of the sensitive nerves and the motor nerves, then of the "cerebral
activities" in the conditions of wake and sleep. It would be laborious
to disengage his psychological doctrine from the long discussions
which envelop it, and which, well carried out as they may be, do
not always allow it to appear with as much distinctness as could
be wished. We will note only the care that he takes to restore the
_psychic initiative_, contrary to the theories most in favor to-day.
He supposes a prefunctional movement of the sensitive nerves, in
order to determine the sensorial impression; "attentive volitions" in
order to explain attention, voluntary or involuntary. According to
him, the physiological phenomenon which necessarily corresponds to
sufficient attention, that is to say to the laying hold of an object by
consciousness, can only be a volitional nervous movement. He remains
convinced that "the cells of the brain must project incessantly in
certain of their afferent fibres centrifugal influxes which tend to
meet with perceptive images"; and feeble and involuntary as these
influxes may be, he ranks them nevertheless in the somewhat mysterious
category of so-called attentive volitions. These are not reflexes, but
automatic movements. And definitively, every act of attention belongs
to the category of volitional movement, be it involuntary or voluntary;
or in short, "attentive volition exists prior to its voluntary
strengthening."
As to the revival of images, it is necessary to admit the intervention
of a previous tendency to association. The difficulty remains then
to know how we are to be able to keep these images before the
consciousness, in order to apply our attention to them, and what secret
cause has power to arouse the signals, the nervous movements, which
present them to it. The author resolves the difficulty by accepting,
for cases of intentional reviviscence, _ideo-motor_ volitions, to which
he attributes a considerable rôle; their intervention distinguishes
precisely, says he, the active memory from the passive memory.
In reality, for M. Sergueyeff the consciousness is not, as we have
said, a simple result of the image, an epiphenomenon; it is permanent
(thus he affirms that we always think, that we always dream); the
_Ego_, the _We_ is for him an irreducible factor. This way of looking
at things has evidently influenced the choice of his terminology, more
than it has vitiated his analysis, and its conclusions, moreover, he
has not put down to the credit of any system of metaphysics whatever.
Far from having exhausted the matter of his book, which is replete with
criticisms and facts, I have hardly sketched its outlines, and I should
be his false interpreter if I did not recall, in conclusion, the hope
strongly expressed by himself, that the great assimilative work of an
imponderable aliment reserves for us many other solutions beyond that
of the phenomena of wake and sleep. "Though it may be," says he to his
hearers, "that in all the recent words I have uttered, the truth shines
only by a spark, do not disdain this spark, gentlemen. May one of you
receive it within him, for it can, I have the confidence, by a more
powerful breath than mine suddenly increase, like a polar aurora, and
illuminate unbounded horizons."
* * * * *
We now come to a book of less scope, rudely constructed perhaps,
but very instructive. As indicated by the title chosen by him, _La
Psychologie de l'Idiot et de l'Imbècile_,[87] Dr. PAUL SOLLIER has
attempted to draw the portrait of the idiot and the imbecile _in
general_; which I sincerely approve of persuaded as I am that we shall
find profit in sketching generic types and in tracing the composite
photographs of social individuals grouped in various ways, in order
to establish on solid basis a "natural history" of societies. The
novelists have approached this difficult enterprise at random; it is
for the psychologists to direct it with a method more sure and a tact
not less delicate.
[87] Alcan, publisher.
Idiocy is not always congenital; the lesions which produce it are
extremely varied and do not consist by any means in a simple arrest of
development. In short, idiots form a very diversified clinical group;
and here was the first difficulty necessary to overcome in order to
write their psychology. Profiting by the insufficient definitions
that authors have given of idiocy, M. Sollier thinks he is able in
his turn to define it as "a chronic cerebral affection with varied
lesions, characterised by troubles of the intellectual, sensitive,
and motory functions, going possibly as far as their almost complete
abolition, and which assumes its special character, particularly in
what concerns intellectual troubles, only in the youthful age of the
subjects it strikes." Then, discussing the proposed classification, he
stops to form three categories, which he connects with the intellectual
development, for which attention serves him as the touch-stone. They
are: (1) absolute idiocy—complete absence and impossibility of
attention; (2) simple idiocy—feebleness and difficulty of attention;
(3) imbecility—instability of attention. These differences in the
state of attention (we recognise the fruit of the excellent teaching
of M. Ribot) separate with sufficient clearness the imbecile from the
idiot: the latter remains extra-social, the former becomes anti-social.
M. Sollier, for whom the imbecile, let us say in passing, is an
exceedingly disagreeable personage, follows out throughout the whole of
his book this distinction, which seems to us one of the most curious
and the most piquant aspects of it. How many people in the world
border on imbecility, without belonging clinically to this type, and
maintain the mischievous rôle of destroyers and marplots!
Readers familiar with the study of mental maladies will not be
astonished to find among idiots the following signs of degeneracy:
dulled senses, obtuse perceptions, a poor condition of sensibility
and consequently of mobility, and anomalies or perversions of the
instincts, sentiments, etc. But that which makes of them a group apart,
is the constitution of the perfect type from infancy, while among the
degenerates properly so-called, the perversions, the manias, etc.
present, are the episodical concurrences of a morbid evolution which
unrolls itself capriciously in the course of a whole life.
M. Sollier has interesting remarks nearly everywhere in his book. We
may refer, for example, to what he says concerning pity, courage; of
writing; of hereditary organic memory; of ideas, etc. It is curious,
certainly, to see idiots suddenly show themselves skilful in playing
an instrument which was that of their father and of their grandfather.
A passing observation on impressionability, greater for color in girls
and for form in boys, deserves to be developed: I regret that the
author should have been sparing of details on this point as on some
others. M. Sollier appears, we may say, to have aimed not so much at
giving new explanations in psychology, as at verifying those which
have been proposed by good authors. He is precise, positive; from the
medico-legal point of view, he presents practical conclusions, and does
not embarrass himself in sentimentalism, from which the _Philosophie
pénale_[88] of M. TARDE, let it be said parenthetically, is not always
sufficiently free.
[88] First volume of the _Bibliothèque de Criminologie_.
Masson, publisher.
A word more with reference to the "great suggestibility" of imbeciles,
on which M. Sollier reasonably insists. Since I spoke in this place,
three months ago, of the work of M. Bonjean, the awkward intervention
of M. Liégeois in the Eyraud-Gabrielle Bompard case has contributed to
compromise the Nancy school, much more than to serve it. M. Brouardel
is able to object with ingenuity that certain persons, supposed to be
victims of hypnotism, unfortunately obey suggestions "which are the
most agreeable to them." It is good advice to be cautious. Still it is
necessary to take into account (it is what I had omitted to say) the
character of the subjects, in order to be able to judge of the possible
accomplishment of acts suggested in sleep. For, it is not doubtful
that among the abnormal, the imbecile, the mentally feeble, one could
not count much on the revolt of a moral personality which is not
constituted, on the efficiency of a power of inhibition which is almost
null, and that generally criminal suggestion can become formidable when
it is attended by bad instincts.
It remains to speak of a work by M. A. RICARDOU, _De l'Idéal, Etude
philosophique_.[89] I avow without any disguise that I have not taken
any interest in it. M. Ricardou declares himself a deist, spiritualist;
the misfortune is that he follows so much the vague and wavering manner
of his school. A fine rhetoric, elevated aspirations; but few facts,
not sufficient realities freely seen. What end is served by rebelling
against physiological psychology, and by laying claim to the rights of
the method of introspection? In truth, no one denies its right; it is
suspected only when it affects supremacy, and rejects all control.
[89] Alcan, publisher.
I simply mention, in conclusion, the interesting work, which appeared
last year, of M. L. LEVY-BRUHL: _L'Allemagne depuis Leibniz, Essai
sur le developpement de la conscience nationale en Allemagne_.[90] It
belongs, in great part, to the history of philosophy, and furnishes to
it a valuable contribution.
[90] Hachette, publisher.
Paris, March, 1891. LUCIEN ARRÉAT.
II.
THE MODERN LITERATURE OF ITALY SINCE THE YEAR 1870.
Not being a man of letters, but an alienist, I will give you a
psychological rather than a literary description of the condition of
literature in Italy. My presentation will undoubtedly have many defects
and deficiencies in details, but it will perhaps thereby gain in
originality of treatment.
It is one of the characteristics of European writers, and especially of
Italians, to isolate themselves completely from scientific research.
Beauty for itself, the imitation of the ancients—this is the defect,
or the strength, of our poets. ALEARDI, it is true, put some years ago
a little botany and geology into his poetry, as did, nearly a century
ago, Mascheroni, in his celebrated epistle _Invito a Lesbia Sidonia_.
ZANELLA, a true priest, has sung in a celebrated ode the _Coquille
Fossile_, which portrays in colors truly poetical the last discoveries
of paleontology. But this naturalism was only a light varnish, like the
golden powder that coquettes sprinkle on their hair, and which falls
at the first movement. It is nevertheless true that some poets, not
appreciated yet as they deserve, draw their inspiration from nature or
from history.
Such is ARTUR GRAF, who in my opinion owes his genius to an
intermixture of race, Italian, Greek, and German, and also to a
climatic graft, as he comes from Roumania; which shows the favorable
influence of the double race-infusion. (See my work on "Genius.") In
his poem _Medusa_, Graf has mingled naturalism and Schopenhauerianism
with a poetical spirit which is highly original. He has also written
_Il Diabolo_ and the _Legend of Rome among the Nations of the Middle
Ages_; a work which has philological and historical merit, especially
in connection with the Folk-lore of past centuries. These books are in
prose; but their form is wholly poetical.
RAPISARDI is truly the Juvenal, and we may also say the Lucretius,
of contemporaneous Italy. He began by giving us the best translation
of the great Roman poet, and he has absorbed much of his spirit, and
perhaps also of the asperity of his verses, and of his contempt for
form. His great original poem is the _Giobbe_ (Catania), in which
he has given a bitter satire of modern society and of contemporary
literary men; however, he would seem to be sometimes too personal;
so much so that many persons have not forgiven him. Lately he has
published a collection of _Religious Poems_ (Catania, 1888), in which,
despite its title, there is much less religion than naturalism. It is a
hymn, worthy of its master, to the religion of nature and to the beauty
of truth, without forgetting the grand social ideas of justice which
our poets so often forget.
PRAGA may be described as the Baudelaire of Italy. He too, like the
latter, lived and died an alcoholist and paralytic. He was the first to
break with the Græco-Latin traditions; and has drawn his inspiration
from the caprices of his disease, which has given him a powerful and
original stamp. His best works are _Penombre_ and _Tavolozza_. The
same lot, induced by the same disease, has befallen ROVANI, who in his
historical novels (_Giulio Cesare_ and _la Storia di centi anni_) has
performed good work in history and psychology.
Among writers truly original, MANTEGAZZA excels in prose. His is one
of those many-sided, versatile minds that are met with in the Latin
races; such as Cardano, Leonardo da Vinci, L. B. Alberti, Voltaire,
Taine, Richet. He is by turns pathologist, physiologist, chemist,
anthropologist, geographer, traveller, and novelist. His novel _Dio
Ignoto_ is semi-naturalistic. In his _Fisiologia del piacere_ he has
attempted a new kind of personal observations, although it is met
with in the novels of Balzac, of Flaubert, and of Gonoret. In his
_Physiology of pain_ he has again become pathological, serious; this
book has, accordingly, not obtained the success that it merited. In
the _Feste ed Ebbrezze_ he describes the pleasures of the people.
But Mantegazza, who has the originality of genius, has also its evil
and treacherous volubility; and we cannot say what is his patriotic
and philosophic faith. He has written pages that seem dictated by a
catholic priest, by the side of others worthy of Aretino (_Amore degli
uomini_), and still other pages which could be signed by Victor Hugo.
Less original perhaps, but much more consistent with himself, is M.
TREZZA, another versatile writer, a theologist, poet, historian,
critic, philosopher, philologist, but who has not changed the facets
of his genius, or the conscience of his faith. At one time a priest,
he was one of the most ardent preachers; but the study of natural
science and of philosophy drew him away from his faith and plunged him
in naturalism. He has preserved all the apostolic warmth of the ardent
and honest priest of his youth. Thus he has emerged from it a new being
immovable in his faith:
"_Come torre che non crolla
Giammai la cima per soffiar dei venti._"[91]
[91]
Like a tower that shakes not
In the blasts of the storm.
His works in religious criticism _La Religione e le Religioni_, and
also in history and philosophy (_Lucrezio_, _Epicuro e l'Epicurismo_,
_La Critica Moderna_) have received from it a peculiar impress,
in which the enthusiasm of the apostle is mingled with the calm
observation of science, and history confounds metaphysics. He is the
first and the only one perhaps, who has attempted criticism in Italy
while preserving a literary brilliancy which reminds us of Carlyle.
But according to universal opinion, among all these stars, the star
of first magnitude is GIOSUE CARDUCCI. He is the true representative
of the Italians, a graft of antiquity on the moderns, but in which
antiquity predominates. His poems (_Le Nuove Poesie_, _Le Odi barbare_,
_Le Nuove Odi barbare_, _Le Terze Odi barbare_, _Le Nuove Rime_)
have attracted the greatest attention. He has introduced and revived
a new metre, many times tried, but never with success, by Trissino,
Campanella, Chiabrera, and others; a new metre which reproduces the
ancient rhythm of Greek and Roman poetry, especially the elegy
and the Alcaic ode. His is a new pagan Renaissance with a certain
gloss of modernness but with outbursts sometimes patriotic and even
revolutionary which the Renaissance lacked. His prose works also
consist of archaic reconstructions of Italian literary history and of
vigorous polemics, sometimes too personal, but always with a refinement
of critique.
By the side of these productions which are known everywhere, and which
can be truly called national, there is a substratum, of considerable
extent, of literary works that have a local character. Such is the
poetry of dialect which has however a great weight with us; for
the best satirical poems and the best comedies are almost always
written in dialect (_Pascarella_ in the Roman dialect, _Fucini_
in the Tuscan dialect, _Di Giacomo_ in Neapolitan, _Bersezio_ in
Piedmontese, _Rizzotto_ in Sicilian). It must be remarked also that
this local division is still maintained in the rolls of the great
army of literature, although this does not prevent such works passing
beyond the geographical limits of their territory and becoming known
throughout the whole of Italy.
We have a Ligurian-Piedmontese school with DE AMICIS at the head,—De
Amicis, who now however often attempts social studies with much
intrepidity,—and BARILI, FARINA, BERSEZIO, GIACOSA, and FALDELLA, who
possess the common characteristic of a sentimentality almost feminine,
altogether opposed to the rugged country of which they constitute the
glory.
There is the Tuscan-Bolognese school of which CARDUUI is the chief
pontiff and which hovers about the old school. M. PANZACCHI, RICCI,
MARRADI, and STECCHETTI belong to it; there was an epoch in the
life of the last named in which he launched into a style which
seemed naturalistic, but which was at bottom only pornographic; but
he immediately compensated for his escapade by a great number of
philological memoirs of an erudition truly oppressive, ultra-academical.
There is the Abruzzian school, of which D'ANNUNZIO is the head. Its
characteristics are variegated tropical coloring, and a certain studied
ornamentation sometimes burdened with similes and metaphors, and an
exaggerated objectivity; it lays hold of the outside of things, but
does not reach to and grasp the soul of the inner life of nature.
The Neapolitan school is made up of compilers and ingenious critics,
who will make you an elegant embroidery with gossamer threads on
the point of a needle. The most celebrated names of this school are
SETTEMBRINI, DESANCTIS, BONGHI, and VITTORIO IMBRIANI.
The Sicilian is the rudest, but it is the most powerful and most
original. We could name the great historians CEMARI, LA LUMIA,
LAFARINA; and PITTRE, who created Italian Folklore, and who has
maintained it with a special journal. Sicily has also given us two
great novelists, VERGA and CAPUANA, who are improved Zolas. The
_Malavoglia_ and _Don Gesualdo_ of M. Verga give us the home life of
the Sicilian people. In the _Giacinta_ of Capuana we have the life of
the citizens and of the Italian nobility photographed.
Women always preserve the local type; but with special features.
Hardly any write in verse; they compose novels and light productions
rather than romances, sketches rather than true portraits. They choose
the young girl and the unfortunate married woman; very often they
write autobiographies, or the biography of their friends or their
husbands. The land-question has nevertheless been dealt with very well
by the Marchioness COLOMBI, (pseudonym of Madame Torelli Viollet)
and the woman's question has been treated of with great vigor and
statistically by KULISCHIOFF; I have not spoken of ANNIE VIVANTI,
another proof of the advantages of crossing, for she is Anglo-American
and Anglo-Italian, and a Jewess to boot; she writes in verses which
have nothing of the classical element in them—an extraordinary thing
in Italy. Her works possess originality, which goes as far as the most
extreme naturalism. (_Lirica di Annie Vivanti_, 1890.)
In fine, modern Italy has not many literary masterpieces to show. And
this is due to a number of causes. In romances and comedies, dash and
spirit demand a certain stock of observations that can be found only
in great cities (capitals), and in Italy, Rome and Milan are only
beginning to be such.
Originality, multiplicity, and energy of types are very scarce in
Italy, for everywhere the conventional lie dominates; it is much more
difficult to choose models here than it is in certain other countries,
for example in Russia; for genius alone can draw inspiration from
inferior and ordinary material.
The classical system of education has prevented us from going to the
source of social anomalies, mattoids, madmen, etc.
Besides, classicism, which has dominated us for so many centuries,
and which has inspired us with its marvellous beauties, has, like
the old, (and it is very old,) lost all its vital force. People have
made believe to warm themselves by it; but they have not succeeded;
they remain cold; and they admire its adepts only in deference to the
conventional lie. Yet the entire education of our youth consists of
that. It is the same as in religion. People have made Madonnas and
Jesuses of it to such an extent that now there is no longer any means
of contriving anything new. Naturalism without being the natural
foundation of the people is nevertheless sufficiently advanced not to
allow of serious inspiration in religion.
Many authors who have sought new paths have been led out of their way
by journalism and politics, which always end in exhausting people, even
geniuses. SCARFOGLIO, BONGHI, TORELLI, DEZERBI, and FERRI are among the
number.
The difficulty of securing a place in the literary world also very
quickly exhausts many. Thus many men, especially of Southern Italy,
produce a very good work; but they have become fathers too late in
life, and have only a single son; such are BERSEZIO, with his _Travet_,
BOITO with his _Ballate_, VALCARENGHI with his _Confessioni d'Andrea_.
Political liberty, if it has given an impulse to social and political
studies, has prejudiced great literary production, perhaps because
under the incitement of foreign domination and of rebellion, the heart
draws from a grand source of inspiration, and the pen finds powerful
excitation, more powerful perhaps, than liberty gives it.
Art finds more numerous elements of success in minds highly excited.
It is the property of great revolutions to elevate the souls of all
contemporaries, to impart to them a peculiar disposition unknown
before, and which is not slow to disappear. The most humble, the
most obscure, those even who have not taken any part in the events
and who have hardly studied them, express, a long time afterwards
even, sentiments much superior to those which their ordinary condition
allows. It is sufficient to have lived during some passionate epoch to
issue from it better, purer, and stronger. The new ideas, the generous
impulses which then carry away nations, penetrate into all classes and
ennoble a whole generation. We had in our revolutionary epoch, Manzoni,
Massimo d'Azeglio, Guerazzi, Giusti, Porta, Miceli, Brofferio, Berchet,
Mameli, Boerio, Laquacci, Aleardi, Grassi, Prati. Who have we now to
compare with them?
Turin, March, 1891. CESARE LOMBROSO.
BOOK REVIEWS.
THE ORIGIN OF THE ARYANS. An Account of the Prehistoric Ethnology and
Civilisation of Europe. By _Isaac Taylor_, M. A., L. L. D. New
York: Scribner & Welford.
The author of this extremely interesting work states in the preface
that it does not aim at setting forth new views or speculations. His
opinions on its main thesis, that is, as to the place of origin of the
primitive Aryans, are those of Spiegel and Schrader, except where he
prefers the conclusions of Cuno. These writers, with the majority of
the latest investigators of the subject, accept the view originated[92]
by the English philologist Dr. R. G. Latham in 1851, that the original
home of the primitive Aryans was on the great plain of Central Europe.
Cuno insisted also on what Dr. Taylor affirms is now an axiom in
ethnology, that race is not coextensive with language. This is a most
important principle, as it completely changes the aspects of the
problem by making it more complex. It introduces, in fact, a fresh
element; as it requires the Aryan to be identified before his primitive
habitat can be sought for.
[92] Dr. Daniel G. Brinton in his _Races and Peoples_ points
out that the view referred to in the text was first stated by
the Belgian naturalist M. D'Halloy; but it has always been
accredited to Dr. Latham by German writers and, as mentioned
by Dr. Taylor, was regarded by them as an English "fad."