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Title: The Man of Genius

Author: Cesare Lombroso

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perhaps a very common thing, he certainly shows.”—Spectator.
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Morgan. With Diagrams.
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with biological science.... Well written, extremely entertaining, and intrinsically valuable.”—
Saturday Review.
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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 his 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 CONTEMPORARY SCIENCE SERIES.
Edited by HAVELOCK ELLIS.

THE MAN OF GENIUS.

THE

Man of Genius.
BY
CESARE LOMBROSO,

Professor of Legal Medicine at the University of Turin.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS.

LONDON:
WALTER SCOTT,
24, WARWICK LANE, PATERNOSTER ROW.
1891.

PREFACE.

I T 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 had 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 repelled 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
considerable 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 intellectual superiority.
When this is seen, the repugnance to 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. It 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;

[1] 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 perceived it, or, rather, recorded it. Up to
recent years, historians, being chroniclers rather than psychologists, very
careful to transmit to us the adventures and pageantries 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. 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 the celebrated 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.[3]

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 insane, 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 characteristics, 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 provoke 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, maintains that genius is
a continuation of the conditions of ordinary life; thus, as we all write prose
we must all have a little genius. But how then does it happen, Brunetière
rightly objects,[4] 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.
Brunetière 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 non
facit 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. 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 of 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—fruges
consumere natus.
But our nature, it is customary to say, revolts against a conception which
tends to lower the most sublime manifestation 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; 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: “I matti ed i
fancialli indovinano;” “Kinder und Narren sprechen die Wahrheit;” “Un fol
advise bien un sage;” “Sæpe enim est morio valde opportune locutus.” 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 disadvantageous 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 compensation. 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
recognized as real by the masses, and which alone are useful in social
affairs. “Le bon sens vaut mieux que le génie,” 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:
“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
contradiction 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 mediæval 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 not 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 element to the solution of penal
questions, for they overthrow 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 show us, 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.
THE CHARACTERISTICS OF GENIUS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
History of the Problem 1-4
Aristotle—Plato—Democritus—Felix Plater—Pascal—Diderot—Modern
writers on genius.
CHAPTER II.
Genius and Degeneration 5-37
The signs of degeneration—Height—Rickets—Pallor—Emaciation—
Physiognomy—Cranium and Brain—Stammering—Lefthandedness—
Sterility—Unlikeness to Parents—Precocity—Delayed development—
Misoneism—Vagabondage—Unconsciousness—Instinctiveness—
Somnambulism—The Inspiration of Genius—Contrast—Intermittence—
Double Personality—Stupidity—Hyperæsthesia—Paræsthesia—Amnesia
—Originality—Fondness for special words.
CHAPTER III.
Latent Forms of Neurosis and Insanity in Genius 38-65
Chorea and Epilepsy—Melancholy—Megalomania—Folie du doute—
Alcoholism—Hallucinations—Moral Insanity—Longevity.
CHAPTER IV.
Genius and Insanity 66-99
Resemblance between genius and insanity—Men and women of genius
who have been insane—Montanus—Harrington—Haller—Schumann—
Gérard de Nerval—Baudelaire—Concato—Mainländer—Comte—Codazzi
—Bolyai—Cardan—Tasso—Swift—Newton—Rousseau—Lenau—
Széchényi—Hoffmann—Foderà—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 centres—Race and hot climate—The distribution of great
masters—Orographic influences—Influence 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 relation to genius.
CHAPTER V.
The Influence of Civilization and of Opportunity 153-160
Large Towns—Large Schools—Accidents—Misery—Power—Education.
PART III.
GENIUS IN THE INSANE.
CHAPTER I.
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—Symbolism—Obscenity—
Criminality and moral insanity—Uselessness—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
décadent poets—Verlaine—Mattoids 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 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.
PART IV.
SYNTHESIS. THE DEGENERATIVE PSYCHOSIS OF GENIUS.
CHAPTER I.
Characteristics of Insane Men of Genius 314-329
Characterlessness—Vanity—Precocity—Alcoholism—Vagabondage—
Versatility—Originality—Style—Religious doubts—Sexual abnormalities
—Egoism—Eccentricity—Inspiration.
CHAPTER II.
Analogy of Sane to Insane Genius 330-335
Want of character—Pride—Precocity—Alcoholism—Degenerative 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 unperceived defects—Richelieu—Sesostris—Foscolo—Michelangelo
—Darwin.
CHAPTER V.
Conclusions 359-361
Appendix 363-366
Index 367-370

THE MAN OF GENIUS.

PART I.

THE CHARACTERISTICS OF GENIUS.

CHAPTER I.

History of the Problem.
Aristotle—Plato—Democritus—Felix Plater—Pascal—Diderot—Modern writers on genius.

I T 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 scepticism. 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 pretty good poets while they are
maniacal; but when cured can no longer write verse.”[5] 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.”[6]
In the Phædo, Plato affirms that “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 instruction 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:—
“Excludit sanos Helicone poetas
Democritus.”[7]

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 mesugan 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 Court an architect, a celebrated sculptor, and a distinguished musician,
who were mad.[8]
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.”[9]
Many examples of men who were at once mad and highly intelligent
were offered by Hécart in his Stultitiana, ou petite bibliographie des Fous
de Valenciennes, par un homme en démence; by Delepierre, an enthusiastic

bibliophile, in his curious Histoire littéraire des 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 Lélut’s Démon de Socrate (1836) and
Amulette de Pascal (1846), in Verga’s Lipemania del Tasso (1850) and in
my own Pazzia di Cardano (1856), that there are men of genius who have
long been subject to hallucinations, and even to monomania. Other proofs,
the more precious because impartial, were supplied by Réveillé-Parise, in
his Physiologie et Hygiène des hommes livrés aux travaux de l’esprit
(1856). Moreau (de Tours), who delighted in the least verisimilar aspects of
truth, in his solid monograph, Psychologie Morbide (1859), and J. A.
Schilling, in his Psychiatrische Briefe (1863), endeavoured to show, by
researches 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 des Genies mit dem Irrsinn (Berlin, 1877), and, indirectly,
Jürgen-Meyer, in his admirable monograph, Genie und Talent (from the
Zeitschrift für Völker-psychologie, 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, Dell’ 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 Tchukinova, 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 Littéraires (1887), has shown how many
modern French writers have concealed within them the sorrowful seed of
insanity; Ramos Mejia, who, in his Neurosis de los Hombres Celebres de 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
documents to the literature of insanity; and, finally, that acute thinker and
brilliant writer, Pisani-Dossi, who has given us a curious study,[10] which is

a monograph on madness in art; as in my Tre Tribuni (1889) I have
attempted to do with the insane and semi-insane in their relation to politics.

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
development—Misoneism—Vagabondage—Unconsciousness—Instinctiveness—Somnambulism
—The Inspiration of Genius—Contrast—Intermittence—Double Personality—Stupidity—
Hyperæsthesia—Paræsthesia—Amnesia—Originality—Fondness for special words.

T HE paradox that confounds genius with neurosis, however 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 degeneration, 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 frequently, 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,
æsthetic taste, &c.) or defect of other qualities (calculation, for example),
exaggerated mutism or verbosity, morbid vanity, excessive originality, and
excessive pre-occupation with self, the tendency to put mystical
interpretations on the simplest facts, the abuse of symbolism 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, smallness or disproportion of the body,

lefthandedness, stammering, rickets, phthisis, excessive fecundity,
neutralized afterwards by abortions or complete sterility, with constant
aggravation of abnormalities in the children.[11]
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
applications 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 frequency 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
(lepidissimum homunculum dicebat Augustus), Philopœmen, Narses,
Alexander (Magnus Alexander corpore parvus erat), 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, Linnæus, Lipsius, Gibbon, Spinoza,
Haüy, 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 (who was scarcely five feet
in height), Browning, Ibsen, George Eliot, Thiers, Mrs. Browning, Louis
Blanc, Mendelssohn, 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,
“Minuit præsentia fama,” with the words, “Augebit cætera virtus;” and
again, Marsilio Ficino, of whom it was said, “Vix ad lumbos viri stabat.”
Albertus Magnus 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, Moltke,
Monti, Mirabeau, Dumas père, Schopenhauer, Lamartine, Voltaire, Peter the
Great, Washington, Dr. Johnson, Sterne, Arago, Flaubert, Carlyle,
Tourgueneff, Tennyson, Whitman.
Rickets.—Agesilaus, Tyrtæus, Æsop, Giotto, Aristomenes, Crates, Galba,
Brunelleschi, Magliabecchi, Parini, Scarron, Pope, Leopardi, Talleyrand,
Scott, Owen, Gibbon, Byron, Dati, Baldini, Moses Mendelssohn, Flaxman,
Hooke, were all either rachitic, lame, hunch-backed, or club-footed.
Pallor.—This has been called the colour of great men; “Pulchrum
sublimium virorum florem” (S. Gregory, Orationes XIV.). It was ascertained
by Marro[12] 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. Lecamus[13] has said that the
greatest geniuses have the slenderest bodies. Cæsar feared the lean face of
Cassius. Demosthenes, Aristotle, Cicero, Giotto, St. Bernard, Erasmus,
Salmasius, Kepler, Sterne, Walter Scott, John Howard, D’Alembert,
Fénelon, 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, Körner, Pascal, Wren, Alfieri, Renan.
Ségur 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.”[14]
Physiognomy.—Mind, a celebrated painter of cats, had a cretin-like
physiognomy. So also had Socrates, Skoda, Rembrandt, Dostoieffsky,

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.
[15] 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;[16]
of the cranial asymmetry of Pericles, who was on this account surnamed
Squill-head (σκινοκἑφαλος) by the Greek comic writers[17]; of Romagnosi,
of Bichat, of Kant,[18] of Chenevix,[19] 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

Figs. 1-3. Kant’s Skull. Figs. 5-6. Fusinieri’s Skull.
“ 4. Volta’s Skull. “ 7-8. Foscolo’s Skull.

extreme prognathism of Foscolo (68°) and his low cephalic-spinal and
cephalic-orbital index;[20] the ultra-dolichocephaly of Fusinieri (index 74),
contrasting with the ultra-brachycephaly which is characteristic of the
Venetians (82 to 84); the Neanderthaloid skull of Robert Bruce;[21] of Kay
Lye,[22] 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;[23] the transverse occipital suture of
Kant, his ultra-brachycephaly (88·5), platycephaly (index of height 71·1),
the disproportion between the superior portion of his occipital bone, more
developed by half, and the inferior or cerebellar portion. It is the same with
the smallness of the frontal arch compared to the parietal.

In Volta’s skull[24] 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 foreheads; in Byron, Massacra (at the
age of 32), Humboldt, Meckel,[25] 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, Linnæus,
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 of genius.) There are 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 (1,604 c.cm.), all presented great cranial capacity. The same
character is found to a still greater degree in Kant (1,740 c.cm.), Thackeray
(1,660 c.cm.), Cuvier (1,830 c.cm.), and Tourgueneff (2,012 c.cm.).
Le Bon studied twenty-six skulls of French men of genius, among whom
were Boileau, Descartes, and Jourdan.[26] 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,[27] examining twelve brains of celebrated Germans,
found the capacity very great in eight, very small in four. The latter was the
case with Liebig, Döllinger, 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 (1493), Hermann (1358), Lasker
(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,[28] to the meningitis of Grossi, of Donizetti, and of Schumann, to the
cerebral œdema of Liebig and of Tiedemann. In the last-named, besides
remarkable thickness of the skull, especially at the forehead, 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 632.[29]
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,
pachymeningitis, hæmorrhage, and endarteritis deformans of the artery of
the fissure of Sylvius.[30]
In eighteen brains of German men of science Bischoff and Rüdinger
found congenital anomalies of the cerebral convolutions, especially of the
parietal.[31] In the brains of Wülfert 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.[32]
“The comparative study of these brains,” writes Hervé,[33] “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 complex, 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 presented 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 development reached by
Broca’s centre in some of the brains of the Munich collection to Rüdinger’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 Wülfert, who was remarkable among
other qualities for his great oratorical talent. On the other hand, the
convolution 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, showing 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.[34] Among these was the illustrious geometrician, Gauss:
compared with Gauss’s brain that of an artisan called

Fig. 1. Gauss’s Brain. Fig. 4. Frontal Lobe of same.
“ 2. Frontal Lobe of same. “ 5. Dirichlet’s Brain.
“ 3. Brain of a German Workman. “ 6. Hermann’s Brain.

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.[35]
Stammering.—Men of genius frequently stammer. I will mention:
Aristotle, Æsop, Demosthenes, Alcibiades, Cato of Utica, Virgil, Manzoni,
Erasmus, Malherbe, C. Lamb, Turenne, Erasmus and Charles Darwin,
Moses Mendelssohn, Charles V., Romiti, Cardan, Tartaglia.

Lefthandedness.—Many have been left-handed. Such were: Tiberius,
Sebastian del Piombo, Michelangelo, Fléchier, 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.[36] Mancinism
or leftsidedness is to-day regarded as a character of atavism and
degeneration.[37]
Sterility.—Many great men have remained bachelors; others, although
married, have had no children. “The noblest works and foundations,” said
Bacon,[38] “have 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
Bruyère 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 Shakespeare, 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. Michelangelo said, “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, Bentham, Leonardo da Vinci, Copernicus, Reynolds,
Handel, Mendelssohn, Meyerbeer, Schopenhauer, Camoëns, 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: Shakespeare, 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.”[39] 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 esprits, d’ailleurs très-estimables,
Ont très peu de talent pour former leurs semblables.”[40]

Unlikeness 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 Cæsar, 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 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
frequent 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; Wieland knew Latin at
seven, meditated an epic poem at thirteen, and at sixteen published his
poem, Die Vollkommenste Welt. Lopez de la Vega composed his 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 Räuber appeared. Victor Hugo composed
Irtamène at fifteen, and at twenty had already published Han d’Islande,
Bug-Jargal, and the first volume of Odes et 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 Anacreon 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 his
father with a Latin dedication. Ascoli 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 Fénelon 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
Waldmädchen, 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.[41]
This precocity is morbid and atavistic; it may be observed among all
savages. The proverb, “A man who has genius at five is mad at fifteen” is
often verified in asylums.[42] 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
amnesia 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 père, Humboldt, Sheridan,
Boccaccio, Pierre Thomas, Linnæus, Volta, 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 Orientalist, 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 difficulty 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.”[43] 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 discoveries of others; whether it is that the saturation, so 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 Klopstock, of Lessing, of Goethe;[44] 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 attempted 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 Bicêtre. 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.[45] Laplace denied the fall of meteorites, for, he said, with an
argument 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.[46] 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, Musset, Lenau. “My father left me his
wandering genius as a heritage,” wrote Foscolo. Hölderlin, 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. 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 Instinctiveness.—The coincidence of genius and
insanity enables us to understand the astonishing unconsciousness,
instantaneousness and intermittence 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
Jürgen-Meyer,[47] “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 Hagen, “is irresistible 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 abandoning 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
somnambulist. 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.”[48]
Haydn attributed the conception of the Creation to a mysterious grace
from on high: “When my work does not advance,” he said, “I retire into the
oratory with my rosary and say an Ave; 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 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:—
“I’ mi son un che, quando
Amore spira, noto ed in quel modo
Che detta dentro vo significando.”[49]

Napoleon said that the fate of battles was the result of an instant, of a latent
thought; the decisive moment appeared; 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.”[50] Lamartine often said, “It is not I who think; my
ideas think for me.”[51] Alfieri, who compared himself to a barometer on
account of the continual 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.[52]
This domination of genius by the unconscious has been 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, saying beautiful things, but not having consciousness of what they
say.[53] “All the manifestations of genius,” wrote Voltaire to Diderot, “are
the effects of instinct. All the philosophers of the world put together would
not be able to produce Quinault’s Armide, or the Animaux Malades de la
peste, which La Fontaine wrote without knowing what he did. Corneille
composed Horace as a bird composes its nest.”[54]
Thus the greatest conceptions of thought, prepared, so to say, by former
sensations, and by exquisite organic sensibility, suddenly burst forth and
develop by unconscious 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
composed 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 Henriade; 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 lesson interrupted in his waking hours.
[55] Coleridge’s Kubla Khan was composed, in ill health, during a profound
sleep produced by an opiate; he was only able to recall fifty-four lines.
Holde’s Phantasie 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 aut versus facit. According to
Réveillé-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
Adone, 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.[56] Thomas and Rossini composed in their beds.
Rousseau meditated with his head in the full glare of the sun.[57] 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 produced on the intelligence the effect of a drop of salt
water on a well-prepared voltaic pile. All great discoveries have been
occasioned, according to Moleschott’s remark, by a simple sensation.[58]
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.
Alfieri composed or conceived his tragedies while listening to music, or
soon after. A celebrated cantata of Mozart’s Don Giovanni 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
Giuda. The movements of his model suggested 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, incendiarism, 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.[59] T. Grossi told Verga
that in describing the apparition of Prina, he saw the figure come before
him, and was obliged to relight his lamp to make it disappear.[60] 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.[61]
Contrast, Intermittence, 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, “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!” Débureau in like manner went
to consult an alienist about his melancholy; he was advised to go to
Débureau. Klopstock was questioned regarding the meaning of a passage in
his poem. He replied, “God and I both knew what it meant once; now God
alone knows.” Giordano Bruno said of himself: “In hilaritate 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.”[62] Renan described himself as “a tissue of contradictions, recalling
the classic hirocerf 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.”[63]
“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?”[64] Musset himself confesses that, with respect to her, he gave
way to attacks of brutal anger and contempt, alternating 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
insulted 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
Homerus. Flaubert made a very curious collection of these, and called it the
“Dossier de la sottise humaine.” 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 Misérables).
“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 famille; the pumpkin, being larger, may be eaten with neighbours”
(Bernardin de Saint Pierre in Harmonie 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 conservative 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 natural sciences. What have they to complain of?” (De
Maistre in Soirées de St. Petersbourg, 8e Entretien, p. 131). “When one has
crossed the bounds there are no limits left” (Ponsard). “I have often heard
the blindness of the council of Francis I. deplored 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 et 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
Éducation intellectuelle). “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 Nouvelles). 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”;[65] sometimes in fatality which “governs the affairs of the world”;
[66] sometimes in Providence.[67]

Hyperæsthesia.—If we seek, with the aid of autobiographies, 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 perverted,
sensibility.
The savage and the idiot feel physical pain very feebly; they have few
passions, and they only attend to the sensations 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 temperament 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.”[68] Diderot
said: “If nature has ever made a sensitive soul it is mine. Multiply sensitive
souls, and you will augment good and evil actions.”[69]
The first time that Alfieri heard music he experienced as 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 with palpitation,
oppression, sobbing, trembling, sometimes terminating with a kind of
fainting fit. 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
constantly changing their abodes to avoid these sounds, and at last fled in
despair to the country.[70] 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 fragrance.
Guy de Maupassant says of Gustave Flaubert: “From his early childhood
the distinctive features of his nature were a great naïveté and a horror of
physical action. All his life he remained naïf 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.”[71] Sterne
wrote that intuition and sensibility are the only instruments of genius, the
source of the delicious impressions which give a more brilliant 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 that the beauty and love of the Fornarina inspired Raphael’s palette,
but very few know that he also composed one hundred sonnets in her
honour.[72]
Dante and Alfieri fell in love at nine years of age, Scarron at eight,
Rousseau at eleven, Byron at eight. 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. Ampère 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.”[73] La Fontaine perhaps thought of himself
when he wrote:—
“Un souffle, une ombre, un rien leur donne la fièvre.”

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

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 which rules in the nervous system. To an excessive
expenditure and development of nervous force succeeds reaction or
enfeeblement. 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 dorsalis are 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 suras of the Koran,” he said one day to Abou-Bekr, “have been
enough to whiten my hair.”[74] 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
proclaimed, even without cause, that he was unfortunate and persecuted,
and who has not at some moment experienced 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: “Dieu me
pardonnera; c’est son métier;” thus crowning with a stroke of supreme
irony the most æsthetically cynical life of our time. The last words of
Aretino after extreme unction were, it is said, “Keep me from the rats now I
am anointed.” The dying Rabelais enveloped his head in his domino, and
said, “Beati qui in Domino moriuntur.” 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 je va mourir: l’un et l’autre se
disent.”
Foscolo confesses that “very active in some directions, he was in others
inferior to a man, to a woman, to a child.”[75] It is known that Corneille,
Descartes, Virgil, Addison, La Fontaine, Dryden, Manzoni, Newton, were
almost incapable of expressing themselves in public. D’Alembert and
Ménage, insensible to the sufferings of a surgical operation, wept at a slight
critical censure. Luce de Lancival smiled when his legs were amputated, but
could not endure Geoffrey’s criticisms. Linnæus, at the age of sixty,
rendered paralytic and insensible by an apoplectic stroke, was aroused when
carried near to his beloved herbarium.[76] Lagny was stretched out
comatose, insensible to the strongest stimulants, when it occurred to some
one to ask him the square of twelve, he replied immediately, “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 Wechniakoff[77] and
Letourneau[78] have called monotypic. 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 dissuade 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 circumstance. 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 conception. In exalted
meditation thought deserts the more 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: “Pay no attention to him; he has
no common sense: he is all genius.”
Paræsthesia.—To the exhaustion and excessive concentration of
sensibility must be attributed all those strange acts showing apparent or
intermittent anæsthesia, and analgesia, which are to be found among men of
genius as well as among the insane. Socrates presented a photo-paræsthesia
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.[79]
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 prediction was accomplished; the
explosion took place with a fearful noise: the laboratory windows were all
smashed, and the audience fled to the garden.[80] 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 of the street, and seemed to hear it for the first time. It is told of
Ampère that when travelling on horseback in the country he became
absorbed in a problem; then, dismounting, 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.[81]
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 Münster, 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.[82] 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 Abbé Beccaria, absorbed in his experiments, said
during mass: “Ite! experientia facta est.” Saint Dominic, in the midst of a
princely repast, suddenly struck the table and exclaimed: “Conclusum est
contra Manicheos.” It is told of Ampère 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.[83] 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
speaking; he would then speak long monologues like a somnambulist.[84]
Rossini, conducting the orchestra at the rehearsal of his Barbiere, which
was a fiasco, did not perceive 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.[85] And Jürgen-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 trouvères.” 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.[86] Giordano Bruno divined the modern theories of cosmology
and of the origin of ideas. Cola di Rienzi 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 divinations 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 genius to his
creation, but they see the difference between his conclusions and those of
others, and the strangeness of his conduct. Rossini’s Barbiere, and
Beethoven’s Fidelio were received with hisses; Boito’s Mefistofele 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.”[87]

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.[88]
In exchange for this fatal gift, both the one and the other have the same
ignorance of the necessities of practical life which always seems to them
less important than their own dreams, and at the same time they possess the
disordered habits which renders this ignorance dangerous.
Fondness for 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 dignità of Vico, the individuità of Carrara, the
odio serrato of Alfieri, the albero epogonico 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.

I
T 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, Crébillon, Lombardini, exhibited the most remarkable facial
contortions.[89] 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 distorted his face. Carducci’s face at certain moments, writes
Mantegazza, is a veritable hurricane; lightnings dart from his eyes and his
muscles tremble.[90] Ampère could only express his thoughts while walking,
and when his body was in a state of constant movement.[91] Socrates often
danced and jumped in the street without reason, as if by a freak.
Julius Cæsar, Dostoieffsky, Petrarch, Molière, 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
influence on Cæsar’s fate. On another occasion, when the Senate had
decreed him extraordinary honours, and had gone out to meet him with the
consuls and prætors, Cæsar, 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 Cæsar, suddenly
returning to himself, immediately went home, took off his clothes and
uncovering 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.
[92]

Convulsions sometimes hindered Molière from doing any work for a
fortnight at a time. Mahomet had visions after an epileptic fit: “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.[93] Pascal from the age

of twenty-four had 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; afterwards he knew nothing of what had taken place.
[94] 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 convulsive 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 hyperæsthesia. 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 Jürgen-Meyer has affirmed the same. “Tristes philosophi et
severi,” said Varro.
Goethe, the impassible Goethe, confesses that “my character passes from
extreme joy to extreme melancholy;” 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.[95] Giusti was affected by hypochondria, which
reached to delirium; sometimes he thought he had hydrophobia. Corradi has
shown[96] that all the misfortunes of Leopardi, as well as his philosophy,
owe their origin to an exaggerated sensibility, and a hopeless love which he
experienced at the age of eighteen. In fact, his philosophy was more or less
sombre according as his health was better or worse, until the tendency was
transformed into a habit. “Thought,” he wrote, “has long inflicted on me,
and still inflicts, such martyrdom as to produce injurious effects, and it will
kill me if I do not change my manner of existence.”[97] 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[98] 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 extremes. 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; Spagnoletto by the abduction of his daughter;
Nourrit by the success of Dupré; Gros could not survive the decadence 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 origine blasted with a deep incurable taint
of melancholia which poisons my existence.” Schiller passed through a
period of melancholy 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.”[99] 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. Lessmann, 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
Masaniello, Fischer, Romilly, Eult von Burg, Hugh Miller, Göhring, Kuh
(the friend of Mendelssohn), Jules Uberti, Tannahill, Prévost-Paradol,
Kleist, who died with his mistress, and Majláth, 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 disorder, 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 sometimes so strange that I regarded it as a kind of madness. It took

the form of a fixed idea and bordered on monomania. 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. Molière had numerous attacks of melancholia.[100] Voltaire was
hypochondriacal.[101] “With respect to my body,” he wrote, “it is
moribund.... I anticipate 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.” Zimmermann 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.[102]

Cavour from youth believed himself deprived of domestic affections. He
saw no friends around; he saw above him no ideal to realise; he found
himself alone.[103] 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 other world.” At a very youthful age he
sometimes gave himself 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.[104] When the hopes of war raised by the words of Napoleon III. to
Baron Hübner 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 reassure his friends, but the danger had been very grave.[105]
Chateaubriand relates, in his Mémoires d’outre 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.
Gérard de Nerval was never so much inspired as in those movements
when, according to the saying of Alexandre Dumas, his melancholy became
his muse. “Werther, René, Antony,” says Dumas, “never uttered more
poignant complaints, more sorrowful sighs, tenderer words, or more poetic
cries.”
J. S. Mill[106] 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.”

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 together 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.”[107]
Megalomania (Delusions of grandeur).—The delirium of melancholia
alternates with that of grandiose monomania.
“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,” Renan 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
imprudent 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 Judgment
against the men of to-day and condemn them, 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 proverbial. It is well
known that he placed himself “sesto fra cotanto senno,” and declared
himself superior to his contemporaries in style and the favourite of God:—
“ ... e forse e nato
Chi l’uno e l’altro caccierà di nido....
... perchè tanta
Grazia in te luce prima che sei morto....”

At the Institute Dumas said with truth of Hugo: “Victor Hugo was
dominated by a fixed idea: to become 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.”[108]
“Man is the vainest of animals, and the poet is the vainest of men,”
wrote Heine, who knew.[109] And in another letter: “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,[110] “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 opposed 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 he tenderly
loved because she offered a chair to some one else before giving the same
invitation to himself.[111]
Giordano Bruno declared himself illumined by superior light, a
messenger from God, who knew the essence of things, a Titan who would
destroy Jupiter: “And what others see far ahead I leave behind.”[112] And
again:—
“Nam me Deus alter
Vertentis sæcli melioris non mediocrem
Destinat, haud veluti, media de plebe, magistrum.”

The poet Lucilius did not rise when Julius Cæsar 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.[113] The celebrated surgeon Porta would not suffer any medical
paper to be read at the Lombard Institute 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 that he was the
High Priest of Humanity. Wetzel intitled his works, Opera Dei Wetzelii.
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 correspondence
with his own temperament.[114] 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 folie du doute, 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 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 uncertainty 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 companions 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 counting and
adding up the rows of windows. Manzoni, in a letter (addressed to Giorgio
Briano) which has become famous, declared that he was incapable of giving

himself up to politics because he did not know how to decide on anything;
he was always in a state of uncertainty 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.[115] He passed whole days
without being able to apply himself to anything,[116] 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.[117] 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, less than a child.”[118] Tolstoi confesses that philosophic scepticism
had led him into a condition approximating to madness; let us add, to folie
du doute. “I imagined,” he said, “that there existed nothing outside me,
either living or dead; that the objects were not objects, but vain
appearances; this state reached such a point that sometimes I turned
suddenly round, and looked behind me in the hope of seeing nothing where
I was not.” “The deplorable mania of doubt exhausts me,” cried Flaubert, “I
doubt about everything, even about my doubts.”[119] “I am embarrassed 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.”[120] The little miseries of existence 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 de Jeunesse, “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 vision of the unknown person I am injuring stops short my zeal.”
Renan, 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 inoculated in
my youth—may be explained by my surroundings, and the deep
impressions I have received. The paradoxical 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 someone 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 conditions 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 document; 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, 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.”[121]
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
remarkable 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 immediately passing impressions and to analyse them scientifically....
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 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 useless 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 conscience and be an unpardonable error.... It is my passion to
injure my interests. When a thing attracts me I flee from it.”[122]

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 folie du doute.
It is scarcely necessary to add that these great disordered 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 reduced 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 expending their strength on theoretical problems, they end by failing
with reference to practical things. By carrying their 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 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, nevertheless, 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 contemptible.”
Alcoholism.—Many men of genius have abused alcoholic 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. Cæsar was often
carried home on the shoulders of his soldiers. Neither Socrates, nor Seneca,
nor Alcibiades, nor Cato, nor Peter the Great (nor his wife, Catherine, nor
his daughter, Elizabeth), were remarkable for their abstinence. One recalls
Horace’s line:

“Narratur et prisci Catonis sæpe mero caluisse virtus.”

Tiberius Nero was called by the Romans Biberius Mero. Septimius
Severus and Mahomet II. succumbed to drunkenness or delirium tremens.
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
Steen, Barbatelli (on this account nicknamed Pocetta), G. Morland, Turner;
and many poets and novelists, such as Murger, Gérard de Nerval, Alfred de
Musset, Kleist, Poe, Hoffmann, Addison, Steele, Carew, Sheridan, Burns,
Charles Lamb, James Thomson, Majláth, 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 succeeded 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 “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 drinking. 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 Staël 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 Glück, 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.[123] One may say the same of Rovani and of Praga.
Hallucinations.—We have already seen that hallucinations are so closely
connected with 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 Cæsar, 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
celebrated 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.[124] 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.[125]
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.[126]
Byron sometimes imagined he was haunted by a spectre; he afterwards
explained this himself by the extreme excitability of his brain.[127] 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.
[128] 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.[129]
Moral 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 quisque est doctior eo est nequior.”
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: “Doctrina vel
meliores reddit homines vel pejores pro cujusque natura.” And Cardan:
“Sapientes cum calidissimi natura sint, ac humidissimi, nisi philosophia
proficiant, pessimi omnium sunt. Adiuvant ad scelera perpetranda industria
quam ex studiis acquisuerunt, et melancolia quæ resoluto humore pinguiore
gignitur ex superfluis studiis, atque, 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 intelligence, 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 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,
persecuting, fantastic, despotic, bitter, suspicious. They confuse in the same
proud contempt the goats and the sheep. They are worse to their friends
than to their enemies. God protect us from them; be good—stupid if you
will.”[130]
“I regret,” said Valerius Maximus,[131] “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.[132] Democritus is said to have blinded himself
because he could not look at a woman without desiring her. Aristippus,
under the mask of austerity, abandoned himself to debauchery. Anaxagoras
denied a deposit confided to 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 licentiousness as for
their poetry. Voigt considers that immorality was a characteristic feature of
the Renaissance period.[133]
In my Uomo Delinquente I have considered criminal genius. Sallust,
Seneca, and Bacon were accused of peculation; Cremani was a forger,
Demme 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
Avicenna, 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 honestly, nor medicine to live healthily.[134]
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 are 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, Foscolo, 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;
[135] Muret, the humanist, condemned in France for sodomy; and Casanova,
so highly gifted for mathematical science and finance, who stained his fine
genius by a life of swindling and turpitude, giving us in his Mémoires a
complete and cynical picture of it. Villon belonged to an honourable family;
he received the name by which he is known (villon, 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 being arrested a second time he with
difficulty escaped the halter.
It has been said of the man of genius, as of the madman, 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.[136] 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 æsthetic 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?”[137] 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 recollection 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 sincere that he
determined beforehand the month, day, and hour when he should shed tears
over her memory.[138]
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, scientiis tanquam angeli, cupiditatibus tanquam serpentes.

“Bridget,” confesses A. de Musset, “calumniated, exposed (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.”[139]
Byron’s intimate friend, Hobhouse, 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 condottiere.
“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, and 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 messenger, only saw her at meal-time, and for weeks
together never addressed a word to her, although his prolonged 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 affecting 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 l’ali;[140] a remarkable instance of the double nature

of personality in men of genius, and at the same time of their moral
insensibility.
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 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
Chateaubriand 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 hypnotic 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. Genius, wrote Goethe, is only
related to its time by its defects.
This emotional anæsthesia may be found even in philanthropists, 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.”[141] “I have come
to bring fire on to the earth: if it burns already, so much the better!”[142] “I
declare to you,” he added, “whoever leaves house, wife, brothers, and
parents, will receive a hundredfold in this world, and in the world to come
everlasting life.”[143] “If any one comes to me and does not hate his father,
mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be
my disciple.”[144] “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.”[145] 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.”[146]
Dante, Goethe, Leopardi, Byron, and Heine were reproached with hating
their country. Tolstoi disapproves 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 hyperæsthesia in
other directions. I have noted this character in 134 cases out of 143.
Sophocles, Humboldt, Fontenelle, Brougham, Xenophon, Cato the Elder,
Michelangelo, Petrarch, Bettinelli, died at 90; Passeroni, Auber, Manzoni,
Xavier de Maistre at 89; Hobbes at 92; Dandolo at 97; Titian at 99;
Cassiodorus and Mlle. Scudéry 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, Littré at 80; Anacreon,
Mercatori, Viviani, Buffon, Palmerston, Casti, J. Bernouilli, Pinel at 81;

Galileo, Euler, Schlegel, Béranger, Louis XIV., Corneille, Cesarotti at 78;
Herodotus, Rossini, Cardan, Michelet, Boileau, Garibaldi, Archimedes,
Paisiello, Saint Augustine at 75; Tacitus and B. Disraeli 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.[147] But this fact does not
exclude degeneration when, as among persons with moral insanity, it is
united with an apathy which renders temperaments otherwise mobile,
insensible to the strongest griefs, and I have shown in another book[148] that
instinctive 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.

CHAPTER IV.

Genius and Insanity.
Resemblance between genius and insanity—Men and women of genius who have been insane—
Montanus—Harrington—Haller—Schumann—Gérard de Nerval—Baudelaire—Concato—
Mainländer—Comte—Codazzi—Bolyai—Cardan—Tasso—Swift—Newton—Rousseau—Lenau
—Széchényi—Hoffmann—Foderà—Schopenhauer—Gogol.

T HE 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,[149] Engel, Pergolese, Batjusckoff, Mürger, William Collins,
Techner, Hölderlen, Von der West, Gallo, Spedalieri, Bellingeri, Salieri,

Johannes Müller, Lenz, Barbara, Fuseli, Petermann, the caricaturist Cham,
Hamilton, Poe, Uhlrich.
In France, remarks Martini, many young and original poets have died
insane.[150] Such also seems to have been the fate of Briffault, and of
Laurent attacked by a veritable mania of calumny.[151] Among women
Günderode, Stieglitz (who both committed suicide with great deliberation),
Brachmann, L. E. Landon lived and died insane.[152]
Montanus, a victim to solitude and a disordered imagination, was
convinced that he had become a grain of wheat. He refused to move for fear
of being swallowed by birds.[153] 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 disperse 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 converse with priests.[154] Ampère burnt a
treatise on the future of chemistry believing he had written it by Satanic
suggestion. 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, composed 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.[155] 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: “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, 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
everything; 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 he 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.
[156]

Gérard de Nerval was subject to folie 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 superintendent who was a victim to insanity. “He believes,” he
said, “that he is superintending an asylum, but he is himself 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 mediæval bed which was to
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 without 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, folie des grandeurs
developed in him; he spoke of his châteaux 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 pseudonym. 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.[157]
Baudelaire appears before us, in the portrait placed at

BAUDELAIRE.

the beginning of his posthumous works, as the type of the lunatic possessed
by the Délire des grandeurs.[158] 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 opposing sentiments; the
horror and the ecstasy of life; he was hyperæsthetic 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 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.[159]
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 corrupting 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.”[160]
And he had need of it, for he called Gustave Planche imbecile, Dumas a
farceur, Sue stupid, Féval 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 Molière and Voltaire.
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 claustrophobia: 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.[161]
Mainländer 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 Philosophie der
Erlösung, 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 necessary that he should recognize the value of not-being,
and desire intensely not to be.”[162]
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 maniacal ideas may be found, as, for example, the
prophecy that one day women will be fecundated without the help of the
male.[163]
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
mathematician 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.[164] Such was the great reformer of Euclid.
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 supernatural 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.[165]
He was hypochondriacal, and imagined he had contracted all the
diseases that he read of: palpitation, sitophobia, diarrhœa, 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 phantoms 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 condemned his much-loved son, he ended by
believing himself 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, inconstancy; he observes
that four times during the full moon he found himself in a state of real

mental alienation. 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 condition, that it was worse than any
pain.” This fact helps us to understand many strange tortures which
madmen have voluptuously imposed on themselves.[166] He had so blind a
faith in the revelations of dreams, that he printed a strange work De
Somniis, conducted his medical consultations, concluded his marriage, and
began his works (for example, that on the Varietà delle Cose and Sulle
Febbri) in accordance with dreams.[167]
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
all a father’s tenderness, as is witnessed by his fine verses, De Morte Filii,
in which there is the imprint of real passion. 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 persecutors. “Thus
overwhelmed, I 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; 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 gioia, 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.[168]
A megalomaniac, he called himself “the seventh physician since the
creation of the world;” he claimed to know the things which are before and
above us, and those which shall come after.[169]
Like Rousseau and like Haller, Cardan, during the last 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.[170]
What shall we say of Tasso? For those who do not know Verga’s
monograph (Lipemania 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 myself. 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 Messaggiero, which
became with him, later on, a real hallucination, he had already made the
often-repeated confession of his madness, 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 Aminta, which another
monomaniac, Rousseau, loved so much:—

“Vivrò fra i miei tormenti e fra le cure,
Mie giuste furie, forsennato, errante;
Paventerò l’ombre solinghe e scure
Che il primo error mi recheranno avante;
E del sol che scoprì le mie sventure
A schivo ed in orror avrò it sembiante:
Temerò me medesmo, e da me stesso
Sempre fuggendo, avrò me sempre appresso.”[171]

One day, certainly under the influence of some hallucination, or in a
maniacal attack, he drew a knife, and was about to attack a serving-man
who entered the 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 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 gratitude in a sonnet. He wrote and spoke
to, almost touched, his genius, who often resembled his former
Messaggiero, 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 giddiness began, as he himself tells
us, at the age of twenty-three, so that his brain disease lasted for over fifty
years. Vertiginosus, 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
some years previously a sum of nearly £11,000 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 sæva indignatio
ulterius cor lacerare nequit.”
Newton, of whom it was truly said that his mind conquered 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 archbishop 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.”[172] 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 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.”[173]
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 Rêveries. “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
acquiring 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 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 agitations 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 freshness of nature. It is in vain for him
to hide himself in the woods, he writes in his Rêveries; the crowd attaches
itself to him and follows him. We think once more of Tasso’s lines:—
“e da me stesso
Sempre fuggendo, avrò me sempre 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 Rêveries, 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.”[174] 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 newspaper, 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 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-carême 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.[175] 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 jugé 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 les
Français aimant encore la justice et la vérité.” 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 Nôtre-Dame at Paris. Then,
having found the railing closed, he suspected 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.[176] The
délire des grandeurs 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 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 spermatorrhœa, which probably originated 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
threatened to do so.[177]
Nicolaus Lenau, one of the greatest lyric poets of modern times, ended,
forty years ago, in the asylum of Döbling 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 medicine, law, agriculture, and especially music. In 1831 Kerner
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, “gravitating 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 to America. He returned to find himself fêted and
received with gladness by all; but hypochondria, in his own words, had
planted its teeth deep in his heart, and everything was useless.[178] 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 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 possession 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 was causelessly angry and impatient, and felt himself incapable
of work; non est firmum 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 mysticism 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, projected great works, and
executed none.
It was the last flickering of a great spirit; in 1844 Lenau complained
more and more of headache, of constant 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 12th of
October, he had a violent attack of suicidal mania. He was restrained, and
furiously struck and broke everything, burning his manuscripts. Gradually
he became composed and intelligent again, and even analyzed his attack
minutely in that terrible, chaotic poem the Traumgewalien. 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 delightful visions.” He imagined that he was in
Walhalla 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, “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 21st of August, 1850. The autopsy only revealed a
little serum in the ventricles and traces of progressive pericarditis.
In this same asylum at Döbling died some years later another great man,
Széchényi,[179] the creator of Danubian navigation, the founder of the
Magyar Academy, the promoter of the revolution of 1848. At the very
apogee of the revolution, when Széchényi 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
misfortunes which would fall on his country, and wrongly judged himself
responsible. The monomania of persecution 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 conspirator, 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 Széchényi slowly became sane. 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 himself
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, Széchényi wrote another
letter, which describes his mental condition: “Can I be silent when I see that
noble seed crushed? Can I forget 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. Hungary alone, which has no racial affinity with the
other European nations, will seek to accomplish its own destiny beneath the
ægis 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 Hübner succeeded Bach, and the Liberal system was
inaugurated. Széchényi 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; Hübner was succeeded by Thierry, a bad disciple of Bach, armed
with the old and superannuated systems of Austria; all reform was
abandoned. The unfortunate Széchényi 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
Hungarian constitution, internal affairs to be treated separately, 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 Döbling lunatic; and Rechberg, 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 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 Foderà 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.
Foderà, however, regarded this act as a manifestation 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.
[180]

The most complete type of madness in genius is presented to us by
Schopenhauer.[181] 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 misanthropic and
eccentric to monomania. From childhood his hearing was defective, and he
believed—and it is probably 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. “From my youth,” he says, “I have always been melancholy.
Once, when I was perhaps eighteen, I

SCHOPENHAUER.

thought to myself, in spite of my 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
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 increases,
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 you; what
separates me from you is not your heart, not your inner, but your outer, self,
your views, your judgments, 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.”[182]
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 extravagance, and had thus reduced him to the necessity of

working for his living. This effort was entirely repugnant to his nature. In
this he yielded to a feeling of anguish, which, by his own confession,
bordered on madness. “If there is nothing to cause me misery, I am
tormented by the thought that there must be something hidden from me.
Misera conditio nostra.”[183]
In 1814 Schopenhauer left Weimar to complete his great work. He was
convinced that he could and must 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 (dämonisches).
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 fœtus 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 without 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
fœtus 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 nourishment 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
principles 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 fæcal 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 contemplation 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
elaborating his great work, Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, 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
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 contemplating the plants,
talked aloud to himself and gesticulated, an attendant came up and asked
him who he was. “If you can tell me who I am,” replied Schopenhauer, “I
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 surprising 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.”[184] 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 produced 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 délire 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 depression he heard of the collapse of his banking-
house. It is 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 Privatdozent 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 precarious 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. “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 Mannheim 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 talking 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
work. 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 délire des grandeurs, his melancholy accompanied 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, “is one of the numerous
misfortunes which discount the privilege of genius.” “Qui non habet
indignationem,” he wrote, “non habet ingenium.” 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 hypochondriacal. 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, however
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 “everything
happens necessarily.”
He was contradiction personified. He placed annihilation, nirvana, 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 Büchner, and rejoiced when the Government
deprived them of their professorial chairs.
He lived on the first storey, in case of fire; would not 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
recommended 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.”

Nicolaï Vasilyevitch Gogol (born 1809), after suffering 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 became 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 Government patronized him. Then a new idea began to dominate
him; he thought that he painted his country with so much crudity and
realism that the picture might incite to a revolution which would not be kept

within reasonable 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 accomplished a pilgrimage to
Jerusalem, from which he returned 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 condition of the insane is modified in a constant manner by
barometrical and thermometrical influences.[185] When the temperature rose
above 25°, 30°, and 32° C., especially if the rise was sudden, the number of
maniacal attacks increased from 29 to 50. On the days on which the
barometer 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 sensibility,
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 temperature and with the great
barometrical perturbations in September and March; the onset of heat, acts
more efficaciously, however, than the intense heat which follows; and the
heat which has become habitual in August acts much less harmfully. The
minimum number of outbreaks of insanity is found in the coldest months.
(See Plate.)
This coincidence is seen best in the French lunatics studied by Esquirol.
[186] 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.

Insane. Insane.
Month Temperature. Month Temperature.
Italy. France. Italy. France.
June 2,704 55 21° 29C. October 1,637 44 12° 77C.
May 2,642 58 16° 75C. Sept. 1,604 48 19° 00C.
July 2,614 52 23° 75C. Dec. 1,529 35 1° 01C.
August 2,261 45 21° 92C. Feb. 1,420 40 5° 73C.
April 2,237 50 16° 12C. Jan. 1,476 42 1° 63C.
March 1,829 49 6° 60C. Nov. 1,452 47 7° 17C.
Now, a similar influence may be noted in those to whom nature,
benevolently or malevolently, has conceded 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: “Si la
santé me sied et la clarté d’un beau jour, me voilà honnête homme.” Diderot
wrote, “Il me semble que j’ai l’esprit fou dans les grands vents.” Giordani
foretold storms two days beforehand.[187] Maine de Biran, a very
spiritualistic philosopher, wrote, in his Journal de ma Vie Intime, “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 condition of our
organs?”[188] 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 constantly sad, and in
November only cheerful during ten days.
“1815, May.—I am suffering from the nervous disposition 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: inspiration....
“4, 16, 17 October.—Empty of ideas; sad....
“1816, 25 January.—Sad and idle. My life is useless....
“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, 18 July.—Marvellous activity....
“12 October.—Am transformed; thought turns to commonplace
triviality....
“22, 23, 28 November.—Sterile agitation. Alteration of all my mental
faculties....
“1818, 1 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 returning 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.[189]
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 product of the physical atmosphere and
the moral atmosphere,” 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, 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.[190]
Leopardi confesses in his letters, “My temperament is inimical to cold. I
wait and invoke the reign of Ormuzd.” Giusti wrote in the spring,
“Inspiration is becoming favourable.... If spring aids me as in all other
things....”[191] Paisiello could only compose beneath six quilts in the
summer and nine in the winter. Similar facts are told of Varillas, Méry, and
Arnaud. Sylvester tells how, when on board the Invicta, beneath the
vivifying rays of a powerful sun, the method of resolving a multiple
equation occurred to him, and he succeeded, without pen or pencil.[192]
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.[193]
Giordani could only compose in the sun, or in the presence of abundant
light and great heat.[194] 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.”[195] 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 development of his
imagination. Dr. Johnson, 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 commentary that all
this must be the result of eccentricity of character, he, Johnson, never

having experienced any 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 15th of June, 1282; in the spring of
1300 he wrote the Vita Nuova; on the 3rd of April he began his great poem.
[196] Darwin had the earliest ideas of his great work first in March, then in
June.[197] Petrarch conceived the Africa in March, 1338. Michelangelo’s
great cartoon, the work which so competent 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, Père
Goriot in September, La Recherche de l’Absolu 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.[198] 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 Wallenstein
in the autumn, as well as Fiesco and Wilhelm Tell; Wallensteins Lager and
Letters on Æsthetics in September; Kabale und Liebe in winter; the
Magician, the Glove, the Ring of Polycrates, the Cranes of Ibycus, and
Nadowessir’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, Westöstlichen Divan, and Natürliche
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.[199] Salorno’s hymn to Liberty was written in May.
Rossini composed the Semiramide almost entirely in February, and in
November the last part of the Stabat Mater.[200] Mozart composed the
Mitridate in October; Beethoven his ninth symphony in February.[201]
Donizetti composed Lucia di Lammermoor, perhaps entirely, in September;
in any case, the famous Tu che a Dio spiegasti l’ale belongs to that date; the
Figlia del Reggimento was also composed in autumn; Linda de Chamounix
in spring; Rita in summer; Don Pasquale and the Miserere in winter.[202]
Wagner composed Der Fliegende Holländer in the spring of 1841. Canova
modelled his first work, Orpheus and Eurydice, in October.[203]
Michelangelo conceived his Pietà between September and October, 1498,
[204] the design of the Libreria in December, the model in wood of the tomb
of Pope Julius in August.[205] Leonardo da Vinci conceived the equestrian
statue of the Sforza and began his book Della luce e delle Ombre in April;
for we find in his autograph manuscript these words: “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.[206] 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.[207] Galileo discovered the sun’s
spots contemporaneously with, or before, Scheiner in April, 1611;[208] 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 May, 1609, he
invented the telescope;[209] 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 tergeminum observavi.”

In January he found Jupiter’s satellites; in November, 1602, the isochronism
of the oscillations of the pendulum.[210]
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. Fabricius 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 selenography.[211]
A satellite of Saturn was discovered by Huygens on the 25th of March,
1665; another by Dawes and Bond on the night of the 19th 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
14th of September, 1847; on the 8th of July in the same year he had also
seen Neptune’s satellite for the first time.[212] Uranus was discovered by
Herschel in March, 1781. The same astronomer 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.[213] 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 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 discoveries.[214]
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 equilibrium of fluids were

made in September, 1645.[215] In March, 1752, Franklin began his
experiments with lightning 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.[216] Hamilton discovered the calculus of
Quaternions on the 16th 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 November, 1806, as is
shown by a letter which the advocate Zanino Volta found in the
correspondence of his grandfather. 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 atmospheric electricity on the nerves of cold-blooded animals
were undertaken, as he himself writes, “at the 20th hour of the 26th of
April, 1776.” In September, 1786, he began his experiments on the
contractions of frogs, whence the origin of galvanism. In November, 1780,
he stated his experiments on the contractions of frogs by artificial
electricity.[217]
We see by Lagrange’s manuscripts, published by Boncompagni, that he
had the first idea of the Calculus of Variations on the 12th of June, 1755; on
the 19th of May (1756) he conceived the idea of the Mécanique Analitique;
in November, 1759, he found a solution of the problem of vibrating cords.
[218]

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,
Spallanzani started, to use his own words, “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 ovulation.
“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 fecundation.” “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 corollaries.” 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.
Géoffroy Saint-Hilaire had his first ideas on the homologies of
organisms in February. Davy discovered iodine in December. Humboldt
made his first observations on the magnetic needle in November, 1796; in
March, 1793, he observed the irritability of organic fibres.[219] The
prolegomena of the Cosmos was dictated in October.[220] In July, 1801,
Gay-Lussac discovered fluoric acid in fish-bones; he completed the analysis
of alum in July.[221] In September, 1846, Morton used sulphuric ether as an
anæsthetic in surgery. In October, 1840, Armstrong invented the first hydro-
electric machine.[222]
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 decomposition of acids in May, 1835, he determined in May, 1837, the
influence of electricity on the weather; in June, 1833, he concluded his
experiments on heat and magnetism.[223]
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 discoveries, or their best
æsthetic productions, at a special season or in one month rather than
another: Spallanzani in the spring, Giusti and Arcangeli in March,
Lamartine in August, Carcano, Byron, and Alfieri in September, Malpighi
and Schiller in June and July, Hugo in May, Béranger 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:—
Physical,
Literary
Chemical,
and Astronomical
Month. and Total.
Artistic Discoveries.[224]
Mathematical
Works.
Discoveries.
January 101 37 — 138
February 82 21 1 104
March 104 45 5 154
April 135 52 5 192
May 149 35 9 193
June 125 24 5 154
July 105 52 5 162
August 113 42 — 155
September 138 47 5 190
October 83 45 4 132
November 103 42 5 150
December 86 27 2 115
One observes at once that the most favourable month for æsthetic
creations is May; then come September and April; the minimum is
presented by the months of February, October, and December. The same
may be observed partially with astronomical discoveries; but here April and
July predominate, while for physical discoveries as well as for æsthetic
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

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

great heat, as with insanity also; in the same way the months of greatest
barometric variation have an advantage 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 mathematical 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 cartoon, Dante of his Divina Commedia, Leonardo of
his book on light, Goethe of his Faust; it was in the spring that Kepler
discovered his law, that Milton conceived his great poem, Darwin his great
theory, and Wagner the Fliegende Holländer, 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 1777-78 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
in May, 41 in June, 33 in August, 24 in September; while there were only
17 in December, 10 in November, 18 in January, 17 in July, and 2 in
February.
If we examine the curious journal of his own observations, 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.[225] 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 investigations 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 doubtfulness, 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 encouragement 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 them the chronological
coincidence is connected with accidental circumstances entirely,
independent of the psychic condition. Thus naturalists have greater facilities
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 predominance 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 astronomers
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 æsthetic 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 imagination in Spallanzani’s experiments, in
Herschel’s first attempts, in the great discoveries of Leverrier and
Schiaparelli, born of hypothesis, which calculation and observation
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
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 serious. 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 produced 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.

B UCKLE thought that most artists, unlike men of science, were produced
in volcanic countries.[226] Jacoby, in an excellent monograph,[227] 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 contributed 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 Fétis[228] and Clément[229]; for
painters and sculptors I have referred to Ticozzi’s two dictionaries.[230] Here
are the results:—
Musicians in Europe.
Country. Number. To one million inhabitants.
Italy 1210 40.7
Belgium 98 16.7
Germany 650 13.8
France 405 10.7
Holland 31 7.7
Greece 15 7.5
Switzerland 20 7.0
Denmark 14 6.6
Austria 239 6.5
England 149 4.6
Portugal 17 3.6
Spain 62 3.5
Ireland 7 1.4
Russia 34 0.4

Sweden 9 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.[231]
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.
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 composers, 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 Clément’s book, and Florimo’s,[232] 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
opéra-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.[233]
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 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.[234]
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.[235]
To summarize: We see that the chief part is played by warm climate,
great centres of civilization, mountainous 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 improvvisatori, 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,
grandfathers, 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 goître; marshy countries are still poorer in genius. The few
men of genius possessed by Switzerland 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 Pesaro, Forlì, Como, Parma,
have produced men of genius in greater number and of greater fame than
Pisa, Padua, 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, Alamanni, Rucellai, Ghirlandajo, Donati; Pisa, on
the other hand, with scientific conditions at least as favourable 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 more 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, economists, and thinkers of
the first order (it is enough to name Trezza), I note that, in a very accurate
document,[236] 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 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 Columbus, 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 Céspedes, at once painter, sculptor, and poet.
In the United States, Beard remarks,[237] the influence of a dry and
changeable climate favours in the North a remarkable 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 refused, 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 minorum
gentium, genial and noteworthy poets, although beneath that giant, men
such as Klinger, Börne, Rückert, Bettina von Arnim (née 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, Mörike, G. Schwab,

DIAGRAM OF THE RELATION OF GENIUS TO STATURE IN FRANCE.

B = predominately Belgic Departments; C = Celtic; I = Iberian; A = Arabic.

Schelling, Müller, Hölderlin, and others. That hilly regions are richer
than others in poets is shown in Germany by Hanover (Klopstock, Stolberg,
Iffland, Bürger, Leisewitz, Bodenstedt, Hoffmann von Fallersleben, the two
Schlegels, &c.); by the Rhine province (Heine, Jacobi, J. Müller, Brentano);
Saxony, one of the districts possessing a mild climate, which has yielded
the largest number of poets (Körner, Gellert, Kästner, Rabener, and, above
all, Lessing); and Thuringia (Kotzebue, Rückert, G. Freytag, Heinse,
Musäus, Gotter). On the other hand, the flat regions of Germany or those
with a severe climate, have produced few poets.[238] As exceptions must be
mentioned, Herder (Mohrungen in East Prussia), M. von Schenkendorf
(Tilsit), E. M. Arndt (Rügen), Luther (Eisleben), Paul Gerhardt
(Gräfenhainichen), the two Humboldts, Paul Heyse, Tieck, Gutzkow
(Berlin), Immermann (Magdeburg), Wilhelm Müller, Max Müller, 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
goître: 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,[239]
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 goître and cretinism, which, although they arrest the physical and mental
growth, do not increase the mortality.
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 influences, 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 exposed 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,[240] and
with the mortality of each province as furnished by Bertillon.[241]
We observe at once an evident parallelism between genius and height,
with only 11 exceptions out of 85, and some of these 11 may be explained
by the agglomerated population of great capitals (Seine, Rhône, Bouches-
du-Rhône) which favour the development, or rather the manifestation, of
genius, as we have already seen to be the case in Italy; thus the exceptions
in Var, Hérault, Bouches-du-Rhône 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 influence 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, standing only in the third rank, the Loire, indeed,
only in the fourth.[242]
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 Ariège, the Basses and Hautes-Alpes,
Puy-de-Dôme, the Pyrénées, and the Ardennes, clearly showing itself in
short stature and military exemption for goître, 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, Corrèze—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 mountainous regions not too much affected by
goître—Doubs, Côte-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 goître, stammering, and deaf-mutism,
correspond with low stature in Corrèze, Puy-de-Dôme, Ardèche, Ariège, the
Basses-Alpes, and the Pyrénées.
We have seen in Var, Vaucluse, and Hérault 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
Stature 1831- Progressive
Goîtrous Cretins Deaf-mutes Stammerers
60 degree
Mountainous among among among among
Progressive of great talent
Departments. 1,000 1,000 1,000 1,000
degree of among 1,000
inhabitants. inhabitants. inhabitants. inhabitants.
exemptions. inhabitants.

Haute-Vienne 86 54 17 2.0 0.61 2.23
Hautes-Alpes 81 49 111 2.2 2.2 2.8
Corrèze 85 50 17 4.3 1.5 2.4
Puy-de Dôme 84 51 44 3.6 1.2 1.9
Ardèche 80 58 29 6.8 1.3 3.9
Ariège 60 79 82 4.5 0.7 4.1
Lozère 74 76 29 6.8 2.10 3.4
Basses-Alpes 71 22 76 6.3 0.6 7.5
Aveyron 65 44 17 4.9 1.5 2.0
Basses-Pyrénées 51 61 21 3.2 0.6 2.9
Pyrénées-
50 57 24 3.5 1.8 2.0
Orientales
Hautes-Pyrénées 37 72 62 6.2 0.7 4.0
Vosges 25 46 56 3.9 1.1 2.5
Ardennes 8 30 17 0.5 0.8 5.2
Jura 3 10 58 2.0 0.6 3.0
Côte-d’Or 2 5 11 3.1 0.8 1.7
Doubs 1 2 22 2.9 0.6 1.0

higher figures, and the same isothermal line passes through the Seine-
Inférieure 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 Saône-
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 Côte-d’Or, the Meuse, and the
Moselle, where the soil is calcareous, and the lowest figures in the Nord and
Deux-Sèvres, 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
Saône-et-Loire.
The influence of race is also very slight; the descendants of the
Burgundians produced numerous men of genius in the Jura and the Doubs,
very few in the Saône-et-Loire. The Haute-Garonne, with the same race,
produces ten times as many men of genius as Ariège, 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, Hérault gives seven times more
than Lozère.
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 cœli non solum ad
robur corporum sed etiam animorum facit” (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 Epistolarium, which is a kind of summary of his life,
remarks with great emphasis that all his chief works were composed, 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 Giulietta 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, Renan writes: “No revolutionary, no reformer, no great poet, no
artist, no man of science, no philosopher, not even a great minister, can be
met in the 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.”[243] And the same may be
said in our days.
At first it seems surprising to see a condition of degeneration, such as
genius may be called, developing at spots of maximum salubrity. But if
there are anærobic microbes, some are ærobic; many forms of degeneration,
such as goître, 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 elevation 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;[244] 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.[245] Some men of true genius, as Garcilasso dela Vega and
Alvares de Vera, were born something below three thousand metres at Quito
and Bogota.[246]
There is here again a parallelism between genius and insanity. Those
who live in mountainous regions are more 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 Amiata (Lazzaretti), of Busca
and Montenero, of Verzegnis; 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—Criminal 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 l’Uomo di Colore and Pensiero
e Meteore) how, owing to the bloody selection of mediæval 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.[247]
In 100,000 celebrities—
Europeans. Jews.
Actors 21 34
Agriculture 2 —
Antiquaries 23 26
Architects 6 6
Artists 40 34
Authors 316 223
Divines 130 105
Engineers 13 9
Engravers 3 —
Lawyers 44 40
Medicals 31 49
Merchants 12 43
Military 56 6
Miscellaneous 4 3
Metaphysics 2 18
Musicians 11 71
Natural Science 22 25
Naval 12 —
Philologists 13 123
Poets 20 36
Political Economy 20 26
Science 51 52
Sculptors 10 12
Sovereigns 21 —
Statesmen 125 83
Travellers 25 12

“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, Halèvy,
Gutzkow, Mendelssohn, Offenbach, Rubinstein, Joachim, Benedict,
Moscheles, Cowen, Sullivan, Goldmark, Strauss; poets, novelists,
humourists, &c., like Heine, Saphir, Camerini, Revere, Jung, Weill, Fortis,
Gozlan, Moritz Hartmann, Auerbach, Börne, Ratisbonne, Kompert, Grace
Aguilar, Franzos, Massarani, Lindau, Catulle Mendes; linguists like Ascoli,
Benfey, Munk, Fiorentino, Luzzato, Oppert, Bernhardi, Friedland, Weil,
Lazarus, Steinthal; physicians like Valentin, Hermann, Haidenhain, Schiff,
Casper, Stilling, Gluge, Traube, Fraenkel, Kuhn, Cohnheim, Hirsch,
Liebreich, Bernstein, Remak, Weigert, Meynert, Hitzig, Westphal, Mendel,
Leidesdorf, Benedikt; philosophers like Spinoza, Maimon, Sommerhausen,
Moses Mendelssohn; naturalists like Cohn; economists like Ricardo,
Lassalle, Karl Marx; jurists and statesmen like Stahl, Gans, Beaconsfield,
Crémieux. Even in sciences in which the Semite formerly showed no
ability, such as mathematics and astronomy, we find such men as
Goldschmidt, Beer, Sylvester, Kronecker, and Jacobi.
It must be observed that a very large proportion of these men of genius
have been radically creative; revolutionary 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 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 correlation
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 1 lunatic to 391 Jews in Italy, nearly four times as many as
among Catholics.[248] This fact has been made still clearer by Verga[249]
who in 1870 found the proportions of lunatics among Catholics to be 1 in
1775, as against 1 in 384 among Jews. Mayr[250] (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 Germany.[251] 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.”[252]
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 discovery 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 Staël; 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 assertion is
contested), initiated at the beginning of the fifteenth century legal reforms
of almost modern character; Catherine of Siena influenced the politics and
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, conservators. 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 Théresa, Catherine II., Elizabeth, 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 manifesting 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 movements.
On the contrary, women have often stood in the way of progressive
movements. Like children, they are notoriously 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 Goncourt remarks, they
only see persons in everything; they are, as Spencer observes, more
merciful than just.
The Heredity of Genius.—According to Galton[253] and Ribot,[254]
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; Bellini was 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 preserved 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 produced 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 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. Fétis counts among them twenty-nine musicians
of eminence.[255]
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
------------------------------------------
X X
| |
+------------+ |
| | |
| X |
| | |
| -----------------+ X
| Francesco | |
| TIZIANO -+---------------+--
-
--+--------- ----------- | |
Mario X | Fabricio
Cesare
| | |
| | +-----------+
| | | |
| | Pomponio Orazio
| |
Tizianello Tomaso.

Among poets may be noted Bacchylides, the nephew of Simonides and
uncle of Æschylus 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 André Chenier, Alphonse and Ernest
Daudet.
In the natural sciences we find the two Plinies, uncle and nephew, the
families of Darwin, Euler, De Candolle, Hooker, Herschel, Jussieu,
Saussure, Geoffroy 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 archæologists, the Viscontis. Aristotle, himself the son of a scientific
physician, 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
|
+---------------+---------------+
| | |
Jacques Jean Nicolas
|
+------------+------------+
| | |
Nicolas Daniel Jean
|
+------+------+
| |
Jean 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 Bâle 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 proportion 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 18 uncles
41 brothers 13 cousins
31 fathers 17 grandfathers
14 grandsons 3 great-grandfathers
22 nephews 5 great-uncles
The probabilities of kinsmen of illustrious men rising to eminence are—
15½ to 100 in the case of fathers; 13½ 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.[256]
Many men of genius have been thought to inherit from their mothers:
such are Cicero, Condorcet, Cuvier, Buffon, Goethe, Sydney Smith,
Cowper, Napoleon, Cromwell, 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.[257]
With a few exceptions, then, such as the Darwins, 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 the prestige
of a great name:—
“Rare volte risurge per li rami
L’umana probitate.”[258]

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 transmitted, 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 descendants of a Hamburg noble,
whom history registers as a great soldier, were struck by insanity at the age
of forty.[259] At Connecticut Asylum eleven members of the same family
have arrived in succession.[260]
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 to be suckled, and two others who died of cerebral diseases.
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” family[261] shows that such an
influence may be still more powerfully developed, 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.[262] 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 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 Cæsars, 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 were
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 successively 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.[263] 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.[264]
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.[265] 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. 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 Campbell’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.[266]
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
melancholic and had two children, of whom one was insane, the other a
somnambulist.[267] The sons of Tacitus, Carlini, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre,
Mercadante, Donizetti, Volta, Manzoni, a daughter of Victor Hugo, the
father and 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: “I Taparei a l’an nen le grumele a port.”[268]
The origins of Renan’s neurosis, of which I have already spoken, he has
himself indicated in speaking of his religious 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
Tréguier in which Renan was born. On account of the frequency of
consanguineous 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, ‘our lunatics,’ as at Venice they say ‘nostre carampane.’
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.”[269] A
still greater influence on Renan’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
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 controlled by statistics.
The Prussian statistics for 1877 show that among 10,676 lunatics, morbid
heredity may be traced in 6,369.[270] They are divided as follows:—
Father or Grandparents Sisters or
mother or uncles brothers
per cent. per cent. per cent.
Insanity 89·0 86·0 76·1
Serious Neurosis 12·4 6·7 13·1
Crime 1·0 0·1 0·1
Alcoholism 18·0 3·1 3·3
Suicide 1·7 2·7 2·3
Extraordinary talent 6·3 1·3 3·6
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 the influence. In twenty-two cases of hereditary insanity Aubonel
and Thoré observed two cases of sons of ability.[271]
These facts were not unknown to old observers. Tassoni, a very original
writer, in his Pensieri Diversi (1621) discusses the question: “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,
Lamprocles, 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 influences 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 père, A. Jussieu, Balzac, J. Cassini, C.
Vernet, Beaconsfield, Horace Walpole, William Pitt, Racine, Adler, Auriac,
Béclard, Schopenhauer. From young fathers I have, on the other hand, only
found Victor Hugo, De Girardin, Arneth, Barral, Bertillon, Ségur. 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 Martel,
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.[272] 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.

CHAPTER IV.

The Influence of Disease on Genius.
Spinal diseases—Fevers—Injuries to the head and their relation to genius.

Gérard de Nerval in his book, Le Rêve et la Vie, 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. Sylvester 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.
[273]

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 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 staircase.[274] 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.[275] “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.”[276] Béclard turned from mere
theories to experiment, after a stroke of apoplexy.[277] 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 intelligence. 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.

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 establishment 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 reinforced by climate and
race, and, to a still greater degree, by clerical influence, retarded for a long
time the development 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 immediately 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 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 populace. 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 emergency of the time, passed for
great.[278] One might even be inclined to suspect that the numerous great
men who appeared at Florence were themselves the cause of her
revolutions.[279]
The same assertion holds good of opportunity. Opportunity appears,
sometimes, to have assisted the development of genius. Thus Mutius
Scaevola, having been reproached by Servius Sulpicius with ignorance of
his country’s laws, became a great 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 Bernadino 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.”[280]
Circumstances, then, and a certain degree of civilization 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. “Steam,” says Fournier,
“was a plaything for children in the time of Hero of Alexandria, and
Anthemius 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.[281]
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 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 sixteenth 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 themselves 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 completed 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,
determines 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 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

coincidence between a given civilization and the manifestation 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. Hypnotism 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
homœopathy 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 even to perceive that such is the case.
Misery is often the stimulus of genius. It was necessity 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 great
sacrifice to educate his son. Meyerbeer, who produced so laboriously, and
whose genius cannot be explained 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 produce 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. Pitré, in his admirable book, Usi e costumi della Sicilia, writes
at length of certain wonderful poetasters, who narrate fantastic 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 themselves.
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
succeed 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 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 intelligence, 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
Vallès. 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. Coleridge 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 incorrigibly bad. Crébillon as a youth was
regarded as roguish and lazy, and when he left the university he was
labelled: Puer ingeniosus, sed insignis 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 mediocrities, 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.
“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 possession of his reason.”[282]
“Madness,” writes Théophile Gautier,[283] “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 Géricault’s sketches
rubbed in with bitumen.”
Under the influence of insanity, “an ignorant peasant 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 expression in that language.”[284]
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 Bicêtre lamented his detention in the following
striking verse:—
“Ah! le poète de Florence
N’avait pas, dans son chant sacré
Rêvé l’abîme de souffrance
De tes murs, Bicêtre exécré.”[285]

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 intermittent 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 melancholy elegies rose to a rare
perfection of style and the choicest ideas.[286]
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, to be a very ordinary man, far
inferior to the opinion I had conceived of him.”[287]
Marcé 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 Nouvelle
Héloise. 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.”[288]
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 following letter, written by a patient affected with melancholic

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 condition, 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!’ ”[289]
If this woman had fed her mind on the works of 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 adjective together, spoke Latin fluently, after some days
of malignant fever, and developed ideas which till then had not struck
him.”[290]
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 recited verses which showed the
greatest possible vivacity and delicacy, though they were the first she had
ever composed.”[291]
“I am going to try,” says Gérard de Nerval, in his book entitled Le Rêve
et 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 my strength and activity were doubled; it seemed that
I knew and understood 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
Gérard defines as “L’épanchement du songe dans la vie réelle!”
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 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 of religious sects at all epochs, and more especially in
the history of diabolical possessions in the Middle Ages.[292]
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 objections which were
made.[293]
“I have had occasion,” writes Morel,[294] “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 elocution, 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 apathy which prevented him from feeling the
instinct of his greatest natural necessities. The case ended in complete
dementia.”
“In the case of a hysterical patient, with a predominance 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 phenomenon 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 boiling over with anger, and I look wild. It is as though I
had a little saw inside my head. Always this motion of 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
feeling of hatred—a very little excusable jealousy of those who can act
freely and work. I have in my back something like little strings pulling in all
directions, making music like an accordion. It is torturing. The strongest
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 fortis.
“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 distorted and reduced in size; there is, as it were, a camera obscura in
me, and the reflector shows me everything in miniature. I admit that I may
be insane—but you, too, must admit at least that I am very ill,” &c.
It is known, says Paulhan,[295] that with some dementia patients, certain
faculties remain intact; they can, 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. Griesinger saw, in the Earlswood Asylum, a
young man who had made, all by himself, 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 drawing 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, 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 Bicêtre
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 illness, 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 insignificant part, while he was in health.
“It is said that Marion Delorme met, in a madhouse, with the first man
who conceived the idea of applying the forces of steam to the needs of
industry, Salomon de Caus. Talents created by disease forsake the
individual, for the most part, at the same time as the disease itself.”[296]
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
orthographical 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 some one who
had called him “Count” by mistake, “What count? I have kept plenty of
accounts—I know no others!”
“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, rubicunda recusat,” she replied. Another time I asked
her, “Do you hope to leave this establishment 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 reposed in him, he replied, “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 remonstrated 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.[297]
Synthesis.—The most original and general characteristic 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 continuous 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 tendency to alliteration and rhyme, is evident
in all their works, even those written in prose. Yet, on the other 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 metamorphosis 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, equor, convictions, agonies, the world, a vase.[298]
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
themselves 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 importance attributed to the most trifling things.

“C’est le travail des fous d’épuiser leurs cervelles
Sur des riens fatigants, sur quelques bagatelles,”

said Hécart 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 sentences, 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 effectiveness 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-écris en vers, n’en soyez point choqué,
En prose je ne sais exprimer ma pensée,”

an insane criminal wrote to Arboux, clearly explaining this tendency.[299]
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.”[300]
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,[301] the Deccan,[302] Africa,[303] and Oceania.[304] Ellis writes that
the Polynesians have recourse to their ballads as to historical documents
when any question arises regarding the deeds of their ancestors. And as in
ancient India, so also in mediæval Europe, the sciences were explained in
verse. Montucla speaks of a mathematical 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. Ferrante 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,[305] speaking of some works by
monomaniacs write as follows:—
“For the demonomaniacs of a hundred years ago—belated
representatives of mediæval mysticism, who typify the ancient form of
paranoia—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 century 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 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 infinitesimal, 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.
“So,” they continue, “nothing could be easier than to recognize a born
paranoiac in the King of Bavaria,[306] misanthropic, vain, ambitious,
mystical, romantic, voluble, subject to hallucinations, eccentric in his acts,
his habits, his judgment and his conduct, perverted in his æsthetic tastes, in
love, in the ethical sentiments, exaggerated and unbalanced in everything.
He was so profoundly impressed with the stamp of mediæval 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 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 character 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 important) 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 systematized 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, without general direction, ends in producing numerous discords in
the totality of psychic operations. The result is somewhat 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 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
associations, 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 employed 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 linguæ 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 intellectual
co-ordination, as in the following lines, in which, however, incoherence is
also abundantly manifested:—
“ ‘J’aime le feu de la fougère
Ne durant pas, mais pétillant;
La fumée est âcre de goût.
Mais des cendres de: là Fou j’erre
On peut tirer en s’amusant
Deux sous d’un sel qui lave tout,
De soude, un sel qui lave tout.’[307]

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:—
“ ‘Magnan! à mon souhait, médecin Magnan ime,
Adore de mon sort la force qui ... t’anime.
..........
Admirant son beau crâne ... autre remord de Phèdre,
Nargue Legrand du Saulle et sois un Grand du Cèdre.’[308]

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, peau,
manchon, main, manches, robe, rose, jupon, pompon, bouquet, bouquetière,
cimetière, bière, &c.[309]
“One need not be either insane or imbecile to make puns and associate
words together on account of superficial 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.”[310]
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. Melancholy
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 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 the Insane.
Geographical distribution—Profession—Influence of the special form of alienation—Originality—
Eccentricity—Symbolism—Obscenity—Criminality and moral insanity—Uselessness—Insanity as
a subject—Absurdity—Uniformity—Summary—Music among the insane.

T HOUGH 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 Études Médico-Légales sur
la folie, remarks that the drawings of the insane are of great importance
from the point of view of forensic medicine; Simon,[311] who, in speaking
of drawing among megalomaniacs, observes that the imagination 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 Manicomio di Pesaro.[312] Since then I have been able to make a
completer examination of this subject, thanks to the curious documents
supplied to me by MM. Riva, Toselli, Lolli, Frigerio, Tamburini,
Maragliano, 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, 11 engraving, 8 music, 5 architecture, 28 poetry.

The prevailing psychopathic forms in these 108 cases were:—In 25,
sensorial monomania and that of persecution; 21 dementia, 16
megalomania, 14 acute or intermittent 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, 1 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 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 represented 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.
[313]

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,
sincerely 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
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,[314] 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.
“Exaggeration pushed to its extreme—to the improbable, 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.”[315]
Daudet, in Jack, 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 Ecce 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 characteristic of the boundless vanity and unbridled
imagination of megalomaniacs and paralytics.
Among the pictures executed by the patients at San 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
minuteness is so far exaggerated as to become grotesque.
Nothing but an intense religious monomania could have inspired the
singular self-crucifixion of the Venetian shoemaker, Matteo Lovat. I have
been able to procure an authentic picture of this strange performance which
is reproduced below. Shortly afterwards Lovat died in an asylum.[316]

One patient, G——, was a poor peasant woman, utterly 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 number 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 represented 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, representing 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.[317]

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 embroidered, by a method
peculiar to herself, unravelling cloth, and fastening the threads on paper by
means of saliva.
Another embroideress, formerly given to drink, executed butterflies
which seemed to be alive. She had applied to white embroidery the methods
of coloured 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
ornamental, 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 constructing 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.[318]
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 essential
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 architecture, began, after
an attack of melancholia, to construct with cardboard and papier-mâché,
models of temples and amphitheatres, which excited great admiration.
Dr. Virgilio has made me a present of some portraits of Italian
specialists, nearly all of them exceedingly lifelike, 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 sovereigns, aided by the artistic genius of the best ages. Certainly no
one, at the present day, could produce another such hall, 75 mètres in length
(without counting the two rooms at either end, which would bring the
length up to 100 mètres), a gallery illuminated by 17 great windows, 33
rock-crystal chandeliers, 44 candelabra, and who knows what else!”[319]
Eccentricity.—But even originality ends by degenerating, 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 disturbance 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 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.[320]
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 excellence 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 hieroglyphics. 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.[321]
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 expressive and penetrating look. Cranial capacity 1544, 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 earthquakes,
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 suggested to the doctor that it would be well to cut their heads off;
yet he waited on them with the greatest unselfishness 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 lightning, had obeyed
him.
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 writings 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
(nearly always the consonants) without any respect for the laws of
syllabation. 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—1. 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.
11. Fire (his minister of war). 12. A very powerful man who has lived ever
since the beginning 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 1st=P. D. E.; the 2nd=L. S. P. S., &c.
This mixture of letters, hieroglyphics, and figurative signs, constitutes a
kind of writing recalling the phonetico-ideographic stage through which
primitive peoples (the Mexicans and Chinese certainly) passed, before 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.[322]
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.[323]
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 Mexicans, took another step
forward. They classified the more or less picturesque figures referred to
above, and succeeded in forming ingenious combinations which, without
directly representing the idea, indirectly suggested a reminiscence of it, as
in our charades. Besides this, to prevent 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 drawing a serpent (Coatl, in Mexican)
and a lance (Itzli); thus, too, in Chinese, the character tschen represents
boat, lance, and table.[324]
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 process 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
serpent’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.
[325] 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; sometimes he is Gasperone, sometimes Il
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, and standing on an inlaid
pedestal covered with allegorical 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 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 quoting, and to which he attaches some
mysterious significance. 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[326]
either written by 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; the funereal music are the two trumpets crossed, lower down.
The cross of the third stanza, and the 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.[327] This patient studied art at Paris under Gérome 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 reproduced. 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
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 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, representing 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, representing 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 tribes of Israel, but
the colour of these in the chart (vermilion) is such that the lettering does not
come 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 corresponding 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 (December), 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
Sandalphon 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 sufficiently
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 education; above the
book is Cupid’s target, with a heart for
SHECHINAH. SANDALPHON

SUB ROSA. IMP AND FROGS.

the centre, that he has pierced with an arrow, while the full quiver stands to
the right. The curious fish under the Veritas represents the ΙΧΘΥΣ of the
early Christians, while three crosses, symbolic of the Christian religion, are
in the upper left-hand corner, brought out by heavy shading of the cross
lines. On the book of knowledge is perched the dove, emblematic of purity,
while the olive 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, especially monomaniacs,
we find an opposite characteristic—the exaggeration of particular details—
the general effect being lost in obscurity through their excessive efforts
after verisimilitude. Thus, in a landscape exhibited 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 themselves atavistic
phenomena; but, in addition to them, there may be noted (in a large number
of cases) a

THE WITCH.

ARABESQUES BY PARANOIAC ARTIST.

total absence of perspective, while the rest of the execution 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 archæology, which, in the choice of figures and emblems, recall the style
of Egyptian and Phœnician amulets. In these instances we see the influence
of similar psychical conditions at work.
Arabesques.—In some few patients, M. Toselli has called my attention
to a singular predilection for arabesques 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, paralytics, 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 obscene character is
marked by the most singular pretexts, as though it were demanded by
artistic requirements. 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 himself 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 monstrous 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 megalomaniacs, 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 himself, naked, among women, ejecting worlds, and surrounded
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
exhausted the small amount of money he had about him, and when
imprisoned declared himself a lunatic, and 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 Hécart’s dictum:—
“C’est le travail des fous d’épuiser leurs cervelles
Sur des riens fatigants, sur quelques bagatelles.”[328]

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 after 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, ornamented 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, manufactured 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 café-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

constructed himself a key out of a number of small pieces of wood joined
together. I do not count among these 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.

DELIRIUM.

Insanity as a subject.—Many choose insanity as the subject of their
paintings. Professor Virgilio has furnished 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.
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, immediately 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.[329]
Absurdity.—One of the most salient characteristics of insane 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.[330] 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 conception, 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 façade of the
asylum, or heads of animals, with the minute accuracy of detail which
characterizes primitive art. In this branch I have seen successful 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 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 repetition 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.[331] 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, encourage the
development of mental disease. Vasari relates that one Spinelli, a painter of
Arezzo, having attempted to paint the deformity of Lucifer, the latter
appeared 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.[332]
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 patients would play
the same piece, sometimes even a few phrases, over and over again.
Donizetti, in the last stage of dementia, no longer recognized 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,” composed during his attacks of insanity.[333]
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 possessed 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 accompaniment, 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 melancholic 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 difficult partitions 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 piano
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 Il 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 paralytic, who believed himself to be a great
admiral.
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 “high and thin voices, and with them
a sound of hands.”[334] Nor is it hard to understand this, if we remember
how Spencer and Ardigò 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[335] 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 observations of Herbert
Spencer,[336] “the act of singing employs and exaggerates the signs of the
natural language of passion. 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
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 frequently 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, Glück, Petrella.[337]
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
æsthetics, 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.

CHAPTER III.

Literary and Artistic Mattoids.
Definition—Physical and psychical characteristics—Their literary activity—Examples—Lawsuit
mania—Mattoids of genius—Bosisio—The décadent poets—Verlaine—Mattoids in art.

W
E have just been considering, in madmen, the substantial 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 pathology, 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 Schüle (Geisteskrankheit, ii., 1880) regard them as hereditary
neurotics, Raggi as neuropathics, and now many as paranoiacs—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
characteristics 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 fewer signs of degeneracy
than the insane properly so 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 1 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 personal merit and
importance, with the peculiar characteristic 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 proclaims 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 condescended 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 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 remote 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 impossibility
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.[338]
These persons would not come under the heading of mattoids, if, in their
writings, the earnestness and persistence in one idea which make them
resemble the monomaniac 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 overpowers all others—one which we find
predominant in insane genius: viz., personal vanity. Thus, out of 215
mattoids, we find forty-four prophets.
Filopanti, in the Dio Liberale, 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 “respect the forms of government,” insults the monarchy,
makes an attempt at regicide, and proposes to “abolish all misers and
hypocrites.”
A physician, S——, prints a statement that blood-letting exposes to an
excess of light, another announces in two thick volumes, that diseases are
elliptical.
Critics have said, referring to the works of Démons, that his Dialectic
Quintessence and sextessence are a true quintessence of absurdity.[339]
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
aromal trumpet, by means of which he communicated with the spirits
dispersed through the air, declares that in the future age many men shall
become women and demigods.
Henrion, at the Académie 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 Infinite Being,” &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.[340] 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 showing how they may attain this end.
“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 Scottatinge, I find this beautiful line on
Italy—

“Padrona e schiava sempre, ai figli tuoi nemica.”[341]

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, “Where the learned lose themselves,
the ignorant man may triumph,”—and another, “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 conceptions 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 Mlle. Clémence Royer and
Comte on the necessity for the application of the Malthusian theory. In the
same way, Detomasi, a dishonest broker, discovered a practical 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 majority, and at variance with the
position and education of the author. In short, we have that by means of
which 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.[342]
Most of them show a deficiency rather than an exuberance 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 invented the words derapti felisan.
Berbiguier created the word farfiderism. 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.[343] Cianchettini invented the travaso of the idea;
Pari invented cafungaia, and morbozoo, and we owe to Wahltuch,
alitrologia and anthropomognotologia, and to G—— lepidermocrinia and
glossostomopatica.
We often find an eccentric handwriting, with vertical lines cut by
horizontal ones and transverse 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 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 convolutions. 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, philosophises 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—Job—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.”[344]
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
predestination. 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 Démons—
will suffice: “The demonstration of the fourth part of nothing is something;
everything is the quintessence extracted from the quarter of nothing and that
which depends on it, containing the precepts of the holy, magic, and devout
invocations of Démons, to discover the origin of the evils which afflict
France.”
Many have the crotchet of mixing up with their sentences 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.[345] 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 orthography 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 professor) in a
work of twelve pages has nine consisting of notes alone.
Hepain invented a physiological language, which consists 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. Hécart, 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 Anagrammata,
poëme en VII. chants, XCVe édition (as a matter of fact, it was the first), rev.
corr. et augmentée; à Anagrammatopolis, l’an XIV. de l’ère
anagrammatique (Valenciennes, 1821, 16º). The book is almost entirely
composed of inversions of words. The following is an example:

“Lecteur; il sied que je vous dise
Que le sbire fera la brise;
Que le dupeur est sans pudeur,
Qu’on peut maculer sans clameur....

La nomade a mis la madonne
A la paterne de Pétronne
Quand le grand Dacier était diacre
Le caffier cultivé du fiacre.”

And so on for twelve thousand lines, concluding with this:
“Moi je vais poser mon repos.”

Here it is as well to note that, on the margin of a copy of the
Anagrammata belonging to the Bibliothèque Nationale of Paris is the
following confession, in the author’s handwriting, “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 Dio Liberale, explains Luther’s 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 église.” 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.”[346]
But a still more prevalent characteristic is the singular copiousness of
their writings. Bluet left behind no less than 180 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 importance 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 Tournay 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
hypothetic geometry and astrology; a surgeon, a veterinary surgeon and an
obstetric practitioner, on aerial navigation; a captain on rural economy; a
sergeant on therapeutics; and a cook on high political questions. A
theologian writes a treatise on menstrua, a carter on theology. 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
7 “ Religious
6 “ Poetry
4 are on Astronomy
4 “ “ Physics
4 “ “ Politics
4 “ “ Political Economy
3 “ “ Rural “
2 “ “ Veterinary Medicine
2 “ “ Literature
2 “ “ Mathematics
1 is on Grammar
1 “ a Dictionary
186

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
advertisements, &c.

Some statistics compiled by Philomneste give a list of such books known
in Europe, which are thus classified:
Theology 82
Prophecy (esoteric mysticism) 44
Philosophy 36
Politics 28
Poetry and Drama 9
Languages and Grammar 8
Erotic Literature 5
Hieroglyphics 3
Astronomy 2
Aeronautics 2
Chemistry 1
Physics 1
Zoology 1
Strategy 1
Chronology 1
Hygiene 1
Pedagogy 1
Archæology 1

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 of theologians and philosophers
(162). Spiritualism, on the other hand, is so much in favour, that
Philomneste 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, hieroglyphics, 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 Démons, who has already been mentioned, 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.”[347] 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? The reason is very simple.
These fungi contain the substance fungina, which burns at 47° (sic). Now,
when the outside temperature is at 13° and the body at 32° (sic) 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, Cianchettini, 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 objections with a single monosyllable,
and explaining their own eccentricities with so much good sense and
sometimes acuteness that the unlearned may well take their fancies for
wisdom; while, later on, they relieve their insane impulses by covering
reams of paper.
“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, “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 day,
many practitioners who take the dosimetricians seriously, laugh at
homœopathy; and the academic multitudes who laugh at Schliemann and
Ardigò never treated the archæological discoveries of Father Secchi in the
same way. This is also shown by the emphatic and senseless addresses
presented to Coccapieller and Sbarbaro by many individuals who were still
more insane than their idols.[348]
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
workingman, 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 excesses 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,[349] 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; all the more so, as nearly all of them (Cianchettini, Bosisio,
F——, for instance) were scrupulously honest, and almost excessively
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 so in the ordinary acts of
life, in which they show themselves full of good sense, shrewdness, and
even of a sense of order; so that they are quite the reverse of men of real
genius—especially those inspired by madness, whose ability in literature is

nearly always in inverse proportion to their aptitude for practical life. This
is how it happens that many authors of medical eccentricities are
practitioners of great repute. Three such are directors of hospitals. The
author of the Scottatinge 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 suspected 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
Asgill 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. Joris’s bones were burned with
his writings under the gallows at Bâle. 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—in 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 mattoids, the calm
sometimes suddenly ceases, and gives place to impulsive forms of mania
and delusion, especially under the stimulus of hunger or irritated passion, or
during the return of the various neuroses which accompany 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. Anæsthesia 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 extremely important to alienist physicians—who, finding no

similar cases in any of the better-known forms of mental disease, often
erroneously infer imposture, or soundness 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 extraordinary activity, and a
minute knowledge of the law, which they always try to interpret to their
own advantage, 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 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, “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 print, so that
they have to relieve their feelings by deeds of violence. Such was Sandon,
who caused such annoyance 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 assistance 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 imperceptible 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 crétin. 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 himself from a balcony and broke his legs. Having
obtained promotion in 1859, he 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.”
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 posterity, 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 consumptive, 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 consented; 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 example than this to prove the existence
of an active and powerful mind, unsound on a single given point. Any one
who knows the writings of Clémence 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 without 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 information 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 haphazard, and under the influence of
mental disease, he might have become a Clémence 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.
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,[350] and the
later volumes of his History of France which are nothing but a tangled
thicket of scandalous anecdotes and grotesque paradoxes.[351] 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
mathematicians 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 earthquake in the air, and describes a mountain giving a pair of
spectacles to a bell-tower! The same is true of the heir of Confucius, the
astronomer who created the Dio Liberale; 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 instrument 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,[352] 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,
contradictions, and paradoxes, had a few traits of genius,[353] explicable by
a less degree of misoneism, and a greater facility in adopting new ideas.
Décadent Poets.—Some acquaintance with this new variety of literary
madmen will explain to us the existence, in the seventeenth century, of the
French précieux, and, at the present day, that of the Parnassiens,
Symbolistes, and Décadents.
“I have read their verses,” says Lemaître,[354] “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....
“ ‘En ta dentelle où n’est notoire
Mon doux évanouissement,
Taisons pour l’âtre sans histoire
Tel vœu de lèvres résumant.

Toute ombre hors d’un territoire
Se teinte itérativement
A la lueur exhalatoire
Des pétales de remuement.’....

“One of them, however, has explained to us what they intended doing, in
a pamphlet modestly entitled, Traité du Verbe, by Stéphane Mallarmé. By
this it appears that they have invented two things—the symbol, and ‘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.[355]
“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 magna formosa juvenca.’

It was known that sounds may, like colours, be striking or subdued; like
feelings, sad or joyful. But it was thought that these resemblances and
relations are somewhat 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 Parnassiens) the physical world in its exact outlines, but
states of mind in which we can scarcely distinguish ourselves 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
Lemaître on this subject:—

“I imagine he must be almost illiterate. He has a strange head—the
profile of Socrates, an enormous forehead, a skull knobbed like a battered
basin of thin copper. 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 François 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 repentance, 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
somewhere 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 déclassé, 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
ignorant of it. He gives wrong senses to words in his simplicity. Little as we
might expect it, this poet, whom his disciples regard as such a consummate
artist, writes on 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 les mots comme des coupes
Et qui faisons des vers émus très froidement....
Ce qu’il nous faut, à nous, c’est, aux lueurs des lampes,
La science conquise et le sommeil dompté.’

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 dreaming of an unknown woman, who
loves him, who understands him, and weeps with him, he adds:—
“ ‘Son nom? Je me souviens qu’il est doux et sonore,
Comme ceux des aimés que la vie exila.

Son regard est pareil au regard des statues,
Et pour sa voix lointaine, et calme, et grave, elle a
L’inflexion des voix chères qui se sont tues.’

“I am also very fond of the Chanson d’Automne, though certain words
(blême and suffocant) are not perhaps used with entire accuracy, and
scarcely correspond with the “languor” described just before.

“Les sanglots longs
Des violons
De l’automne
Blessent mon cœur
D’une langueur
Monotone.

Tout suffocant
Et blême, quand
Sonne l’heure,
Je me souviens
Des jours anciens,
Et je pleure.

Et je m’en vais
Au voit mauvais
Qui m’emporte
De ça, de là,
Pareil à la
Feuille morte.’

“He celebrates the Virgin in an exceedingly fine hymn:—
“ ‘Je ne veux plus aimer que ma mère Marie.
..........
Et, comme j’étais faible et bien méchant encore,
Aux mains lâches, les yeux éblouis des chemins,
Elle baissa mes yeux, et me joignit les mains
Et m’enseigna les mots par lesquels on adore.
..........
Et tous ces bons efforts vers les croix et les claies,
Comme je l’invoquais, Elle en ceignit mes reins.’

“His piety inspires him with some very sweet lines:—

“ ‘Écoutez la chanson bien douce
Qui ne pleure que pour vous plaire.
Elle est discrète, elle est légère:
Un frisson d’eau sur de la mousse!...

Elle dit, la voix reconnue,
Que la bonté c’est notre vie,
Que de la haine et de l’envie
Rien ne reste, la mort venue....

Accueillez la voix qui persiste
Dans son naïf épithalame.
Allez, rien n’est meilleur à l’âme
Que de faire une âme moins triste!...

Je ne me souviens plus que du mal que j’ai fait.

Dans tous les mouvements bizarres de ma vie,
De mes “malheurs,” selon le moment et le lieu,
Des autres et de moi, de la route suivie,
Je n’ai rien retenu que la grâce de Dieu.’

“But, even in the Poëmes Saturniens, 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 a mist, and the indolence of his memory
prevents him from getting hold of the right words. Take this for an example:
—
“ ‘La lune plaquait ses teintes de zinc
Par angles obtus;
Des bouts de fumée en forme de cinq
Sortaient drus et noirs des hauts toits pointus.

Le ciel était gris. La bise pleurait
Ainsi qu’un basson.
Au loin un matou frileux et discret
Miaulait d’étrange et grêle façon.

Moi, j’allais rêvant du divin Platon
Et de Phidias,
Et de Salamine et de Marathon,
Sous l’œil clignotant des bleus becs 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
l’œil des becs de gaz.’ Why should it be funny? I cannot tell.
“ ‘Aimez donc la raison: que toujours vos écrits
Empruntent d’elle seule et leur 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,[356] 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 anything. This is why (Sagesse excepted) it is almost
impossible to give a résumé of his collections, or to state their main idea in
a succinct form. One can only characterise 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 child; then languor, mystic sweetness, and a
lulling of the mind to rest, in the Catholic conception of the universe
accepted in all simplicity.
“There is something profoundly involuntary and illogical in the poetry of
M. Paul Verlaine. He scarcely ever expresses movements of full
consciousness or entire 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.
“But there are two sides to him. On one, he looks very artificial. He has
an Ars Poetica of his own, which is entirely subtle and mysterious, and
which, I think, he was very late in discovering:—

“ ‘De la musique avant toute chose,
Et pour cela préfère l’impair
Plus vague et plus soluble dans l’air,
Sans rien en lui qui pèse ou qui pose.

Il faut aussi que tu n’ailles point
Choisir tes mots sans quelque méprise:
Rien de plus cher que la chanson grise
Où l’indécis au précis se joint....

Car nous voulons la nuance encor,
Pas la couleur, rien que la nuance!
Oh! la nuance seule fiance
Le rêve au rêve, et la flute au cor....’

“On the other side, he is quite simple:—
“ ‘Je suis venu, calme orphelin,
Riche de mes seuls yeux tranquilles,
Vers les hommes des grandes villes:
Ils ne m’ont pas trouvé malin.’

“Or, elsewhere:—
“ ‘J’ai peur d’un baiser
Connue d’une abeille.
Je souffre et je veille
Sans me reposer,
J’ai peur d’un baiser.’ ”

Thus far Lemaître.
It will be seen that the décadents 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 transitions 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 immolate 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 render possible), that these phenomena
are made inexplicable 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,
“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
quâ non to the erection of theirs.
But, if wanting in every sign of genius, these designs 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 supposed 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, “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 projectors, 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 Archæological 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 disproportionate; 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 masterpieces of mediæval, 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, 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.
Part 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.

A
LL 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, 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.”[357] They are careless of every
obstacle, and untroubled 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 anything, 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. Cæsar 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 out with their author, if, indeed, they do not
involve him in their fall.

Arnold of Brescia, Knutzen,[358] 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.”[359]
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 probable,
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.[360]
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
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
contemporaries, 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 irresistible 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.[361]
The existence of endemic insanity among the ancient Hebrews (and, by
parity of reasoning, among their congeners, the Phœnicians, Carthaginians,
&c.—the same words being used for prophet, madman, and wicked man) is
proved by history and language. The Bible relates that David, fearing that
he would be killed, feigned madness,[362] 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 prophetic 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.[363] 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 1 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.[364]
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.[365]
“Medjdubim,” says Berbrugger, “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
Aïssawah 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 for 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 convulsions” (p. 278). Further on,
he speaks of one Sidi Abd-el-Kadr, who wandered from place to place,
forgetful of himself 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 neighbouring 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.”[366]
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,[367] 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[368] 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 Eulya, Ullah Deli—“divine ones,” “sons of God”—
or, more accurately, “madmen of God.” And the various sects of Dervishes
present phenomena analogous to those of madness. Every monastery[369]
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 forwards, and gradually quicken the motion as they go on with their
prayer. These movements are called Mukabdi (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 perspiring, with glazing eyes and pale
faces, they fall into the sacred convulsion (haluk). 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.[370]
In Madagascar, the insane are objects of veneration. In 1863 many
people were seized with tremors, and impelled 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 conspicuous, in that sceptical nation, for
religious fanaticism. The followers of Tao[371] 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—i.e.,
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 conscious of what
they were doing, nor could they afterwards remember what they had done.
[372]

With regard to America, Schoolcraft, in that enormous medley entitled
Historical and Statistical Information of the Indian Tribes[373] (1854), says
that the regard for madmen 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[374] 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.[375]
All revolutions in Algeria and in the Soudan[376] 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
fanaticism 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.[377]
Phenomena which present such complete uniformity must arise from like
causes. These seem to me to be reducible to the following:
1. The mass of the people, accustomed to the few sensations habitual to
them, cannot experience new ones without wonder, or strange ones without
adoration. 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