epileptic  would  forbid  us  to  connect 
this  type  with  that  of  the  saintly  character.  This  objec- 
tion, however,  has  been  partly  eliminated  by  the  researches 
1  Kenan- 


THE  &PILEPT61D  NATURE  OF  GENIUS.  349 

of  Bianchi,  Tonnini,  Filippi,  according  to  whom  there  are 
cases,  though  rare  (16  per  cent.))  of  epileptic  patients 
of  good  character,  who  even  manifest  an  exaggerated 
altruism,  though  accompanied  by  excessive  emotionalism.1 
Hysteria,  which  is  closely  related  to  epilepsy,  and 
similarly  connected  with  the  loss  of  affectivity,  often  shows 
us,  side  by  side  with  an  exaggerated  egoism,  certain  bursts 
of  excessive  altruism,  which,  at  the  same  time,  have  their 
source  in,  and  depend  on,  a  degree  of  moral  insanity,  and 
show  us  the  morbid  phenomenon  in  excessive  charity. 

"  There  are  some  ladies,"  justly  observes  Legrand  du 
Saulle,2  "  who,  though  remaining  in  the  world,  take  an 
ostentatious  part  in  all  the  good  works  going  on  in  their 
parish  ;  they  collect  for  the  poor,  work  for  the  orphans, 
visit  the  sick,  give  alms,  watch  by  the  dead,  ardently 
solicit  the  benevolence  of  others,  and  do  a  great  deal  of 
really  helpful  work,  while  at  the  same  time  neglecting 
their  husbands,  children,  and  household  affairs. 

"  These  women  ostentatiously  and  noisily  proclaim 
their  benevolence.  They  set  on  foot  a  work  of  charity 
with  as  much  ardour  as  bogus  company-promoters  launch 
a  financial  enterprise  which  is  to  result  in  hyperbolical 
dividends. 

"  They  go  and  come,  in  constantly  increasing  numbers  ; 
they  instinctively  act  with  a  charming  tact  and  delicacy, 
think  of  everything  necessary  to  be  done,  whether  in  the 
midst  of  private  mourning  or  public  catastrophe,  and 
affect  to  blush  on  receiving  tributes  of  admiration  from 
grateful  sufferers,  or  deeply  moved  spectators.  .  .  .  Their 
ready  tact  and  sympathy  are  surprising,  and  the  greater 
the  trouble,  the  more  admirably  do  they  seem  to  rise  to 
the  occasion — while  the  paroxysm  lasts.  When  their 
feelings  are  calmed,  the  benevolent  impulse  passes  away  ; 
being  essentially  mobile  and  spasmodic,  they  cannot  do 
good  deliberately  and  on  reflection. 

"  The  '  charitable  hysteric '  is  capable  of  achieving  feats 
of  courage  which  have  been  quoted  and  repeated,  and 
even  become  legendary. 

u  They  have  been  known  to  show  extraordinary  presence 

1  Tonnini,  Epilessie,  1 886  ;  Arckivio  di  Psichiatria,  1 886. 
•  Les  Hysteriques,  Paris,  1883. 


350  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

of  mind,  resource,  and  courage  in  saving  the  inmates  of 
a  burning  house,  or  in  facing  an  armed  mob  during  a 
riot.  If  questioned  on  the  following  day,  these  heroines 
will  be  found  in  a  state  of  complete  prostration  ;  and 
some  of  them  candidly  avow  that  they  do  not  know  what 
they  have  done,  and  were  at  the  time  unconscious  of 
danger. 

"At  a  time  of  cholera  epidemic,  when  fear  causes  such 
ill-advised  and  reprehensible  derelictions  of  duty,  hys- 
terical women  have  been  known  to  show  an  extraordinary 
devotion  ;  nothing  is  repugnant  to  them,  nothing  revolts 
their  modesty  or  wearies  out  their  endurance.  .  .  , 

u  For  such  persons,  devotion  to  others  has  become  a 
need,  a  necessary  expenditure  of  energy,  and,  without 
knowing  it,  they  pathologically  play  the  part  of  virtue. 
People  in  general  are  taken  in  by  it,  and,  for  the  sake  of 
example,  it  is  just  as  well.  It  was  this  consideration 
which  induced  me  to  ask  and  obtain  a  public  acknow- 
ledgment of  the  services  of  a  hysterical  patient — at  one 
time  an  inmate  of  a  lunatic  asylum — whose  deeds  of  charity 
in  the  district  where  she  lives  are  truly  touching.  While 
constantly  active  in  attendance  on  the  sick,  and  spending 
liberally  on  their  behalf,  she  confines  her  personal  ex- 
penditure to  what  is  strictly  necessary,  her  dress  being  the 
same  at  all  seasons  of  the  year.  Now  this  lady  shows  a 
great  variety  of  hysterical  symptoms,  becomes  intensely 
excited  on  the  slightest  occasion,  sleeps  very  badly,  and 
is  a  serious  invalid. 

"  Lastly,  in  private  sorrows,  the  hysteric  patient  often 
departs  from  the  normal  manifestations  of  grief.  At  the 
loss  of  her  children,  she  remains  calm,  serene,  resigned  ; 
does  not  shed  a  tear,  thinks  of  everything  that  ought  to 
be  done,  gives  numerous  orders,  forgets  none  of  the  most 
painful  details,  imposes  on  all  around  her  the  most  digni- 
fied attitude,  and  attends  the  funeral  without  breaking 
down.  People  think  that  this  mother  is  exceptionally 
gifted,  and  has  a  courage  superior  to  others.  This  is  a 
mistake  ;  she  is  weaker  than  they — she  is  '  suffering  from 
disease.' " 

In  order  fully  to  grasp  the  seeming  paradoxes  contained 
in  these  conclusions,  we  must  remember  that  many 


THE  EP1LEPTOID  NATURE  OP  GENIUS.  351 

philanthropists  love  their  neighbours,  but  only  at  a  dis- 
tance, and  nearly  always  at  the  expense  of  the  more 
physiological,  more  general,  affections — love  for  their 
family,  their  country,  &c.  We  must  remember  Dosto- 
ieffsky's  remark  (in  The  Brothers  Karamanzov,  i.  p.  325) 
that  "  What  one  can  love  in  one's  fellow  is  a  hidden  and 
invisible  man  ;  as  soon  as  he  shows  his  face,  love  dis- 
appears. One  can  love  one's  fellow-men  in  spirit,  but 
only  at  a  distance  ;  never  close  at  hand."  One  also  recalls 
Sterne,  who  was  overcome  with  emotion  at  the  sight  of  a 
dead  ass,  and  deserted  his  wife  and  his  mother. 

The  greatest  philanthropists — such  men  as  Beccaria 
and  Howard — have  been  harsh  fathers  and  masters  ;  even 
the  Divine  Philanthropist  was,  as  we  have  seen,  hard 
towards  his  own  family.1 

St.  Paul,  before  his  conversion,  distinguished  himself  by 
his  vehement  and  cruel  persecution  of  the  Christians. 

It  is  well  known  how,  only  too  often,  the  man  of  real 
and  fervent  religion  has  to  forget  his  family  and  make 
a  duty  of  celibacy  and  hatred  to  the  other  sex.  Thus  St. 
Liberata  was  angry  with  her  husband  for  weeping  at 
parting  from  their  children  ;  and,  according  to  the  legend, 
the  mother  of  Baruch  replied  to  her  son  when,  during  his 
martyrdom,  he  implored  her  for  water  in  his  anguish, 
u  Thou  shouldst  desire  no  water  now  save  that  of 
heaven."  2 

These  cases,  moreover,  show  that,  very  often,  exag- 
gerated altruism  is  itself  only  a  pathological  phenome- 
non, a  hypertrophy  of  sentiment  accompanied — as  always 
happens  in  cases  of  hypertrophy — by  loss  and  atrophy  in 
other  directions. 3 

We  have  seen  in  Juan  de  Dios,  in  Lazzaretti,  Loyola, 
and  St.  Francis,  of  Assisi,  saintliness  showing  itself,  in  true 
psychic  polarization,  as  a  perfect  contrast  to  their  former 
life  in  which  the  tendency  to  evil  was  strongly  pro- 
nounced. 

*  Vinson,  Les  religions  actuelhs,  1884 ;  Luke  ii.  49  ;  Matt.  xii.  48 ; 
Mark  iii.  33. 

2  Anfosso,  La  Legende  religieuse  an  molten-Age,  1887. 

3  Oa  altruism  in  moral  insanity  and  epilepsy,  SQ.Q  L1  Uonio  Delinquents, 
pp.  556,  557.    We  have  seen  St.  Francis  love  even  the  stars,  the  water, 
tne  fire,  &c.,  and— abandon  his  family  ! 


352  TtiE  MAN  OP 

If  we  add  to  these  phenomena,  so  frequent  in  epileptic1 
and  hysteric  patients,  all  those  others,  of  clairvoyance, 
thought-transference,  transposition  of  the  senses,  fakirism, 
mental  vision,  temporary  manifestations  of  genius,  and 
monoideism,  so  frequently  observed  in  these  maladies, 
phenomena  so  strange  that  many  scientists,  unable  to  ex- 
plain, endeavour  to  deny  them,  we  can  demonstrate  the 
hysterical  character  of  saintliness,  even  in  its  least  expli- 
cable manifestations — those  of  miracles.1 

1  Lombroso,  Stiuiii  sttir  ipnotismo,  3rd  cd.  ;  Azam,  Hypnotisme, 
Double  Conscience ;  Beaunis,  Le  somnambulism*  provoque,  La  sugges- 
tion mentals;  Drs.  H.  Bourru  and  F.  Burot,  Dugay,  Richet,  Janet,  Revue 
Philosophic]  ue,  1884-89  ;  Krafft-Ebing,  Ueber  den  Hypnotismus,  1889  ; 
Jendrassik,  Ueber  die  Suggestion,  1887;  Binet  and  Fere,  La  Polarisation, 
1885  ;  Ibid.,  Le  magnetisme  anitnal ;  Beard,  Nature  and  Phenomena  of 
Trance,  New  York,  1880  ;  Lombroso  and  Ottolenghi,  Nuovi  Studii 
ipnotisniO)  1890,  and  Sulla  Transmission  del  Pensiero,  1891. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

SANE  MEN  OF  GENIUS. 

Their   unperceived   defects  —  Richelieu  —  Sesostris — Foscolo— Michel- 
angelo— Darwin. 

BUT  a  graver  objection  is  that  afforded  by  those  few  men 
of  genius  who  have  completed  their  intellectual  orbit 
without  aberration,  neither  depressed  by  misfortune  nor 
thrown  out  of  their  course  by  madness. 

Such  have  been  Galileo,  Leonardo  da  Vinci,  Voltaire, 
Machiavelli,  Michelangelo,  Darwin.  Each  one  of  these 
showed,  by  the  ample  volume  and  at  the  same  time  the 
symmetrical  proportion  of  the  skull,  force  of  intellect 
restrained  by  the  calm  of  the  desires.  Not  one  of  them 
allowed  his  great  passion  for  truth  and  beauty  to  stifle  the 
love  of  family  and  country.  They  never  changed  their 
faith  or  character,  never  swerved  from  their  aim,  never 
left  their  work  half  completed.  What  assurance,  what 
faith,  what  ability  they  showed  in  their  undertakings  ; 
and,  above  all,  what  moderation  and  unity  of  character 
they  preserved  in  their  lives  !  Though  they,  too,  had  to 
experience — after  undergoing  the  sublime  paroxysm  of  in- 
spiration— the  torture  inflicted  by  ignorant  hatred,  and  the 
discomfort  of  uncertainty  and  exhaustion,  they  never,  on 
that  account,  deviated  from  the  straight  road.  They  carried 
out  to  the  end  the  one  cherished  idea  which  formed  the 
aim  and  purpose  of  their  lives,  calm  and  serene,  never  com- 
plaining of  obstacles,  and  falling  into  but  a  few  mistakes — 
mistakes  which,  in  lesser  men,  might  even  have  passed  for 
discoveries. 

But  I  have  already  answered,  in  the  opening  pages  of 
this  book,  the  objection  furnished  by  these  rare  exceptions, 
pointing  out  that  epilepsy  and  moral  insanity  (which  is  its 

3.S4 


354  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

first  variety)  often  pass  unobserved,  not  only  in  dis- 
tinguished men,  the  prestige  of  whose  name  and  work 
dazzles  our  judgment,  and  prevents  our  discerning  them, 
but  in  those  criminals  to  whom  such  researches  might  at 
least  restore  self-respect,  by  depriving  them  of  all 
responsibility. 

Who,  but  for  the  revelations  of  some  of  his  intimate 
friends,  would  have  suspected  that  Cavour  was  repeatedly 
subject  to  attacks  of  suicidal  mania,  or  thought  that 
Richelieu  was  epileptic  ?  No  one  would  have  paid  any 
attention  to  the  morbid  impulsiveness  of  Foscolo,  or  re- 
corded it  as  a  symptom,  if  Davis  had  not  examined  his 
skull  after  death.  Who  could  make  any  assertion  with 
regard  to  the  moral  sense  of  Sesostris  ?  Yet,  as  Arved 
Barine  justly  remarks,1  his  skull  completely  corresponds  to 
the  criminal  type.  The  low  and  narrow  forehead,  pro- 
minent superciliary  arch,  thick  eyebrows,  eyes  set  close 
together,  long,  narrow,  aquiline  nose,  hollow  temples, 
projecting  cheek-bones,  strong  jaws  ;  the  expression  not 
intelligent,  but  animal,  fierce,  proud,  and  majestic  ;  the 
head  small  in  proportion  to  the  body,  are  all  so  many 
indications  of  the  most  complete  absence  of  moral  sense. 

In  all  the  biographies  of  Michelangelo  we  do  not  discover 
one  spot  on  that  gentle  and  yet  robust  soul,  who  trembled 
for  the  sorrows  of  his  country  as  at  the  expression  of 
beauty.  But  the  publication  of  his  letters,2  and  the  keen 
researches  of  Parlagreco,3  have  revealed  physical  anoma- 
lies never  before  suspected. 

One  of  the  most  important  is  his  complete  indifference 
to  women.  This  may  be  observed  in  his  Avorks,  and  his 
masterpieces  were  all  masculine  —  Moses,  Lorenzo, 
Giuliano  de'  Medici,  &c.  He  never  used,  it  appears,  the 
living  female  model,  though  he  made  use  of  corpses  ;  his 
Bacchante  is  a  virago  with  masculine  muscles,  unformed 
breasts  and  no  feminine  touch.  In  his  many  love  sonnets, 
written  rather  to  follow  the  prevailing  fashion  than  from 
any  true  inspiration  of  passion,  none  bear  the  mark  of 

1  Revue  Letteraire,  1887. 

2  Michelangelo  B twnarroti ;   Epistolario,  publicato  da  G.  Milanese. 
1888. 

3  Michelangelo  Buonarroti,  di  F.  Parlagreco,  1888. 


SANE  MEN  OF  GENIUS.  355 

being  addressed  to  real  women  ;  only  fourteen  times,  it  is 
said,  does  the  word  "  donna  "  occur.  On  the  other  hand, 
in  the  Barbera  Collection,  Sonnets  xviii.  and  xii.  show  a 
very  marked  admiration  for  the  male,  and  Varchi  con- 
siders that  these  are  addressed  to  Cavalieri  who  was  of 
great  physical  beauty.  There  are  in  existence  two  of  his 
letters  addressed  to  Cavalieri  (July  28,  1523,  and  July  28, 
J532)j  which  seem  to  be  written  to  a  mistress,  and  in 
which,  humiliating  himself,  he  swears  that,  if  banished 
from  the  other's  heart,  he  will  die.  There  is  a  similar 
letter  written  to  Angelini. 

This  moral  anomaly,  which  he  would  share  with  many 
artists,  Cellini,  Sodoma,  &c.,  is  not  the  only  one  met 
with.  "  In  his  letters,"  writes  Parlagreco,  u  may  be  seen 
constant  contradictions  between  ideas  that  are  great  and 
generous,  and  others  that  are  puerile  ;  between  will  and 
speech  ;  between  thought  and  action  ;  extreme  irritability, 
inconstant  affection,  great  activity  in  doing  good,  sudden 
sympathies,  great  outbursts  of  enthusiasm,  great  fears, 
sometimes  unconsciousness  of  his  own  actions,  marvellous 
modesty  in  the  field  of  art,  unreasonable  vanity  in  the 
appearances  of  life — these  are  the  various  psychical  mani- 
festations in  the  life  of  Buonarroti  which  lead  me  to 
believe  that  the  great  artist  was  affected  by  a  neuropathic 
condition  bordering  on  hysteria." 

Every  day  in  his  old  age  he  discovered  some  sin  in  his 
past  life,  and  he  sent  money  to  Florence  for  masses  to  be 
said  and  for  alms  to  the  poor,  and  to  enable  poor  girls  to 
be  married,  and,  which  is  stranger,  to  be  made  nuns.  All 
this  was  to  gain  Paradise  (Lett.  187,  214,  240,  330),  to 
save  his  soul — he  who  had  said  :  u  It  is  not  strange  that 
the  monks  should  spoil  a  chapel  [at  the  Vatican],  since 
they  have  known  how  to  spoil  the  whole  world." 

At  some  moments  he  feels  that  his  conscience  is  clean 
and  then  he  desires  to  die,  so  that  he  may  not  fall  back 
into  evil  ;  but  then  his  discouragement  returns,  and  he 
believes  (strange  blasphemy),  that  it  was  a  sin  to  have 
been  born  an  artist. 

"  Conosco  di  quanf  era  d1  error  carca 
Uaflettuosa  fantasia 
Che  1'arte  mi  fece  idolo  e  monarca.  ,  , 


356  THE  MAN  OJ<  GENIUS. 

Le  parole  del  mondo  mi  hanno  tolto 
II  tempo  dato  a  contemplar  Iddio" 

And  he  believes  himself  destined  by  God  to  a  long  life 
simply  that  he  may  complete  the  fabric  of  St.  Peter's. 

In  old  age  he  who  had  shown  so  little  vanity  where 
his  work  was  concerned,  and  so  much  modesty  in  speaking 
of  it,  went  about  studying  how  he  could  best  exhibit  the 
nobility  of  his  descent,  claiming  to  trace  it  in  a  direct 
line  from  the  Counts  of  Canossa,  a  claim  which,  even  if 
valid,  would  not  be  worth  a  finger  of  his  Moses. 

Michelangelo  tenderly  loved  his  father  and  brother  and 
nephews,  and  enabled  them  to  live  in  easy  circumstances  ; 
yet  in  his  letters  to  them  he  frequently  shows  himself 
suspicious  and  treats  them  unjustly.  In  1544,  he  fell 
seriously  ill  at  Rome.  His  nephew  naturally  hastened  to 
his  bedside.  Michelangelo  became  very  angry  and  wrote  : 
"You  are  come  to  kill  me  and  to  see  what  I  leave  behind. 
.  .  .  Know  that  I  have  made  my  will  and  that  there  is 
nothing  here  for  you  to  think  about.  Therefore,  go  in 
peace  and  do  not  write  to  me  more."  Three  months 
after  he  changed  his  tone.  "  I  will  not  fail  in  what  I 
have  often  thought  about,  that  is,  in  helping  you."  He 
has  himself  left  a  confession  of  his  almost  morbid  melan- 
choly in  a  letter  (97),  to  Sebastiano  del  Piombo  :  "  Yester- 
day evening  I  was  happy  because  I  escaped  from  my  mad 
and  melancholy  humour." 

Without  the  recent  biographical  and  autobiographical 
notes  published  by  his  son,1  no  one  could  have  imagined 
that  Darwin,  a  model  father  and  citizen,  so  self-controlled 
and  even  so  free  from  vanity,  was  a  neuropath.  His  son 
tells  us  that  for  forty  years  he  never  enjoyed  twenty-four 
hours  of  health  like  other  men.  Of  the  eight  years  devoted 
to  the  study  of  the  cirripedes,  two,  as  he  himself  writes, 
were  lost  through  illness.  Like  all  neuropaths  he  could 
bear  neither  heat  nor  cold  ;  half  an  hour  of  conversation 
beyond  his  habitual  time  was  sufficient  to  cause  insomnia 
and  hinder  his  work  on  the  following  day.  He  suffered 
also  from  dyspepsia,  from  spinal  anaemia  and  giddiness 
(which  last  is  known  to  be  frequently  the  equivalent  of 

1  Life  and  Letters  of  Charles  Darwin,  1888, 


SANE  MEN  OF  GENIUS.  357 

epilepsy)  ;  and  he  could  not  work  more  than  three  hours 
a  day.  He  had  curious  crotchets.  Finding  that  eating 
sweets  made  him  ill,  he  resolved  not  to  touch  them  again, 
but  was  unable  to  keep  his  resolution,  unless  he  had  re- 
peated it  aloud.  He  had  a  strange  passion  for  paper — 
writing  the  rough  drafts  of  his  correspondence  on  the  back 
of  proof-sheets,  and  of  the  most  important  MSS.  which 
were  thus  rendered  difficult  to  decipher.  He  often  insti- 
tuted what  he  himself  called  "  fool's  experiments  " — e.g., 
having  a  bassoon  played  close  to  the  cotyledons  of  a  plant.1 
When  about  to  make  an  experiment,  he  seemed  to  be 
urged  on  by  some  inward  force.  From  a  morbid  dislike 
to  novelty,  he  used  the  millimetric  tables  of  an  old  book 
which  he  knew  to  be  inaccurate,  but  to  which  he  was 
accustomed.  He  would  not  change  his  old  chemical 
balance  though  aware  that  it  was  untrustworthy  ;  he 
refused  to  believe  in  hypnotism,  and  also,  at  first,  in  the 
discovery  of  prehistoric  stone  weapons.2  He  frequently,  says 
his  daughter,  inverted  his  sentences,  both  in  speaking  and 
writing,  and  had  a  difficulty  in  pronouncing  some  letters, 
especially  w.  Like  Skoda,  Rockitanski,  and  Socrates,  he 
had  a  short  snub  nose,  and  his  ears  were  large  and  long. 
Nor  were  degenerative  characteristics  wanting  among  his 
ancestors.  It  is  true  that  he  reckoned  among  them  several 
men  of  intellect  and  almost  of  genius,  such  as  Robert 
(1682),  a  botanist  and  intelligent  observer  ;  and  Edward, 
author  of  a  Gamekeeper's  Manual,  full  of  acute  observa- 
tions on  animals.  His  father  had  great  powers  of  observa- 
tion ;  but  his  paternal  grandfather,  Erasmus — poet  and 
naturalist  at  the  same  time — had  a  passionate  temper  and 
an  impediment  in  his  speech.  One  of  his  sons,  Charles,  a 
poet  and  collector,  resembled  him  in  this  respect.  Finally, 
another  uncle,  Erasmus,  a  man  of  some  intellect,  a  numis- 
matist and  statistician,  ended  by  madness  and  suicide. 

It  might  be  objected  that  the  fact  of  such  different 
forms  of  psychosis — melancholy,  moral  insanity,  mono- 
mania— being  found  either  complete  or  undeveloped  in 
men  of  genius,  excludes  the  special  psychosis  of  genius, 
and  still  more  that  of  epilepsy.  But  it  may  be  answered 

1  Life  and  Letters  of  Charles  Darwin,  vol.  i.  p.  149. 

2  Letters,  vol.  i. 


358  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS, 

that  recent  research,  which  has  enlarged  the  domain  of 
epilepsy,  has  also  demonstrated  that,  apart  from  impulsive 
and  hallucinatory  delusions,  epilepsy  may  be  superadded 
to  any  form  of  mental  alienation,  especially  megalomania 
and  moral  insanity.  And,  as  is  the  case  in  nearly  all  de- 
generative psychoses,  undeveloped  forms  of  mental  disease, 
and  recurring  multiform  delusions  brought  on  by  the  most 
trivial  causes,  especially  predominate  in  epilepsy. 


CHAPTER  V. 

CONCLUSIONS. 

BETWEEN  the  physiology  of  the  man  of  genius,  therefore, 
and  the  pathology  of  the  insane,  there  are  many  points 
of  coincidence  ;  there  is  even  actual  continuity.  This  fact 
explains  the  frequent  occurrence  of  madmen  of  genius, 
and  men  of  genius  who  have  become  insane,  having,  it 
is  true,  characteristics  special  to  themselves,  out  capable 
of  being  resolved  into  exaggerations  of  those  of  genius 
pure  and  simple.  The  frequency  of  delusions  in  their 
multiform  characters  of  degenerative  characteristics,  of  the 
loss  of  affectivity,  of  heredity,  more  particularly  in  the 
children  of  inebriate,  imbecile,  idiotic,  or  epileptic  parents, 
and,  above  all,  the  peculiar  character  of  inspiration,  show 
that  genius  is  a  degenerative  psychosis  of  the  epileptoid 
group.  This  supposition  is  confirmed  by  the  frequency 
of  a  temporary  manifestation  of  genius  in  the  insane, 
and  by  the  new  group  of  mattoids  to  whom  disease  gives 
all  the  semblance  of  genius,  without  its  substance. 

What  I  have  hitherto  written  may,  I  hope  (while 
remaining  within  the  limits  of  psychological  observation), 
afford  an  experimental  starting-point  for  a  criticism  of 
artistic  and  literary,  sometimes  also  of  scientific,  crea- 
tions. 

Thus,  in  the  fine  arts,  exaggerated  minuteness  of  detail, 
the  abuse  of  symbols,  inscriptions,  or  accessories,  a 
preference  for  some  one  particular  colour,  an  unrestrained 
passion  for  mere  novelty,  may  approach  the  morbid 
symptoms  of  mattoidism.  Just  so,  in  literature  and 
science,  a  tendency  to  puns  and  plays  upon  words,  an 
excessive  fondness  for  systems,  a  tendency  to  speak  of 
one's  self,  and  substitute  epigram  for  logic,  an  extreme 


360  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS. 

predilection  for  the  rhythm  and  assonances  of  verse  in 
prose  writing,  even  an  exaggerated  degree  of  originality 
may  be  considered  as  morbid  phenomena.  So  also  is  the 
mania  of  writing  in  Biblical  form,  in  detached  verses,  and 
with  special  favourite  words,  which  are  underlined,  or 
repeated  many  times,  and  a  certain  graphic  symbolism. 
Here  I  must  acknowledge  that,  when  I  see  how  many  of 
the  organs  which  claim  to  direct  public  opinion  are 
infected  with  this  tendency,  and  how  often  young  writers 
undertake  to  discuss  grave  social  problems  in  the  capri- 
cious phraseology  of  the  lunatic  asylum,  and  the  disjointed 
periods  of  Biblical  times,  as  though  our  robust  lungs  were 
unable  to  cope  with  the  vigorous  and  manly  inspirations 
of  the  Latin  construction,  I  feel  grave  apprehensions  for 
the  future 'of  the  rising  generation. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  analogy  of  mattoids  with  genius, 
whose  morbid  phenomena  only  are  inherited  by  them, 
and  with  sane  persons,  with  whom  they  have  shrewdness 
and  practical  sense  in  common,  ought  to  put  students  on 
their  guard  against  certain  systems,  springing  up  by 
hundreds,  more  particularly  in  the  abstract  or  inexact 
sciences,  and  due  to  the  efforts  of  men  incompetent,  from 
a  lack  either  of  capacity  or  knowledge  of  the  subject,  to 
deal  with  them.  In  these  systems  declamation,  asso- 
nances, paradoxes,  and  conceptions  often  original,  but 
always  incomplete  and  contradictory,  take  the  place  of 
calm  reasoning  based  on  a  minute  and  unprejudiced  study 
of  facts.  Such  books  are  nearly  always  the  work  of  those 
true  though  involuntary  charlatans,  the  mattoids,  who 
are  more  widely  diffused  in  the  literary  world  than  is 
commonly"  supposed. 

Nor  is  »k-  only  students  who  should  be  on  their  guard 
against  them,  but  especially  politicians.  Not  that,  in 
an  age  of  free  criticism  like  our  own,  there  is  any  danger 
that  these  pretended  reformers,  who  are  stimulated 
and  guided  solely  by  mental  disease,  should  be  taken 
seriously  ;  but  the  obstacles  justly  opposed  to  them 
may,  by  irritating,  sharpen  and  complete  their  insanity, 
transforming  a  harmless  delusion — whether  ideological, 
as  in  the  case  of  most  mattoids,  or  sensorial,  as  in  mono- 
maniacs— into  active  madness,  in  which  their  greater 


\ 


CONCLUSIONS  361 

intellectual  power,  the  depth  and  tenacity  of  their  con- 
victions, and  that  very  excess  of  altruism  which  compels 
them  to  occupy  themselves  with  public  affairs,  render 
them  more  dangerous,  and  more  inclined  to  rebellion 
and  regicide,  than  other  insane  persons. 

When  we  reflect  that,  on  the  other  hand,  a  genuine 
lunatic  may  give  proof  of  temporary  genius,  a  phenome- 
non calculated  to  inspire  the  populace  with  an  astonish- 
ment which  soon  produces  veneration,  we  find  a  solid 
argument  against  those  jurists  and  judges  who,  from  the 
soundness  and  activity  of  the  intellect,  infer  complete 
moral  responsibility,  to  the  total  exclusion  of  the  possibility 
of  insanity.  We  also  see  our  way  to  an  interpretation 
of  the  mystery  of  genius,  its  contradictions,  and  those  of 
its  mistakes  which  any  ordinary  man  would  have  avoided. 
And  we  can  explain  to  ourselves  how  it  is  that  madmen 
or  mattoids,  even  with  little  or  no  genius  (Passanante, 
Lazzaretti,  Drabicius,  Fourier,  Fox),  have  been  able  to 
excite  the  populace,  and  sometimes  even  to  bring  about 
serious  political  revolutions.  Better  still  shall  we  under- 
stand how  those  who  were  at  once  men  of  genius  and 
insane  (Mahomet,  Luther,  Savonarola,  Schopenhauer), 
could — despising  and  overcoming  obstacles  which  would 
have  dismayed  any  cool  and  deliberate  mind — hasten  by 
whole  centuries  the  unfolding  of  truth  ;  and  how  such 
men  have  originated  nearly  all  the  religions,  and  certainly 
all  the  sects,  which  have  agitated  the  world. 

The  frequency  of  genius  among  lunatics  and  of  mad- 
men among  men  of  genius,  explains  the  fact  that  the 
destiny  of  nations  has  often  been  in  the  hands  of  the 
Jnsqnft  j  anH  shows  how  fhp.  laffp.r  h^VA  hppn'able  to  con- 

In  short,  by  these  analogies,  and  coincidences  between 
the  phenomena  of  genius  and  mental  aberration,  it  seems 
as  though  nature  had  intended  to  teach  us  respect  for 
the  supreme  misfortunes  of  insanity  ;  and  also  to  preserve 
us  from  being  dazzled  by  the  brilliancy  of  those  men  of  .,• 
genius  who  might  well  be  compared,  not  to  the  planets 
which  keep  their  appointed  orbits,  but  to  falling  stars, 
lost  and  dispersed  over  the  crust  of  the  earth. 


APPENDIX. 


POETRY  AND  THE  INSANE. 

THE  following  letter  was  written  by  a  druggist  confined  in  the 
Asylum  of  Sainte-Anne  : — 

Sainte-Anne,  le  26  fevrier  1880. 
MADAME, 

Veuillez  agreer  Phommage 
De  ce  modeste  sonnet 
Et  le  tenir  comme  un  gage 
De  mon  sincere  respect. 

SONNET. 

Souvenez-vous,  reine  des  dieux, 
Vierge  des  vierges,  notre  mere, 
Que  vous  etes  sur  cette  terre 
L'ange  gardien  mysterieux.1 

The  same  man  addressed  to  M.  Magnan  a  long  poem  on  a 
dramatic  representation  accompanied  by  the  following  graceful 
envoi : — 

VENERE   DOCTEUR, 

L'estime  et  la  reconnaissance 

Sont  la  seule  monnaie  du  cceur 

Dont  votre  pauvre  serviteur 

Dispose  pour  la  recompense 

Qu'il  doit  a  vos  soins  pleins  d'honneur. 

1  Quoted  by  Parant.    Regnard,  Sorcellerie,  1887, 


364  APPENDIX. 

Recevez  done  cet  humble  hommage, 

Docteur  admire,  reve're, 

Et  j'ajouterai  bien-aime', 

Si  vous  vouliez  tenir  pour  gage 

Qu'en  cela  du  moins  J'AI  PAYE.1 

The  following  lines  are  from  a  long  satirical  poem  by  a  writer 
who  appears  to  have  cherished  much  less  respect  for  his 
physician.  He  believed  that  he  had  been  changed  into  a  beast, 
and  recognised  a  colleague  in  every  horse  or  donkey  he  met. 
He  wished  to  browse  in  every  field,  and  only  refrained  from  doing 
so  out  of  consideration  for  his  friends  : — 

Les  medicastres  sans  vergogne 
Qui  changent  en  sale  besogne 
Le  plus  sublime  des  mandats, 
Ces  infames  alienistes, 
Oui,  reconnus  pour  moralistes, 
Sont  les  pires  des  scelerats  ! 
Us  detruisent  les  ecritures 
Pour  maintenir  les  impostures 
Des  ennemis  du  bien  public. 
Us  prostituent  leur  justice 
Pour  se  gorger  du  benefice 
De  leur  satanique  trafic.2 

The  author  of  the  following  lines  on  the  same  day  made  an 
attempt  at  suicide,  and  then  a  homicidal  attack  on  his  mother. 

A  MONSIEUR  LE  DOCTEUR  C. 
EPITRE  (13  mat  1887). 

Un  docteur  eminent  sollicite  ma  muse. 

Certes  1'honneur  est  grand  ;  mais  le  docteur  s'amuse, 

Car,  dans  ce  noir  sejour,  le  poete  attriste' 

Par  le  souffle  divin  n'est  guere  visite.  .   .  . 

Faire  des  vers  ici,  quelle  rude  besogne  ! 

On  pourra  m'objecter  que  jadis,  en  Gascogne, 

Les  rayons  eclatants  d'un  soleil  du  Midi 

Reveillaient  quelquefois  mon  esprit  engourdi ; 

II  est  vrai  :  dans  Bordeaux,  cite  fiere  et  polie, 

J'ai  fete  le  bon  vin,  j'ai  chante  la  folie, 

Celle  bien  entendu  qui  porte  des  grelots. 


Regnard,  Sorcellerie,  1887. 
Ibid. 


APPENDIX.  365 

Mais  depuis,  un  destin  fatal  a  mon  repos 
M'exile  loin  des  bords  de  la  belle  Gironde, 
Qu'enrichissent  les  vins  les  plus  fameux  du  monde  ! 
Aussi  plus  de  chansons,  de  madrigaux  coquets  ! 
Plus  de  sonnets  savants,  de  bacchiques  couplets  ! 
Ma  muse  tout  en  pleurs  a  replie  ses  ailes, 
Comme  un  ange  banni  des  spheres  eternelles  ! 
Dans  sa  cage  enferme'  1'oiseau  n'a  plus  de  voix.  .  .  . 
Helas  !  je  ne  suis  point  le  rossignol  des  bois, 
Pas  meme  le  pinson,  pas  mcme  la  fauvette  ; 
Vous  me  flattez,  docteur,  en  m'appelant  poete.  .  .  . 
Je  ne  suis  qu'un  mechant  rimeur,  et  je  ne  sais 
Si  ces  alexandrins  auront  un  grand  succes.  .  .  . 
Cependant  mon  desir  est  de  vous  satisfaire  ; 
Votre  estime  m'honore  et  je  voudrais  vous  plaire, 
Mais  Pegase  est  retif  quand  il  est  enchaine  ; 
D'un  captif  en  naissant  le  vers  meurt  condamne. 
Si  vous  voulez,  docteur,  que  ma  muse  renaisse, 
Je  ne  vous  dirai  pas  :  renclez-moi  ma  jeunesse. 
Non,  mais  puisque  vos  soins  m'ont  rendu  la  sante, 
Ne  pourriez-vous  me  rendre  aussi  la  liberte  ? 
Des  vers  !  Pour  que  le  ciel  au  poete  en  envoie 
Que  faut-il  ?  le  grand  air,  le  soleil  et  la  joie  ! 
Accordez-moi  ces  biens  :  mon  luth  reconnaissant, 
Pour  vous  remercier  comme  un  Dieu  bienfaisant, 
Peut-etre  trouvera,  de  mon  cceur  interprete, 
Des  chants  dignes  de  vous,  et  dignes  cl'un  poete  ! 

The  following  lines  well  express  the  solitary  sadness  of  the 
melancholiac  : — 

A  SE  STESSO. 

E  con  chi  1'hai  ? 

Con  tutti  e  con  nessuno, 

L'ho  con  il  cielo,  che  si  tinge  a  bruno, 

L'ho  con  il  metro,  che  non  rende  i  lai, 

Che  mi  rodono  il  petto. 

Nell'odio  altrui,  nel  mal  comun  mi  godo. 

And  these  are  of  marvellous  delicacy  and  truth  : — 
TIPO  FISICO-MORALE  DI  P.  L. 

QUI   RICOVERATO. 

Al  primo  aspetto 
Chi  ti  vede,  saria 


366  APPENDIX. 

Costretto  a  dir  che  a  te  manca  1'affetto  ; 

E  male  s'apporria  ; 

Che  invece  spesse  fiate, 

Sotto  ruvido  vel,  palpitan  lene 

L'anime  innamorate 

Che  s'accendon,  riscaldansi  nel  bene. 

Cos!  rosa  dal  petalo 

Invisibile  quasi 

Mette  1'effluvio  dai  raccolti  vasi, 

Come  dal  gelsomino, 

E  i  delicati  odor  dell'amorino  ; 

Nemico  a  tutti  i  giuochi, 

Di  Venere,  di  Bacco  indarno  i  fuochi 

Ti  soffiano  ;  la  cute 

E  di  tal  forza  che  sembrano  mute 

Le  vezzose  lusinghe.  .  .  Sei  di  pietra, 

E  invano  a  darti  il  fiato  spira  1'etra. 

M.S. 

The  following  little  piece  is  a  masterpiece  of  insane  poetry 

A   UN   UCCELLO  DEL   CORTILE. 

Da  un  virgulto  ad  uno  scoglio 
Da  uno  scoglio  a  una  collina, 
L'ala  tua  va  pellegrina 
Voli  o  posi  a  notte  e  di. 

Noi  confitti  al  nostro  orgoglio, 
Come  ruote  in  ferrei  perni, 
Ci  stanchiamo  in  giri  eterni, 
Sempre  errand  e  sempre  qui  \ 

CAVALIERE  Y. 


INDEX. 


Albertus  Magnus,  7 

Alcoholism  in  men  of  genius,  54, 
316,  325 

Alexander  the  Great,  6,  54,  146 

Alfieri,  20,  22,  23,  27,  28,  103 

Amiel,  52-53 

Ampere,  29,  34,  67,  315 

Angesthesia  of  men  of  genius,  33 

Anabaptists,  256 

Arabesques  by  insane  artists,  200 

Argentine  men  of  genius,  313 

Aristotle,  8,  13 

Art  in  the  insane,  179  et  seq. 

Artists,  distribution  of  great  Euro- 
pean, 117  et  seq. 

Atavism  in  literature  of  the  insane, 
172 

Bach,  139 

Bacon,  61 

Balzac,  6,  47,  342 

Barometrical  condition  and  genius, 

101 

Baudelaire,  28,  69-72,  316,  325 
Beethoven,  34,  61,  146 
Berlioz,  27 
Bernouilli,  141 
Blake,  W.,  6,  56 
Bolyai,  73 

Bruno,  G.,  25,  35,  47,  106,  316 
Buffon,  34,  339 
Burns,  41 
Byron,  7,  9,  29,  56,  6l,  62,  103,  146 

Cabanis,  17 
Caesar,  Julius,  39,  54 
Campanella,  285-291 
Campbell,  T.,  6,  38,  146 


Cardan,  21,  35,  74-77,  145,  314,  323 
Carducci,  38 
Carlo  Dolce,  67 
Carlyle,  7,  61 
Casanova,  59 
Cavendish,  14 
Cavour,  43,  354 

Cerebral  characteristics  of  men  of 
^genius,  8-13,  327 
Chamfort,  14 
Charity,  hysterical,  349 
Charles  V.,  13,  146 
Chateaubriand,  38,  44 
Chopin,  43,  47,  48 
Choreic  symptoms  in  men  of  genius, 

.38. 
Civilization  on  genius,  influence  of, 

153  et  seq. 
Clare,  J.,  165 
Clarke,  Marcus,  8 
Climatic  influences  on  genius,  117 

et  seq. 
Codazzi,  73 
Coleridge,  22,  44,  55 
Coleridge,  Hartley,  55 
Columbus,  56 
Comte,  15,  60,  73 
Concato,  72 

Conception  of  men  of  genius,  149 
Cowley,  23 
Cowper,  24 
Cranial    characteristics  of  men  of 

genius,  8-13,  327 
Criminality  of  genius,  57  et  seq. 
Cuvier,  n 

Dante,  8,  11,  15,  35,  46,  106 
Darwin,  13,  106,  356~357 


368 


INDEX. 


Decadent  poets,  230  et  seq. 

Descartes,  22 

Dickens,  23 

Diderot,  34 

Discoveries,  dates  of,  105  et  seq. 

Disease  on  genius,  influence  of,  151 

Domenichino,  17 

Donizetti,  9,  II,  62 

Dostoieffsky,  8,  321,  339~34i 

Double  personality  of  men  of  genius, 

24 
Dreams,  genius  working  during,  21, 

326 

Dumas  /v;r,  7,  62 
Dupuytren,  41 

Education  on  genius,  influence  of, 

159-160 

Egoism  of  men  of  genius,  318-319 
Enfantin,  Prosper,  295-296 
Epilepsy  and  genius,  38 
Epileptoid  nature  of  genius,  336  ct 

seq. 
Erasmus,  6,  8,  13 

Elaxman,  7 

Elaubert,  7,  14,  17,  28,  40,  50,  60, 

331,  341 

Florentine  genius,  123,  154-155 
Fodera,  91 
Folie  du  doute  of  men  of  genius,  48 

et  seq. 

Fontenelle,  62 

Forgetfulness  of  men  of  genius,  33 
Foscolo,  9,  ii,  18,  20,  29,  31,  104, 

106 

Francis  of  Assisi,  258-260 
Frederick  II.,  62 
French  genius,  127 

Galvani,  109-110,  114 

Gambetta,  II,  12 

Gauss,  12 

Genius,  Aristotle  on,  I  ;  Plato  on, 

2 ;   Diderot   on,  3  ;   Richter  on, 

19 
Genius,  a  neurosis,  5  ;  distinct  from 

talent,  19,  35  ;  in  the  insane,  161 

et  seq.  ;  in  mattoids,  226  et  seq.  ; 

its  epileptoid  nature,  336  et  seq.  ; 

in  the  sane,  353  et  seq. 


Genius,  characteristics  of  men  of,  6  ; 
height,  6;  frequency  of  rickets, 
7 ;  pallor,  7 ;  emaciation,  7  ; 
cranial  and  cerebral  character- 
istics, 8-13,  327  ;  stammering, 
13;  lefthandedness,  13;  sterility, 
13;  unlikeness  to  parents,  14; 
physiognomy,  14;  precocity,  15, 
315;  delayed  development,  16; 
misoneism,  17  ;  vagabondage,  18, 
316 ;  unconsciousness  and  in- 
stinctiveness,  19;  somnambulism, 
21  ;  inspiration,  22;  double  per- 
sonality, 24;  stupidity,  25  ;  hyper- 
a.>sthesia,  26 ;  anaesthesia,  33 ; 
forgetfulness,  33 ;  originality,  35, 
317-318  ;  fondness  for  special 
words,  37  ;  frequency  of  chorea 
and  epilepsy,  38 ;  melancholy,  40 ; 
delusions  of  grandeur,  45  ;  folie 
(hi  (toute,  48  et  seq.  ;  alcoholism, 
54,  316;  hallucinations,  56; 
moral  insanity,  57;  longevity,  64; 
insanity,  66  et  seq.  ;  meteorologi- 
cal influences  on,  100  et  seq. ;  cli- 
matic influences  on,  117  et  seq.  ; 
influence  of  race,  126,  133  ;  in- 
fluence oi  sex,  137  ;  influence  of 
heredity,  139  et  seq.  ;  relation  to 
criminality,  144  et  seq.  ;  age  of 
parents,  149 ;  conception,  149  ; 
influence  of  disease  on,  151  ;  in- 
fluence of  civilization  on,  153  et 
seq.;  influence  of  education,  159- 
160;  characteristics  of  insane, 
314  et  seq.  ;  analogy  of  sane  and 
insane,  330  et  seq.  ;  in  revolu- 
tions, 334-335 

Giordani,  104 

Giusti,  40,  104 

Goethe,  7,  15,  21,  40 

Gogol,  98-99 

Goldsmith,  6 

Goncourts,  the,  28,  331,  339,  342 

Grandeur   among   men   of    genius, 
delusions  of,  45 

Graphomaniacs,  212  et  seq. 

Gray,  43 

Guiteau,  313 

Haller,  67,  319,  320 


INDEX. 


369 


Hallucinations  of  men   of  genius, 

56-57 

Hamilton,  Sir  W.  R.,  109 
Hamlet,  53 
Haydn,  19 

Head  injuries  and  genius,  8,  151 
Heat  on  genius,  influence  of,    103 

et  seq. 

Height  of  men  of  genius,  6 
Heine,  6,  103,  152 
Hoffmann,  E.  T.  A.,  90-91 
Hogarth,  6 
Howard,  John,  8,  351 
Hugo,  V.,  46 
Hypenesthesia  of  men  of  genius,  26 

Insane,  art  and  the,  179  et  seq. 
Insane  and  the  weather,  100 
Insane  among  savages,  the,  245 
Insanity  and  genius,  66  et  seq.,  13, 
143,  145,  148,  161  et  seq.,  314  et 

seq-,  332 
Insanity,  epidemics  of  religious,  251 

et  seq. 

Inspiration,  genius  in,  22 
Instinctiveness  of  genius,  19 

Jesus,  45,  63 

Jewish  genius,  133-137 

Johnson,  Dr.,  7,  49,  57 

Kant,  8,  10 

Kerner,  146 

Keshub  Chunder  Sen,  244 

Klaproth,  17 

Kleist,  23 

Knutzen,  244 

Kriidener,  Julie  de,  257 

Lagrange,  no 

Lamartine,  20 

Lamb,  C.,  6,  13,  67 

Lamennais,  15 

Laplace,  18 

Lasker,  11 

Lawsuit  mania,  224-226 

Lazzaretti,  296-308 

Lee,  N.,  67 

Leibnitz,  22 

Lefthandedness  of  men  of  genius,  13 

Lenau,  38,  85-87,  315.316,321,325 


Lesage,  104 

Leopardi,  7,  41,  53,  104 

Linnaeus,  32 

Literary  mattoids,  209  et  seq. 

Longevity  of  men  of  genius,  64 

Lovat's  autocrucifixion,  183 

Loyola,  257 

Luther,  260-261 

Mahomet,  31,  39,  325 

Maine  de  Biran,  50,  101-103,  151 

Mainlander,  72 

Malebranche,  56 

Malibran,  27 

Mallarme,  231 

Malpighi,  108,  114 

Manzoni,  49 

Matteucci,  in 

Mattoids,  212  et  seq. ;  of  genius,  226 

et  seq. ;  in   art,    239  ;  in   politics 

and  religion,  242  et  seq. 
Megalomania,  45-48 
Melancholy  in  men  of  genius,  40-45 
Mendelssohn,  F.,  7 
Mendelssohn,  M.,  7,  13 
Meteorological  influences  on  genius, 

100  et  seq. 
Meyerbeer,  15 

Michelangelo,  13,  15,  354-356 
Michelet,  103,  229 
Mill,J.  S.,44 
Milton,  8,  13,  104 
Misoneism  of  men  of  genius,  17 
Moliere,  39,  42 
Monge,  33 
Moral  insanity  in  men  of  genius,  57, 

201,  333 
Mountainous  regions  and  genius,  128 

et  seq. 

Mozart,  20,  42 
Musicians,     distribution     of    great 

Italian,  120  et  seq. 
Musset,  A.  de,  61 

Napoleon,  18,  38,  49,  61,  103,  342- 

346 

Nerval,  Gerard  de,  44,  68-69,  *64 
Newton,  17,  21,  80-8 1 

Obscenity  in  art  of  the  insane  200- 
20 1 


25 


INDEX. 


Originality  of  men  of  genius,  35, 
317-318  ;  in  the  insane,  184-186 

Orographic  influences  on  men  of 
genius,  122 

Pallor  of  men  of  genius,  7 

Paganini,  39 

Paranoia,  173 

Parents  of  men  of  genius,  144  et  seq. 

Passanante,  308-313 

Pascal,  39,  315,  316,  320 

Patriotism  and  genius,  64 

Peter  the  Great,  39 

Philanthropists  and  moral  insanity, 

351 
Physiognomy  of  men  of  genius,  8, 

14 

Poe,  318,  320 

Poetry  and  the  insane,  363-366 
Political  mattoids,  242  et  seq. 
Pope,  7 

Poushkin,  30,  103,  105 
Praga,  326 
Precocity  of  genius,  15,  315,  330 

Race  on  genius,  influence  of,  117 

efseg.,  133 
Religious  doubts  of  men  of  genius, 

3i8 

Religious  mattoids,  242  et  seq. 
Renan,  50-52,  147 
Restif  de  la  Bretonne,  16 
Revolutions    and    men    of  genius, 

334-335 
Richelieu,  39 

Rickets  in  men  of  genius,  7 
Rienzi,  Cola  da,  263-285 
Rossini,  22,  35,  42 
Rouelle,  33,  48 
Rousseau,  J.  j.,  II,  22,  81-85,  103, 

3H,  324 

Saint  Paul,  347-348 
Sand,  George,  42 
San  Juan  de  Dios,  291-294 
Sanity  and  genius,  353  et  seq. 
Savages  and  the  insane,  245 
Savonarola,  261-263 
Schiller,  7,  10,  15,  22,  23,  41,  105 
Schopenhauer,   18,  30,  91-98,    148, 
315 


Schumann,  9,  u,  68 

Scotch  genius,  154 

Scott,  Walter,  7,  8,  17 

Sesostris,  354 

Sex  in  genius,  influence  of,  136 

Sexual    abnormalities    of    men    of 

genius,  316 
Shelley,  22,  56 
Socrates,  8,  21,  33,  38 
Somnambulism  of  men  of  genius,  21 
Spallanzani,  104,  HO 
Spanish  genius,  127 
Stammering  in  men  of  genius,  13 
Sterility  of  men  of  genius,  13 
Sterne,  7,  8 

Stupidities  of  men  of  genius,  25 
Suicide  and  genius,  41 
Swedenborg,  256 
Swift,  79-80,  315 
Sylvester,  104 

Symbolism  in  insane  art,  187  et  seq. 
Szechenyi,  87-90 

Talent  and  genius,  9 

Tasso,  55,  77-79,  3 '4.  3 1 6.  321 

Thackeray,  IO 

Thermometrical  influences  on  genius, 

103 

Tolstoi,  50 
Torricelli,  109 
Tourgueneff,  7,  10 

Unconsciousness  of  genius,  19 

Vagabondage  of  men  of  genius,  18, 

316 

Vanity  of  men  of  genius,  315*  33° 
Verlaine,  232-237 
Villon,  59 
Volta,  9,  17,  109 
Voltaire,  7,  8,  42 

Weather  on  genius,  influence  of,  100 

et  seq. 

Whitman,  Walt,  7,  318 
Words,  fondness  of  men  of  genius 

for  special,  37 
Wiilfert,  u 

Xavier,  St.  Francis, 
Zimmermann,  43 


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LIFE  OF  BALZAC.     By  FREDERICK  WEDMORE. 
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LIFE  OF  JANE  AUSTEN.     By  GOLDXVIN  SMITH. 
LIFE  OF  BROWNING.     By  WILLIAM  SHARP. 
LIFE  OF  BYRON.     By  Hon.  RODEN  NOEL. 
LIFE  OF  HAWTHORNE.     By  MONCURE  D.  CONWAY. 
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LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE.     By  FRANCIS  ESPINASSE. 
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LIFE  OF  WHITTIER.     By  W.  J    I.INTON. 
LIFE  OF  RENAN.     By  FRANCIS  ESPINASSE. 
LIFE  OF  TUOREAU.    By  II.  S.  SALT. 


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THE 

CULT     OF     BEAUTY: 

A  MANUAL  OF  PERSONAL  HYGIENE. 
BY   C    J.    S.    THOMPSON. 

[EXTRACT  FROM  PREFACE.] 

Too  much  care  cannot  be  taken  of  the  exterior  of  the  human  body,  on 
which  the  general  health  so  largely  defends.  The  most  recent  discoveries 
in  science  go  to  prove  that  cleanliness,  with  proper  attention  to  bodily 
exercise,  is  the  greatest  enemy  to  disease  and  decay.  Quackery  has  never 
been  more  rampant  than  it  is  to-day,  and  advertised  secret  preparations 
for  beautifying  the  person  meet  us  at  every  turn.  It  is  with  the  object 
of  showing  how  Beauty  may  be  preserved  and  aided  on  purely  hygienic 
principles,  that  this  work  has  been  written,  the  greatest  secret  of  Beauty 
being  Health. 

CONTENTS— 

CHAPTER  I.— THE  SKIN.  CHAPTER  II. —THE   HANDS. 

CHAPTER  III.— THE   FEET.  CHAPTER  IV.— THE   HAIR. 

CHAPTER  V.— THE  TEETH.          CHAPTER  VI.— THE  NOSE. 
CHAPTER  VII.— THE   EYE.  CHAPTER  VIII.— THE  EAR. 


"  'Quackery,'  says  Mr.  Thompson,  'was  never  more  rampant  than  it  is 
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purposes  which  he  warrants  are  'practical  and  harmless.'  These  are 
virtues  in  any  book  of  health  and  beauty,  and  Mr.  Thompson's  advice 
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PeerGynt:  A  Dramatic  Poem 

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WILLIAM  AND  CHARLES  ARCHER 


This  Translation,  though  unrhymed,  preserves  throiighoiit 
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The    Music    of   the    Poets 

A  MUSICIANS'  BIRTHDAY  BOOK. 

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admirable  critical  insight.  English  verse  is  rich  in  utterances 
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about  music  this  book  makes  a  charming  anthology.  Three 
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TWO  WOMEN 

AND  A  MAN 

A  SOCIETY  SKETCH  OF  TO-DA  Y. 

BY  ELLA/A  FENWICKE-ALLAN 

(MRS.  CHARLTON-ANNE). 


"  We  are  here  introduced  to  those  naughty,  naughty  society 
women  who  smoke  cigarettes  after  dinner,  break  the  bulk  of 
the  decalogue,  and  say  sweetly -spiteful  things  to  each  other 
while  waiting  for  the  men  to  appear.  These,  however,  are  by 
the  way.  The  story  really  has  for  its  theme  the  struggle  for 
the  soul  of  Paul  Fane  between  his  wife  and  a  very  seductive 
bad  lot  called  Lady  Maud,  the  wife  of  a  very  wealthy  and 
sterling  man  who  never  saw  further  than  his  nose.  Lady 
Maud  is  about  the  most  finished  study  of  a  female  devil  we 
have  ever  come  across,  with  powers  of  hypocrisy  passing 
belief,  and  audacity  in  keeping  with  her  hypocrisy.  Mrs. 
Fane  is  her  antithesis,  and  it  is  only  in  keeping  with  poetical 
justice  that  the  good  influence  should  overrule  the  bad ;  besides, 
Paul  was  not  near.y  such  a  fool  as  he  looked,  though  it  was 
touch-and-go  with  him  once.  If  rather  abrupt  in  places  and 
somewhat  saddening  reading,  there  is  plenty  of  go  about  the 
tale,  and  if  the  whole  construction  is  somewhat  light,  much  is 
atoned  for  by  the  two  splendidly  contrasted  characters  of  Lady 
Maud  and  Mrs.  Fane." — GLASGOW  DAILY  MAIL. 


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1  ROMANCE  OF  KING  ARTHUR. 

2  THOREAU'S  WALDEN. 

3  THOREAU'S  "WEEK." 

4  THOREAU'S  ESSAYS. 

5  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 

6  LANDOR'S  CONVERSATIONS. 

7  PLUTARCH'S  LIVES. 

8  RELIGIO  MEDICI,  &c. 

9  SHELLEY'S  LETTERS. 

10  PROSE  WRITINGS  Of  SWIFT. 

11  MY  STUDY  WINDOWS. 

12  THE  ENGLISH  POETS. 

13  THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 

14  GREAT  ENGLISH  PAINTERS. 

15  LORD  BYRON'S  LETTERS. 

16  ESSAYS  BY  LEIGH  HUNT. 

17  LONGFELLOW'S  PROSE. 

18  GREAT  MUSICAL  COMPOSERS. 

19  MARCUS  AURELIUS. 

20  TEACHING  OF  EPICTETUS. 

21  SENECA'S  MORALS. 

22  SPECIMEN  DAYS  IN  AMERICA. 

23  DEMOCRATIC  VISTAS. 

24  WHITE'S  SELBORNE. 

25  DEFOE'S  SINGLETON. 

26  MAZZI NTS  ESSAYS. 

27  PROSE  WRITINGS  OF  HEINE. 

28  REYNOLDS'  DISCOURSES. 

29  PAPERS    OF    STEELE    AND 

ADDISON. 

30  BURNS'S  LETTERS. 

31  VOLSUNGA  SAGA. 

32  SARTOR  RESARTUS. 

33  WRITINGS  OF  EMERSON. 

34  LIFE  OF  LORD  HERBERT. 

35  ENGLISH  PROSE. 

36  IBSEN'S  PILLARS  OF  SOCIETY. 

37  IRISH  FAIRY  AND  FOLK  TALES. 

38  ESSAYS  OF  DR.  JOHNSON. 

39  ESSAYS  OF  WILLIAM  HAZLITT. 

40  LANDOR'S  PENTAMERON,  &c. 

41  POE'S  TALES  AND  ESSAYS. 

42  VICAR  OF  WAKEFIELD. 

43  POLITICAL  ORATIONS. 

44  AUTOCRAT    OF    THE    BREAK- 

FAST-TABLE. 

45  POET    AT    THE     BREAKFAST- 

TABLE. 

46  PROFESSOR    AT    THE    BREAK- 

FAST-TABLE. 

47  CHESTERFIELD'S  LETTERS. 

48  STORIES  FROM  CARLETON. 


49  JANE  EYRE. 

50  ELIZABETHAN  ENGLAND. 

51  WRITINGS  OF  THOMAS  DAVIS 

52  SPENCE'S  ANECDOTES. 

53  MORE'S  UTOPIA. 

54  S  ADI'S  GU  LIST  AN. 

55  ENGLISH  FAIRY  TALES. 

56  NORTHERN  STUDIES. 

57  FAMOUS  REVIEWS. 

58  ARISTOTLE'S  ETHICS. 

59  PERICLES  AND  ASPASIA. 

60  ANNALS  OF  TACITUS. 

61  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

62  BALZAC. 

63  DE  MUSSET'S  COMEDIES. 

64  CORAL  REEFS. 

65  SHERIDAN'S  PLAYS. 

66  OUR  VILLAGE. 

67  MASTER  HUMPHREY'S  CLOCK 
63  TALES  FROM  WONDERLAND. 

69  JERROLU'S  ESSAYS. 

70  THE  RIGHTS  OF  WOMAN. 

71  "THE  ATHENIAN  ORACLE." 

72  ESSAYS  OF  SAINTE-BEUVE. 

73  SELECTIONS  FROM  PLATO. 

74  HEINE'S  TRAVEL  SKETCHES. 

75  MAID  OF  ORLEANS. 

76  SYDNEY  SMITH. 

77  THE  NEW  SPIRIT. 

78  MALORY'S      BOOK     OF     MAR. 

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81  THACKERAY'S  BARRY  LYNDON. 

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83  CARLYLE'S  GERMAN  ESSAYS. 

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86  LEOPARDI'S  DIALOGUES. 

87  THE  INSPECTOR-GENERAL. 

88  BACON'S  ESSAYS. 

89  PROSE  OF  MILTON. 

90  PLATO'S  REPUBLIC. 

91  PASSAGES  FROM  FROISSART. 

92  PROSE  OF  COLERIDGE. 

93  HEINE  IN  ART  AND  LETTERS, 

94  ESSAYS  OF  DE  QUINCEY. 

95  VASARI'S   LIVES    OF    ITALIAN 

PAINTERS. 

96  LESSING'S  LAOCOON. 

97  PLAYS  OF  MAETERLINCK. 

98  WALTON'S  COMPLETE  ANGLER. 

99  LESSING'S  NATHAN  THE  WISE. 


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THE    STRAYED    REVELLER,   EMPEDOCLES   ON    ETNA,   AND 
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GREAT    WRITERS. 

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COMPLETION   OF   THIRD  AND   LAST  VOLUME. 

DRAMATIC    ESSAYS. 

EDITED  BY  WILLIAM  ARCHER  AND  ROBERT  W.  LOWE. 

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OL.   I.      With  a  Frontispiece  Portrait  in  Photogravure  of  Leigh  Hunt. 

The  First  Series  contains  the  criticisms  of  LEIGH  HUNT,  both  those  collected  by 
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HENRY  LEWES,  and  Selections  from  the  writings  of  WILLIAM  ROBSO.< 
(The  Old  Playgoer). 

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ALL    ROUND    CYCLING. 

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Chapter         I.— THE  MODERN  CYCLE.     By  G.  Lacy  Hillier,  Author  of  "Cycling," 

in  the  Badminton  Library. 
Chapter       II.— CYCLING  AND   HEALTH.     By  Sir  B.   W.   Richardson,   President, 

Society  of  Cyclists. 
Chapter     III.— CYCLING  FOR  LADIES.     By  C.  Everett-Green,  Author  of  "A  Great 

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Chapter      IV. — THE  CAMERA  AND  THE  CYCLE.     By  L.  Rivers  Vine. 
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Chapter      VI. — A  CYCLIST'S  HOBBIES  :   FISHING,  NATURAL  HISTORY,  ARCHAE- 
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"  Nature  and  Woodcraft,"  etc. 
Chapter    VII. — A  •  MODEL   CYCLING    TOUR:    i.    THROUGH   ENGLAND   ON   MY 

CYCLE.     By  Sir  B.  W.  Richardson. 
Chapter  VIII. — A    MODEL    CYCLING    TOUR:    2.    IN   NORMANDY.     By  Percy  A. 

Thomas,  B.A. 

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1  CHRISTIAN  YEAR 

2  COLERIDGE 

3  LONGFELLOW 

4  CAMPBELL 

5  SHELLEY 

6  WORDSWORTH 

7  BLAKE 

8  WHITTIER 

9  POE 

10  CIIATTERTON 

11  BURNS.     Songs 

12  BURNS.     Poems 

13  MARLOWE 
1 1  KEATS 

15  HERBERT 

16  HUGO 

17  COWPER 

18  SHAKESPEARE'S  POE  MS,  etc. 

19  EMERSON 

20  SONNETS  OF  THIS  CENTURY 

21  WHITMAN 

22  SCOTT.     Lady  of  the  Lake,  etc. 

23  SCOTT.     Marmion;  etc. 

24  PRAED 

25  HOGG 

26  GOLDSMITH 

27  LOVE  LETTERS,  etc, 

28  SPFNSER 

29  CHILDREN  OF  THE  POETS 

30  JON  SON 

31  BYRON.     Miscellaneous. 

32  BYRON.     Don  Juan. 

33  THE  SONNETS  OF  EUROPE 

34  RAMSAY 

35  DOBELL 

36  POI'E  .  ; 

37  HEINE 

38  BEAUMONT  &  FLETCHER 

39  BOWLES,  LAMB,  etc. 

40  SEA  MUSIC 

41  EARLY  ENGLISH  POETRY 
4e  HERRICK 

43  BALLADES  AND  RONDEAUS 

44  IRISH  MINSTRELSY 


45  MILTON'S  PARADISE  LOST 

46  JACOBITE  BALLADS 

47  DAYS  OF  THE  YEAR 

48  AUSTRALIAN  BALLADS 

49  MOORE 

50  BORDER  BALLADS 

51  SONG-TIDE 

52  ODES  OF  HORACE 

53  OSS  I  AN 

54  FAIRY  MUSIC 

55  SOUTHEY 

56  CHAUCER 

57  GOLDEN  TREASURY 

58  POEMS  OF  WILD  LIFE 

59  PARADISE  REGAINED 

60  CRABBE 

61  DORA  GREENWELL 

62  FAUST 

63  AMERICAN  SONNETS 

64  LAN  DOR'S  POEMS 

65  GREEK  ANTHOLOGY 

66  HUNT  AND  HOOD 

67  HUMOROUS  POEMS 

68  LYTION'S  PLAYS 

69  GREAT  ODES 

70  MEREDITH'S  POEMS 

71  IMITATION  OF  CHRIST 

72  UNCLE  TOBY  BIRTHDAY  BK 

73  PAINTER-POETS 

74  WOMEN  POETS 

75  LOVE  LYRICS 

76  AMERICAN  HUMOROUS  VERSR. 

77  MINOR  SCOTCH  LYRICS 

78  CAVALIER  LYRISTS 

79  GERMAN  BALLADS 

80  SONGS  OF  BER ANGER 

81  RODEN  NOEL'S  POEMS 

82  SONGS  OF  FREEDOM 

83  CANADIAN  POEMS 

84  CONTEMPORARY  SCOTTISH  VERSE 

85  POEMS  OF  NATURE, 

86  CRADLE  SONGS. 

87  BALLADS  OF  SPORT. 

88  MATTHEW  ARNOLD. 


London:  WALTER  SCOTT,  LIMITED,  Paternoster  Square. 


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