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Neurology in the University of Chicago.
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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.
[Illustration: PAINTERS.
Proportion to a million inhabitants.]
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.
It has never before happened that in the latest edition of a book I have
had to disown so much in preceding editions; my first imperfect and
spontaneous idea has never before been so modified and transformed, the
final form being, perhaps, not even yet altogether attained.
The idea that genius was a special morbid condition had indeed often
occurred to me, but I 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.
It is a sad mission to cut through and destroy with the scissors of
analysis the delicate and iridescent veils with which our proud
mediocrity clothes itself. Very terrible is the religion of truth. The
physiologist is not afraid to reduce love to a play of stamens and
pistils, and thought to a molecular movement. Even genius, the one human
power before which we may bow the knee without shame, has been classed
by not a few alienists as on the confines of criminality, one of the
teratologic forms of the human mind, a variety of insanity.
This impious profanation is not, however, altogether the work of
doctors, nor is it the fruit of modern 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.
The 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
[Illustration:
Figs. 1-3. Kant’s Skull.
“ 4. Volta’s Skull.
Figs. 5-6. Fusinieri’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
[Illustration:
Fig. 1. Gauss’s Brain.
“ 2. Frontal Lobe of same.
“ 3. Brain of a German Workman.
Fig. 4. Frontal Lobe of same.
“ 5. Dirichlet’s Brain.
“ 6. Hermann’s Brain.]
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.
It is now possible to explain the frequency among men of genius, even
when not insane, of those forms of neurosis or mental alienation which
may be called latent, and which contain the germs and as it were the
outlines of these disorders.
_Chorea and Epilepsy._--Many men of genius, like the insane, are subject
to curious spasmodic and choreic movements. Lenau and Montesquieu left
upon the floor of their rooms the signs of the movements by which their
feet were convulsively agitated during composition; Buffon, Dr. Johnson,
Santeuil, 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.
The resemblance between insanity and genius, although it does not show
that these two should be confounded, proves at all events that one does
not exclude the other in the same subject.
In fact, without speaking of the numerous men of genius who at some
period of their lives were subject to hallucinations or insanity, or of
those who, like Vico, terminated a great career in dementia, how many
great thinkers have shown themselves all their lives subject to
monomania or hallucinations!
In recent times insanity has shown itself in Farini, Brougham, Southey,
Govone, Gounod, Gutzkow, Monge, Fourcroy, Cowper, Rocchia, Ricci,
Fenicia,[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
[Illustration: 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
[Illustration: 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. +-------+--------+ Tempera-|| Month. +-------+--------+ Tempera-
| Italy.| France.| ture. || | Italy.| France.| ture.
--------+-------+--------+---------++--------+-------+--------+---------
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, |
Month. | and | Astronomical | 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
[Illustration: 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.
Buckle 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,
[Illustration: 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 1831-60|Progressive degree|
Mountainous | Progressive | of great talent |
Departments. | degree of | among 1,000 |
| exemptions. | inhabitants. |
-------------------+---------------+------------------+-->
Haute-Vienne | 86 | 54 |
Hautes-Alpes | 81 | 49 |
Corrèze | 85 | 50 |
Puy-de Dôme | 84 | 51 |
Ardèche | 80 | 58 |
Ariège | 60 | 79 |
Lozère | 74 | 76 |
Basses-Alpes | 71 | 22 |
Aveyron | 65 | 44 |
Basses-Pyrénées | 51 | 61 |
Pyrénées-Orientales| 50 | 57 |
Hautes-Pyrénées | 37 | 72 |
Vosges | 25 | 46 |
Ardennes | 8 | 30 |
Jura | 3 | 10 |
Côte-d’Or | 2 | 5 |
Doubs | 1 | 2 |
-------------------+---------------+------------------+-->
<------------------+------------+------------+------------+------------
| Goîtrous | Cretins | Deaf-mutes | Stammerers
Mountainous |among 1,000 |among 1,000 |among 1,000 |among 1,000
Departments. |inhabitants.|inhabitants.|inhabitants.|inhabitants.
| | | |
<-------------------+------------+------------+------------+------------
Haute-Vienne | 17 | 2.0 | 0.61 | 2.23
Hautes-Alpes | 111 | 2.2 | 2.2 | 2.8
Corrèze | 17 | 4.3 | 1.5 | 2.4
Puy-de Dôme | 44 | 3.6 | 1.2 | 1.9
Ardèche | 29 | 6.8 | 1.3 | 3.9
Ariège | 82 | 4.5 | 0.7 | 4.1
Lozère | 29 | 6.8 | 2.10 | 3.4
Basses-Alpes | 76 | 6.3 | 0.6 | 7.5
Aveyron | 17 | 4.9 | 1.5 | 2.0
Basses-Pyrénées | 21 | 3.2 | 0.6 | 2.9
Pyrénées-Orientales| 24 | 3.5 | 1.8 | 2.0
Hautes-Pyrénées | 62 | 6.2 | 0.7 | 4.0
Vosges | 56 | 3.9 | 1.1 | 2.5
Ardennes | 17 | 0.5 | 0.8 | 5.2
Jura | 58 | 2.0 | 0.6 | 3.0
Côte-d’Or | 11 | 3.1 | 0.8 | 1.7
Doubs | 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
41 brothers
31 fathers
14 grandsons
22 nephews
18 uncles
13 cousins
17 grandfathers
3 great-grandfathers
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.
Though the artistic tendency is very pronounced, and might almost be
called a general characteristic, in some varieties of insanity, few
authors have paid sufficient attention to it.
The only exceptions are Tardieu, who, in his _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]
[Illustration]
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.
[Illustration]
“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
[Illustration: SHECHINAH.]
[Illustration: SANDALPHON.]
[Illustration: SUB ROSA.]
[Illustration: 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.
[Illustration: THE WITCH.]
_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
[Illustration: 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.
[Illustration: 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.
We 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_, Ҥ 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.
All this helps us to understand why the great progressive movements of
nations, in politics and religion, have so often been brought about, or
at least determined, by insane or half-insane persons. The reason is
that in these alone is to be found, coupled with originality (which is
the special characteristic of the genius and the lunatic, and still more
of those who partake of the character of both), the exaltation capable
of generating a sufficient amount of altruism to sacrifice their own
interests, and their lives, for the sake of making known the new truths,
and, often, of getting them accepted by a public to which innovations
are always unwelcome, and which frequently takes a bloody revenge on the
innovator.
“Such persons,” says Maudsley, “are apt to seize on and pursue the
bypaths of thought, which have been overlooked by more stable
intellects, and so, by throwing a side-light on things, to discover
unthought-of relations. One observes this tendency of mind even in those
of them who have no particular genius or talent; for they have a novel
way of looking at things, do not run in the common groove of action, or
follow the ordinary routine of thought and feeling, but discover in
their remarks a certain originality and perhaps singularity, sometimes
at a very early period of life.
“Notable, again, is the emancipated way in which some of them discuss,
as if they were problems of mechanics, 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 together the strangest ideas--when
we ourselves, with all the advantages of science, are often puzzled to
understand the reasons for his actions.
2. Some of these madmen possess (as we have seen, and shall see again,
in the Middle Ages and among the Indians) extraordinary muscular
strength. The people venerate strength.
3. They often show an extraordinary insensibility to cold, to fire, to
wounds (as among the Arab Santons, and among our own lunatics), and to
hunger.
4. Some, affected either by theomania or ambitious mania, having first
declared themselves inspired by the gods, or chiefs and leaders of the
nation, &c., drew after them the current of popular opinion, already
disposed in their favour.
5. The following is the principal reason. Many of these madmen must have
shown a force of intellect, or at any rate of will, very much superior
to those of the masses whom they swayed by their extravagances. If the
passions redouble the force of the intellect, certain forms of madness
(which are nothing but a morbid exaltation of the passions) may be said
to increase it a hundred-fold. Their conviction of the truth of their
own hallucinations, the fluent and vigorous eloquence with which they
give utterance to them--and which is precisely the effect of their real
conviction--and the contrast between their obscure or ignoble past, and
their present position of power or splendour, give to this form of
insanity, in the mind of the people, a natural preponderance over sane
but quiet habits of mind. Lazzaretti, Briand, Loyola, Molinos, Joan of
Arc, the Anabaptists, &c., are proofs of this assertion. And it is a
fact that, in epidemics of prophecy--such as those which prevailed in
the Cevennes, and, recently, at Stockholm--ignorant persons,
servant-maids, and even children, excited by enthusiasm, are fired to
deliver discourses which are often full of spirit and eloquence.
A maid-servant said, “Can you put a piece of wood in the fire without
thinking of hell?--the more wood, the greater the flames.” Another
prophetess, a cook, cried out, “God pronounces curses on this wine of
wrath (_i.e._, brandy), and the sinners who drink of it shall be
punished according to their sin, and torrents of this wine of wrath
shall flow in hell to burn them.” A child of four said, “May God in
heaven call sinners to repentance! Go to Golgotha--there are the festal
robes!”[378]
6. Mania, among barbarous people, often takes the epidemic form, as
among the savage negroes of Juidah, among the Abipones and among the
Abyssinians in those affections analogous to the tarantula which are
called _tigretier_. Thus, in Greece, an instance is recorded of an
epidemic madness among the people of Abdera, who had been deeply moved
by the recital of a tragedy; and those Thyades who appeared at Athens
and Rome--worshippers of Bacchus, thirsting for luxury and blood, and
seized with sacred fury--were affected by erotico-religious insanity.
But this is more especially seen in the Middle Ages, when mental
epidemics were continually succeeding one another.
The strangest forms of madness were thus communicated, like a true
contagion, from whole villages to whole nations, from children to old
men, from the credulous to the most resolute sceptics. Demonomania, more
or less associated with nymphomania and convulsions, &c., produced
sometimes witches, sometimes persons possessed with devils, according as
it was boasted of and displayed, or suffered with horror, by its
victims. It showed itself in the most obscene hallucinations (especially
of commerce with evil spirits, or the animals which represented them),
in an antipathy to sacred things, or those believed to be such (_e.g._,
the bones said to be relics), or in an extraordinary development,
sometimes of muscular, sometimes of intellectual, power, so that they
spoke languages of which they had previously only the slightest
knowledge, or recalled and connected the most remote and complicated
reminiscences. This form of insanity was sometimes associated with
erotic ecstasies, or partial anæsthesia, and often with a tendency to
biting, to murder, or to suicide. Sometimes there was a shuddering
horror, oftener gloomy hallucinations; but always a profound conviction
of their truth.
When the prophetic enthusiasm became epidemic in the Cevennes, women,
and even children, were reached by this contagion, and saw Divine
commands in the sun and in the clouds. Thousands of women persisted in
singing psalms and prophesying, though they were hanged wholesale. Whole
cities, says Villani, seemed to be possessed of the devil.
At Aix-la-Chapelle, in 1374, there spread, from epileptics and choreics
to the people in general--affecting even decrepit old men and pregnant
women--a mania for dancing in the public squares, crying, “_Here Sant
Johan, so so, vrisch und vro!_” This was accompanied by religious
hallucinations, in which they saw heaven opened, and within it, the
assembly of the blessed. The subjects also had an antipathy to anything
red, unlike tarantula subjects who are madly attracted to red. The mania
extended to Cologne, where 500 persons were seized with it; thence to
Metz, where there were 1,100 dancers, Strasburg, and other places. Nor
did it cease speedily, for it recurred periodically in subsequent years;
and on the day of St. Vitus (probably chosen as a patron on account of
the Celtic etymology of his name) thousands of dances took places near
his relics. In 1623 these pilgrimages still continued.[379]
Most curious is that epidemic mania for pilgrimages, developed among
children in the Middle Ages. When men’s minds were cast down with grief
for the loss of the Holy Land, in 1212, a shepherd-boy of Cloes, in
Vendôme, thought himself sent by God, who had appeared to him in the
shape of an unknown man, accepted bread from him, and entrusted him with
a letter for the king. All the sons of the neighbouring shepherds
flocked to him; 30,000 men became his followers. Soon there arose other
prophets of eight years old, who preached, worked miracles, and led
hosts of delirious children to the new saint at Cloes. They made their
way to Marseilles, where the sea was to withdraw its waves in order to
let them pass over dry-shod to Jerusalem. In spite of the opposition of
the king and their parents, and the hardships of the journey, they
reached the sea, were put on board ship by two unscrupulous merchants,
and sold as slaves in the East.
The first impulse towards the epidemic form caused by mania was the
veneration for individuals affected by it, which rendered them liable to
be taken as models; but the principal cause is just that isolation, that
ignorance, which is the accompaniment of barbarism. It is, above all,
the advance of civilization, the greater contact of a greater number of
persons, which gives definite form to the sense of individuality,
sharpening it by means of interest, diffidence, ambition, emulation,
ridicule; but, above all, by the continual variety of sensations and
consequent variety of ideas. Thus it seldom happens that great masses of
people are equally predisposed towards, and impressed by, the same
movement. In fact, though epidemics of mental alienation have shown
themselves, even in the most recent times, it has always been among the
most ignorant classes of the population, and in districts remote from
the great centres of communication; always, moreover, in mountainous
countries (certainly through atmospheric influences, as well as on
account of greater isolation)[380]--as in Cornwall, Wales, Norway,
Brittany (the barking women of Josselin), in the remotest colonies of
America, in the distant valley of Morzines in France, and the Alpine
gorge of Verzegnis in Italy, where Franzolini has so well described it.
Thus, at Monte Amiata (where, later on, we shall find Lazzaretti), the
chroniclers record that one Audiberti lived in an extraordinary state
of filth, and was for this reason venerated as a saint. Not far from
this place, Bartolomeo Brandano, a tenant of the Olivetan monks, who
lived towards the end of the sixteenth century--perhaps overcome by the
sufferings of his country during the occupation by the Spanish army--was
seized by religious monomania, and believed himself to be John the
Baptist. He assumed the dress of the saint, and, covered with a
hair-shirt reaching to his knees, with bare feet, a crucifix in his
hand, and a skull under his arm, he travelled through the district of
Siena, preaching, prophesying, working miracles, and finding proselytes.
He then went to Rome, and, on the square of St. Peter’s, preached
against the Pope and the Cardinals. But Clement VII., instead of having
him hanged, sent him to the Tordinona prison, where it was usual at that
time to seclude the insane, when they were not burnt at the stake as
being possessed of demons. When he came out of prison he returned to
Siena, and several times insulted Don Diego Mendoza, commander of the
Spanish army; but Don Diego, unable to tell whether he were a saint, a
prophet, or a madman, had him seized and taken to the prison of
Talamone, so that the governor might decide the question. The Siennese
governor would have nothing to do with him, and said, “If he is a saint,
saints are not sent to the galleys; if he is a prophet, prophets are not
punished; and if he is mad, madmen are exempt from the laws.” Brandano
was thus liberated in a short time, and, after having preached a sermon
to the prisoners, he went away, and returned to his prophecies and his
exorcisms.
Even recently, in the remote village of Busca, in Piedmont, two saints
have arisen, one of whom had been a convict for twenty years,[381] and
the other already had a congregation of over 300 members. Not far from
there, in the Alpine village of Montenero, there appeared, in 1887, the
epidemic delirium of the second coming of Christ, in expectation of
which event more than 3,000 inhabitants assembled, in spite of the snow.
About the same time a vagabond Messiah was arrested at Vezzola, in the
Abruzzi.
The retrograde metamorphosis of the intellectual faculties passes
through slighter gradations in the barbarian than in the civilized man.
The former is much less able to distinguish illusions from realities,
hallucinations from desires, and the possible from the supernatural, and
also to keep his imagination in check.
The Norwegian preaching epidemic of 1842 was termed _Magdkrankheit_--the
maid-servants’ disease--because it attacked servants, hysterical women
in general, and children of the lower classes. The Redruth epidemic was
diffused entirely among persons “whose intellect is of the very lowest
class”;[382] whereas when, in recent years, the craze of magnetism, and
the still more foolish one of table-rapping, appeared, they never
presented any other characteristic than that of widely diffused errors,
and mental alienation in this direction could only boast of isolated
victims.
It is not long since the Haytian negroes looked on certain trees which
had been hung with cloths as images of saints; and the Nubians see their
gods in the grotesque forms of splintered rocks. The slightest cause
predisposes the barbarian to terror; and from terror to superstition is
but a short step. This last, which disappears before the logic and the
sarcasm of civilized people, is the most important factor in the
development of insanity. Ideler,[383] speaking of the Stockholm epidemic
of 1842, mentions it as a historical fact that, in the places where the
disease first appeared, people’s minds had for a long time past been
disturbed and excited by sermons and devotional exercises; and that, in
these places, the number of those affected had perceptibly increased.
This is the explanation of ancient and modern prophets, and their sudden
power which has left traces on the history of nations.
Many unhappy persons affected by ambitious mania, or theomania, are
looked upon as prophets, and their delusions taken for revelations; and
this is the origin of a number of sects which have intensified the
struggle between religion and liberty both in the Middle Ages and in
modern times.
Picard, for example, imagined himself to be a son of God, sent on earth
as a new Adam, to re-establish the natural laws, which consisted,
according to him, in going naked, and in the community of women. He met
with believers and imitators, and founded the sect of the Adamites, who
were exterminated by the Hussites in 1347, but were afterwards revived
under the name of Turlupins.
In the same way, the Anabaptists, at Münster, at Appenzell, and in
Poland, believed that they saw luminous forms of angels and dragons
fighting in the sky, that they received orders to kill their brothers or
their best-beloved children (homicidal mania), or to abstain from food
for months together, and that they could paralyze whole armies by their
breath or by a look. Later on, those sects of Calvinists and Jansenists
which caused the shedding of so much blood, had--as Calmeil has
demonstrated--an analogous origin. This is also the origin of the belief
in wizards and demoniacs.
If we glance over the lists of literary madmen and _illuminati_ given by
Delepierre, Philomneste, and Adelung, the number of followers found by
many of them makes us laugh and sigh in the same breath at the extent of
human folly. Let us mention, for example, Kleinov, who, in the middle of
the eighteenth century, claimed to represent the King of Zion, whose
sons his followers asserted themselves to be; and Joachim of Calabria,
who declared that the Christian era was to end in 1200, when a new
Messiah was to appear with a new gospel. Swedenborg, who believed that
he had spoken with the spirits of the various planets for whole days,
and even for months together, who had seen the inhabitants of Jupiter
walking partly on their hands and partly on their feet, those of Mars
speaking with their eyes, and those of the Moon with their stomachs,
incredible as it may seem, has believers and followers even up to the
present time.[384]
Irving, in 1830, asserted that he had received, by divine inspiration,
the gift of unknown tongues, and founded the sect of the Irvingites.
John Humphrey Noyes, of the United States, believed himself to have the
gift of prophecy, and founded the sect of “Perfectionists” established
at Oneida, who considered marriage and property as theft, did not
recognize human laws, and believed every action, even the commonest, to
be inspired by God.
At the beginning of the century that prophetess of monarchy, Julie de
Krüdener, possessed great influence. She was hysterical, and so far
erotic as to throw herself on her knees in public before a tenor;
afterwards, impelled by disappointment in love towards the ancient
faith, she believed herself chosen to redeem humanity, and found in this
belief the vigour of a burning eloquence. She went to Bâle and turned
the city upside down by preaching the speedy coming of the Messiah.
Twenty thousand pilgrims responded to her call; the Senate became
alarmed and banished her. She hastened to Baden, where four thousand
people were waiting on the square to kiss her hands and her dress. A
woman offered her ten thousand florins to build a new church; she
distributed them to the poor “whose reign was at hand.” She was exiled
from Baden, and returned to Switzerland, followed by crowds. Though
persecuted by the police, she passed from town to town, followed by
acclamations and blessings. She said that her works were dictated to her
by angels. Napoleon, who had treated her with contempt, became, for her,
the “dark angel,” Alexander of Russia, the angel of light. Her influence
became the inspiration of the latter; so much so, that the idea of the
Holy Alliance seems to be due to her alone.[385]
Loyola, when wounded, turned his thoughts to religious subjects, and,
terrified by the Lutheran revolt, planned and founded the great Company.
He believed that he received the personal assistance of the Virgin Mary
in his projects, and heard heavenly voices encouraging him to persevere
in them.
Analogous phenomena may be observed in the lives of George Fox and the
early Quakers.[386]
_Francis of Assisi._[387]--The son of a religious woman, Francis of
Assisi was forced to devote himself to business after receiving only the
elements of education from the priests of S. Giorgio. Being rich, and
able to spend money as he pleased, he became the life and soul of the
joyous companies of young men, whose custom it was to go about the city
by day and night, singing and diverting themselves. He seemed to be the
son of a great prince rather than of a merchant. The citizens of Assisi
called him “the flower of youths,” and his companions deferred to him as
to their leader. He excelled in singing, his biographers praise his
sweet and powerful voice; and he was also dexterous in feats of arms.
When taken prisoner, in a skirmish between the burghers of Perugia and
those of Assisi, he encouraged his companions in prison, and exhorted
them to cheerfulness both by word and example. His naturally refined and
noble disposition was shown both in his person and manners, and in a
liberality which delighted in giving to the poor.
It is said that, in his twenty-fourth year, a severe illness confined
him for a long time to his bed. At the beginning of his convalescence,
he left the house, leaning on a stick, and stood still to gaze at the
beautiful country which surrounds Assisi, but could find no pleasure in
it, as he had once done. From that day forward, he was sad and
thoughtful. He often left his companions, and retired to a cave, where
he spent hours in meditation.
In order to relieve his sufferings, he had recourse to prayer, and
prayed so fervently that one day he thought he saw before him Christ
nailed to the cross, and felt “the passion of Christ impressed even upon
his bowels, upon the very marrow of his bones, so that he could not keep
his thoughts fixed upon it without being overflowed with grief.” He was
then seen wandering about the fields with his face bathed in tears; and
when asked whether he felt ill, he replied, “I am weeping for the
passion of my Lord Jesus.” His friends said to him, “Think of choosing
a wife,” and he replied, “Yes, I am thinking of a lady--of the noblest,
the richest, the most beautiful, that was ever seen!” Who was the lady
of his thoughts, he revealed on the day when, laying aside the dress of
his rank, he threw a beggar’s mantle over his shoulders, to the
unbounded anger of his father, who in vain tried to imprison him, and to
the great scandal of every one. By many, we read in the _Fioretti_, he
was thought a fool; and as a madman he was mocked and driven away with
stones, by his relations and by strangers; and he suffered patiently all
mockery and harsh treatment, as though he had been deaf and dumb.
Francis of Assisi, however, was original and great, not through those
qualities which he had in common with the vulgar herd of
ascetics--abstinences, mortifications, prayers, ecstasies, visions--but
on account of something which was, without his knowing it, the very
negation of asceticism--the affirmation and the triumph of the gentlest
and sweetest feelings of humanity. The ascetic abhorred, condemned, and
fled from nature, life, all human affections, in order to steep himself
in solitary contemplation: Francis, by example and precept, preached the
love of nature, concord, mutual affection between human beings, and
work. The ascetic called everything beautiful in the world the work of
Satan: Francis brought about a true revolution by calling it the work of
God, praising and thanking God for it. It was a new kind of loving and
passionate Pantheism which inspired him with the _Song of the Sun_, in
which all creatures, animate and inanimate, are joined in fraternal
embrace, in which the beautiful and radiant sun, the bright and precious
moon and stars, the wind, the clouds, the clear sky--water, “useful,
humble, precious, and chaste,”--fire, shining, joyous, “hardy and
strong,” Mother Earth, who sustains and feeds us, together with man, who
up to that time had been taught to despise everything that might
distract him from the selfish thought of his fate in the next world--all
these are called upon to sing the glory of the Lord _who is good_, to
bless Him for having made the universe so rich, varied, and beautiful,
so worthy to be loved.[388]
If we think of this bold and far-reaching change, we shall no longer
smile in reading the _Song_; remembering, too, that it was the first
attempt made by the Italian people to express their religious feelings
in the vulgar tongue.
For such a song to burst from the impassioned heart of Francis, the
germs of universal love which he cherished there must already have come
to perfect growth. He must have freed himself entirely from the ancient
terror, which, in the common superstitious belief, peopled woods,
mountains, air and water, with hidden enemies. As also, in order to
bring men back to mutual love, in an age when “those whom one wall and
one ditch confined, gnawed one another,” he had, through the natural
tendency to extremes, to include, not only Brother Sun and Sister Moon,
but even Brother Wolf.
Having composed the _Song_, Francis was so well pleased with it that he
adapted to it a musical melody, taught it to his disciples, and thought
of choosing among his followers some who should go about the world
singing the praises of God, and “asking, as their only recompense that
their listeners should repent, should call themselves just ‘God’s
jesters’--_Joculatores Domini_.” Thus he gave the first and most
vigorous impulse to religious poetry in the vulgar tongue.
_Luther._--Luther[389] attributed his physical pains and his dreams to
the arts of the devil, though all those of which he has left us a
description are clearly due to nervous phenomena. He often suffered,
_e.g._, from an anguish which nothing could lighten, caused, according
to him, by the anger of an offended God. At 27, he began to be seized
with attacks of giddiness, accompanied by headaches and noises in the
ears, which returned at the ages of 32, 38, 40, and 52, especially when
he was on a journey. At thirty-eight, moreover, he had a real
hallucination, perhaps favoured by excessive solitude. “When, in 1521,”
he writes, “I was in my Patmos, in a room which was entered by no one
except two pages who brought me my food, I heard, one evening, after I
was in bed, nuts moving inside a sack, and flying of themselves against
the ceiling and all round my bed. Scarcely had I gone to sleep, when I
heard a tremendous noise, as if many berries were being thrown over; I
rose, and cried, ‘Who art thou?’ commended myself to Christ,” &c.
In the church at Wittenberg, he had just begun explaining the Epistle to
the Romans, and had reached the words, “The just shall live by faith,”
when he felt these ideas penetrate his mind, and heard that sentence
repeated aloud several times in his ear. In 1507, he heard the same
words when on his journey to Rome, and again in a voice of thunder, as
he was dragging himself up the steps of the Scala Santa. “Not seldom,”
he confesses, “has it happened to me to awake about midnight, and
dispute with Satan concerning the Mass,” and he details the many
arguments adduced by the Devil.
_Savonarola._--But the illustration in every respect most apposite (if
it did not seem almost a national blasphemy to say so) is that offered
us by Savonarola. Under the influence of a vision, he believed himself,
even from his youth, sent by Christ to redeem the country from its
corruption. One day, while speaking to a nun, it seemed to him that
heaven suddenly opened; and he saw in a vision the calamities of the
Church, and heard a voice commanding him to announce them to the people.
The visions of the Apocalypse and of the Old Testament prophets passed
in review before him. In 1491 he wished to leave off treating of
politics in his sermons. “I watched all Saturday, and the whole night,
but at daybreak, while I was praying, I heard a voice say, ‘Fool, dost
thou not see that God will have thee go on in the same way?’”
In 1492, while preaching during Advent, he had a vision of a sword, on
which was written, “_Gladius Domini super terram_.” Suddenly, the sword
turned towards the earth, the air was darkened, there was a rain of
swords, arrows, and fire, and the earth became a prey to famine and
pestilence. From this moment, he began to predict the pestilence which,
in fact, afterwards came to pass.
In another vision, becoming ambassador to Christ, he makes a long
journey to Paradise, and there holds discourse with many saints and with
the Virgin, whose throne he describes, not forgetting the number of the
precious stones with which it is adorned.[390]
We shall see how a similar scene was described by Lazzaretti. Savonarola
was continually meditating on his dreams; and he tried to distinguish
which among his visions were produced by angels, and which were the work
of demons. Scarcely ever is he touched by a misgiving that he may
possibly be in error. In one of his dialogues he declares that “to feign
one’s self a prophet in order to persuade others, would be like making
God Himself an impostor. Might it not be,” continues the objector, “that
you were deceiving yourself? No,” is the reply, “I worship God--I seek
to follow in His footsteps; it cannot be that God should deceive
me.”[391]
Yet, with the contradiction peculiar to unhinged minds, he had written a
short time before, “I am not a prophet, neither the son of a prophet; it
is your sins that make me a prophet perforce.” Moreover, in one page he
says that his prophetic illumination is independent of grace, whereas, a
few pages back, he had declared that the two were one and the same
thing.
Villari justly remarks that “this is the singularity of his character,
that a man who had given to Florence the best form of republic, who
dominated an entire people, who filled the world with his eloquence and
had been the greatest of philosophers--should make it his boast that he
heard voices in the air, and saw the sword of the Lord!”
“But,” as the same author well concludes, “the very puerility of his
visions proves that he was the victim of hallucinations; and a still
stronger proof is their uselessness, even hurtfulness, as far as he
himself was concerned.
“What need was there, if he wished to cheat the masses, to write
treatises on his visions, to speak of them to his mother, to write
reflections on them on the margins of his Bible? Those things which his
admirers would have been most eager to hide, those which the simplest
intelligence would never have allowed to get into print, these very
productions he continued to publish and republish. The truth is that,
as he often confessed, he felt an inward fire burning in his bones, and
forcing him to speak; and as he was himself swept away by the force of
that ecstatic delirium, so he succeeded in carrying with him his
audience, who were moved by his words in a way we find it hard to
understand when we compare the impression produced with the text of the
sermons themselves.”
This helps us to understand how--exactly in the same manner as
Lazzaretti--he propagated his divine madness among the people, not only
epidemically, by the contagion of ideas, but producing actual insanity
in persons, who, being nearly or quite without education, preached and
wrote extempore in consequence of their madness. Thus Domenico
Cecchi[392] was the author of a work entitled _Sacred Reform_, which
contains the very just suggestions of relieving the Great Council from
minor business, taxing church property, imposing a single tax, and
creating a militia, also that of fixing the amount of girls’ dowries. In
his preface, he writes: “I set myself with my fancy to make such a work,
and I can make no other, and by day and night methinks I have made such
efforts that I might call them miraculous; but it has come to pass that
I myself stand amazed thereat.”
A certain Giovanni, a Florentine tailor, seized with morbid enthusiasm,
wrote _terzine_ in which he extolled the future glories of Florence, and
produced verses worthy of Lazzaretti,[393] and prophecies like the
following, “Yet it must needs be that the Pisan shall descend, with
irons on his feet, into the sewer, since he has been the cause of so
much woe.”
If I were asked whether, in our asylums, we often meet with types
analogous to these, I should reply that there is, perhaps, not an asylum
in Italy which has not received one of these strange lunatics.
_Cola da Rienzi._--In 1330, Rome was sinking into chaos. Historians have
left us an appalling picture of the disorders of the time, the absence
of any regular government, and the lawless tyranny of the robber
barons.
The general conditions of the age were favourable to popular movements.
King Robert, the protector of the barons was dead; and Todi (1337),
Genoa (under Adorno, in 1367), and Florence (1363), had initiated a
democratic _régime_, which ushered in the terrible _Ciompi_ revolution
of 1378. A premature thrill of revolt ran through Europe, and was felt
even in feudal and monarchical France, where the movement was organized,
for a short time, at Paris, under Marcel.[394]
Under these circumstances, Cola--a young man, born in the Tiber
district, in 1313, the son of an innkeeper and a washerwoman, or
water-seller, who though at first little better than a field-labourer,
had studied as a notary, and acquired a considerable knowledge of the
history and antiquities of his country--saw his brother murdered by the
wretches who formed the government, or rather the misgovernment of Rome.
Then he--who, as the anonymous historian tells us, always had “a
fantastic smile” on his lips, and already, when meditating on ancient
books and the ruins of Rome, had often wept, exclaiming, “Where are the
good Romans of the old time? Where is their justice?”--was seized, as he
afterwards acknowledged,[395] by an irresistible impulse to put into
action the ideas which he had acquired from books.
In his capacity of notary, he devoted himself to the protection of
minors and widows, and assumed the curious title of their Consul, just
as there were, in his time, consuls of the carpenters, cloth-workers,
and other guilds.
In 1343, in one of the numerous small revolutions of the period, the
people had attempted to overthrow the Senate, creating the government of
the Thirteen, under the papal authority. On that occasion, Cola was sent
as spokesman of the people, to Avignon, where he vividly depicted the
evils prevalent in Rome, and, by his bold and powerful eloquence, amazed
and won over the cool-headed prelates, from whom he attained the
appointment of notary to the Urban Chamber, in 1344.
On his return to Rome, he continued to exercise this office with
exaggerated zeal, and got himself called Consul no longer _of the
widows_, but _of Rome_. He excelled others in courtesy, was also
inflexible in the administration of justice, and never failed to involve
himself in long harangues against those whom he called the dogs of the
Capitol.
One day, in a moment of exaggerated fanaticism, he cried to the barons,
in full assembly, “Ye are evil citizens--ye who suck the blood of the
people.” And, turning to the officials and governors, he warned them
that it was their place to provide for the good of the State. The result
of this was a tremendous buffet dealt him by a chamberlain of the House
of Colonna. He then took matters more calmly, and began to depict the
former glories and present miseries of Rome, by means of paintings, in
which the homicides, adulterers, and other criminals were represented by
apes and cats, the corrupt judges and notaries by foxes, and the
senators and nobles by wolves and bears.
On another day, he exhibited the famous table of Vespasian, and invited
the public, including the nobles, to a dramatic explanation of it. He
appeared, arrayed in a German cloak with a white hood, and a hat also
white and surrounded by many crowns, one of which was divided in the
midst by a small silver sword. The interpretation of these grotesque
symbols, which already indicate his madness (the continual use of such
being, as already stated, characteristic of monomaniacs, till they end
by sacrificing to their passion for symbols the very evidence of the
things which they wish to represent), is unknown. Thus,
applying--somewhat after his own fashion--the decree of the Senate which
granted to Vespasian the right of making laws at his pleasure, of
increasing or diminishing _the gardens of Rome and of Italy_ (if he had
been a scholar, he would have said the area of the Roman district), and
of making and unmaking kings, he called on them to consider into what a
state they had fallen. “Remember that the jubilee is approaching, and
that you have made no provision of food or other necessaries. Put an end
to your quarrels,” &c.
But along with these, he delivered other discourses which were, to say
the least, eccentric; _e.g._, “I know that men wish to find a crime in
my speeches, and that out of envy; but, thanks to heaven, three things
consume my enemies--luxury, envy, and fire.”[396] These two last words
were greatly applauded; I do not understand them, however, especially
the last. I believe that they were applauded, precisely because the
audience did not understand them, as happens to many street orators,
with whom resonant and meaningless words supply the place of ideas, and
are even greeted with greater enthusiasm.
The fact is, that, among the upper classes, he passed for one of those
persons of unsound mind who were then in great request for the amusement
of society.[397] The nobles, especially the Colonna, disputed the
pleasure of his company with each other, and he would tell them of the
glories of his future government. “And when I am king or emperor, I will
make war on all of you. I will have such an one hanged, and such another
beheaded.” He spared none of them, and mentioned them by name, one by
one, to their faces; and, all the time, both to nobles and commons, he
continued to speak of the good state, and of how he was going to restore
it.
Here I insert a parenthesis. It has been said (by Petrarch in
particular) that he feigned madness, and was a second Brutus; but when
we see his love for pomp, luxury, strange symbols, and garments,
gradually increasing as he advanced in his political career, and after
his rise to power, we no longer have any doubt as to the reality of his
madness.
He continued to put forth new symbolical pictures, among others one with
this inscription: “_The day of justice is coming--Await this moment_.”
Be it noted that this picture represented a dove bringing a crown of
myrtle to a little bird. The dove stood for the Holy Spirit (as we shall
see, one of the favourite objects of his delirium) and the bird was
himself, who was to crown Rome with glory. At last, on the first day of
Lent, 1347, he affixed to the door of San Giorgio another placard:
“_Before long, the good State of Rome shall be restored_.”
Not being feared by the nobles, who thought him mad, he was able to
conspire secretly, or rather to keep up the ferment of public opinion,
by taking apart, gradually, one by one, the men who seemed to him best
adapted for the purpose, and assigning them their posts on Mount
Aventine, towards the end of April, on a day when the governor was to be
absent.
In this assembly, the only one which, up to that time, had been held in
secret, the mode of bringing about the Good State was deliberated on.
Here he showed the eloquence of a man who speaks from conviction, and of
things which are too true not to produce a deep impression. He described
the discord of the great, the debasement of the poor, the armed men
roaming about in quest of plunder, wives dragged from their
marriage-beds, pilgrims murdered at the gates, priests drowned in
sensual orgies, no strength or wisdom among those who held the reigns of
power. From the nobles there was everything to fear and nothing to hope.
Where were they, in the midst of all these disorders? They were leaving
Rome, to enjoy a holiday on their estates, while everything was going to
wreck and ruin in the city.
As the members of the popular party were hesitating for want of funds,
he gave them a hint that these might be obtained from the revenues of
the Apostolic Chamber, reckoning 10,000 florins for the tax on salt
alone, 100,000 for the hearth-tax, figures which Sismondi (chapter
xxxviii.) declares to be absolutely erroneous. He also gave them to
understand that he was acting in accordance with the wishes of the Pope
(_which was false_), and that he was able with the consent of the
latter, to seize upon the revenues of the Holy See.
On May 18, 1347, in Colonna’s absence, he had proclamation made through
the streets, by sound of trumpet, that all citizens were to assemble in
the night of the day following, in the church of Sant’ Angelo, to take
measures for the establishment of the Good State. On the 19th, Rienzi
was present at the meeting, in armour, guarded by a hundred armed men,
and accompanied by the Papal Vicar, and by three standards covered with
the most extraordinary symbols--one of them representing Liberty, one
Justice, and one Peace.
Among the measures which he caused to be adopted by this improvised
assembly were some which would be well suited to our own times; the
following, for instance:--
All lawsuits were to be terminated within fifteen days.
The Apostolic Chamber was to provide for the support of widows and
orphans.
Every district of Rome was to have a public granary.
If a Roman were killed in the service of his country, his heirs to
receive a hundred _lire_ if he were a foot soldier, and a hundred
_florins_ if a horseman.
The garrisons of cities and fortresses to be formed of men chosen from
among the Roman people.
Every accuser who could not make good his accusation, to be subject to
the penalty which his victim would have incurred.
The houses of the condemned not to be destroyed (as was then the case in
all communities), but to become the property of the municipality.
Cola received from this popular assembly entire lordship over the city;
he associated the Papal Vicar with himself as a harmless assistant,
entitled himself Tribune, and performed an actual miracle in restoring
peace where there had been chaos. He saw the proud barons--even the
rebellious and powerful prefect of Vico--prostrate at his feet. He
executed severe justice upon the most powerful nobles as well as the
populace. Members of the Orsini, Savelli, and Gaetani families were
hanged by him, for violation of the laws; and, what is more, even
priests, such as the monk of St. Anastasius who was accused of several
murders.
By means of the so-called Tribunal of Peace, he reconciled with each
other 1800 citizens, who had previously been mortal enemies. He
abolished, or, more accurately speaking, tried to abolish, the servile
use of the title _Don_, which is still rampant among us in the south; he
prohibited dicing, concubinage, and fraud in the sale of
provisions--which last was the measure which conduced most to his
popularity. Finally, he created a true citizen militia, a real national
guard.
He caused the escutcheons of the nobles to be erased from all palaces,
equipages, and banners, saying that there was to be in Rome no other
lordship than the Pope’s and his own.
He re-established a tax on every hearth, in all the towns and villages
of the Roman district, and was obeyed even by the Tuscan communities,
who might have claimed exemption. The collectors were not sufficient for
the work. All the governors, except two, submitted; and he finally
appointed a kind of justice of the peace, to decide even criminal cases.
He did even more. He was the first to conceive, what even Dante had not
thought of, an Italy neither Guelf nor Ghibelline, under the headship of
the Roman municipality, in which like Marcel of Paris, he attempted to
assemble a true national Parliament.[398] He was the first man in Italy
to think of this, and was only understood by thirty-five communes.
At Avignon, finally, he was able to achieve what I consider his greatest
enterprise: to get himself pardoned, after a course of speech and action
so hostile to the Papal Court, by those who never pardon--the clergy of
that ferocious and implacable age; and not only pardoned, but sent back,
though for a short period and in an inferior capacity, to a position
fraught with the greatest dangers to that order.
But all these miracles, alas! lasted for a few days only. The man who in
his political ideas surpassed not only his contemporaries, but many
modern thinkers, and preceded Mazzini and Cavour in the idea of unity,
was in fact a monomaniac, as is recorded by the historians, Re and
Papencordt; if he was great in conception, he was uncertain and
incapable in practical matters. This was fully shown, _e.g._, when,
though he had his greatest enemy, the prefect of Vico, in his hands, he
let him go, keeping his son as a hostage; and when he failed to profit
by his unexpected victory over the barons.
Always incapable of taking any resolution which was not merely
theoretical, he believed that everything he did was done by the grace of
the Holy Spirit,[399] under whose auspices we have seen that he began
his enterprize.
He was still further confirmed in his delusion by a heresy which had
then recently sprung up, according to which the Holy Spirit was to
regenerate the world, and especially by the fact, very insignificant in
itself, that a dove alighted near him while he was showing the people
one of his allegorical pictures. To this dove he attributed his
successful beginning, as he ascribed to his prophetic inspiration the
victory over the Colonna[400] and that over the Prefect.[401]
In the most important affairs, he believed that he heard in himself,
through the medium of a dream or other sign, the voice of God, with whom
he took counsel, and to whom he referred everything.
Sustained by the _prestige_ of this inspiration, he furthermore enacted
religious laws, _e.g._, one compelling confession once a year, under
pain of confiscation to the extent of one-third of a man’s property.
He did not fail to exhibit the usual contradictions peculiar to the
insane. Very religious himself, he had no hesitation in comparing
himself to Christ, only on account of the coincidence implied in his
having gained a victory at the age of thirty-three. After his defeat, he
again compared himself to him, in a play upon numbers such as is common
among the insane, because he was for thirty-three months an exile in the
Majella, in a wild and lonely hermitage, surrounded by several persons
subject to hallucinations, followers of the Holy Spirit, who prophesied
that he would once more be victorious, and even rule over the whole
world. The megalomaniac delirium which usually prevailed in his case,
explains the greater part of these contradictions. He believed that in
his own person were centred all the hopes of a Messiah of Italy, who was
to restore the Roman Empire, nay, even redeem the world.[402]
At a moment when he must have thought himself near death, in the prison
at Prague,[403] he thought himself the victim of diabolical
imaginations, or believed that he was obeying the will of heaven. Thus
he wrote, “I kiss the key of the prison, as it were the gift of God.”
One day he arose from the throne and, advancing towards his faithful
followers, said in a loud voice, “We command Pope Clement to present
himself before our tribunal, and to live at Rome; and we give the same
command to the College of Cardinals. We cite to appear before us the two
claimants, Charles of Bohemia and Ludwig of Bavaria, who take upon
themselves the title of Emperors. We command all the electors of Germany
to inform us on what pretext they have usurped the inalienable right of
the Roman people--the ancient and legitimate sovereign of the empire.”
Then he drew his sword, waved it three times towards the three divisions
of the known world, and said, three times, in a transport of ecstasy,
“This, too, belongs to me!”
All this because he had bathed in the porphyry basin of Constantine--to
the great scandal of his followers--and believed that he had thus
succeeded to the power of that emperor.
While he was going on this course the Papal Legate, by whose concurrence
alone all these eccentricities could, up to a certain point, be
justified, protested with all the force his slight degree of energy
would allow. It would be pretty much as if the Consul of San Marino were
to take it into his head, on the strength of a majority of votes, or
because he had worn a hat belonging to Napoleon I., that he could summon
before his tribunal the emperors of Austria, Germany, and Russia, with a
few dukes into the bargain. And if this would appear ridiculous in our
own times, when, in theory at least, right is esteemed above might, what
must it have seemed in that age?
Nor was this a mere momentary aberration. We still possess the
diplomatic communication (dated Aug. 12th), destined for the emperors,
after that mad theatrical ceremony. I extract some passages:[404]
“In virtue of the same authority, and of the favour of God, the Holy
Spirit, and the Roman people, we say, protest, and declare that the
Roman Empire, the election, jurisdiction, and monarchy of the Sacred
Empire belong, by full right, to the city of Rome, and to all Italy, for
many good reasons which we shall mention at the proper place and time,
and after having summoned the dukes, kings, &c., to appear between this
day and that of Pentecost next following, before us in St. John Lateran,
with their titles and claims; failing which, on the expiry of the term,
_they will be proceeded against_ according to the forms of law, and the
inspiration of the Holy Spirit.”
Moreover, he adds, as though he had not yet expressed himself clearly
enough, “Besides what has been heretofore said, in general and in
particular, we cite in person the illustrious princes, Louis, Duke of
Bavaria, and Charles, Duke of Bohemia, _calling themselves_ emperors, or
elected to the empire; and, besides these, the Duke of Saxony, the
Marquis of Brandenburg, &c., that they may appear in the said place
before us in person, and before other magistrates, failing which we
shall proceed against them, as contumacious,” &c.
This was too much. The mutual animosity of the Colonna and the Orsini
was momentarily suspended. They united their forces to combat him openly
and conspire against him in secret.
An assassin, sent by them to attempt the tribune’s life, was arrested,
and, when put to the torture, accused the nobles. From that instant
Rienzi incurred the fate of a tyrant, and adopted a tyrant’s suspicions
and rules of conduct. Shortly afterwards, under various pretexts, he
invited to the capital his principal enemies, among whom were many of
the Orsini and three of the Colonna. They arrived, believing themselves
called to a council or banquet; and Rienzi, after inviting them to take
their places at table, had them arrested; innocent and guilty had to
undergo this terror alike. After the people had been summoned to the
spot, by the sound of the great bell, they were accused of a conspiracy
to assassinate Rienzi, and not a single voice or hand was raised to
defend the heads of the nobility.
They passed the night in separate rooms; and Stefano Colonna, battering
at his prison door, several times entreated that he might be freed by a
swift death from so humiliating a position. The arrival of a confessor,
and the sound of the funeral bell, showed them what was awaiting them.
The great hall of the Capitol, where the trial was to take place, was
hung with white and red, as was usual when a death-sentence was about to
be pronounced. All seemed ready for their condemnation, when the
tribune, touched by fear or pity, after a long speech to the people, _in
their defence_, caused them to be acquitted, and even granted them some
offices (such as the Prefecture of arms), which could not fail to be
formidable weapons against him. It was not the sort of thing which was
done in those days; and even Petrarch thought he had been too lenient,
while the lower classes expressed their sense of his folly in a coarser
and more energetic fashion.
Such was his madness, says the anonymous historian, that he allowed his
enemies to entrench themselves afresh, and then sent a messenger to
summon them to his presence. The messenger was wounded, whereupon he
summoned them a second time, and then had two of them painted, hanging
head downward. They, in their turn, took the town of Nepi from him, for
which he could devise no other retribution than the drowning of two
dogs, supposed to represent them. After some bloodless and useless
marches, he returned to Rome, and, having put on the _dalmatica_(_!_) of
the emperors, had himself crowned for the third time. Worse still, he at
the same time expelled the Papal legate, Bertrando,[405] thus throwing
away his last anchor of safety at the moment when he needed it most.
Besides the eccentricity of his consecration as Knight of the Holy
Spirit, preceded by the bath in the vase of Constantine (which, though
it can readily be explained by the ideas of the period, did him serious
injury in the estimation of the majority, and especially the religious,
as being an act of profanation), he was guilty of the egregious
political folly of declaring that, after that ceremony, the Roman people
had returned to the full possession of their jurisdiction over the
world; that Rome was the head of the world, that the monarchy of the
empire and the election of the emperor were privileges of the city, of
the Roman people, and of Italy. This was clearly a declaration of war
against both pope and emperor. Later on, on August 15th, with his usual
monomaniac tendency to symbolism, he crowned himself with six wreaths of
different plants--ivy, because he loved religion; myrtle, because he
honoured learning; parsley, because of its resistance to poison (as the
emperor was supposed to resist the malevolence of his enemies). To these
he added, for no discoverable reason, the mitre of the Trojan king, and
a silver crown!
All this proves, says Gregorovius, that it was his intention to get
himself crowned emperor.
And, as it was the custom of the Roman emperors to promulgate edicts
after their coronation, so he, immediately after this ceremony, by
political decrees confirmed to the whole of Italy the right of Roman
citizenship. Alberto Argentaro[406] adds that he threatened Pope Clement
with deposition, if he did not return to Rome within the year, and that
he would have elected another pope. Villani says,[407] that he wished to
reform the whole of Italy in the ancient manner, and subject it to the
dominion of Rome. To understand how truly insane was this project, it
must be remembered that his sacred militia--that which he believed most
faithful--numbered no more than 1600 men, and that the whole army,
counting both horse and foot, did not, on an outside calculation, exceed
2000.
After defeating the nobles, without any merit on his part, he, who had
formerly been so generous, forbade the widows to weep for the dead; and
was guilty of words and actions which, even in that ferocious age,
struck his _Sacred Knights_ (as he called them) as so barbarous and
foolish, that they refused to bear arms for him any longer. From this
moment date, on the one hand, his undoubted insanity, on the other, the
contempt of all honourable men, vigorously expressed by Petrarch himself
in a well-known letter.
It can now be understood why he was, even from the time of his first
exploits, so fond of pompous titles. After calling himself “Consul of
the Widows,” and “Consul of Rome,” he adopted the title of Tribune,
which afterwards became “Clement and Severe Tribune,” the contradiction
being nothing to him, so long as he could suggest the name of Severinus
Boethius, whose arms he had also adopted; and, not long after this
(referring, with that kind of play upon words so dear to the insane and
to idiots, to his nomination in August), “August Tribune.”[408] We can
also comprehend that, stripped of all his power, an exile and a
prisoner, he should have turned to the prosaic Emperor Charles IV.,
telling him his dreams, as we shall see, with complete confidence in
their reality.
At Rome, after his first fall (which was, perhaps, one cause of the
indulgence with which he was treated by the pope), there had been a new
outburst of disorder, which a tribune who has remained almost
unknown--one Baroncelli--in vain endeavoured to stem. Nor did Rienzi
himself meet with any better success on his return, shorn of his ancient
_prestige_, and without that youthful audacity which, united to a
maniacal erethism, had increased the strength of the poor scholar a
hundredfold; and he was overthrown by the populace themselves. For men,
whether madmen of genius or complete geniuses, have no power against the
natural force of things. Marcel had no success at Paris, though he had
far greater forces at his disposal, and was allied with the Jacquerie of
the country districts.
But Rienzi could not even succeed in realizing the prodigies of insane
genius, since he had by this time fallen into true dementia.
It appears that in the early stages of his government he was a sober and
temperate man, so much so that he had to make an effort to find time to
eat. From this he passed to the opposite extreme of continued orgies and
actual dipsomania, which he excused by alleging the effects of a poison
which he believed to have been administered to him in prison.[409] I
believe, on the contrary, that this phenomenon was occasioned by the
progress of his malady, since we see that it began in the early months
of his first tribunate,[410] and since slow poisons produce emaciation,
not obesity, in their victims.
“At every hour he was eating dainties and drinking; he observed neither
time nor order; he mixed Greek with Flavian wine; he drank new wine at
any hour. He used to drink too much.”
“Moreover he had now become enormously stout, he had a face like a
friar, round and jovial as that of a bonze, a ruddy complexion, and a
long beard. His eyes were white, and suddenly he would turn red as
blood, and his eyes would become inflamed.”
In short, as is usually the case with persons inclining to dementia, his
body became enormous, and his eyes were often bloodshot, while his face
acquired an entirely brutal cast of expression. His mind was much less
active, and his temper fundamentally changed, while the fickleness,
restlessness, and oddity, which had served to excite great admiration
for him in the mind of the populace, now had so degenerated as to
redound to his injury. Those who saw most of him said that he changed
his mind, as well as his expression of face, from one minute to the
next, and was never constant to the same thought for a quarter of an
hour together. Thus he began the siege of Palestrina, and then abandoned
it; he would appoint a skilful commander, and then cashier him.
In later times, when he was forced to impose taxes on wine and salt,
even for the poor, he restrained his luxurious tendencies, and became
apparently temperate; but his other evil propensities did not change. To
the intermittent generosity of which he had given proofs in his early
period succeeded a cold selfishness, which excited horror even in that
cruel age--when, for instance, he had Fra Monreale beheaded, for not
repaying a sum of money which Rienzi had lent him. His friend Pandolfo
Pandolfini, respected by all Rome as the model of an honourable man, was
beheaded by him, without the shadow of a reason, merely from envy of his
reputation. Thus he sacrificed, or despoiled of their property, the best
men in the country, and passed from the extreme of timidity to that of
ferocity.
He was seen to laugh and weep almost at the same time, and in both cases
without sufficient cause; his paroxysms of joy were followed by sighs
and tears.
But it is chiefly in his letters that the whole of his genius and of his
madness is revealed.
The letters of Cola da Rienzi were sought for and collected with
singular curiosity, as though (Petrarch several times writes to him)
“they had fallen from the Antipodes, or the sphere of the moon.” Four
collections of his letters are extant--at Mantua, at Turin (twenty-two
closely written pages), at Paris, and at Florence (the last-named being
autographs). They have been published and republished by Gaye, De Sade,
Hobhouse, Hoxemio, Pelzel, and Papencordt,[411] and would by themselves
be sufficient material on which to base a diagnosis.
In fact, there is not one of them which does not bear the impress,
either of a morbid vanity, or of those trivial repetitions and plays
upon words especially characteristic of the insane.
The first point to note is their great abundance, in an age when very
little was written.
When his residence in the Capitol was sacked, after his first flight,
what most surprised those who entered his private office was the mass of
letters which had been drafted and never sent. It was well known that
the numerous staff of clerks employed by him could not keep pace with
the amount of matter he dictated, and that he was continually sending
couriers not only to friendly republics, but to indifferent or hostile
potentates, like the King of France, who sent a jesting reply by an
archer--a functionary somewhat analogous to a modern policeman. Thus,
too, the lords of Ferrara, Mantua, and Padua returned him his letters.
Add to this their style, their exaggerated length, the addition of
postscripts longer than the letter itself, and the singular signature,
richer in laudatory titles than was ever used except by Oriental
princes.
These letters have, indeed, a flavour of their own, a vivacity breaking
loose from the restraints of the classical writers who served as his
models, an exuberant self-confidence which, at first sight, obliged the
reader to put faith in the falsehoods with which they swarmed. Nay, it
seems that--as happens with some lunatics, and some incorrigible
liars--he ended by himself believing in his own fictions.
Leaving aside many strange blunders, surprising in a Latin scholar,[412]
and the prolixity already mentioned, without dwelling on the very
undiplomatic want of delicacy, present to a morbid extent, and all the
more surprising in a statesman of that age, when reserve was more
general than at present, one fact particularly strikes me--an inveterate
habit of punning, a symptom of extreme frivolity, which was certainly
not a characteristic of mediæval diplomacy.
What man in his senses would, even in the depths of the Dark Ages, have
written as he did to Pope Clement, in the letter dated August 5, 1347?--
“The grace of the Holy Spirit having freed the Republic under my
rule, and my humble person having been, at the beginning of
_August_, promoted to the militia, there is attributed to me, as in
the signature, the name and title of _August_.
“Given as above on the 5th of August,
“HUMBLE CREATURE,
“Candidate of the Holy Spirit, Nicolò the Severe and Clement,
Liberator of the City, Zealous for Italy, Lover of the World, who
kisses the feet of the blessed.”
Note that, after all this signature, the letter goes on for three pages
more, on much more serious topics, which he had postponed to the pun on
“August.”
In this respect, a clear proof of his insanity is to be found in the
letter which he wrote in the elation of his victory over the barons. Not
to dwell on the strange familiarity with the Deity which he shows, when
he writes “that God formed to war those fingers which had been trained
to the use of the pen” (whereas, as a matter of fact, he had no
knowledge whatever of the art of war), it is well to note that, among
his gravest charges against the Colonna was that of their having sacked
a church where _he had deposited his golden crown_. Still more strange
is the following claim to prophecy, addressed to the clergy--who, as
dealing in such matters, are likely to be most sceptical concerning
them:
“We should not forget to tell you that, two days before these
occurrences, we had a vision of Pope Boniface, who foretold our triumph
over those tyrants. We made a report thereof in full season, and in the
presence of the assembled Romans, and going into St. Peter’s, to the
altar of St. Boniface, we presented to him a chalice and a veil.
“The vision, at last, thanks to Heaven, was fulfilled, thanks to the
help of the Blessed Martin, His tribune.” (Here he forgets that, two
pages previously, in the same letter, he had attributed his victories to
St. Laurence and St. Stephen.) “As those traitors,” he continues, “had
plundered the pilgrims on the day of his festival, that Saint took
vengeance on them, by the hand of a _tribune_, _three_ days afterwards,
that is to say, on the day of _St. Columba_, who glorified the dove
(_colomba_) of our flag.” Note the puns in the above.
He concludes with some of those postscripts which are so frequent in the
letters of monomaniacs, and are found in nearly all of his:
“Given at the Capitol, on the very day of the victory--the 3rd of
November, on which day there perished six tyrants of the house of
Colonna, and none remained but the unhappy old man Stefano Colonna, who
is half dead. He is the seventh, and this is how Heaven was willing to
make the number of the slain Colonna equal the crowns (_sic_) of our
coronation,[413] and to the branches of the fruit-bearing tree which
recall the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit.”
Absolute insanity is here shown, both in the idea and the word, in which
he makes the Deity intervene to extinguish a family of heroes for the
sake of a sinister freak of language, in honour of the man who, a few
pages previously--with a hypocrisy soon belied by facts--had written,
“Consistently with our character, we were not willing to employ the
severity of the sword--however just--against those whom we might bring
back to grace without injury to freedom, justice, and peace.”
Both comic and insane is the way in which, in another letter to Rinaldo
Orsini (Sept. 22, 1347), he tries to disguise, by a number of useless
fictions, the enormous error of which he had been guilty in setting at
liberty the nobles arrested shortly before. “We wish that Your Paternity
should know how, having judged certain nobles, lawfully suspected by the
people and by us, it pleased God that they should fall into our hands”
(We see, on the contrary, that he had expressly invited them). “We
caused them to be shut up in the dungeons of the Capitol; but, finally
(our scruples and suspicions having been removed), we made use of an
innocent artifice (_sic_) to reconcile them not only with ourselves, but
with God, wherefore we procured them the happy opportunity of making a
devout confession. It was on the 15th of September that we sent
confessors to each one of them, in prison, and as the latter were
ignorant of our good intentions, and believed that we were going to be
severe, they said to the nobles, ‘The Lord Tribune will condemn you to
death.’ Meanwhile the great bell of the Capitol tolled without ceasing
for the assembly, and thus the terrified nobles gave themselves up for
lost; and, in the expectation of death, confessed devoutly and with
tears.... I then made a speech in praise of them,” &c.
Let the reader judge of the condition of the moral sense in a man who
could write thus. It should be noted, besides, that, diplomatically, an
excuse of this sort (especially in dealing with priests, who, being in
the trade, so to speak, would know its exact value), would not only be
useless, but even constitute a serious accusation. Nor is his conclusion
less strange, “Withal their hearts are so united to ours and to those of
the people, that this union must last for the good of our country;
because thus they see that we are impartial, and do not wish to be as
severe as we might be.”
But his useless hypocrisies did not end there; the confusion of the
patricians probably suggested the order, already mentioned, that all
citizens were to confess and receive the communion at least once a year,
under pain of losing a third of their goods--half the forfeited property
to go to the parish church of the defendant, the other to the city. And
the notaries were obliged to act as spies for every testator. Now,
Rienzi, in a postscript to the above letter (and I repeat that I have
frequently observed in monomaniacs this fad of postscripts occurring at
the end of letters), gives notice of his new edict, adding, “It seemed
to us fitting that, as a second Augustus provides for the temporal
profit of the Republic, he should also seek to favour and promote its
spiritual welfare.” This, if one thinks about it, was a usurpation of
the special rights and duties of the pontiff, even according to the most
modern view of them, as also when he prescribed to the clergy special
ceremonies and ecclesiastical processions of his own invention, and
enacted decrees against the members of religious orders who should fail
to return to Rome. This, in fact, was one of the principal
accusations--and a just one--levelled against him at Prague and at
Avignon, and one which he only rebutted by false statements.
Elsewhere he speaks of being inspired by the Holy Spirit, with a
confidence which would be altogether unintelligible except in a man who
was perfectly sincere, and therefore under the influence of
hallucination.
A glance at other letters explains at once that the bath in the vase of
Constantine was for him what the tattooed marks on his forehead were to
Lazzaretti--one of those symbolic freaks to which the insane attach a
peculiar significance; in fact, a kind of imperial investiture.
A long letter to Charles IV., written from prison in July, 1350,
dwelling on a supposed intrigue of his mother with the Emperor Henry
VII., bears, in subject-matter and style, the unmistakable impress of
insanity.[414]
A little later (Aug. 15, 1350), we find him writing to the emperor
another letter full of senseless puns, in which he tells him, with
doubly absurd freaks of thought and language, how, in the idea that the
mother of Severinus Boethius was descended from the kings of Bohemia (!)
he had called Boethius the younger and himself, the _Severe_; and how he
had adopted from them the device of the seven stars--matters which could
neither interest the emperor nor be of advantage to himself, but have
all the characteristics of insanity.
So also, when he wrote that he was persuaded by the prophecies of the
Majella hermits already mentioned, that his second exaltation should be
much more glorious than the first, as the sun long hidden by the clouds
appears more beautiful to the eye of the beholder: Perhaps the Lord,
justly indignant at the wicked and unheard-of murder of Rienzi’s
illustrious grandfather, Henry VII., and the losses in souls and bodies
suffered by the world during the Interregnum, had raised up Cola for the
advantage of Charles, chosen him to re-establish the empire, and
ordained that he should be _baptized in the Lateran_, in the Church of
the Baptist, and in the _bath of Constantine_, that he might be the
forerunner of the emperor, as John the Baptist was of Christ. Charles,
it is true, had said that the empire could only be restored by a
miracle; but was not this a miracle, that one poor man should be able to
succour the falling empire, as St. Francis had succoured the Church? Let
him awake, and gird on his sword--let him not count for anything the
revelation of the friars, since the whole Old and New Testaments were
full of revelations: he alone could become master of Rome. If he did not
do so at once, Charles would lose at least one hundred thousand gold
florins from the tax on salt and the other revenues of the city which
had been increased by the approach of the Jubilee.... Within a year and
a half, the pope should die, and many cardinals be slain.... In fifteen
years there should be but one shepherd and one faith, and the new pope,
the Emperor Charles, and Cola should be, as it were, a symbol of the
Trinity on earth. Charles should reign in the west, the Tribune in the
east. For the present, he was content with supporting the emperor in his
journey to Rome--he was willing to open the way for him with the Romans
and the other peoples of Italy, who would otherwise be averse to the
empire; so that Charles might come among them peaceably and without
bloodshed, and his arrival should not be the signal for mourning to the
city and the whole nation, as had that of former emperors.
So far did he go, that the Archbishop of Prague wrote to him, “that he
wondered how the Tribune, who had done things which at first appeared to
come from God, could be so far from exercising the virtue of humility as
to consider his own elevation the work of the Holy Spirit, and to call
himself the candidate of the latter”--words which may well be noted by
those who see in his madness only the effect of the superstitions of the
period.
The emperor replied, with much common sense, advising him to “cease from
ignorant hermits, who think themselves to be walking in the spirit of
humility, without being able even to resist their sins and save their
own souls, and who speak fantastically of knowing hidden things and
governing in the spirit all that is under heaven ...” and telling him
that, out of love to God and his neighbours, he has “caused thee to be
imprisoned as a sower of tares, and, withal, out of love for thine own
soul, to cure it.”
Later on, he counsels him to “lay aside all these vagaries, and,
whatever his origin may have been, to remember that we are all God’s
creatures, sons of Adam, made out of the earth,” &c. A curious lesson in
democracy, given by a king of Bohemia to the ex-tribune of an Italian
republic!
But all was useless, and when, after many vicissitudes, he once more
acquired a shadow of his former power--by the aid of money obtained by
sheer trickery--he announced the fact at Florence, in a pompous
proclamation, adding that “women, men, boys, priests, and lay-folk had
gone to meet him with palms and olive-branches, and trumpets, and cries
of welcome.”
These speeches seemed so very extravagant that their genuineness has
been doubted by Zeffirino Re, on the ground of the extreme improbability
of Petrarch’s having defended him, or the emperor regarded him with
favour for a single moment, had he really entertained ideas so eccentric
and heretical.
But that, however improbable, such is the fact is already evident _à
priori_ to any one who--even without examining these strange letters and
still stranger circulars--has observed the progressive development of
insanity in Cola’s career, and knows that it was just through his
unheard-of audacity that he triumphed, and that the Bohemians were not
so much scandalized as struck dumb by his eloquence,[415] and afterwards
astonished and deeply moved by his recantations.
Moreover, these writings were refuted by the Bohemian bishops, in a
document which is still extant, and afterwards retracted by himself.
With a delicacy of which historians have not taken sufficient account,
they were not consigned in their entirety to the Papal Court along with
the person of the Tribune, whose condemnation, indeed, could bring
neither pleasure nor profit to the host who had been already forced by
political considerations to betray the confidence reposed in him.
He remained, meanwhile, an isolated phenomenon, an enigma to historians,
since it was not so much history as the science of mental pathology
which could succeed in completely explaining him. That science has
pointed out to us in Rienzi all the characteristics of the monomaniac:
regular features and handwriting, exaggerated tendency to symbolism and
plays upon words--an activity disproportioned to his social position,
and original even to absurdity, which entirely exhausted itself in
writing--an exaggerated consciousness of his own personality, which at
first aided him with the populace, and supplied the want of tact and
practical ability, but afterwards led him into absurdities--a defective
moral sense--a calm marking the approach of dementia, which was only
disturbed by the abuse of alcohol, or by a spirited opposition.[416]
_Campanella._--If Cola da Rienzi was a strange problem for historians
until resolved by the modern psychiatric studies on monomania, not less
strange has been the problem presented by Campanella, who, from being a
humble and disdained monk in a forgotten district of Calabria, claimed
to be a monarch and, as it were, a demi-god against the power of Spain
and of the Pope, and then suddenly became and died a zealot for both,
contradicting himself, even against his own advantage, certainly against
that of his fame.
At last, it seems to me, the problem is approaching solution, after the
classical works of Baldacchino, of Spaventa, of Fiorentino, but, above
all, of Amabile, especially since Carlo Falletti[417] has passed those
powerful works through the alembic of his synthetic criticism and
removed from this strange medal the stains deposited by legends and
historical prejudices.
“Campanella,” remarks Falletti, “with his badly formed skull, surmounted
by seven inequalities--hills, as he himself called them--possessed most
sensitive nerves, an acute intellect, and easily exalted emotions.” The
mystical education of the order to which he belonged completed the work
of nature; having entered a Dominican monastery at the age of fourteen,
he always lived outside the real world. He spent eight years in the
schools of Calabria amid disputes with his masters and fellow-pupils,
and then departed, almost fled, from Cosenza and went to Naples. But no
good fortune met him there. Soon after his arrival he chanced to speak
slightingly of excommunication. He was at once denounced, imprisoned,
taken to Rome, tried, and condemned. On leaving prison he decided to go
to Padua; on the way he was robbed of his manuscripts; three days after
reaching Padua he was accused of using violence against the General of
the Dominicans; hence a fresh imprisonment and fresh trial. Discharged
and set at liberty, he took part in public discussions, but the
doctrines he openly professed led to another trial and imprisonment. He
was only twenty-six, and had already spent three years in prison.
At the age of twenty, in the monastery at Cosenza, Campanella had
associated with a certain Abramo, from whom he received lessons in
necromancy, and who predicted that he would one day be a king. This was
the starting-point of his wild and ambitious imaginations. It should be
added that when studying astrology, especially in 1597, he talked with
many astrologers, mathematicians, and prelates who all held that the end
of the world was approaching. Excited by their arguments, he gave
himself to the study of prophecy, seeking it in the Bible, the Fathers,
and the poets of antiquity; and in the symbol of the white horses and
the white-robed elders of the New Zion he saw the brothers of Saint
Dominic. Convinced that the prediction of the Holy Republic referred to
the Dominicans, he retired to Stilo. All the political and social
disorders of his time were for Campanella manifest signs; and to these
were added earthquakes, famines, floods, and comets. Evidently the
prophecies were being fulfilled. No doubt 1600 was the fatal year which
would indicate the beginning of great changes and revolutions.
Campanella spread the prophecies, and prepared the ground for the Holy
Republic. There can be no question that these predictions and
preparations led to a real rebellion, because they fitted in with the
miserable condition of Calabria. Such prophecies pleased many who
cherished desires of revenge. In the ears of these exasperated people
Campanella’s words sounded like a call to rebellion. Maurizio di
Rinaldi, the leader of a band, so understood it, as did other bandits.
Rinaldi cared little for religious reforms, and knew nothing of what the
seven seals of the Apocalypse signified. He understood, however, that
his arm was needed, and persuaded that it was not possible to fight
against Spain with writings and words and the weapons of brigands, he
sought the aid of the Turks. He was the real rebel, the real martyr in
the liberation of Calabria from subjection to Spain. Of all the chief
persons concerned in this disturbance he alone confessed himself a
rebel; the others either denied the existence of a rebellion or
professed their innocence. Seeing the old world doubled by the discovery
of new lands, and Europe turned upside down by wars, Campanella thought
of a universal monarchy with the Pope and himself for king and pastor.
Turn to his Utopia of the City of the Sun, in which all are educated in
common. All the Solarians call each other brother; they are all sons of
the great Father adored on the summit of the mountain on which the city
is built. There is not, and cannot be, among them any selfishness. All
consider the common good, and, under the guidance of the priest and
head, live happily together; since all are instructed, and knowledge is
the foundation of every honour, there is a noble strife of
intelligence. The Solarian citizens have made wonderful progress in the
arts and sciences. They have ships that plough the seas without sails
and without oars; and cars that are propelled by the force of the wind;
they have discovered how to fly, and they are inventing instruments
which will reveal new stars. They know that the world is a great animal
in whose body we live, that the sea is produced by the sweat of the
earth, and that all the stars move. They practise perpetual adoration,
offer up bloodless sacrifices, and reverence, but do not worship, the
sun and the stars.
All this simplicity, happiness, and prosperity are due in the first
place to education and to communism, and in the second place to the
magistrates who are all priests. The spiritual and temporal head is
Hoch, who is assisted by Pom, Sim, and Mor. Pom has charge of all that
refers to war; Sim presides over the arts, industries, and instruction;
Mor directs human generation and the education of children; he regulates
the sexual relationships in order to produce healthy and robust
offspring, only permitting the strong to procreate; the rest are allowed
to sacrifice to the terrestrial Venus after fecundation has been
ascertained.
The City of the Sun is not in favour of war, but does not refuse to
fight; in battle her citizens are invincible, because they fight in
defence of their country, natural law, justice, and religion.
The felicity of the City of the Sun rested, therefore, on a community of
goods, of women, of pleasures, and of knowledge; on wholesome
generation, on sacerdotal government, and on simplicity in religion.
Campanella aimed at founding in Calabria a _fac-simile_ of the City of
the Sun. The whole of his trial for heresy showed that he wished to
reform religion and to render it more in harmony with human nature; by
his own confession it is proved that he wished to establish a sacerdotal
government. Nauder affirms, in fact, that he aimed at becoming King of
Calabria in order to extend his authority thence over the whole world.
Campanella’s mind was in such a condition that it may be held, with
Amabile, that he saw the possibility of founding a republic similar to
that described in the City of the Sun. Naturally the head of this
little Holy Republic, the Hoch of the City of the Sun, would be a
philosopher, and, therefore, himself. All nations, observing the
felicity enjoyed by the citizens of the New Sion, would accept the new
law, and thus Campanella would become the monarch and guide of the
world.
Only a lunatic would consider it possible to undertake the
reorganization of society at a stroke, _ab imis fundamentis_, changing
the form of government, and overturning the most ancient customs,
institutions, laws, and traditions. But the madness diminishes if this
reorganization is the consequence of a profound and general upheaval,
like that proclaimed by the prophets for the end of the world. In his
writings, certainly, we find puerilities which go to prove his insanity;
if he had been an ordinary man they would not be remarkable; they would
harmonize with the common prejudices of the day; but he had broken with
theology, and had undertaken to examine its _ratio_; he had caught a
glimpse of the modern state, and he proposed reforms which for his time
were most liberal and remarkable. Thus he writes: “Law is the consent of
all, written and promulgated for the common good” (_A. pol._, 32). “The
laws should establish equality” (_Ibid._ 40). “The laws should be such
that the people can obey them with love and fear” (_Mon. di Spagna_, c.
xi.). “Heavy taxes should be levied on articles that are not necessary
and are of luxury, and light ones on necessaries” (B. ii. doc. 197, p.
91). “There should be unity of government” (_Mon. di Spagna_, c. xii.).
“The barons should be deprived of the _jus carcerandi_” (_Ibid._ c.
xiv.). “They should be deprived of fortresses” (_Ibid._); a national
army should be established; education should be free (_Ibid._); medical
aid should be gratuitous (B. ii. doc. 97, p. 82). In fact, Campanella
proposed what Sully, Richelieu, Colbert, and Louis XIV. did for the
French nation.
Now when a man who reasons so profoundly fails to see the absurdity and
impossibility of becoming, with a few followers in a remote
country-side, the monarch and reformer of the whole world, he can only
be insane. And so he was judged by the more sagacious among his
contemporaries. Thus Father Giacinto, the confidant of Richelieu, wrote:
“No one believes so easily any story that is told him, and examines
things that he believes to be _de facto_ with less judgment.” And again:
“I shall always hold him for a man wilder than a fly, and less sensible
in worldly affairs than a child.” Peirescio called him “_bon homme_.”
Following human intellect, Campanella reached Pantheism, the soul of
things, the transformation of animate and inanimate beings, veneration
of the sun, that “beneficent star, living temple, statue and venerable
face of the true God.” Stricken by adversity, not assisted by his god,
he returned to Catholicism, to the angels and miracles, to the future
life which promises enjoyments which cannot be had on earth, and the
restoration of the beloved lost.
Like all madmen, incapable of moderation he became furiously intolerant;
hence his ferocious suggestions for oppressing the Protestants, and the
title which he took of emissary of Christ or of the Most High. He
imagined that his works would serve to confute the Protestants, wrote
and disputed against Lutherans and Calvinists, wished to found colleges
of priests for the diffusion of Catholicism, gave advice to those who
would none of it for overthrowing heresy and propagating the true faith.
In short, he ended as he had begun, in a delirious dream of religious
ambition, which only varied in subject, going from one pole to the
opposite.
But, I repeat, this phenomenon of contradiction, and of the passage from
opposite excesses of feeling, is one of the most marked characters of
monomania, and especially of religious monomania. I remember nuns of
whom I had charge at the asylum at Pesaro, who on first becoming insane
were violent and blasphemous, and later on in the course of their
madness, apostles of Christianity; and thus it is easy to see that the
miserly may, under the influence of insanity, develop extraordinary
prodigality. We have seen Lazzaretti, a drunkard and a blasphemer,
become austere and pious under the influence of insanity; and then from
being a fanatical Papist becoming and dying an Anti-Papist, when he
found himself repulsed by the Vatican. Recently De Nino, in his book
_Il Messia degli Abruzzi_, has described a certain priest, become a
Messiah, who, while insane, attempted reforms, at all events in rites,
and who, during the last months of his life, like Campanella, starved
himself in penitence for his revolutionary sins, and in spite of fasts
and penances believed that he was damned.
_San Juan de Dios._--Juan Ciudad was born on March 8, 1495, in the town
of Montemor-o-Novo, in Portugal.[418] He seems to have been tormented by
the spirit of adventure from his childhood, as he left his father’s
house at the age of eight. A priest took him as far as Oropesa, where he
entered the service of a Frenchman in the capacity of shepherd. After
some years he became tired of this work, and, being tall and strong,
enlisted as a soldier.
The life he led in the army cannot be described; the officers set the
example, and plundered as greedily as the privates. One of the former
entrusted his share of the booty to Juan, who either lost or stole it.
He was condemned to death, and was just going to be hanged, when a
superior officer, passing by, granted him his life, but dismissed him
from the army. He then returned to Oropesa, and resumed his former
position. Towards 1528, he enlisted a second time, and marched under the
orders of the Count of Oropesa. When the war was over, he returned to
Montemor-o-Novo, to see his parents; but he lost his memory, and forgot
his father’s name. He then left the place, and went to Ayamonte in
Andalusia, where he became a shepherd. It was there that he believed
himself to have been called, and, later on, to have had a dream in which
he dedicated himself to God and to the poor.
Those were the days when the Barbary pirates flourished, making descents
on ill-defended countries, and kidnapping their inhabitants, whom they
sold at Fez, Algiers, and Tunis. Two religious orders had made it their
special task to collect alms for the ransom of the Catholics who were
being sold in the slave-market.
It seems that Juan Ciudad had the intention of consecrating himself to
this sacred duty. He embarked for Ceuta, where he entered the service of
an exiled and ruined Portuguese family, whom, it is said, he supported
by his labour as an artizan. After a time, he grew weary of this life;
he left his master and sailed for Gibraltar, where he established a
small trade in relics and other sacred objects.
The sale of these having brought him some money, he left Gibraltar and
settled at Granada, where he opened a shop. He was then aged 43, and was
just about to undergo that mental convulsion which determined his
vocation.
On the 20th of January, 1539, after hearing a sermon by Juan d’Avila, he
was seized with a fit of frantic devotion. He confessed his sins in a
loud voice, rolled in the dust, pulled out the hair of his head, tore
his clothes, and rushed through the streets of Granada, imploring the
mercy of God, and followed by boys shouting after him as a madman. He
entered his library, destroyed all the secular books in his possession,
gave away the sacred ones, distributed his furniture and clothes to any
one who was willing to have them, and remained in his shirt, beating his
breast and calling on every one to pray for him. The crowd followed him
noisily as far as the cathedral, where, half-naked, he again began his
vociferations and bursts of despair. The preacher, Juan d’Avila, having
been informed of the conversion occasioned by his words, listened to the
poor man’s confession, consoled him, and gave him advice, which does not
appear to have had much effect, since, on leaving him, Ciudad rolled
himself on a dung-heap, proclaiming his sins in a loud voice. The crowd
amused themselves by hissing him, throwing stones and mud, and otherwise
maltreating him. Some, however, took pity on him, and conducted him to
the place set apart for the insane in the Royal Hospital. He was
subjected to the treatment then in vogue, that is, he was bound and
scourged, in order to deliver him from the evil spirit supposed to
possess him.
This attack of mania appears to have been one of great violence. In
general, with regard to mental maladies, the more excessive the
alienation, the more easily it ceases. It is said that, in the midst of
the blows inflicted on him, he took avow “to receive poor madmen, and
treat them as is fitting.”
When the nervous exacerbation was calmed, he employed himself in
attending on the sick, and, later on, obtained his liberty, and a
certificate attesting his sanity. Having made a vow to go on pilgrimage
to the shrine of the Virgin of Guadalupe, he started barefoot, without a
farthing, in the middle of winter. On his way through the forests and
across the moors, he picked up dry sticks and made them into a faggot,
which, when he reached an inhabited place, he gave in exchange for a
little food and a night’s lodging.
It is said that, when he reached Guadalupe, he had a vision which
exercised a decisive influence on him. The Virgin appeared to him, and
gave him the Child Jesus, naked, with clothes to cover him. This was to
show him that he ought to have pity on the weak, shelter the destitute,
and clothe the poor--at least such was his interpretation. His mission
dates from that day, and he executed it with so much the more zeal, as
he believed it to have been laid upon him by the Virgin whom he adored.
Dressed in a white garment, which an Hieronymite monk had given him,
with a wallet on his back, and a pilgrim’s staff in his hand, he
returned to Oropesa, and went to lodge in the poor-house.
The misery of the inmates so touched him, that he went outside the city,
begged alms for them, and gave them all that he received. Later on, he
took to selling faggots in the public square, gave to the poor and sick
all that he gained, and slept in stables, through the charity of their
owners.
One day, having seen a notice posted up in the square, “House to let for
the poor,” he conceived the idea of making it into an asylum. Having
begged money from the rich, with which he bought mats, blankets, and
utensils, he received and sheltered forty-six sick and crippled paupers.
In order to maintain them, he went about the streets at the dinner hour,
to collect from the rich the remnants of their meals, crying, “Do good,
my brethren; it will return in blessing to yourselves.”
Juan de Dios’ example provoked emulation; several men offered themselves
to help him. He instructed them in their new duties, and thus became the
head of a group, which, by multiplying, has become the great
congregation now in existence.
The resources now put at his disposal permitted him to treat the sick,
“as is fitting.”
It is worthy of attention that Juan de Dios was a reformer in the manner
of treating the sick, only placing one patient in each bed. He was the
first to divide the sick into classes--he was, in short, the creator of
the modern hospital, and the founder of casual wards; for he opened, in
connection with his hospital, a house where the homeless poor and
travellers without money could sleep.
It was at this period that he took the name of Juan de Dios. The good
done by him did not remain unknown, and the name of Juan de Dios, father
of the poor, was spread abroad through Spain. Profiting by this, he made
a journey as far as Granada, and returned with abundant contributions.
He was exhausted by hard work and exposure rather than by years. He
treated himself with exaggerated austerity--always travelling on foot
without shoes, hat, or linen--only covered with a single grey garment;
he fasted with extreme frequency, and imposed on himself the most trying
exertions. He would rush through a burning house to save the sick, he
often threw himself into the water to save children; he may be said to
have died of the hardships he endured.
During his last days, he sent for Antonio Martin, his earliest disciple,
and recommended the work to his care. Feeling the approach of death, he
left his bed to pray, and died on his knees.
He was born on March 8, 1495, and died on Saturday, March 8, 1550.
He had a splendid funeral; sick men touched the bier in the hope of
being healed; the sheet which covered the corpse was torn to pieces, and
each rag became a relic. He was canonised on September 21, 1630, by
Urban VIII., and is now known as San Juan de Dios.[419]
_Prosper Enfantin._--Prosper Enfantin, though an engineer, a railway
director, and otherwise connected with such rational and prosaic
subjects as mathematics, nevertheless, in 1850, believed himself to be,
and in fact was, the head of a new religion, a variation of that of
Saint Simon. He had a handsome face and large forehead of an Olympian
cast; he was very kind-hearted, but profoundly convinced of his own
infallibility on all subjects--on industrial and philosophical
questions--on painting as well as on cooking. He had what, in the
peculiar language of monomaniacs, he called _circumferential_ ideas, in
which every new fact found, in its pre-established place, the proper
solution. The new religion was to equalize men and women, and to make
the language of finance and industry poetical. He himself represented
the Father, and was always hoping to find the Mother, the free woman,
the Eve,--a woman, reasoning like man, who, knowing the needs and
capabilities of women, would make the confession of her sex without
restriction, so as to furnish the elements for a declaration of the
rights and duties of women. But the right woman was never found, for
Madame de Staël and George Sand, to whom he and his friends first
turned, laughed at them; they sought her in the East, at Constantinople,
and found, instead, a prison! But for all that, he never lost his
illusion. He used to say that only great men could found a new religion.
His goodness was exquisite; he constantly sacrificed himself for his
followers--his sons, as he called them. These wore at one time, like
certain monomaniacs, a symbolical uniform--white trousers to represent
_love_, red waist-coat for _work_, and blue coat for _faith_. This
signified that his religion was founded on love, strengthened the heart
with work, and was wholly encompassed by faith. Every one was to have
his name written on his shirt-front, and to wear, in addition, a collar
adorned with triangles, and a semi-circle which was to become a circle
as soon as the Mother, the Eve aforesaid, had been found.
These are the symbols usual with the monomaniac and the mattoid.
This is seen in their programmes, in which they announced--in type of
various sizes--that: “Man recalls the Past, Woman represents the
Future,--the two united see the present.” Yet, in spite of all this, he
foresaw--and even tried to undertake--the Suez Canal, and counted among
his followers such men as Chevalier, Lambert, and Jourdan.[420]
_Lazzaretti._--An example the more curious as well as authentic, as it
has manifested itself in recent years, under the eyes of all, and has
arrived at the dignity of an historic event, is the case of David
Lazzaretti.[421]
[Illustration: David Lazzaretti]
This man was born at Arcidosso, in 1834. His father, a carter, appears
to have been given to drink, but was of great strength. He had some
relatives who were suicidal, and others insane; one, in particular, died
a religious maniac, and believed himself to be the Eternal Father.
Lazzaretti’s six brothers were all strong men, of gigantic stature,
ranging from 1·90 to 1·95 m. in height (which, however, is not uncommon
in that part of the country), of quick wits and tenacious memory.
David was distinguished from the rest by his superior stature, by the
distinction and regularity of his features, by greater intelligence, by
the large size of his head, which was dolichocephalic in form, and by
his eyes, which some found fascinating, though to many (says the
advocate Pugno) they seemed to have the character of possession and of
insanity. It is asserted that he was hypospadic and perhaps impotent in
his youth--anomalies of no slight importance, if we remember that Morel
and, especially, Legrand du Saulle[422] have often discovered them in
hereditary madmen.
Even from his childhood, he showed those contradictions, those
tendencies to extremes in character, which are frequent precursors of
insanity. Thus, when a boy he wished to become a monk; later on, after
he had taken to his father’s trade, he began to lead an irregular life,
and gave himself up to alcoholic intemperance. In the meantime, however,
he cultivated his mind by a course of reading which was singular for a
man in his position, including Dante and Tasso; and at fifteen he was
called “Thousand Ideas” from the strange songs he invented,[423] though
he could never succeed in learning the rules of grammar. He was
quarrelsome, used the foulest language, and was dreaded by all, so much
so that, one day, on the occasion of a festival, unarmed and followed
only by his brothers, he put to flight the entire population of Castel
del Piano. Yet he was easily excited by a speech, a poem, a sermon, a
play--anything that appeared noble and great. He had an extreme
veneration for Christ and Mahomet, whom he used to call the two greatest
men that had ever appeared in the world.
According to his own confessions, he had, at the age of fourteen,
various hallucinations of the same kind as those which proved so fatal
to him in 1878. It is certain, besides, that, at one time in his youth,
he had a strong sympathy for a Jewess of Pittigliano, awakened by the
eloquence with which she defended her religion. Yet at that time he was
accustomed to say that there were three things he abhorred--women,
churches, and dancing.
In 1859, at twenty-five, he enlisted as a volunteer in the cavalry; and
in 1860, he took part in Cialdini’s campaign, but rather as an officer’s
servant than as a soldier. Before starting, he wrote a patriotic hymn,
which was sent to Brofferio, and surprised him by the novelty of its
thoughts and the beauty of some of the verses, contrasting strangely
with the roughness of the phraseology, and the numerous grammatical
errors.
After this, he again returned to his trade as a carter, and at the same
time to his habits of debauchery and foul language. He also rejoined his
wife, whom he had married three years previously, and for whom he felt a
poetic affection which he carried so far as to write love-songs to her.
Here, again, his ambitious ideas reappeared, and induced him anew,
though so uncultivated, to seek fame through his verses and tragedies,
which read like burlesques.
Gradually, his fantastic delusions took another direction. In 1867, at
thirty-three, he had--whether as an effect of drink, or of political
excitement--a return of the religious hallucinations of 1848, in a more
marked form than previously. One day he disappeared, in consequence of a
vision of the Madonna, who had commanded him to go to Rome, and remind
the Pope (who at first refused to receive him, but afterwards treated
him with courtesy, though, it is said, not without advising him to try
the remedy of a good shower-bath) of his divine mission. He then went to
the hermitage of Montorio Romano, in the Sabine mountains, inhabited by
a Prussian monk named Ignazio Micus. The latter kept him with him for
three months in the “Grotto of the Blessed Amadeus,” directing him in
his theological studies.
It is very probable--though on this point we can only conjecture, as all
direct evidence is wanting--that this monk assisted him to make the
tattoo-marks on his forehead, which he claimed to have received from the
hand of St. Peter, and which he hid under a lock of hair from the gaze
of the profane, showing them only to true believers.
This tattooing, according to the testimony of medical men, consists of
an irregular parallelogram, on the upper side of which are thirteen
dots, disposed in the form of a cross. To this mark, and to two others
which he afterwards produced on himself, on the deltoid muscle and the
inside of the leg, he attributed--through a tendency common among the
insane--a strange and mysterious significance, as seals of a special
covenant with God.
[Illustration:
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|______________|]
From that moment a complete change took place in him, such as is often
observed in the insane.[424] From being quarrelsome, blasphemous, and
intemperate, he became tractable, gentle, and abstemious to the point of
living on bread and water in Sabina, and, in the _tempora_ on the
mountains, on herbs with salt and vinegar. At other times he had no
other food but polenta, or _soupe-maigre_, or bread with onions or
garlic. On the island of Monte Cristo, in 1870, he lived for over a
month on six loaves, garnished with a few herbs;[425] and in the French
monastery, he got through several days on two potatoes a day. What must
have appeared still more strange, and surprised even cultured minds, was
the fact that the chaotic and burlesque writer became sometimes elegant,
always effective--full of vigorous images supplied by a piety comparable
alone to that of the early Christians.
This, in fact, struck the clergy of the district, who, rightly seeing
in him a repetition of the ancient prophets, took him seriously, all the
more that, according to their usual custom, they perceived the means of
making a profit out of him and getting a church rebuilt.
The people, already justly astonished at his changed ways of life, no
less than by his tattooings, his inspired speech, his long neglected
beard and grave bearing, rushed in masses to hear him, encouraged by the
priests.
A procession was then organized, in which Lazzaretti, accompanied by
priests and by some of the most influential among the laity, marched to
Arcidosso, Roccalbegna, Castel del Piano, Pian Castagnaio, Cinigiano,
and Santafiora. In all these places he was received with rejoicings by
the people on their knees; and the parish priests kissed his face and
his hands and even his feet. The construction of the church was begun,
and contributions to the building fund flowed in abundantly. But though
numerous, the amounts were small, the mountaineers being unable to give
much. The notion was then suggested of employing the labour of their
arms.
The site of the church had been selected not far from Arcidosso--about a
hundred paces from the village, at the spot called _La Croce dei
Canzacchi_, where, by a strange fatality, he was to receive his
death-shot.
The faithful assembled by thousands to begin the building. Men, women
and children were employed in carrying fascines, beams of wood, and
stones. But, unfortunately, architecture, like grammar, has rules; and
in carrying them out prophetic inspiration is of little use without
training. Thus, as Lazzaretti’s verses remained lame, so the materials
collected with so much labour remained a useless heap, like the tower
which was to reach to heaven, and never became more than a pile of
stones.
In January, 1870, he founded the “Society of the Holy League,” a mutual
assistance society which he called the symbol of charity. In March of
the same year, after having assembled his followers at a Last Supper, he
set out, accompanied by Raffaello and Giuseppe Vichi, for the island of
Monte Cristo, where he remained for some months, writing epistles,
prophecies, and sermons. He then returned to Montelabro, where he wrote
down the visions or prophetic inspirations which he had, and where he
was arrested for sedition (April 27th). After his liberation,[426] he
founded a society to which he gave the name of “Christian Families.”
This was considered, very erroneously, as a proof of continued fraud;
and he was arrested, but discharged, through the efforts of the advocate
Salvi, after seven months’ imprisonment.
In 1873, Lazzaretti, in obedience to other divine commands, started on a
journey, passing through Rome, Naples, and Turin, whence he proceeded to
the Chartreuse at Grenoble. Here he wrote the Rules and Discipline of
the Order of Penitent Hermits, invented a system of cipher, with a
numerical alphabet, and dictated the “Book of the Heavenly Flowers,” in
which it is written that “The great man shall descend from the
mountains, followed by a little band of mountain burghers.” To which are
added the visions, dreams, and divine commands which he believed himself
to have received in that place.
On his return to Montelabro he found an immense crowd, attracted both by
devotion and curiosity, encamped on the summit of the mountain, to whom
he addressed a sermon on the text, “God sees us, judges us, condemns
us.” For this he was denounced to the authorities as tending to
overthrow the government and promote civil war.
In the night of Nov. 19, 1874, he was arrested a second time, and
brought before the court at Rieti. This time the authorities were
desirous of obtaining the opinion of non-specialist experts, who, with
inexplicable want of perception, pronounced him to be of sound mind and
a cunning knave.[427] Thus, in spite of his strange publications and his
tattoo marks, he was condemned to fifteen months’ imprisonment, and one
year of police supervision, for fraud and vagabondage.
The sentence, however, was referred to the Court of Appeal at Perugia;
and on the 2nd of August, 1875, he was allowed to return to Montelabro,
where he reconstituted his society, and placed the priest Imperiuzzi at
the head of it. His health had suffered in prison, and for this
reason--perhaps, also, to avoid new arrests, and to enjoy the glory of
easy martyrdom among the Legitimist fanatics--he went to France in
October. Being mysteriously carried, as he expresses it, by the Divine
power, into the environs of a town in Burgundy, he produced a book,
which with good reason he calls “mysterious,” entitled “My Wrestling
with God,” or “The Book of the Seven Seals, with the description and
nature of the Seven Eternal Cities”--a mixture of Genesis and
Revelation, with sentences and rhapsodies entirely of an insane
character. He also wrote a manifesto addressed to all the princes of
Christendom, in which he calls himself the great Monarch, and invites
them to make alliance with him, for, “at an unexpected time the end of
the world shall be manifested to the Latin nation in a way quite opposed
to human pride.” In the same document he declares himself Leader,
Master, Judge, and Prince over all the potentates of earth. These
writings were copied for him by the priest Imperiuzzi, who corrected the
most conspicuous mistakes; and many of them attained not only the
undeserved honour of appearing in print, but also that of being
translated into French, by the aid of M. Léon du Vachat, and various
Italian and foreign reactionaries, who had taken Lazzaretti seriously.
However, a short time after, he was so far carried away by delirium as
to begin inveighing against the corruptions of the priesthood and the
practice of auricular confession, for which he wished to substitute a
public one. Thereupon the Holy See declared his doctrines false and his
writings subversive, and the same man who had formerly written a
work[428] in favour of the Pope, now wrote, and despatched on May 14,
1878, an exhortation addressed to his brethren of the Order of Hermits,
against Papal idolatry, and the beast of the seven heads. After all
this, with the usual contradictoriness of the insane, he went to Rome
to lay aside his symbolic seal and his rod, and retracted before the
Holy Office; yet, afterwards, returning to Montelabro, he continued to
deliver addresses against the Catholic Church, which, he said, had
become a shopkeeping church, and against the _priests, true atheists in
practice, who, not believing themselves, profit by the belief of
others_. Preaching the Holy Reformation, and declaring himself the Man
of Mystery, the New Christ, Leader and Avenger, he exhorted believers to
separate themselves from the world, and prove their separation by
abstaining from food and from sexual intercourse, even in the case of
married persons, who, however, if they indulged, were required to pray
for at least two hours, naked, outside their bed, before the act. He
issued paper money for considerable sums, in proportion to the means at
the disposal of the community, _i.e._, up to 104,000 francs; but it
should be noted that this was absolutely useless, being kept shut up in
a closed vase. This idea savours unmistakably of insanity.
After announcing a great miracle, he caused to be prepared, with a part
of the money collected, banners and garments for the members,
embroidered with the animals which had appeared to him in his
hallucinations--all of strange and grotesque shapes. He had a richer one
made for himself, and, for the rank and file, a square piece of stuff to
wear on the breast, which showed a cross, with two C’s reversed, ↄ † C,
the usual emblem of the association.
In August, 1878, he assembled a larger number than ever, and, having
prescribed prayers and fasts for three days and three nights, delivered
addresses, some of which were public, others private and reserved for
believers (who were divided into the various classes of Priest-Hermits,
Penitentiary Hermits, Penitent Hermits, and simple associations of the
Holy League and Christian Brotherhood) and caused the so-called
Confession of Amendment to be made on the 14th, 15th, and 16th August.
On the 17th, the great banner with the inscription, “The Republic is the
Kingdom of God,” was raised on the tower. Then, having assembled all the
members at the foot of a cross, erected for the purpose, the Prophet
administered the solemn oath of fidelity and obedience. At this point,
one of David’s brothers tried to persuade him to renounce his perilous
enterprise, but in vain; for, on the contrary, he replied to those who
pointed out the possibility of a conflict, “He would, on the following
day, show them a miracle to prove that he was sent from God in the form
of Christ, a judge and leader, and therefore invulnerable, and that
every power on earth must yield to his will; a sign from his rod of
command was enough to annihilate all the forces of those who dared
oppose him.” A member having remarked on the opposition of the
government, he added that “he would ward off the balls with his hands,
and render harmless the weapons directed against himself and his
faithful followers; and the Government Carbineers themselves would act
as a guard of honour to them.” More and more intoxicated with his
delirium, he wrote in all seriousness to the Delegate of Public
Safety--to whom he had already shown the preparations, and, later on,
given a half-promise to countermand the procession--“That he was no
longer able to do so, having received superior orders to the contrary
from God Himself.” He threatened unbelievers with the Divine wrath, if,
through want of faith, they rebelled against his will.
With such intentions, on the morning of August 18th, he set out from
Montelabro at the head of an immense crowd, going down towards
Arcidosso. He was dressed in a royal cloak of purple embroidered with
gold ornaments, and crowned with a kind of tiara surmounted by a crest
adorned with plumes; and he held in his hand the staff which he called
his rod of command. His principal associates were dressed, less richly
than himself, in strangely-fashioned robes of various colours, according
to their position in the hierarchy of the Holy League. The ordinary
members were dressed in their every-day clothes, without other mark of
distinction than the emblematic breastplate previously described. Seven
of the graduates of the Brotherhood carried as many banners with the
motto, “The Republic is the Kingdom of God.” They sang the Davidian
hymn, each stanza of which ended with the refrain, “Eternal is the
Republic,” &c. It is needless to relate what took place in those last
hours. The man who had shortly before called himself the King of kings,
and believed himself invulnerable, fell, struck by a shot fired by the
orders, perhaps by the hand, of a delegate who had many a time been his
guest. It appears that he exclaimed as he fell, under the influence of a
last delusion, “The victory is ours!”
It is certain that the procession he had arranged was not only unarmed,
but appeared to be in every way calculated to turn out perfectly
harmless. Nocito has well remarked that an examination of the strange
emblematic properties of the League proved beyond all doubt that the
Government had mistaken a monomaniac for a rebel.
He took his stand on that passage of the Nicene Creed, which states that
Christ rose from the dead, and ascended to the right hand of the Father,
“Whence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead.” Having waited in
vain for the appearance of Christ, he came to believe that this part
must be reserved for him. Christ had twelve apostles, therefore he
wished to have twelve. Christ had included St. Peter among the number,
and Lazzaretti also determined to have a St. Peter, who was
distinguished by the badge of a pair of crossed keys on his breast. In
imitation of the forty days’ fast, Lazzaretti fasted in mid-winter, in
the island of Monte Cristo, and there received communications from God
amid the noise of the tempest, the crash of thunders, and the shaking of
the whole island. There, too, he held a sort of Last Supper with his
disciples, on January 15, 1870, in the course of which he said, “Thus it
has pleased Him who directs me in all my works. Know that this supper
carries with it the greatest of mysteries; think that you are in a place
which God has chosen for His dwelling--or, to speak more correctly, for
His adoration. Here, here, not far from us, on this soil, shall be
raised marvellous pyramids in honour of His most Holy Name, and the said
pyramids shall be an oracle of the Divine Majesty.”
To say the truth, he did not, at this supper, institute any sacrament.
But that nothing might be wanting in his mad idea of imitating Jesus
Christ, he evolved a sacrament of his own--that of the Confession of
Amendment--at bottom a slight variation of auricular confession.
All this, however, was not sufficient. David Lazzaretti was determined
to have his _transfiguration_ and his _earthquake_, and promised them
for August 18, 1878.
When the surgeon was hesitating to operate on one of his sons for
calculus, he took the knife out of his hand, and performed the
operation. The boy died under it, but Lazzaretti, quite undisturbed,
kept on repeating, “The son of David cannot die.”
At the _post-mortem_ examination, a second tattoo mark was discovered on
his body. This was the usual cross, placed inside a reversed tiara. His
brothers, questioned on the subject, replied that he had had a golden
seal made in France, which he called the _imperial seal_, and that after
immersing it in boiling oil, he had branded, first his own flesh, and
then that of his sons and his wife. With this impression (which is, in
fact, a convincing proof of the insensibility to pain peculiar to the
insane, and of their tendency to express their eccentric ideas by means
of figures and symbols) he claimed to leave a visible sign of the
descent which, in common with all his family, he boasted from the
Emperor Constantine.
However, not satisfied with descent from a royal race, he also wanted to
rule the world in his own person, though afterwards he was willing to
content himself with the creation of a prince whom he would invest with
it. In a manifesto addressed “to all Christian princes,” he makes the
following proclamation:--
“I address myself to all the princes of Christendom--Catholics,
schismatics, or heretics--provided only they have been baptized. It
matters little whether or not they have been invested with power or the
government of nations, so long as they are sprung from royal blood. I
call them all, and the first one who shall present himself to me, who is
not under twenty years of age, or over fifty, and has no bodily
imperfection, I constitute him king in my stead.”
The strange thing is, that he was taken at his word by the Comte de
Chambord, who sent an embassy to him.
“I have need,” he continued, “of a Christian alliance. I am decided,
to-day, to hasten this great enterprise; and if they (the Christian
princes) do not come to me within the fixed time of three years, from
the date of publication of this programme, I will leave Europe and go to
the unbelieving nations to do with them what I have not been able to do
with Christians.
“But in that case, woe to all of you, princes of Christendom. Ye shall
be punished by the seven heads of the great Antichrist, which shall
arise in the midst of Europe, and, above all, by a youth, who, after my
departure, shall advance from the regions of the north towards Central
France, and shall pretend to be that which _I myself_ am.”
From henceforward, there appears in David Lazzaretti, the fixed idea of
being the King of kings and Prince of all princes. To the head of the
municipal body of Arcidosso, who would not obey him, he said, “I am the
King of kings, the Monarch of all monarchs, I bear on my shoulders all
the princes of the world. All the carbineers and soldiers there are, are
mine, and dependent on me, and there are no ropes that can bind me.” To
Minucci, who was trying to escape unnoticed, he said, “You do not know
that I am the Prince of princes, the King of all the earth, and if you
try to run away, I will have you stoned alive.”
The witness G. B. Rossi was present at the sermon on the 17th, and heard
David say that he was the King of kings, Christ the Judge; that the Pope
was no longer to reside at Rome, but that he (Lazzaretti), on certain
conditions, would provide him with another residence, and that the king
of Italy, too, would be his subject.
The witness Mariotti also deposed that he had heard David say in his
sermon, “that he had no fear of force, and that, even with a million of
soldiers, it was impossible for a subject to arrest his monarch.”
Lastly--not to lengthen the series of proofs--the witness Giuseppe
Tonini heard him assert, in the sermon, that he was “the King of kings,
and commanded the whole world;” while the witness Valentino Mazzetti
says that Lazzaretti was determined to hold the procession of Aug. 18th
at any cost, and said, “Do you think they are going to arrest us? No,
no, it is not possible for subjects to arrest their monarch.”
The emblematic device he adopted is worth noting: the double C, to which
he attached so much importance, representing the first and second
Christ, _i.e._, Christ, the son of St. Joseph of Nazareth, and Christ,
the son of the late Joseph Lazzaretti of Arcidosso. In truth, it is not
in any way comprehensible what relation Christ could hold to
Constantine, the latter to David, and all these to Lazzaretti. But the
relation exists precisely in those strange contradictions and
absurdities, which--amid the persistence of the _Prince_
idea--constantly come to the surface in monomaniacs, so that some have
wished to class their disease as dementia. In fact, although they keep
up the character, so to speak, far better than general paralytics, and
try to give a plausible appearance to their delirium, yet, oftentimes,
when overpowered with the necessity of finding a vent for their
persistent ambitious idea, they pay no attention to the contradictions
they fall into. A Pavia embroideress, believing herself a descendant of
the Bonaparte family, modelled her dress, language, and aspect with
great success on those of the members of the reigning families. Yet,
while she asserted herself to be the daughter of Marie Louise, she at
the same time claimed Victor Emmanuel as her father; as, on other
occasions, she tried to persuade us that she had found the poison of
vipers in the eggs she was eating.
Thus, though at first calling on the Pope to liberate Italy, Lazzaretti,
when excommunicated, or merely treated with contempt by the Pope, wrote
against Papal idolatry. Though he wished to die a member of the Catholic
Apostolic Church, he inveighed against auricular confession, which is
the very pivot of Catholicism; and, while he called himself the son of
David, he also wished to be thought the son of Constantine.
_Passanante._--Passanante, the would-be regicide of Naples, has no
morbid hereditary antecedents.[429] At the age of 29, his height was
1·63 m., and his weight 51½ kilogrammes, _i.e._, 14 kilogrammes less
than the Neapolitan average. His head may be described as almost
sub-microcephalic--cephalic index 82, probable capacity 1513. His
features show the characteristics of the Mongol and the _cretin_--small
and deeply-set eyes abnormally far apart, zygomatic bones highly
developed, beard scanty. The pupils show a low degree of mobility; and
the genitals are atrophied--a fact connected with that of almost
complete anaphrodisia. On the other hand, the liver and spleen are
hypertrophied, which partly explains the increase of the temperature
(varying from 38° to 37·8° at the arm-pits) the weakness of the pulse
(88), and the very slight degree of strength, which, moreover, is less
on the right side (60 kil.) than on the left (78 kil.). This last
fact--which perhaps arises from an old burn on the hand--is most
important, because rendering the complete carrying out of the crime
improbable, especially taking into account the clumsy weapon with which
he was armed, and the unfavourable position which was the only one he
could take. The sensibility was perverted--the tactile presenting 5 mm.
on the back of the hand (where the normal sensitiveness is from 16 to
20), and 7 on the forehead, where it is usually from 20 to 22 (that on
the palm of the hand was not registered). On the contrary, the
sensitiveness of the skin to puncture was much weakened. In prison he
had attacks of delirium accompanied by hallucinations.
All these characteristics are clear indications of disease, both in the
abdominal viscera, and in the nervous centres. This result is even more
evident from the psychological study of the case. A merely superficial
examination might have induced the belief that his affections and moral
sentiments were normal. He showed, indeed, a horror of crime, lived a
most frugal and abstemious life; and, while sometimes over-religious,
sometimes exaggeratedly patriotic, always appeared to prefer the
advantage of others to his own. He thus presented to those unversed in
the study of mental pathology, the appearance, as it were, of a martyr
to an idea which had been maturing for years, the mouthpiece and tool of
a powerful sect, who might call for execration politically, but as an
individual commanded respect.
This view, however, is at once seen to be fallacious, (even leaving
aside the delirium, which might have been the effect of imprisonment),
if we remember that, as has already been said, frugality and
unselfishness are special characteristics of the mattoid, and, not
seldom, also of the insane, some of whom seem to have more affection for
their country, and for humanity in general, than for their families and
themselves, and if we notice the indifference or even pleasure with
which, in his writings, he refers to the murders committed by his
countrymen, when, “to the sound of axes, they make foreigners give them
money,” above all, the enjoyment with which he records the cruel
practical joke played on a poor man who was very fond of his cherry
tree, by digging up the latter, bringing it back stripped of its fruit,
and leaving it at his front door. This morbid apathy is especially
revealed in the want of emotion shown after the crime, in the face of
the anger of the populace which was let loose against him. Yet even the
greatest fanatics among political assassins, such as Orsini, Sand, and
Nobiling, have been overwhelmed by emotion after the deed, and have
often attempted suicide.
The true motive of the act is quite sufficient to prove this: being
dismissed from his situation on account of his political vagaries,
arrested as a vagabond, and, in addition, ill-used by the police, he
thought--with a vanity as boundless as his impotence to gratify it, or
even to live--of imitating the heroes he had heard talked of in the
clubs (and against whom he had himself declaimed), so as to find a way
of ending his life by the hand of another.
“As I found myself ill-used by my employers, and felt a horror of life,
I formed the design of assassinating the king, so as not to have to kill
myself,” he said to the magistrate, immediately after his arrest. To the
judge Azzaritti, “I attempted the king’s life in the certainty that I
should be killed.” In fact, two days previously, he had been much more
occupied with his dismissal from his place than with projects of
regicide; and at his arrest he did all he could to make his situation
more serious, reminding the delegate that he had forgotten his
revolutionary card on which was written, “Death to the King! long live
the Republic!” It was a case of _indirect_ suicide, such as Maudsley,
Crichton, Esquirol,[430] and Krafft-Ebing have recorded in great
numbers. These, however, are only committed by the insane, or by
cowardly and immoral men; and I insist upon this motive all the more
that he formed at the same time the means of satisfying that incoherent
vanity which in him predominated over the love of life. It is well known
that many vain suicidal maniacs enjoy the sight of their own death
surrounded by pomp, like the Englishman who had a mass composed and
executed in public, and shot himself while the _Requiescat_ was being
chanted.
If, therefore, we find in him any fanaticism, it is not for politics,
but for his own ridiculous and ungrammatical effusions. When he lost his
temper and shed tears at the trial, the outburst was not provoked by any
insult to his party, but by a refusal to permit the reading of one of
his letters, and when his reputation as a scullion was attacked by the
assertion that he was continually reading instead of washing up the
dishes, which he flatly denied, though the implied proof of unsoundness
of mind would have been entirely in his favour.
His intelligence might be called unusual and original rather than
superior to the average; and appeared much more brilliant in his
conversation than in his writings--in which it is difficult to find a
vigorous expression, such as we so frequently meet with in the works of
the insane, as distinguished from mattoids.
However, searching here and there amid the enormous mass of his
writings, and piecing out their gaps, we meet with some few fragments
which are both original and curious. For example, though grotesque
enough, his idea of having deputies and officials chosen by lot, like
soldiers for the conscription, “that they may not be so proud,” is not
without originality. Equally striking is the idea of forcing the
convicts, who pass their time in enforced idleness, to cultivate waste
lands, of calling out the young men for conscription before they have
chosen a trade, and of crying after the Emperor William who “wants five
milliards from France”: “He who sows thorns should be made to walk
barefoot.” Good, too, in its way, though somewhat Turkish, is that of
establishing a free inn for travellers in every village.
Still more remarkable is this, which, if it had not been written some
time previously, might be taken as referring to his own case: “It is
blamable that the authorities should exercise severity of punishment
towards a man whose only idea is to change the form of government and
attack the head of the State. The country is the mother of all without
distinction; to all, without distinction, the law should be sister of
death, which has no respect for any, but cuts them down when their time
has come.”
His contrast between man isolated and man in association with his
fellows is worthy of Giusti. “When you see him alone he is weak as a
glass tumbler--if you see a glass, think of the strength of man, there
is no great difference; but, united, men become hard and have the
strength of a thousand Samsons.”
Where he really appeared superior to the average was in his _viva-voce_
answers. Thus: “History studied practically among the people is more
instructive than the history studied in books. The people is the best
teacher of history,” &c. To justify the literary pretensions which
seemed so inconsistent with his position as a poor cook, he replied,
“Where the learned man goes astray, the ignorant often triumphs.”
When asked what takes place in the conscience when one is about to
commit a bad action, he replied, “In us there are, as it were, two
wills--one pushing us on, the other holding us back,--and the one that
proves strongest determines the action.”
But it is precisely in his intermittent flashes of political insight, so
strange in his position, that a morbid abnormality becomes evident. For
it must be remarked that they constitute rather the exception than the
rule. What we find, as a rule, is the commonplace and the absurd. In the
same code he proposes to hang coiners and burn thieves, and abolish the
death penalty! He wishes to kill the king, yet in another article he
demands for him a pension of two-and-a-half millions![431]
_Guiteau._--The same thing may be said of Guiteau, who presented an
enormous number of degenerative characteristics. His handwriting is
quite that of the mattoid; and he was descended from a family which
counted among its members many lunatics and fanatics. Advocate,
theologian, politician, and swindler, he had tried all trades, and
claimed to have made a great discovery about the birth of Christ. The
fact is that he had spoilt a great deal of paper, and issued one or two
journals and ridiculous works on _The Existence of Hell_ and on _Truth_
which he believed to be written under Divine dictation. He thought that
God would pay his debts as a reward for his eccentric preachings; it was
in obedience to a Divine command that he killed Garfield--yet it was
only done in revenge for his failure to appoint him U.S. consul at
Liverpool, ambassador to Austria, &c.--which showed great ingratitude on
Garfield’s part, considering the trouble Guiteau had taken, in his own
belief, to secure his election as President.[432]
_South Americans._--The number of great men in the Argentine Republic
suffering from cerebral affections is so considerable that it has
enabled Mejia to compose on this subject a work which is among the most
curious and valuable produced in the New World.[433]
Thus, according to Mejia, Rivadura was a hypochondriac, and died of
softening of the brain. Manuel Garcia also suffered from hypochondria,
and finally succumbed to a brain affection. Admiral Brown was subject to
the delusion that he was persecuted. Varela was epileptic, Francia was a
melancholiac, Rosas was morally insane, and Monteagudo was hysterical.
PART IV.
_SYNTHESIS. THE DEGENERATIVE PSYCHOSIS OF GENIUS._
CHAPTER I.
CHARACTERISTICS OF INSANE MEN OF GENIUS.
Characterlessness--Vanity--Precocity--Alcoholism--Vagabondage--Versatility--Originality--Style--Religious
doubts--Sexual abnormalities--Egoism--Eccentricity--Inspiration.
The conception of the morbid and degenerative character of genius is
confirmed and completed more and more when its isolated phenomena are
subjected to a more rigorous examination, and, as in chemical reactions,
to mutual contact. If, in fact, we analyze the lives and works of those
great diseased minds which have become famous in history, we find that
they can at once be distinguished by many characteristic traits from the
average man, and also, in part, from other geniuses, who have completed
their life’s orbit without trace of madness.
I. These insane geniuses have scarcely any character. The full, complete
character, “which bends not for any winds that blow,” is the distinctive
mark of honest and sound-minded men.
Tasso, on the contrary, declaims against courts, and yet, even to his
last hour, we find him perpetually coming back to beg their grudging
favours. Cardan accuses himself of lying, evil-speaking, and gambling.
Rousseau, though so sensitive, abandons to want the tenderest and
kindest of friends, casts off his children, calumniates others and
himself, and apostatizes three times over--from Catholicism, from
Protestantism, and, what is worse, from the religion of philosophy.
Swift, though an ecclesiastic, wrote the obscene poem of the loves of
Strephon and Chloe, and belittled the church of which he was a
dignitary, though his pride reached the proportions of delirium.
Lenau, religious to fanaticism in _Savonarola_, shows himself in the
_Albigenses_ even cynically sceptical; he knows it, confesses it, and
laughs at it.
Schopenhauer denounced women, and at the same time was too warm an
admirer of the sex; he professed to believe in the happiness of Nirvana,
and then predicted for himself more than a hundred years of life.
II. Genius is conscious of itself, appreciates itself, and, certainly,
has no monkish humility. Yet the conceit seething in diseased brains
passes the limits of all truth and probability. Tasso and Cardan
covertly, and Mahomet openly, declared themselves inspired by God, and
the slightest criticism, therefore, appeared to them as deadly
persecution. Cardan wrote of himself, “My nature is placed on the very
limits of human substance and conditions, and within the confines of the
immortals.”[434] Rousseau believed that all men, and sometimes even the
elements, were in a conspiracy against him. Perhaps it is on this very
account that we have seen almost all these unhappy great spirits fly
from association with other men. Swift humiliated and insulted cabinet
ministers, and wrote to a duchess desirous of making his acquaintance
that the greater men were, the lower must they bow before him. Lenau had
inherited the pride of rank from his mother, and in his delirium
believed himself king of Hungary.
III. Some of these unfortunate men have given strangely precocious
proofs of their genius. Tasso could speak when six months old, and knew
Latin at the age of seven. Lenau, at a very early age, composed most
touching sermons, and played the bagpipes and the violin with
astonishing skill. Cardan at eight had apparitions and revelations of
genius. Ampère was a mathematician at thirteen. Pascal, at ten, inspired
by the noise made by a plate struck with a knife, worked out a theory
of sound, and at fifteen composed his celebrated treatise on Conic
Sections. Haller preached at four, and devoured books at five.
IV. Many of them have been excessive in their abuse of narcotics, or of
stimulants and intoxicants. Haller was in the habit of taking enormous
doses of opium, and Rousseau was excessive in his use of coffee. Tasso
was renowned as a drinker, as also the modern poets Kleist, Gérard de
Nerval, Musset, Murger, Majláth, Praga, and Rovani, as well as the very
original Chinese writer Li-Tai-Pô, who was inspired by alcohol, and died
of it. Lenau also, in his latter years, was an immoderate consumer of
wine, coffee, and tobacco. Baudelaire abused opium, tobacco, and wine.
Cardan confessed himself an indefatigable drinker. Poe was a
dipsomaniac; so was Hoffmann.
V. Nearly all of these great men, moreover, showed anomalies of the
reproductive functions. Tasso, who was guilty of exaggerated
licentiousness in his youth, was rigidly chaste after his thirty-eighth
year. On the other hand, Cardan, impotent in his youth, gave himself up
to excess at thirty-five. Pascal, sensual in his early youth, afterwards
believed even a mother’s kiss to be a crime. Rousseau was affected by
hypospadias and spermatorrhœa, and, like Baudelaire, was subject to a
sexual perversion. Newton and Charles XII., so far as is known, were
absolutely continent. Lenau wrote, “I have the painful conviction that I
am unsuitable for marriage.”[435]
VI. Instead of preferring the quiet seclusion of the study, they cannot
rest in any place, and have to be continually travelling. Lenau removed
from Vienna to Stokerau, and then to Gmünden, and finally emigrated to
America. “I need,” he said, “a change of climate every now and then to
stir up my blood.”[436] Tasso was continually travelling from Ferrara to
Urbino, Mantua, Naples, Paris, Bergamo, Rome, and Turin. Poe was the
despair of his editors, because he was continually wandering about
between Boston, New York, Richmond, Philadelphia, and Baltimore.
Giordano Bruno wandered to Padua, Oxford, Wittenberg, Magdeburg,
Helmstädt, Prague, and Geneva.
Rousseau, Cardan, Cellini were constantly staying now at Turin, now at
Paris, now at Florence, Rome, Bologna, or Lausanne. “Change of place,”
says Rousseau,[437] “is a necessity for me. In the fine season, I find
it impossible to remain for more than two or three days in one place
without suffering.”
VII. Sometimes they change their career and course of study several
times in succession, as though the mighty intellect could not find rest
and relief in a single science.[438] Swift, in addition to his satiric
poems, wrote on the manufactures of Ireland, on theology, on politics,
and on the history of the reign of Queen Anne. Cardan was at the same
time a mathematician, physician, theologian, and literary man. Rousseau
was painter, music-master, charlatan, philosopher, botanist, and poet;
and Hoffmann, magistrate, caricaturist, musician, romance-writer, and
dramatist.
Tasso--as did Gogol after him--attempted all varieties of poetry, epic,
dramatic, and didactic, in all metres. Newton and Pascal, in moments of
aberration, abandoned physics for theology. Lenau cultivated medicine,
agriculture, law, poetry, and theology.
VIII. These energetic and terrible intellects are the true pioneers of
science; they rush forward regardless of danger, facing with eagerness
the greatest difficulties--perhaps because it is these which best
satisfy their morbid energy. They seize the strangest connections, the
newest and most salient points; and here I may mention that originality,
carried to the point of absurdity, is the principal characteristic of
insane poets and artists. Ampère always sought out the most difficult
problems in mathematics--the abysses--as Arago has noted.
Rousseau, in the _Devin du Village_, had attempted the music of the
future, afterwards tried again by another insane genius, Schumann. Swift
used to say that he only felt at his ease when treating the most
difficult subjects, and those most out of the line of his habitual
occupations. In fact, in his _Directions to Servants_, he seems, not a
theologian or a politician, but a servant himself. His _Confession of a
Thief_ was believed to have been really written by a well-known
criminal, so that the latter’s accomplices, thinking that they were
discovered, gave themselves up to justice. In the prophecies of
Bickerstaff, he assumed the character of a Catholic, and succeeded in
deceiving the Roman Inquisition.
Walt Whitman is the creator of a rhymeless poetry, which the
Anglo-Saxons regard as the poetry of the future, and which certainly
bears the imprint of strange and wild originality.
Poe’s compositions (says Baudelaire, one of his greatest admirers) seem
to have been produced in order to show that strangeness may enter into
the elements of the beautiful; and he collected them under the title of
_Arabesques and Grotesques_, because these exclude the human
countenance, and his literature was _extra-human_. Here, too, we note
the predilection of insane artists for arabesques, and, moreover, for
arabesques which suggest the human figure.[439]
Baudelaire himself created the prose poem, and carried to the highest
point the adoration of artificial beauty. He was the first to find new
poetic associations in the olfactory sense.[440]
IX. These morbid geniuses have a style peculiar to
themselves--passionate, palpitating, vividly coloured--which
distinguishes them from all other writers, perhaps because it could only
arise under maniacal influences. So much so that all of them confess
their inability to compose, or even to think, outside the moments of
inspiration. Tasso wrote, in one of his letters, “I am unsuccessful, and
find difficulty in everything, especially in composition.”[441] “My
ideas,” Rousseau confesses, “are confused, slow in arising and
developing themselves, nor can I express myself well except in moments
of passion.” The eloquent and vivid exordiums of Cardan’s works, so
different from the rest of his tedious books, show what a difference
there was between the first and last moments of his inspiration. Haller,
though a successful poet himself, used to say that the whole art of
poetry consisted in its difficulty. Pascal began his 18th _Provincial
Letter_ thirteen times.
Perhaps it was this analogy in character and style that was the cause of
Swift’s and Rousseau’s predilection for Tasso, and drew the severe
Haller towards Swift; while Ampère was inspired by Rousseau’s
eccentricities, and Baudelaire by those of Poe (whose works he
translated) and of Hoffmann, whom he idolized.[442]
X. Nearly all these great men were painfully preoccupied by religious
doubts, raised by the intellect, and combated, as a crime, by the timid
conscience and morbid emotions. Tasso was tormented by the fear of being
a heretic. Ampère often said that doubts are the worst torture of man.
Haller wrote in his journal, “My God! give me--oh! give me one drop of
faith: my mind believes in Thee, but my heart refuses--this is my
crime.” Lenau used to repeat, towards the end of his life, “In those
hours when my heart is suffering, the idea of God passes away from me.”
In fact, the real hero of his _Savonarola_ is Doubt,[443] as is now
admitted by all critics.
XI. All insane men of genius, moreover, are much preoccupied with their
own _Ego_. They sometimes know and proclaim their own disease, and seem
as though they wished, by confessing it, to get relief from its
inexorable attacks.
It is quite natural that, being men of great intellect and therefore
acute observers, they should at last notice their own cruel anomalies
and be struck by the spectacle of the _Ego_ which obtruded itself so
painfully on their notice. Men in general, but more particularly the
insane, love to speak of themselves, and on this theme they even become
eloquent. All the more should we expect it in those whose genius is
accompanied and quickened by mania. It is thus we get those wonderful
records of passion and grief, monuments of phrenopathic poetry, which
reveal the great and unhappy personality of the writer. Cardan wrote,
not only his autobiography, but also poems on his misfortunes, and the
work _De Somniis_, entirely composed of his dreams and hallucinations.
The poems of Whitman are the glorification of the _Ego_. Rousseau, in
his _Confessions, Dialogues, Rêveries_, like De Musset in his
_Confessions_, and Hoffmann in _Kreisler_,[444] only give a minute
description of themselves and their own madness.
Thus also Poe, as Baudelaire has well remarked, took as his text the
exceptions of human life, the hallucination which, at first doubtful,
afterwards becomes a reasoned conviction; absurdity enthroned in the
region of intellect and governing it with a terrible logic; hysteria
occupying the place of the will; the contradiction between the nerves
and the mind carried so far that grief is driven to utter itself in
laughter.
Pascal, who was driven by delirium into exaggerated humility, who said
that Christianity suppressed the _Ego_, has not written his
autobiography; yet he, too, showed traces of his hallucinations in the
celebrated Amulet, and, in his _Pensées_, subtly described himself when
speaking of others. It is certain that he was alluding to himself when
he wrote that “extreme genius is close to extreme folly, and men are so
mad that he who should not be so would be a madman of a new kind;” and
when he observed that “maladies influence our judgment and sense; and
while great ones perceptibly alter them, even slight ones cannot but
influence them in proportion;” and that “men of genius have their heads
higher, but their feet lower than the rest of us; they are all on the
same level, and stand on the same clay as ourselves, children, and
brutes.”
Haller, in his diary, gives detailed notes of his own religious
delusions, and often confesses to having completely changed his
character in the course of twenty-four hours, and being “giddy, mad,
persecuted by God, and scorned and despised by men.”
Lessmann who, at a later time, hanged himself, wrote the humorous _Diary
of a Melancholiac_ (1834). Tasso, in his letter to the Duke of Urbino,
and in the stanza already quoted, clearly depicted his own insanity.
“Francesco,” he says elsewhere, “O Francesco, within my infirm limbs I
have an infirm soul.”[445] It is a curious fact that, shortly before his
first attack of mania, he wrote these words, “As I do not deny that I am
mad, I must believe that my madness has been caused by drunkenness or
love, since I know well that I drink to excess,” &c.[446]
Dostoïeffsky continually introduces semi-insane characters, and
especially epileptics, in _Besi_ and _The Idiot_, and moral lunatics in
_Crime and Punishment_.
Gérard de Nerval was the author of _Aurelia_, which has been well called
the “Song of Songs of Fever,” and is a mixture of poetry and gibberish.
Barbara wrote _Les Détraqués_. Buston described his own hallucinations.
Allix, though not a medical man, wrote on the treatment of the insane.
Lenau, twelve years before he actually succumbed to the attacks of
insanity, had foreseen and described it. All his poems depict, in
colours painfully vivid, suicidal and melancholic tendencies. The reader
may judge of this from the mere titles of some of his lyrics, “To a
Hypochrondriac,” “The Madman,” “The Diseased in Soul,” “The Violence of
a Dream,” “The Moon of Melancholy.”
I do not think that it is possible to find, in the most doleful pages of
J. Ortis so accurate and vividly coloured a description of suicidal
tendencies as in the following extract from the _Seelenkranke_, “I carry
a deep wound in my heart, and will carry it in silence to the grave; my
life is broken from hour to hour. One alone could comfort me, ... but
she lies in the grave.... O my mother! let thyself be moved by my
entreaties, if thy love still survives death, if it is still permitted
thee to care for thy child.... Oh! let me soon escape from life! I long
for the night of death! Oh! only help thy crazy son to lay aside his
grief.” His _Traumgewalten_ is, as I have already observed, a terribly
truthful picture of that hallucination which preceded or accompanied the
first attack of suicidal mania; and here the reader can easily trace in
the phrases and ideas that disconnected and fragmentary character which
is the mark of the delirious paralytic.
Here is a specimen--“The dream was so terrible, so wild, so frightful,
that I wish I could tell myself it was nothing but a dream; ... yet I
continue to weep, and to feel that my heart beats; I awaken, and find
the sheets and the pillow wet.... Did I seize them in my dream and wipe
my face? I do not know.... While I was sleeping, my hostile guests have
been holding an orgy here.... Now they are gone, those savages, they are
gone, but I find their traces in my tears. They have fled, and left the
wine on the table,” &c.
He had previously, in the _Albigenses_, dropped some allusions to the
terrible impression made on him by his dreams: “Terrible, often, is the
might of dreams; it shakes, pains, presses, threatens, and if the
sleeper does not awaken in time, in the twinkling of an eye, he is a
corpse.”[447]
XII. The principal trace of the delusions of great minds is found in the
very construction of their works and speeches, in their illogical
deductions, absurd contradictions, and grotesque and inhuman fantasies.
Thus Socrates was clearly of unsound mind when, after having all but
arrived, intuitively, at Christian morality and Judaic monotheism, he
directed his steps in accordance with a sneeze, or the voice and signs
of his imaginary genius. Thus Cardan, who had anticipated Newton in
discovering the laws of gravitation, and Dupuis in theology--who, in his
book _De Subtilitate_, explains as hallucinations the strange and
portentous symptoms of the possessed, and also of some of those hermits
who were accounted saints, comparing them to the delirium of quartan
fever--Cardan was insane, when he attributed to the influence of a
genius, not only his scientific inspirations, but the creaking of the
table and the vibration of the pen, when he declared that he had been
several times bewitched, and when he produced his book _On Dreams_,
which speaks to the mental pathologist as a pseudo-membrane would to the
physical. In this, at first, he puts on record the most accurate and
curious observations on the phenomena of dreams--_e.g._, how severe
physical pains act with less energy, slight ones with greater--a fact
recently confirmed by psychiatrists; that the insane are much given to
dreaming; that in a dream, as on the stage, a long series of ideas
passes in a very short space of time; and finally (and this is a remark
of much justice) that men have dreams either entirely analogous to, or
entirely at variance with, their own habits. But, after these clear and
undoubted proofs of genius, he re-affirms one of the most absurd and
contemptible theories ever held by the populace of ancient times,
namely, that the slightest accidental circumstance of a dream must be
the revelation of a more or less distant future. Thus he draws up, with
the sincerest conviction, a dictionary, identical in form and origin
(which last is undoubtedly pathological) with Cabalistic productions.
Every object, every word, which may find a place in a dream, is there
attached to a series of allusions which serve to interpret each other.
_Father_ may signify author, husband, son, commander. _Feet_, foundation
of a house, arts, workmen, &c. A _horse_, appearing in a dream, may
signify flight, riches, or a wife. _Shoemaker_ and _physician_ are
interchangeable in meaning. In short, it is not actual analogies which
prevail, but analogies in words, in sounds, even in terminations.
_Orior_ and _morior_ have an equal prophetic value, because “since they
differ from each other only by a single letter, the one passes over to
the other.” We are seized with compassion for human nature and for
ourselves, when we find him relating that a knight who suffered from the
stone always, if he dreamed of food, had an attack on the following day,
and adding _cibos enim et dolores degustare dicimus_--as though nature
were in the habit of amusing herself by making puns in Latin. Yet this
was the man who had intuitively divined the admirable theory of painful
sensations in sleep already alluded to, and who, a physician, and one of
no mean distinction, had clearly conceived the sympathetic action of the
solar plexus.
Newton himself can scarcely be said to have been sane when he demeaned
his intellect to the interpretation of the Apocalypse, or the horns of
Daniel; nor, again, when he wrote to Bentley, “By means of the law of
attraction, one can very well understand the elongated orbits of comets;
but as to the nearly circular orbits of planets, I see no possibility of
obtaining their lateral difference, and this can only be accomplished by
God.” Yet in his _Optics_, Newton had inveighed against those who, after
the manner of the Aristotelians admit occult properties in matter, thus
arresting the researches of natural philosophers, without leading to any
conclusion. In fact, a century later, the true cause, which had escaped
Newton’s observations, was discovered by La Place.
Ampère believed, in all sincerity, that he had found the method of
squaring the circle.
Pascal, though he had been the first to study the laws of probability,
believed that the touch of a relic had power to cure a lachrymal
fistula--a statement which he printed in one of his works.
Rousseau makes of his own maniacal savagery the ideal type of man, and
believes that every natural production, if agreeable to the sight or
taste, must be innocuous, so that arsenic, according to him, could not
be harmful. His life is made up of contradictions: he prefers the
country, and lives in the Rue Platonière; he writes a treatise on
education, and sends his children to the foundling hospital; he
adjudicates on the claims of the various religions with the acuteness
of an unbiassed sceptic, and throws stones at trees in order to divine
the future and decide the question of his own salvation; nay, he writes
to the Deity, and lays his letters on the altars of churches, as though
they were His exclusive abode.
Baudelaire finds the sublime in the artificial--“like the rouge which
enhances the beauty of a handsome woman.” He carries out an insane idea
by describing a metallic landscape, with neither water nor vegetation.
“All is rigid, polished, shining; without heat and without sun; in the
midst of the eternal silence the blue water is enclosed, like the
ancient mirrors, in a golden basin.” He finds his ideal in the Latin of
the Decadence, “the only tongue which can thoroughly render the language
of passion,” and adores cats to such a degree as to address three poems
to them.
Lenau, in his “Moon of the Hypochondriàc,” sees, contrary to the usual
practice of poets, in the cold moon, without water and without
atmosphere, “the sexton of the planets, who, with a silver thread
entwined, enchains the sleepers and draws them to death; she beckons
with her finger, leads sleep-walkers astray, and counsels the thief.”
Though, as a young man, he had frequently expressed his opinion that
“mysticism is a symptom of insanity,” he often showed mystical
tendencies, especially in his later poems.
In the Koran, there is not a single chapter which has any connection
with another; on the contrary, it often happens that, in the course of a
single _sura_, the ideas are interrupted, and follow each other almost
at random. “On Mahomet,” writes Morkos, “the most contradictory verdicts
may be pronounced, for it is impossible to deny his great excellence,
while at the same time there is no disguising the fact that we find in
him the most signal artifices of imposture, the grossest ignorance, and
the greatest imprudence.”
It appears to me, moreover, that the great writers who have been under
the dominion of alcohol, have a style peculiar to themselves, whose
characteristics are a deliberate eroticism, and an inequality which is
rather grotesque than beautiful, owing to too unrestrained fancy,
frequent imprecations and abrupt transitions from the deepest melancholy
to obscene gaiety, and a marked preference for such subjects as madness,
drink, and the gloomiest scenes of death. “Poe,” says Baudelaire, “likes
to place his figures against greenish or violet backgrounds, surrounded
by the phosphorescence of decay, and the atmosphere of storms and
orgies. He throws himself into grotesquery for the love of the
grotesque, into horror for the love of the horrible.”
The same thing is done by Baudelaire himself, who loves to describe the
effects of alcohol or opium.
“There are days when my heart faints in me, and the mud overwhelms
me,”[448] sang poor Praga, who killed himself with alcohol, and who,
singing the praises of wine, blasphemed thus:
“Let it come--the reproach of the sober man; come--the contempt of the
human race,--come, the hell of the Eternal Father: I will go down into
it with my glass in hand.”[449]
Steen, the drunken painter, usually painted drinking scenes. Hoffmann’s
drawings ended in caricatures, his tales in extra-human extravagancies,
his music in a senseless succession of sounds.
Alfred de Musset saw in the ladies of Madrid,
“_sous un col de cigne_
_Un sein vierge et doré comme la jeune vigne._”
Murger admired women with green lips and yellow cheeks--no doubt through
a species of colour-blindness, such as we have already met with among
painters.
XIII. Nearly all of these great men--for instance, Cardan, Lenau, Tasso,
Socrates, Pascal--attached great importance to their dreams, which, no
doubt, assumed a more vivid and powerful colouring than those of sane
persons.
XIV. Many presented voluminous but very irregular skulls; and, like
madmen, have ended by serious alterations of the nervous centres.
Pascal’s cerebral substance was harder than is normally the case, and
the left lobe had suppurated. The brain of Rousseau revealed dropsy in
the ventricles. Byron and Foscolo, great but eccentric geniuses, both
showed premature ossification of the sutures. Schumann died of chronic
meningitis and cerebral atrophy.
XV. The insane characters of men of genius are scarcely ever found
alone. Thus melancholia was associated and alternated with exaggerated
self-esteem in Chopin, Comte, Tasso, Cardan, Schopenhauer; with
alcoholic mania, impulsive insanity, or sexual perversion in Baudelaire
and Rousseau; with erratic and alcoholic mania and that of self-esteem,
in Gérard de Nerval. In Coleridge, the mania of morphia was associated
with _folie du doute_.
XVI. But the most special characteristic of this form of insanity
appears to reduce itself to an extreme exaggeration of two alternating
phases, viz., erethism and atony, inspiration and exhaustion, which we
see physiologically manifested in nearly all great intellects, even the
sanest--phases to which they, all alike, give a wrong interpretation,
according as their pride is gratified or offended. “An indolent soul,
afraid of every kind of business, a bilious temperament, which suffers
easily and is sensitive to every discomfort, seem as though they could
not be combined in one character--yet they form the groundwork of mine.”
Such is Rousseau’s confession in Letter II. Therefore, as the ignorant
man explains the modifications of his own _ego_ by means of material and
external objects, they often attribute to a devil, a genius, or a God,
the happy inspiration of their exalted moments. Tasso, speaking of his
familiar spirit, genius, or messenger, says, “It cannot be a devil,
since it does not inspire me with a horror for sacred things; nor yet a
natural creature, for it causes to arise in me ideas which I never had
before.” A genius inspires Cardan with his written works, his knowledge
of spiritual matters, his medical opinions; Tartini with his Sonata,
Mahomet with the pages of the Koran. Van Helmont asserted that he had
seen a genius appear before him at all the most important moments of his
life; and, in 1633, he discovered his own soul under the form of a
shining crystal. William Blake often retired to the sea-shore to
converse with Moses, Homer, Virgil, and Milton, with whom he believed
himself to have been previously acquainted. When questioned as to their
appearance, he replied, “They are shades full of majesty--grey, but
luminous, and much taller than the generality of men.” Socrates was
counselled in his actions by a genius who, as he expressed it, was
better than ten thousand teachers; and he often advised his friends as
to what they ought, or ought not to do, according as he had received
instructions from his δαιμονἱον.
It is certain that the vivid and richly-coloured style of all these
great men--the clearness with which they describe their most grotesque
eccentricities, such as the Liliputian Academies, or the horrors of
Tartarus, denote that they saw and touched, as it were, with the
certainty of hallucination, all that they describe; that, in short, in
them inspiration and insanity became fused, and resulted in a single
product.
It may be said, indeed, of some--as of Luther, Mahomet, Savonarola,
Molinos, and, in modern times, the chief of the Taeping rebels--that
this false explanation of the _afflatus_ was of great service to them,
giving to their speeches and prophecies that air of truth only resulting
from a profound conviction, which alone can shake the popular ignorance
and carry it in the wake of a new doctrine. This characteristic is
common to the insanity of genius and the most trivial aberrations of
eccentricity.
When inspiration and high spirits fail together, and depression of mind
prevails, then these great unfortunate ones, interpreting their own
condition still more strangely, believe themselves to have been
poisoned, like Cardan; or to be condemned to eternal fire, like Haller
and Ampère; or persecuted by inveterate enemies, like Newton, Swift,
Barthez, Cardan, and Rousseau.
Moreover, in all these cases, religious doubt, raised by the intellect
in despite of the heart, appears to the subject himself as a crime, and
becomes both cause and instrument of new and real misfortunes.
XVII. Yet the temper of these men is so different from that of average
people that it gives a special character to the different psychoses
(melancholia, monomania, &c.) from which they suffer, so as to
constitute a special psychosis, which might be called the psychosis of
genius.
CHAPTER II.
ANALOGY OF SANE TO INSANE GENIUS.
Want of character--Pride--Precocity--Alcoholism--Degenerative
signs--Obsession--Men of genius in revolutions.
But these characteristics are not confined to insane genius; they are
also met with, though far less conspicuously among the great men freest
from any suspicion of insanity, those of whom the insane geniuses just
mentioned are but the exaggeration and caricature. It is thus that the
complete and perfect character, while conspicuously seen in Socrates,
Columbus, Cavour, Christ, Galileo, Spinoza, is not to be found in
Napoleon, Bacon, Cicero, Seneca, Alcibiades, Alexander, Julius Cæsar,
Machiavelli, Carlyle, Frederick II., Dumas, Byron, Comte, Bulwer Lytton,
Petrarch, Aretino, Gibbon.
Self-esteem, carried to an almost incredible point, has been noticed in
Napoleon, Hegel, Dante, Victor Hugo, Lassalle, Balzac, and Comte; and,
as we have already seen, even in men of talent, but not of genius, as
Cagnoli, Lucius, Porta, &c.
Precocity, moreover, does not fail to appear in normal men of genius,
such as Mozart, Raphael, Michelangelo, Charles XII., Stuart Mill,
D’Alembert, Lulli, Cowley, Otway, Prior, Pope, Addison, Burns, Keats,
Sheffield, Hugo.
Among these we also find the abuse of alcohol, sexual deficiencies, or
excesses followed by sterility, the tendency to vagrancy, and impulsive
acts of violence, alternating, or associated, with convulsive movements.
Bismarck once said to Beust, “Do you ever feel the wish to break
anything as an amusement?” Like Gladstone and the Belgian Malon, he
often takes exercise by cutting down trees like a woodman.
We have also found, in some of them, numerous anomalies in the shape of
the skull and conformation of the brain. Degenerative symptoms, such as
stammering, lefthandedness, precocity, sterility, abound in both, as
well as divergences from ancestral character.
There is also seen in them that invasion, or rather possession, by their
subject which transforms the creature of the imagination into a true
hallucination, or an auto-suggestion. Flaubert says that his characters
seized upon him, and pursued him, or that, more correctly speaking, he
lived through them. When he described the poisoning of Madame Bovary, he
felt the taste of arsenic on his tongue, and showed symptoms of actual
poisoning so far as to vomit. Dickens, too, was affected by sorrow and
compassion for his characters, as if they had been his own
children.[450]
“To my mind,” writes Edmond de Goncourt, “my brother died of over-work,
and more especially the elaboration of literary form, the chiselling of
phrases, the labour of style. I can still see him taking up again pieces
which we had written together, and which, at first, had satisfied us,
working at them for hours, for half a day at a time, with an almost
angry persistency....
“You must remember, in short, that all our work--and in this, perhaps,
consists its originality, an originality dearly bought--has its root in
nervous illness; that we drew our pictures of disease from our own
experience, and that, by dint of analyzing, studying, dissecting
ourselves, we at last attained a kind of super-acute sensitiveness,
which was wounded on all sides by the infinite littlenesses of life. I
say _we_, for, when we wrote _Charles Demailly_, I was more diseased
than he. Alas! he took the first place, later on. _Charles
Demailly!_--it is a strange thing to write one’s own history fifteen
years in advance.”[451]
The obsession of genius sometimes attains such a point as actually to
create a double personality, and transform a philanthropist into an
overbearing tyrant, a melancholy man into a jovial reveller.
Finally, we have found, even in the sanest and most complete genius, the
incomplete and rudimentary forms of mania--as melancholy, megalomania,
hallucinations, &c.--a fact which helps to explain the convictions of
certain prophets and founders of dynasties, convictions so deeply rooted
as to serve the purpose of inspiration, as far as the mass of the people
were concerned. Maudsley says that one of the conditions essential to
the originality of genius is a disposition to be dissatisfied with the
existing state of things.
We have also met with the use of peculiar words which is so frequent a
characteristic of monomania, and also those uncertainties which reach
their extreme point in the madness of doubt.
The whole difference resolves itself, at bottom, into this: that in sane
genius the symptoms are less exaggerated, the double personality is less
conspicuous, the choice of subjects connected with madness less frequent
(Shakespeare, Goncourt, and Daudet being exceptions), and the note of
absurdity less emphasized. This, however, is scarcely ever wanting,
inasmuch as nothing is closer to the ridiculous than the sublime.
It is also not without importance to note that, whenever genius appears
in a race, the number of the insane also increases. Of this fact we have
found remarkable proofs among the Italian, German, and English Jews. So
much is this the case, that it is the custom, in German lunatic asylums,
to reckon genius in the parents among the etiological elements of
insanity. Both genius and insanity are influenced by violent passions at
the time of conception, by advanced age, or alcoholism in the parents;
and as, in all degenerate natures, genius is only exceptionally
transmitted, it almost always assumes the form of more and more
aggravated neurosis, and rapidly disappears, thanks to that beneficent
sterility through which nature provides for the elimination of monsters.
Though all the proofs we have given should have been forgotten, the
fact would be quite sufficiently demonstrated by the pedigrees of Peter
the Great, the Cæsars, and Charles V., in which epileptics, men of
genius, and criminals, alternate with ever greater frequency, till the
line ends in idiocy and sterility.[452]
In all these three types (insanity, insane genius, and sane genius), we
see at work, with nearly equal intensity, the influence of race,[453] of
hot climates, of diminutions (unless greatly exaggerated), in the degree
of atmospheric pressure, and, in frequent cases, of maladies accompanied
by a high temperature.
But the most convincing proof of all is offered by the insane who,
though not possessed of genius, apparently acquire it, for a time, while
under treatment. These cases prove that geniality, originality, artistic
and æsthetic creation may show themselves in the least predisposed
natures, as a consequence of mental alienation. Finally, not the least
important proof is contained in the singular phenomenon of the mattoid,
who, as distinguished from the really insane, has all the appearances,
without the reality, of genius.
Taking all this into consideration, we may confidently affirm that
genius is a true degenerative psychosis belonging to the group of moral
insanity, and may temporarily spring out of other psychoses, assuming
their forms, though keeping its own special peculiarities, which
distinguish it from all others.
The identity of genius with moral insanity is seen in that general
alteration of the affective instincts, which shows itself, more or less
disguised, in all,[454] even in those rare altruistic persons with a
genius for goodness to whom the name of saints has been given. This also
explains their longevity.
There is, beyond all doubt, some connection between all these
observations, and the fact, established by Tamburini and myself, that
the best artists of the asylums were all morally insane.
It should be remembered here, that the Klephts were brigands, and that
the moral character of many great conquerors has been so far subject to
alteration as to make of them true brigands on a large scale. Arved
Barine, in noticing the beauty of countenance of certain brigands
figured in my work in _L’uomo Delinquente_, has very justly
observed[455] that “such a profession requires high intellectual
endowments, and precisely the same as those needed by conquerors, who
certainly have had no superabundance of moral sense. History proves that
the moral sense is in no degree a function of the intellect. Great men
have been so often devoid of it, that the world has been forced to
invent for them a special morality which may be summed up in five words,
frequently uttered by such--from Napoleon down to Benvenuto Cellini:
_Everything is permitted to genius_.”
Men of genius are among the principal factors in true revolutions.[456]
History records the saying of Tarquin that for the preservation of
despotism it was necessary to cut down the tallest heads. Carlyle
believed that the whole of history is that of great men. Emerson wrote
that every new institution might be regarded as the prolonged shadow of
some man of genius, Islamism of Mahomet, Protestantism of Calvin,
Quakerism of Fox, Methodism of Wesley, Abolitionism of Clarkson, &c. Men
of genius, wrote Flaubert,[457] summarise in a single type many
separate personalities, and bring new persons to consciousness in the
human race. This is one of the causes of their immense influence. And
not only are they not misoneistic; they are haters of old things and
ardent lovers of the new and the unknown. Garibaldi, when he pushed on
into almost unknown regions of America, said, “I love the unknown.”[458]
And Christ carried his idea of the new world, that was about to appear,
as far as complete communism. Many men of genius rule beyond the tomb:
Cæsar was never so powerful (wrote Michelet) as when he was a corpse;
and so William the Silent. Max Nordau even claims that all human
progress is owing to despots of genius. “Every revolution is the work of
a minority whose individuality cannot conform to conditions which were
neither calculated nor created for them.” The only real innovators known
to history are tyrants endowed with ability and knowledge. “No
revolution succeeds without a leader,” wrote Machiavelli; and elsewhere,
“A multitude without a head is useless.” This is natural, because the
man of genius, being essentially original and a lover of originality, is
the natural enemy of traditions and conservatism: he is the born
revolutionary, the precursor and the most active pioneer of
revolutions.
CHAPTER III.
THE EPILEPTOID NATURE OF GENIUS.
Etiology--Symptoms--Confessions of men of genius--The life of a
great epileptic--Napoleon--Saint Paul--The saints--Philanthropic
hysteria.
We may, however, enter more deeply into the study of the phenomena of
genius by the light of modern theories on epilepsy. According to the
entirely harmonious researches of clinical and experimental observers,
this malady resolves itself into localised irritation of the cerebral
cortex, manifesting itself in attacks which are sometimes instantaneous,
sometimes of longer duration, but always intermittent and always resting
on a degenerative basis--either hereditary or predisposed to irritation
by alcoholic influence, by lesions of the skull, &c.[459] In this way we
catch a glimpse of another conclusion, viz., that the creative power of
genius may be a form of degenerative psychosis belonging to the family
of epileptic affections.
The fact that genius is frequently derived from parents either addicted
to drink, of advanced age, or insane, certainly points to this
conclusion, as also does the appearance of genius subsequently to
lesions of the head. It is also indicated by frequent anomalies,
especially of cranial asymmetry; the capacity of the skull being
sometimes excessive, sometimes abnormally small; by the frequency of
moral insanity, and of hallucinations; by sexual and intellectual
precocity, and not rarely by somnambulism. To these we may add the
prevalence of suicide, which is, on the other hand, very common among
epileptic patients; the intermittence of bodily and mental functions,
more particularly the occurrence of amnesia and analgesia; the frequent
tendency to vagabondage; religious feeling, manifesting itself even in
the case of atheists, as with Comte; the strange terrors by which they
are often seized (W. Scott, Byron, Haller); the double personality, the
multiplicity of simultaneous delusions, so common in epileptic
cases;[460] the frequent recurrence of delusions produced by the most
trifling causes; the same misoneism; and the same relation to
criminality, which finds its point of union in moral insanity. Add to
this the origin and ancestry of criminals and imbeciles, which
constantly show traces both of genius and epilepsy, as may be seen in
the genealogical charts given of the families of the Cæsars and Charles
V.;[461] and the strange passion for wandering, and for animals, which I
have also often found in degenerated, and especially in epileptic,
subjects.[462]
The distractions of mind for which great men are so famous, are often,
writes Tonnini, nothing else but epileptic absences.[463]
The greatest proof of all, however, is that affective insensibility,
that loss of moral sense, common to all men of genius, whether sane or
insane, which makes of great conquerors, even in the most recent times,
nothing else than brigands on a large scale.
Such conclusions may seem strange to persons unacquainted with the way
in which the region of epilepsy has been extended in modern times, so
that many cases of headache (hemicrania) or simple loss of memory, are
now recognized as forms of epilepsy, though in disguise; their
manifestation--as Savage has observed--causing the disappearance of
every trace of the pre-existing epilepsy. It is sufficient, however, to
recall to the reader the numerous men of genius of the first order who
have been seized by motory epilepsy, or by that kind of morbid
irritability which is well known to supply its place. Among these we
find such names as Napoleon, Molière, Julius Cæsar, Petrarch, Peter the
Great, Mahomet, Handel, Swift, Richelieu, Charles V., Flaubert,
Dostoïeffsky, and St. Paul.[464]
To those acquainted with the so-called binomial or serial law, according
to which no phenomenon occurs singly--each one being, on the contrary,
the expression of a series of less well-defined but analogous
facts--such frequent occurrence of epilepsy among the most distinguished
of distinguished men can but indicate a greater prevalence of this
disease among men of genius than was previously thought possible, and
suggests the hypothesis of the epileptoid nature of genius itself.
In this connection, it is important to note how, in these men, the
convulsion made its appearance but rarely in the course of their lives.
Now it is well known that, in such cases, the psychic equivalent (here
the exercise of creative power) is more frequent and intense.[465]
But, above all, the identity is proved to us by the analogy of the
epileptic seizure with the moment of inspiration. This active and
violent unconsciousness in the one case manifests itself by creation,
and in the other by motory agitation.
The demonstration is completed when we come to analyse this creative
inspiration or _œstrus_ which has often suggested epilepsy, even to
those ignorant of the recent discoveries with regard to its nature. And
this, not only on account of its frequent association with insensibility
to pain, with irregularity of the pulse, and with an unconsciousness
which is often that of a somnambulist, of its instantaneous occurrence
and intermittent character; but also because it is not seldom
accompanied by convulsive movements of the limbs, followed by amnesia,
and provoked by substances or conditions which cause or increase the
excessive flow of blood to the brain; or by powerful sensations; and
also because it may succeed or pass into hallucinations.
This resemblance between inspiration and the epileptic seizure,
moreover, is demonstrated by an even directer and more cogent proof--the
confessions of eminent men of genius, which show how completely the one
may be confounded with the other. Such confessions are those of
Goncourt[466] and Buffon, and especially of Mahomet and Dostoïeffsky.
“There are moments,” writes the latter (in _Besi_)--“and it is only a
matter of five or six seconds--when you suddenly feel the presence of
the eternal harmony. This phenomenon is neither terrestrial nor
celestial, but it is an indescribable something, which man, in his
mortal body, can scarcely endure--he must either undergo a physical
transformation or die. It is a clear and indisputable feeling: all at
once, you feel as though you were placed in contact with the whole of
nature, and you say, ‘Yes! this is true.’ When God created the world, He
said, at the end of every day of creation, ‘Yes! this is true! this is
good!’ ... And it is not tenderness, nor yet joy. You do not forgive
anything, because there is nothing to forgive. Neither do you love--oh!
this feeling is higher than love! The terrible thing is the frightful
clearness with which it manifests itself, and the rapture with which it
fills you. If this state were to last more than five seconds, the soul
could not endure it, and would have to disappear. During those five
seconds, I live a whole human existence, and for that I would give my
whole life and not think I was paying it too dearly.’
“‘You are not epileptic?’
“‘No.’
“‘You will become so. I have heard that it begins just in that way. A
man subject to this malady[467] has minutely described to me the
sensation which precedes the attack; and in listening to you, I thought
I heard him speaking. He, too, spoke of a period of five seconds, and
said it was impossible to endure this condition longer. Remember
Mahomet’s water-jar; for the space of time it took to empty it, the
prophet was rapt into Paradise. Your five seconds are the jar--Paradise
is your harmony--and Mahomet was epileptic! Take care you do not become
so also, Kiriloff!’”[468]
And in the _Idiot_ (vol. i. p. 296):--
“ ... I remember, among other things, a phenomenon which used to precede
his epileptic attacks, when they came on in a waking state. In the midst
of the dejection, the mental marasmus, the anxiety, which the madman
experienced, there were moments in which, all of a sudden, his brain
became inflamed, and all his vital forces suddenly rose to a prodigious
degree of intensity. The sensation of life, of conscious existence, was
multiplied almost tenfold in these swiftly-passing moments.
“A strange light illuminated his heart and mind. All agitation was
calmed, all doubt and perplexity resolved itself into a superior
harmony, a serene and tranquil gaiety, which yet was completely
rational. But these radiant moments were only a prelude to the last
instant--that immediately succeeded by the attack. That instant was, in
truth, ineffable. When, at a later time, after his recovery, the prince
reflected on this subject, he said to himself, ‘Those fleeting moments,
in which our highest consciousness of ourselves--and therefore our
highest life--is manifested, are due only to disease, to the suspension
of normal conditions; and, if so, it is not a higher life, but, on the
contrary, one of a lower order.’ This, however, did not prevent his
reaching a most paradoxical conclusion. ‘What matter, after all, though
it be a disease--an abnormal tension--if the result, as I with recovered
health remember and analyze it, includes the very highest degree of
harmony and beauty; if at this moment I have an unspeakable, hitherto
unsuspected feeling of harmony, of peace, of my whole nature being
fused in the impetus of a prayer, with the highest synthesis of life?’
“This farrago of nonsense seemed to the prince perfectly comprehensible;
and the only fault it had in his eyes was that of being too feeble a
rendering of his thoughts. He could not doubt, or even admit the
possibility of a doubt, of the real existence of this condition of
‘beauty and prayer,’ or of its constituting ‘the highest synthesis of
life.’
“But did he not in these moments experience visions analogous to the
fantastic and debasing dreams produced by the intoxication of opium,
haschisch, or wine? He was able to form a sane judgment on this point
when the morbid condition had ceased. These moments were only
distinguished--to define them in a word--by the extraordinary
heightening of the inward sense. If in that instant--that is to say, in
the last moment of consciousness which precedes the attack--the patient
was able to say clearly, and with full consciousness of the import of
his words, ‘Yes, for this moment one would give a whole lifetime,’ there
is no doubt that, as far as he alone was concerned, that moment was
worth a lifetime.
“No doubt, too, it is to this same instant that the epileptic Mahomet
alluded, when he said that he used to visit all the abodes of Allah in
less time than it would take to empty his water-jar.”
I will add here some lines from the _Correspondance_ of Flaubert:--
“If sensitive nerves are enough to make a poet, I should be worth more
than Shakespeare and Homer.... I who have heard through closed doors
people talking in low tones thirty paces away, across whose abdomen one
may see all the viscera throbbing, and who have sometimes felt in the
space of a minute a million thoughts, images, and combinations of all
kinds throwing themselves into my brain at once, as it were the lighted
squibs of fireworks.”
Let us now compare these descriptions of an attack, which might be
called one of _psychic epilepsy_ (and which corresponds exactly to the
physiological idea of epilepsy--_i.e._, cortical irritation), with all
the descriptions given us by authors themselves of the inspiration of
genius. We shall then see how perfect is the correspondence between the
two sets of phenomena.
In order the better to illustrate these strange displacements of
function in epileptic subjects, I should call attention to an example,
cited by Dr. Frigerio, of an epileptic patient who, at the moment of
seizure, felt the venereal desire awaken, not in the generative organs,
but in the epigastrium, accompanied by ejaculation.[469]
Let me add that, in certain cases, it is not only isolated paroxysms
which recall the psychic phenomenology of the epileptic, but the whole
life. Bourget remarks that, “for the Goncourts, life reduces itself to a
series of epileptic attacks, preceded and followed by a blank.” And what
the Goncourts wrote has always been autobiography. Zola in his
_Romanciers Naturalistes_ gives us this confession by Balzac: “He works
under the influence of circumstances, of which the union is a mystery;
he does not belong to himself; he is the plaything of a force which is
eminently capricious; on some days he would not touch his brush, he
would not write a line for an empire. In the evening when dreaming, in
the morning when rising, in the midst of some joyous feast, it happens
that a burning coal suddenly touches this brain, these hands, this
tongue: a word awakens ideas that are born, grow, ferment. Such is the
artist, the humble instrument of a despotic will; he obeys a master.”
Let us glance at the pictures which Taine has given us of the greatest
of modern conquerors, and Renan of the greatest of the apostles:--
“The principal characteristics of Napoleon’s genius,” says Taine, “are
its originality and comprehensiveness. No detail escapes him. The
quantity of facts which his mind stores up and retains, the number of
ideas which he elaborates and utters, seem to surpass human capacity.
“In the art of ruling men his genius was supreme. His method of
procedure--which is that of the experimental sciences--consisted in
controlling every theory by a precise application observed under
definite conditions. All his sayings are fire-flashes. ‘Adultery,’ said
he to the Conseil d’Etat, when the question of divorce was under
discussion, ‘is not exceptional; it is very common--_c’est une affaire
de canapé_.’ ‘Liberty,’ he exclaimed, on another occasion (and he
remained faithful all his life to the spirit of this exclamation), ‘is
the necessity of a small and privileged class, endowed by nature with
faculties higher than those of the mass of mankind; _it may therefore be
abridged with impunity_. Equality, on the contrary, pleases the
multitude.”
“He possesses a faculty which carries us back to the Middle Ages--an
astounding _constructive_ imagination. What he accomplished is
surprising; but he undertook far more, and dreamed much more even than
that. However vigorous his practical faculties may have been, his poetic
faculty was still stronger; it was even greater than it ought to have
been in a statesman. We see greatness in him exaggerated into immensity,
and immensity degenerating into madness. What aspiring, monstrous
conceptions revolved, accumulated, superseded each other in that
marvellous brain! ‘Europe,’ he said, ‘is a mole-hill; there have never
been great empires or great revolutions save in the East, where there
are six hundred millions of men.’”
In Egypt, he was thinking of conquering Syria, re-establishing the
Eastern Empire at Constantinople, and returning to Paris by way of
Adrianople and Vienna. The East allured him with the mirage of
omnipotence; in the East he caught a glimpse of the possibility that, a
new Mahomet, he might found a new religion. Confined to Europe, his
dream was to re-create the empire of Charlemagne; to make Paris the
physical, intellectual, and religious capital of Europe, and assemble
within its precincts the princes, kings, and popes, who should have
become his vassals. By way of Russia, he would then advance towards the
Ganges, and the supremacy of India. “The artist enclosed within the
politician has issued from his sheath; he creates in the region of the
ideal and the impossible. We know him for what he is--a posthumous
brother of Dante and Michelangelo; only these two worked on paper and in
marble; it was living man, sensitive and suffering flesh, that formed
his material.”
“Napoleon differs from modern men in character as much as do the
contemporaries of Dante and Michelangelo. The sentiments, habits, and
morality professed by him are the sentiments, habits, and morality of
the fifteenth century. ‘I am not a man like other men,’ he exclaimed;
‘the laws of morality and decorum were not made for me.’
“Mme. de Staël and Stendhal compare Napoleon psychologically to the
lesser tyrants of the fourteenth century--Sforza and Castruccio
Castracani. Such, in fact, he was.
“On the evening of the 12th Vendemiaire, being present at the
preparations made by the Sections, he said to Junot, ‘Ah! if the
Sections would only place me at their head, I would answer for it that
they should be in the Tuileries within two hours, and all these wretched
Conventionnels out of it!’ Five hours later, being called to the
assistance of Barras and the Convention, he opened fire on the
Parisians, like a good _condottiere_, who does not give but lends
himself to the first who offers, to the highest bidder, reserving for
himself full liberty of action, and the power of seizing everything,
should the occasion present itself....
“Never, even among the Borgias and Malatestas, was there a more
sensitive and impulsive brain, capable of such electric accumulations
and discharges.... In him, no idea remained purely speculative; each
one, as it occurred, had a tendency to embody itself in action, and
would have done so, if not prevented by force.... Sometimes the outburst
was so sudden that restraint did not come in time. One day, in Egypt, he
upset a decanter of water over a lady’s dress, and, taking her into his
own room, under the pretext of remedying the accident, remained there
with her for some time--too long--while the other guests, seated around
the table, waited, gazing at each other. On another occasion he threw
Prince Louis violently out of the room; on yet another, he kicked
Senator Volney in the stomach.
“At Campo-Formio, he threw down and broke a china ornament, to put an
end to the resistance of the Austrian plenipotentiary. At Dresden, in
1813, when Prince Metternich was most necessary to him, he asked him,
brutally, how much he received from England for defending her interests.
“Never was there a more impatient sensibility. He throws garments that
do not fit him into the fire. His writing--when he tries to write--is a
collection of disconnected and indecipherable characters. He dictates so
quickly that his secretaries can scarcely follow him--if the pen is
behindhand, so much the worse for it; if a volley of oaths and
exclamations give it time to catch up, so much the better. His heart and
intellect are full to overflowing; under pressure like this, the
extempore orator and the excited controversialist take the place of the
statesman.”
“My nerves are irritable,” he said of himself; and, in fact, the tension
of accumulated impressions sometimes produced a physical convulsion; he
was not seldom seen to shed tears under strong emotion. Napoleon wept,
not on account of true and deep feeling, but because “a word--an idea by
itself is a stimulus which reaches the inmost depth of his nature.”
Hence, certain distractions, consequent upon vomitings or fainting fits,
which caused, it is said, the loss of General Vandamme’s corps, after
the battle of Dresden. Though the regulator is so powerful, the balance
of the works is, from time to time, in danger of being deranged.
“An enormous degree of strength was necessary, to co-ordinate, to guide
and to dominate passions of such vitality. In Napoleon, this strength is
an instinct of extraordinary force and harshness--an egoism, not inert,
but active and aggressive, and so far developed as to set up in the
midst of human society a colossal _I_, which can tolerate no life that
is not an appendix, or instrument of its own. Even as a child, he showed
the germs of this personality; he was impatient of all restraint, and
had no trace of conscience; he could brook no rivals, beat those who
refused to render homage to him, and then accused his victims of having
beaten him.
“He looks upon the world as a great banquet, open to every comer, but
where, to be well served, it is necessary for a man to have long arms,
help himself first, and let others take what he leaves.
“‘One has a hold over man through his selfish passions--fear, greed,
sensuality, self-esteem, emulation. If there are some hard particles in
the heap, all one has to do is to crush them.’ Such was the final
conception arrived at by Napoleon; and nothing could induce him to
change it, because this conception is conditioned by his character; he
saw man as he needed to see him. His egoism is reflected in his
ambition--‘so much a part of his inmost nature that he cannot
distinguish it from himself; it makes his head swim. France is a
mistress who is his to enjoy.’ In the exercise of his power he
acknowledges neither intermediaries, nor rivals, nor limits, nor
hindrances.
“To fill his office with zeal and success is not enough for him; above
and beyond the functionary, he vindicates the rights of the man. All who
serve him must extinguish the critical sense in themselves; their
scarcely audible whispers are a conspiracy, or an attack on his majesty.
He requires of them anything and everything--from the manufacture of
false Austrian and Russian bank-notes in 1809 and 1812, to the
preparation of an infernal machine, to blow up the Bourbons in 1814. He
knows nothing of gratitude; when a man is of no further use to him as a
tool, he throws him away....
“During a dance, he would walk about among the ladies, in order to shock
them with unpleasant witticisms; he was always prying into their private
life, and related to the empress herself the favours which, more or less
spontaneously, they granted him.
“What is still stranger, he carried the same methods of proceeding into
his relations with sovereigns and ambassadors of foreign states. In his
correspondence, in his proclamations, in his audiences, he provoked,
threatened, challenged, offended; he divulged their real or supposed
amorous intrigues (the bulletins 9, 17, 18, 19, after the battle of
Jena, evidently accuse the Queen of Prussia of having had an intrigue
with the Emperor Alexander), and reproaches them with a personal insult
to himself, in the employment of such or such a man. He requires of
them, in short, to modify their fundamental laws: he has but a poor
opinion of a government without the power of prohibiting things which
may displease foreign governments.”[470]
This is the completest view of Napoleon ever given by any historian. To
any one acquainted with the psychological constitution of the epileptic,
it becomes clear that Taine has here given us the subtlest and precisest
pathological diagnosis of a case of psychic epilepsy, with its gigantic
megalomaniacal illusions, its impulses, and complete absence of moral
sense.
It is not, therefore, only in moments of inspiration that genius
approaches epilepsy; and the same thing may be said of St. Paul.
St. Paul[471] was of low stature, but stoutly made. His health was
always poor, on account of a strange infirmity which he calls “a thorn
in the flesh,” and which was probably a serious neurosis.
His moral character was anomalous; naturally kind and courteous, he
became ferocious when excited by passion. In the school of Gamaliel, a
moderate Pharisee, he did not learn moderation; as the enthusiastic
leader of the younger Pharisees, he was among the fiercest persecutors
of the Christians.... Hearing that there was a certain number of
disciples at Damascus, he demanded of the high priest a warrant for
arresting them, and left Jerusalem in a disturbed state of mind. On
approaching the plain of Damascus at noon, he had a seizure, evidently
of an epileptic nature, in which he fell to the ground unconscious. Soon
after this, he experienced a hallucination, and saw Jesus himself, who
said to him in Hebrew, “Paul, Paul, why persecutest thou me?” For three
days, seized with fever, he neither ate nor drank, and saw the phantom
of Ananias, whom, as head of the Christian community, he had come to
arrest, making signs to him. The latter was summoned to his bed, and
calm immediately returned to the spirit of Paul, who from that day
forward became one of the most fervid Christians. Without desiring any
more special instruction--as having received a direct revelation from
Christ himself--he regarded himself as one of the apostles, and acted as
such, to the enormous advantage of the Christians. The immense dangers
occasioned by his haughty and arrogant spirit were compensated a
thousand times over by his boldness and originality, which would not
allow the Christian idea to remain within the bounds of a small
association of people “poor in spirit,” who would have let it die out
like Hellenism, but, so to speak, steered boldly out to sea with it. At
Antioch he had a hallucination similar to that of Mahomet at a later
period; he felt himself rapt into the third heaven, where he heard
unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter.
Anomalies are also observable in his writings. “He lets himself be
guided by words rather than ideas; some one word which he has in his
mind overpowers him and draws him off into a series of ideas very far
removed from his main subject. His digressions are abrupt, the
development of his ideas is suddenly cut short, his sentences are often
unfinished. No writer was ever so unequal; no literature in the world
presents a sublime passage like 1 Corinthians xiii., side by side with
futile arguments and wearisome detail.”[472]
Epilepsy in men of genius, therefore, is not an accidental phenomenon,
but a true _morbus totius substantiæ_, to express it in medical
language. Hence we gather a fresh indication of the epileptoid nature of
genius.
If, as seems certain, Dostoïeffsky described himself in the _Idiot_, we
have another example of an epileptic genius, whose whole course of life
is determined by the psychology peculiar to the epileptic--impulsivity,
double personality, childishness, which goes back even to the earliest
periods of human life, and alternates with a prophetic penetration, and
with morbid altruism and the exaggerated affectivity of the saint. This
last fact is most important, as bearing on the objection that the usual
immorality of the epileptic would forbid us to connect this type with
that of the saintly character. This objection, however, has been partly
eliminated by the researches of Bianchi, Tonnini, Filippi, according to
whom there are cases, though rare (16 per cent.), of epileptic patients
of good character, who even manifest an exaggerated altruism, though
accompanied by excessive emotionalism.[473]
Hysteria, which is closely related to epilepsy, and similarly connected
with the loss of affectivity, often shows us, side by side with an
exaggerated egoism, certain bursts of excessive altruism, which, at the
same time, have their source in, and depend on, a degree of moral
insanity, and show us the morbid phenomenon in excessive charity.
“There are some ladies,” justly observes Legrand du Saulle,[474] “who,
though remaining in the world, take an ostentatious part in all the good
works going on in their parish; they collect for the poor, work for the
orphans, visit the sick, give alms, watch by the dead, ardently solicit
the benevolence of others, and do a great deal of really helpful work,
while at the same time neglecting their husbands, children, and
household affairs.
“These women ostentatiously and noisily proclaim their benevolence. They
set on foot a work of charity with as much ardour as bogus
company-promoters launch a financial enterprise which is to result in
hyperbolical dividends.
“They go and come, in constantly increasing numbers; they instinctively
act with a charming tact and delicacy, think of everything necessary to
be done, whether in the midst of private mourning or public catastrophe,
and affect to blush on receiving tributes of admiration from grateful
sufferers, or deeply moved spectators.... Their ready tact and sympathy
are surprising, and the greater the trouble, the more admirably do they
seem to rise to the occasion--while the paroxysm lasts. When their
feelings are calmed, the benevolent impulse passes away; being
essentially mobile and spasmodic, they cannot do good deliberately and
on reflection.
“The ‘charitable hysteric’ is capable of achieving feats of courage
which have been quoted and repeated, and even become legendary.
“They have been known to show extraordinary presence of mind, resource,
and courage in saving the inmates of a burning house, or in facing an
armed mob during a riot. If questioned on the following day, these
heroines will be found in a state of complete prostration; and some of
them candidly avow that they do not know what they have done, and were
at the time unconscious of danger.
“At a time of cholera epidemic, when fear causes such ill-advised and
reprehensible derelictions of duty, hysterical women have been known to
show an extraordinary devotion; nothing is repugnant to them, nothing
revolts their modesty or wearies out their endurance....
“For such persons, devotion to others has become a need, a necessary
expenditure of energy, and, without knowing it, they pathologically play
the part of virtue. People in general are taken in by it, and, for the
sake of example, it is just as well. It was this consideration which
induced me to ask and obtain a public acknowledgment of the services of
a hysterical patient--at one time an inmate of a lunatic asylum--whose
deeds of charity in the district where she lives are truly touching.
While constantly active in attendance on the sick, and spending
liberally on their behalf, she confines her personal expenditure to what
is strictly necessary, her dress being the same at all seasons of the
year. Now this lady shows a great variety of hysterical symptoms,
becomes intensely excited on the slightest occasion, sleeps very badly,
and is a serious invalid.
“Lastly, in private sorrows, the hysteric patient often departs from the
normal manifestations of grief. At the loss of her children, she remains
calm, serene, resigned; does not shed a tear, thinks of everything that
ought to be done, gives numerous orders, forgets none of the most
painful details, imposes on all around her the most dignified attitude,
and attends the funeral without breaking down. People think that this
mother is exceptionally gifted, and has a courage superior to others.
This is a mistake; she is weaker than they--she is ‘suffering from
disease.’”
In order fully to grasp the seeming paradoxes contained in these
conclusions, we must remember that many philanthropists love their
neighbours, but only at a distance, and nearly always at the expense of
the more physiological, more general, affections--love for their family,
their country, &c. We must remember Dostoïeffsky’s remark (in _The
Brothers Karamanzov_, i. p. 325) that “What one can love in one’s fellow
is a hidden and invisible man; as soon as he shows his face, love
disappears. One can love one’s fellow-men in spirit, but only at a
distance; never close at hand.” One also recalls Sterne, who was
overcome with emotion at the sight of a dead ass, and deserted his wife
and his mother.
The greatest philanthropists--such men as Beccaria and Howard--have been
harsh fathers and masters; even the Divine Philanthropist was, as we
have seen, hard towards his own family.[475]
St. Paul, before his conversion, distinguished himself by his vehement
and cruel persecution of the Christians.
It is well known how, only too often, the man of real and fervent
religion has to forget his family and make a duty of celibacy and hatred
to the other sex. Thus St. Liberata was angry with her husband for
weeping at parting from their children; and, according to the legend,
the mother of Baruch replied to her son when, during his martyrdom, he
implored her for water in his anguish, “Thou shouldst desire no water
now save that of heaven.”[476]
These cases, moreover, show that, very often, exaggerated altruism is
itself only a pathological phenomenon, a hypertrophy of sentiment
accompanied--as always happens in cases of hypertrophy--by loss and
atrophy in other directions.[477]
We have seen in Juan de Dios, in Lazzaretti, Loyola, and St. Francis, of
Assisi, saintliness showing itself, in true psychic polarization, as a
perfect contrast to their former life in which the tendency to evil was
strongly pronounced.
If we add to these phenomena, so frequent in epileptic and hysteric
patients, all those others, of clairvoyance, thought-transference,
transposition of the senses, fakirism, mental vision, temporary
manifestations of genius, and monoideism, so frequently observed in
these maladies, phenomena so strange that many scientists, unable to
explain, endeavour to deny them, we can demonstrate the hysterical
character of saintliness, even in its least explicable manifestations--those
of miracles.[478]
CHAPTER IV.
SANE MEN OF GENIUS.
Their unperceived
defects--Richelieu--Sesostris--Foscolo--Michelangelo--Darwin.
But a graver objection is that afforded by those few men of genius who
have completed their intellectual orbit without aberration, neither
depressed by misfortune nor thrown out of their course by madness.
Such have been Galileo, Leonardo da Vinci, Voltaire, Machiavelli,
Michelangelo, Darwin. Each one of these showed, by the ample volume and
at the same time the symmetrical proportion of the skull, force of
intellect restrained by the calm of the desires. Not one of them allowed
his great passion for truth and beauty to stifle the love of family and
country. They never changed their faith or character, never swerved from
their aim, never left their work half completed. What assurance, what
faith, what ability they showed in their undertakings; and, above all,
what moderation and unity of character they preserved in their lives!
Though they, too, had to experience--after undergoing the sublime
paroxysm of inspiration--the torture inflicted by ignorant hatred, and
the discomfort of uncertainty and exhaustion, they never, on that
account, deviated from the straight road. They carried out to the end
the one cherished idea which formed the aim and purpose of their lives,
calm and serene, never complaining of obstacles, and falling into but a
few mistakes--mistakes which, in lesser men, might even have passed for
discoveries.
But I have already answered, in the opening pages of this book, the
objection furnished by these rare exceptions, pointing out that epilepsy
and moral insanity (which is its first variety) often pass unobserved,
not only in distinguished men, the prestige of whose name and work
dazzles our judgment, and prevents our discerning them, but in those
criminals to whom such researches might at least restore self-respect,
by depriving them of all responsibility.
Who, but for the revelations of some of his intimate friends, would have
suspected that Cavour was repeatedly subject to attacks of suicidal
mania, or thought that Richelieu was epileptic? No one would have paid
any attention to the morbid impulsiveness of Foscolo, or recorded it as
a symptom, if Davis had not examined his skull after death. Who could
make any assertion with regard to the moral sense of Sesostris? Yet, as
Arved Barine justly remarks,[479] his skull completely corresponds to
the criminal type. The low and narrow forehead, prominent superciliary
arch, thick eyebrows, eyes set close together, long, narrow, aquiline
nose, hollow temples, projecting cheek-bones, strong jaws; the
expression not intelligent, but animal, fierce, proud, and majestic; the
head small in proportion to the body, are all so many indications of the
most complete absence of moral sense.
In all the biographies of Michelangelo we do not discover one spot on
that gentle and yet robust soul, who trembled for the sorrows of his
country as at the expression of beauty. But the publication of his
letters,[480] and the keen researches of Parlagreco,[481] have revealed
physical anomalies never before suspected.
One of the most important is his complete indifference to women. This
may be observed in his works, and his masterpieces were all
masculine--Moses, Lorenzo, Giuliano de’ Medici, &c. He never used, it
appears, the living female model, though he made use of corpses; his
Bacchante is a virago with masculine muscles, unformed breasts and no
feminine touch. In his many love sonnets, written rather to follow the
prevailing fashion than from any true inspiration of passion, none bear
the mark of being addressed to real women; only fourteen times, it is
said, does the word “donna” occur. On the other hand, in the Barbera
Collection, Sonnets xviii. and xii. show a very marked admiration for
the male, and Varchi considers that these are addressed to Cavalieri who
was of great physical beauty. There are in existence two of his letters
addressed to Cavalieri (July 28, 1523, and July 28, 1532), which seem to
be written to a mistress, and in which, humiliating himself, he swears
that, if banished from the other’s heart, he will die. There is a
similar letter written to Angelini.
This moral anomaly, which he would share with many artists, Cellini,
Sodoma, &c., is not the only one met with. “In his letters,” writes
Parlagreco, “may be seen constant contradictions between ideas that are
great and generous, and others that are puerile; between will and
speech; between thought and action; extreme irritability, inconstant
affection, great activity in doing good, sudden sympathies, great
outbursts of enthusiasm, great fears, sometimes unconsciousness of his
own actions, marvellous modesty in the field of art, unreasonable vanity
in the appearances of life--these are the various psychical
manifestations in the life of Buonarroti which lead me to believe that
the great artist was affected by a neuropathic condition bordering on
hysteria.”
Every day in his old age he discovered some sin in his past life, and he
sent money to Florence for masses to be said and for alms to the poor,
and to enable poor girls to be married, and, which is stranger, to be
made nuns. All this was to gain Paradise (Lett. 187, 214, 240, 330), to
save his soul--he who had said: “It is not strange that the monks should
spoil a chapel [at the Vatican], since they have known how to spoil the
whole world.”
At some moments he feels that his conscience is clean and then he
desires to die, so that he may not fall back into evil; but then his
discouragement returns, and he believes (strange blasphemy), that it was
a sin to have been born an artist.
“_Conosco di quant’ era d’error carca_
_L’affettuosa fantasia_
_Che_ l’arte _mi fece idolo e monarca_ ...
_Le parole del mondo mi hanno tolto_
_Il tempo dato a contemplar Iddio._”
And he believes himself destined by God to a long life simply that he
may complete the fabric of St. Peter’s.
In old age he who had shown so little vanity where his work was
concerned, and so much modesty in speaking of it, went about studying
how he could best exhibit the nobility of his descent, claiming to trace
it in a direct line from the Counts of Canossa, a claim which, even if
valid, would not be worth a finger of his Moses.
Michelangelo tenderly loved his father and brother and nephews, and
enabled them to live in easy circumstances; yet in his letters to them
he frequently shows himself suspicious and treats them unjustly. In
1544, he fell seriously ill at Rome. His nephew naturally hastened to
his bedside. Michelangelo became very angry and wrote: “You are come to
kill me and to see what I leave behind.... Know that I have made my will
and that there is nothing here for you to think about. Therefore, go in
peace and do not write to me more.” Three months after, he changed his
tone. “I will not fail in what I have often thought about, that is, in
helping you.” He has himself left a confession of his almost morbid
melancholy in a letter (97), to Sebastiano del Piombo: “Yesterday
evening I was happy because I escaped from my mad and melancholy
humour.”
Without the recent biographical and autobiographical notes published by
his son,[482] no one could have imagined that Darwin, a model father and
citizen, so self-controlled and even so free from vanity, was a
neuropath. His son tells us that for forty years he never enjoyed
twenty-four hours of health like other men. Of the eight years devoted
to the study of the cirripedes, two, as he himself writes, were lost
through illness. Like all neuropaths he could bear neither heat nor
cold; half an hour of conversation beyond his habitual time was
sufficient to cause insomnia and hinder his work on the following day.
He suffered also from dyspepsia, from spinal anæmia and giddiness (which
last is known to be frequently the equivalent of epilepsy); and he
could not work more than three hours a day. He had curious crotchets.
Finding that eating sweets made him ill, he resolved not to touch them
again, but was unable to keep his resolution, unless he had repeated it
aloud. He had a strange passion for paper--writing the rough drafts of
his correspondence on the back of proof-sheets, and of the most
important MSS. which were thus rendered difficult to decipher. He often
instituted what he himself called “fool’s experiments”--_e.g._, having a
bassoon played close to the cotyledons of a plant.[483] When about to
make an experiment, he seemed to be urged on by some inward force. From
a morbid dislike to novelty, he used the millimetric tables of an old
book which he knew to be inaccurate, but to which he was accustomed. He
would not change his old chemical balance though aware that it was
untrustworthy; he refused to believe in hypnotism, and also, at first,
in the discovery of prehistoric stone weapons.[484] He frequently, says
his daughter, inverted his sentences, both in speaking and writing, and
had a difficulty in pronouncing some letters, especially _w_. Like
Skoda, Rockitanski, and Socrates, he had a short snub nose, and his ears
were large and long. Nor were degenerative characteristics wanting among
his ancestors. It is true that he reckoned among them several men of
intellect and almost of genius, such as Robert (1682), a botanist and
intelligent observer; and Edward, author of a _Gamekeeper’s Manual_,
full of acute observations on animals. His father had great powers of
observation; but his paternal grandfather, Erasmus--poet and naturalist
at the same time--had a passionate temper and an impediment in his
speech. One of his sons, Charles, a poet and collector, resembled him in
this respect. Finally, another uncle, Erasmus, a man of some intellect,
a numismatist and statistician, ended by madness and suicide.
It might be objected that the fact of such different forms of
psychosis--melancholy, moral insanity, monomania--being found either
complete or undeveloped in men of genius, excludes the special psychosis
of genius, and still more that of epilepsy. But it may be answered that
recent research, which has enlarged the domain of epilepsy, has also
demonstrated that, apart from impulsive and hallucinatory delusions,
epilepsy may be superadded to any form of mental alienation, especially
megalomania and moral insanity. And, as is the case in nearly all
degenerative psychoses, undeveloped forms of mental disease, and
recurring multiform delusions brought on by the most trivial causes,
especially predominate in epilepsy.
CHAPTER V.
CONCLUSIONS.
Between the physiology of the man of genius, therefore, and the
pathology of the insane, there are many points of coincidence; there is
even actual continuity. This fact explains the frequent occurrence of
madmen of genius, and men of genius who have become insane, having, it
is true, characteristics special to themselves, but capable of being
resolved into exaggerations of those of genius pure and simple. The
frequency of delusions in their multiform characters of degenerative
characteristics, of the loss of affectivity, of heredity, more
particularly in the children of inebriate, imbecile, idiotic, or
epileptic parents, and, above all, the peculiar character of
inspiration, show that genius is a degenerative psychosis of the
epileptoid group. This supposition is confirmed by the frequency of a
temporary manifestation of genius in the insane, and by the new group of
mattoids to whom disease gives all the semblance of genius, without its
substance.
What I have hitherto written may, I hope (while remaining within the
limits of psychological observation), afford an experimental
starting-point for a criticism of artistic and literary, sometimes also
of scientific, creations.
Thus, in the fine arts, exaggerated minuteness of detail, the abuse of
symbols, inscriptions, or accessories, a preference for some one
particular colour, an unrestrained passion for mere novelty, may
approach the morbid symptoms of mattoidism. Just so, in literature and
science, a tendency to puns and plays upon words, an excessive fondness
for systems, a tendency to speak of one’s self, and substitute epigram
for logic, an extreme predilection for the rhythm and assonances of
verse in prose writing, even an exaggerated degree of originality may be
considered as morbid phenomena. So also is the mania of writing in
Biblical form, in detached verses, and with special favourite words,
which are underlined, or repeated many times, and a certain graphic
symbolism. Here I must acknowledge that, when I see how many of the
organs which claim to direct public opinion are infected with this
tendency, and how often young writers undertake to discuss grave social
problems in the capricious phraseology of the lunatic asylum, and the
disjointed periods of Biblical times, as though our robust lungs were
unable to cope with the vigorous and manly inspirations of the Latin
construction, I feel grave apprehensions for the future of the rising
generation.
On the other hand, the analogy of mattoids with genius, whose morbid
phenomena only are inherited by them, and with sane persons, with whom
they have shrewdness and practical sense in common, ought to put
students on their guard against certain systems, springing up by
hundreds, more particularly in the abstract or inexact sciences, and due
to the efforts of men incompetent, from a lack either of capacity or
knowledge of the subject, to deal with them. In these systems
declamation, assonances, paradoxes, and conceptions often original, but
always incomplete and contradictory, take the place of calm reasoning
based on a minute and unprejudiced study of facts. Such books are nearly
always the work of those true though involuntary charlatans, the
mattoids, who are more widely diffused in the literary world than is
commonly supposed.
Nor is it only students who should be on their guard against them, but
especially politicians. Not that, in an age of free criticism like our
own, there is any danger that these pretended reformers, who are
stimulated and guided solely by mental disease, should be taken
seriously; but the obstacles justly opposed to them may, by irritating,
sharpen and complete their insanity, transforming a harmless
delusion--whether ideological, as in the case of most mattoids, or
sensorial, as in monomaniacs--into active madness, in which their
greater intellectual power, the depth and tenacity of their
convictions, and that very excess of altruism which compels them to
occupy themselves with public affairs, render them more dangerous, and
more inclined to rebellion and regicide, than other insane persons.
When we reflect that, on the other hand, a genuine lunatic may give
proof of temporary genius, a phenomenon calculated to inspire the
populace with an astonishment which soon produces veneration, we find a
solid argument against those jurists and judges who, from the soundness
and activity of the intellect, infer complete moral responsibility, to
the total exclusion of the possibility of insanity. We also see our way
to an interpretation of the mystery of genius, its contradictions, and
those of its mistakes which any ordinary man would have avoided. And we
can explain to ourselves how it is that madmen or mattoids, even with
little or no genius (Passanante, Lazzaretti, Drabicius, Fourier, Fox),
have been able to excite the populace, and sometimes even to bring about
serious political revolutions. Better still shall we understand how
those who were at once men of genius and insane (Mahomet, Luther,
Savonarola, Schopenhauer), could--despising and overcoming obstacles
which would have dismayed any cool and deliberate mind--hasten by whole
centuries the unfolding of truth; and how such men have originated
nearly all the religions, and certainly all the sects, which have
agitated the world.
The frequency of genius among lunatics and of madmen among men of
genius, explains the fact that the destiny of nations has often been in
the hands of the insane; and shows how the latter have been able to
contribute so much to the progress of mankind.
In short, by these analogies, and coincidences between the phenomena of
genius and mental aberration, it seems as though nature had intended to
teach us respect for the supreme misfortunes of insanity; and also to
preserve us from being dazzled by the brilliancy of those men of genius
who might well be compared, not to the planets which keep their
appointed orbits, but to falling stars, lost and dispersed over the
crust of the earth.
APPENDIX.
POETRY AND THE INSANE.
The following letter was written by a druggist confined in the Asylum of
Sainte-Anne:--
Sainte-Anne, le 26 février 1880.
MADAME,
Veuillez agréer l’hommage
De ce modeste sonnet
Et le tenir comme un gage
De mon sincère respect.
SONNET.
Souvenez-vous, reine des dieux,
Vierge des vierges, notre mère,
Que vous êtes sur cette terre
L’ange gardien mystérieux.[485]
The same man addressed to M. Magnan a long poem on a dramatic
representation accompanied by the following graceful _envoi_:--
VÉNÉRÉ DOCTEUR,
L’estime et la reconnaissance
Sont la seule monnaie du cœur
Dont votre pauvre serviteur
Dispose pour la récompense
Qu’il doit à vos soins pleins d’honneur.
Recevez donc cet humble hommage,
Docteur admiré, révéré,
Et j’ajouterai bien-aimé,
Si vous vouliez tenir pour gage
Qu’en cela du moins J’AI PAYE.[486]
The following lines are from a long satirical poem by a writer who
appears to have cherished much less respect for his physician. He
believed that he had been changed into a beast, and recognised a
colleague in every horse or donkey he met. He wished to browse in every
field, and only refrained from doing so out of consideration for his
friends:--
Les médicastres sans vergogne
Qui changent en sale besogne
Le plus sublime des mandats,
Ces infâmes aliénistes,
Qui, reconnus pour moralistes,
Sont les pires des scélérats!
Ils détruisent les écritures
Pour maintenir les impostures
Des ennemis du bien public.
Ils prostituent leur justice
Pour se gorger du bénéfice
De leur satanique trafic.[487]
The author of the following lines on the same day made an attempt at
suicide, and then a homicidal attack on his mother.
À MONSIEUR LE DOCTEUR C.
ÉPITRE (_13 mai 1887_).
Un docteur éminent sollicite ma muse.
Certes l’honneur est grand; mais le docteur s’amuse,
Car, dans ce noir séjour, le poète attristé
Par le souffle divin n’est guère visité....
Faire des vers ici, quelle rude besogne!
On pourra m’objecter que jadis, en Gascogne,
Les rayons éclatants d’un soleil du Midi
Réveillaient quelquefois mon esprit engourdi;
Il est vrai: dans Bordeaux, cité fière et polie,
J’ai fêté le bon vin, j’ai chanté la folie,
Celle bien entendu qui porte des grelots.
Mais depuis, un destin fatal à mon repos
M’exile loin des bords de la belle Gironde,
Qu’enrichissent les vins les plus fameux du monde!
Aussi plus de chansons, de madrigaux coquets!
Plus de sonnets savants, de bacchiques couplets!
Ma muse tout en pleurs a replié ses ailes,
Comme un ange banni des sphères éternelles!
Dans sa cage enfermé l’oiseau n’a plus de voix....
Hélas! je ne suis point le rossignol des bois,
Pas même le pinson, pas même la fauvette;
Vous me flattez, docteur, en m’appelant poète....
Je ne suis qu’un méchant rimeur, et je ne sais
Si ces alexandrins auront un grand succès....
Cependant mon désir est de vous satisfaire;
Votre estime m’honore et je voudrais vous plaire,
Mais Pégase est rétif quand il est enchaîné;
D’un captif en naissant le vers meurt condamné.
Si vous voulez, docteur, que ma muse renaisse,
Je ne vous dirai pas: rendez-moi ma jeunesse.
Non, mais puisque vos soins m’ont rendu la santé,
Ne pourriez-vous me rendre aussi la liberté?
Des vers! Pour que le ciel au poète en envoie
Que faut-il? le grand air, le soleil et la joie!
Accordez-moi ces biens: mon luth reconnaissant,
Pour vous remercier comme un Dieu bienfaisant,
Peut-être trouvera, de mon cœur interprète,
Des chants dignes de vous, et dignes d’un poète!
The following lines well express the solitary sadness of the
melancholiac:--
A SE STESSO.
E con chi l’hai?
Con tutti e con nessuno,
L’ho con il cielo, che si tinge a bruno,
L’ho con il metro, che non rende i lai,
Che mi rodono il petto.
Nell’odio altrui, nel mal comun mi godo.
And these are of marvellous delicacy and truth:--
TIPO FISICO-MORALE DI P. L.
QUI RICOVERATO.
Al primo aspetto
Chi ti vede, saria
Costretto a dir che a te manca l’affetto;
E male s’apporria;
Che invece spesse fiate,
Sotto ruvido vel, palpitan lene
L’anime innamorate
Che s’accendon, riscaldansi nel bene.
Così rosa dal petalo
Invisibile quasi
Mette l’effluvio dai raccolti vasi,
Come dal gelsomino,
E i delicati odor dell’amorino;
Nemico a tutti i giuochi,
Di Venere, di Bacco indarno i fuochi
Ti soffiano; la cute
E di tal forza che sembrano mute
Le vezzose lusinghe ...
E invano a darti il fiato spira l’etra.
M. S.
The following little piece is a masterpiece of insane poetry:--
A UN UCCELLO DEL CORTILE.
Da un virgulto ad uno scoglio
Da uno scoglio a una collina,
L’ala tua va pellegrina
Voli o posi a notte e dì.
Noi confitti al nostro orgoglio,
Come ruote in ferrei perni,
Ci stanchiamo in giri eterni,
Sempre erranti e sempre qui!
CAVALIERE Y.
INDEX.
Albertus Magnus, 7
Alcoholism in men of genius, 54, 316, 325
Alexander the Great, 6, 54, 146
Alfieri, 20, 22, 23, 27, 28, 103
Amiel, 52-53
Ampère, 29, 34, 67, 315
Anæsthesia of men of genius, 33
Anabaptists, 256
Arabesques by insane artists, 200
Argentine men of genius, 313
Aristotle, 8, 13
Art in the insane, 179 _et seq._
Artists, distribution of great European, 117 _et seq._
Atavism in literature of the insane, 172
Bach, 139
Bacon, 61
Balzac, 6, 47, 342
Barometrical condition and genius, 101
Baudelaire, 28, 69-72, 316, 325
Beethoven, 34, 61, 146
Berlioz, 27
Bernouilli, 141
Blake, W., 6, 56
Bolyai, 73
Bruno, G., 25, 35, 47, 106, 316
Buffon, 34, 339
Burns, 41
Byron, 7, 9, 29, 56, 61, 62, 103, 146
Cabanis, 17
Cæsar, Julius, 39, 54
Campanella, 285-291
Campbell, T., 6, 38, 146
Cardan, 21, 35, 74-77, 145, 314, 323
Carducci, 38
Carlo Dolce, 67
Carlyle, 7, 61
Casanova, 59
Cavendish, 14
Cavour, 43, 354
Cerebral characteristics of men of genius, 8-13, 327
Chamfort, 14
Charity, hysterical, 349
Charles V., 13, 146
Chateaubriand, 38, 44
Chopin, 43, 47, 48
Choreic symptoms in men of genius, 38
Civilization on genius, influence of, 153 _et seq._
Clare, J., 165
Clarke, Marcus, 8
Climatic influences on genius, 117 _et seq._
Codazzi, 73
Coleridge, 22, 44, 55
Coleridge, Hartley, 55
Columbus, 56
Comte, 15, 60, 73
Concato, 72
Conception of men of genius, 149
Cowley, 23
Cowper, 24
Cranial characteristics of men of genius, 8-13, 327
Criminality of genius, 57 _et seq._
Cuvier, 11
Dante, 8, 11, 15, 35, 46, 106
Darwin, 13, 106, 356-357
Décadent poets, 230 _et seq._
Descartes, 22
Dickens, 23
Diderot, 34
Discoveries, dates of, 105 _et seq._
Disease on genius, influence of, 151
Domenichino, 17
Donizetti, 9, 11, 62
Dostoïeffsky, 8, 321, 339-341
Double personality of men of genius, 24
Dreams, genius working during, 21, 326
Dumas _père_, 7, 62
Dupuytren, 41
Education on genius, influence of, 159-160
Egoism of men of genius, 318-319
Enfantin, Prosper, 295-296
Epilepsy and genius, 38
Epileptoid nature of genius, 336 _et seq._
Erasmus, 6, 8, 13
Flaxman, 7
Flaubert, 7, 14, 17, 28, 40, 50, 60, 331, 341
Florentine genius, 123, 154-155
Foderà, 91
_Folie du doute_ of men of genius, 48 _et seq._
Fontenelle, 62
Forgetfulness of men of genius, 33
Foscolo, 9, 11, 18, 20, 29, 31, 104, 106
Francis of Assisi, 258-260
Frederick II., 62
French genius, 127
Galvani, 109-110, 114
Gambetta, 11, 12
Gauss, 12
Genius, Aristotle on, 1;
Plato on, 2;
Diderot on, 3;
Richter on, 19
Genius, a neurosis, 5;
distinct from talent, 19, 35;
in the insane, 161 _et seq._;
in mattoids, 226 _et seq._;
its epileptoid nature, 336 _et seq._;
in the sane, 353 _et seq._
Genius, characteristics of men of, 6;
height, 6;
frequency of rickets, 7;
pallor, 7;
emaciation, 7;
cranial and cerebral characteristics, 8-13, 327;
stammering, 13;
lefthandedness, 13;
sterility, 13;
unlikeness to parents, 14;
physiognomy, 14;
precocity, 15, 315;
delayed development, 16;
misoneism, 17;
vagabondage, 18, 316;
unconsciousness and instinctiveness, 19;
somnambulism, 21;
inspiration, 22;
double personality, 24;
stupidity, 25;
hyperæsthesia, 26;
anæsthesia, 33;
forgetfulness, 33;
originality, 35, 317-318;
fondness for special words, 37;
frequency of chorea and epilepsy, 38;
melancholy, 40;
delusions of grandeur, 45;
_folie du doute_, 48 _et seq._;
alcoholism, 54, 316;
hallucinations, 56;
moral insanity, 57;
longevity, 64;
insanity, 66 _et seq._;
meteorological influences on, 100 _et seq._;
climatic influences on, 117 _et seq._;
influence of race, 126, 133;
influence of sex, 137;
influence of heredity, 139 _et seq._;
relation to criminality, 144 _et seq._;
age of parents, 149;
conception, 149;
influence of disease on, 151;
influence of civilization on, 153 _et seq._;
influence of education, 159-160;
characteristics of insane, 314 _et seq._;
analogy of sane and insane, 330 _et seq._;
in revolutions, 334-335
Giordani, 104
Giusti, 40, 104
Goethe, 7, 15, 21, 40
Gogol, 98-99
Goldsmith, 6
Goncourts, the, 28, 331, 339, 342
Grandeur among men of genius, delusions of, 45
Graphomaniacs, 212 _et seq._
Gray, 43
Guiteau, 313
Haller, 67, 319, 320
Hallucinations of men of genius, 56-57
Hamilton, Sir W. R., 109
Hamlet, 53
Haydn, 19
Head injuries and genius, 8, 151
Heat on genius, influence of, 103 _et seq._
Height of men of genius, 6
Heine, 6, 103, 152
Hoffmann, E. T. A., 90-91
Hogarth, 6
Howard, John, 8, 351
Hugo, V., 46
Hyperæsthesia of men of genius, 26
Insane, art and the, 179 _et seq._
Insane and the weather, 100
Insane among savages, the, 245
Insanity and genius, 66 _et seq._, 13, 143, 145, 148, 161 _et seq._, 314 _et seq._, 332
Insanity, epidemics of religious, 251 _et seq._
Inspiration, genius in, 22
Instinctiveness of genius, 19
Jesus, 45, 63
Jewish genius, 133-137
Johnson, Dr., 7, 49, 57
Kant, 8, 10
Kerner, 146
Keshub Chunder Sen, 244
Klaproth, 17
Kleist, 23
Knutzen, 244
Krüdener, Julie de, 257
Lagrange, 110
Lamartine, 20
Lamb, C., 6, 13, 67
Lamennais, 15
Laplace, 18
Lasker, 11
Lawsuit mania, 224-226
Lazzaretti, 296-308
Lee, N., 67
Leibnitz, 22
Lefthandedness of men of genius, 13
Lenau, 38, 85-87, 315, 316, 321, 325
Lesage, 104
Leopardi, 7, 41, 53, 104
Linnæus, 32
Literary mattoids, 209 _et seq._
Longevity of men of genius, 64
Lovat’s autocrucifixion, 183
Loyola, 257
Luther, 260-261
Mahomet, 31, 39, 325
Maine de Biran, 50, 101-103, 151
Mainländer, 72
Malebranche, 56
Malibran, 27
Mallarmé, 231
Malpighi, 108, 114
Manzoni, 49
Matteucci, 111
Mattoids, 212 _et seq._;
of genius, 226 _et seq._;
in art, 239;
in politics and religion, 242 _et seq._
Megalomania, 45-48
Melancholy in men of genius, 40-45
Mendelssohn, F., 7
Mendelssohn, M., 7, 13
Meteorological influences on genius, 100 _et seq._
Meyerbeer, 15
Michelangelo, 13, 15, 354-356
Michelet, 103, 229
Mill, J. S., 44
Milton, 8, 13, 104
Misoneism of men of genius, 17
Molière, 39, 42
Monge, 33
Moral insanity in men of genius, 57, 201, 333
Mountainous regions and genius, 128 _et seq._
Mozart, 20, 42
Musicians, distribution of great Italian, 120 _et seq._
Musset, A. de, 61
Napoleon, 18, 38, 49, 61, 103, 342-346
Nerval, Gérard de, 44, 68-69, 164
Newton, 17, 21, 80-81
Obscenity in art of the insane, 200-201
Originality of men of genius, 35, 317-318;
in the insane, 184-186
Orographic influences on men of genius, 122
Pallor of men of genius, 7
Paganini, 39
Paranoia, 173
Parents of men of genius, 144 _et seq._
Passanante, 308-313
Pascal, 39, 315, 316, 320
Patriotism and genius, 64
Peter the Great, 39
Philanthropists and moral insanity, 351
Physiognomy of men of genius, 8, 14
Poe, 318, 320
Poetry and the insane, 363-366
Political mattoids, 242 _et seq._
Pope, 7
Poushkin, 30, 103, 105
Praga, 326
Precocity of genius, 15, 315, 330
Race on genius, influence of, 117 _et seq._, 133
Religious doubts of men of genius, 318
Religious mattoids, 242 _et seq._
Renan, 50-52, 147
Restif de la Bretonne, 16
Revolutions and men of genius, 334-335
Richelieu, 39
Rickets in men of genius, 7
Rienzi, Cola da, 263-285
Rossini, 22, 35, 42
Rouelle, 33, 48
Rousseau, J. J., 11, 22, 81-85, 103, 314, 324
Saint Paul, 347-348
Sand, George, 42
San Juan de Dios, 291-294
Sanity and genius, 353 _et seq._
Savages and the insane, 245
Savonarola, 261-263
Schiller, 7, 10, 15, 22, 23, 41, 105
Schopenhauer, 18, 30, 91-98, 148, 315
Schumann, 9, 11, 68
Scotch genius, 154
Scott, Walter, 7, 8, 17
Sesostris, 354
Sex in genius, influence of, 136
Sexual abnormalities of men of genius, 316
Shelley, 22, 56
Socrates, 8, 21, 33, 38
Somnambulism of men of genius, 21
Spallanzani, 104, 110
Spanish genius, 127
Stammering in men of genius, 13
Sterility of men of genius, 13
Sterne, 7, 8
Stupidities of men of genius, 25
Suicide and genius, 41
Swedenborg, 256
Swift, 79-80, 315
Sylvester, 104
Symbolism in insane art, 187 _et seq._
Széchényi, 87-90
Talent and genius, 9
Tasso, 55, 77-79, 314, 316, 321
Thackeray, 10
Thermometrical influences on genius, 103
Tolstoi, 50
Torricelli, 109
Tourgueneff, 7, 10
Unconsciousness of genius, 19
Vagabondage of men of genius, 18, 316
Vanity of men of genius, 315, 330
Verlaine, 232-237
Villon, 59
Volta, 9, 17, 109
Voltaire, 7, 8, 42
Weather on genius, influence of, 100 _et seq._
Whitman, Walt, 7, 318
Words, fondness of men of genius for special, 37
Wülfert, 11
Xavier, St. Francis, 7
Zimmermann, 43
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THE CANTERBURY POETS.
NEW VOLUME.
Square 8vo, cloth, 1s.; Gravure edition, with Frontispiece Portrait of
MATTHEW ARNOLD in Photogravure, price 2s.
THE STRAYED REVELLER, EMPEDOCLES ON ETNA, AND
OTHER POEMS.
By MATTHEW ARNOLD,
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY WILLIAM SHARP.
_The text of Arnold’s 1849 Volume_ (THE STRAYED REVELLER) _and of
his 1852 Volume_ (EMPEDOCLES ON ETNA) _is reproduced, the original
arrangement of the Poems being preserved. To these are added the
Poems of Arnold’s 1853 Volume not contained in the two previous
Volumes. The_ “CANTERBURY POETS” _edition will thus present a
comprehensive collection of the highest literary interest and value
of Arnold’s Poems in their original renderings, the early editions
being now very rare and almost unprocurable. The interesting
Preface which Arnold contributed to the 1853 Edition of his Poems
appears as an Appendix to the Volume._
GREAT WRITERS.
Crown 8vo, Cloth, Gilt Top, price 1s. 6d. Library Edition, printed on Large
Paper of extra quality, in handsome Binding, Demy 8vo, price 2s. 6d.
NEW VOLUME.
LIFE OF THOREAU. BY H. S. SALT.
With a Bibliography by J. P. ANDERSON, of the British Museum.
COMPLETION OF THIRD AND LAST VOLUME.
DRAMATIC ESSAYS.
EDITED BY WILLIAM ARCHER AND ROBERT W. LOWE.
Three Vols., Crown 8vo, Cloth, Price 3s. 6d. per Vol., each with a Frontispiece
Portrait in Photogravure.
THE SET SUPPLIED IN CASE TO MATCH, PRICE 10S. 6D.
Crown 8vo, Cloth, 3s. 6d. Third Volume now ready.
DRAMATIC ESSAYS.
Edited by William Archer and Robert W. Lowe.
VOL. I. _With a Frontispiece Portrait in Photogravure of Leigh Hunt._
The First Series contains the criticisms of LEIGH HUNT, both those
collected by himself in 1807 (long out of print), and the admirable
articles contributed more than twenty years ago to _The Tatler_,
and never republished.
VOL. II. _With a Frontispiece Portrait in Photogravure of Hazlitt._
The Second Series contains the criticisms of WILLIAM HAZLITT.
Hazlitt’s Essays on Kean and his contemporaries have long been
inaccessible, save to collectors.
VOL. III. _With a Frontispiece Portrait in Photogravure of George Henry
Lewes._
This Volume contains hitherto uncollected criticisms by JOHN
FORSTER, GEORGE HENRY LEWES, and Selections from the writings of
WILLIAM ROBSON (The Old Playgoer).
EACH VOLUME IS COMPLETE IN ITSELF.
* * * * *
ALL ROUND CYCLING.
Foolscap 8vo, Cloth Gilt, Price 2s. 6d.
_Contributions by G. Lacy Hillier, Sir B. W. Richardson, etc., etc._
CONTENTS.
Chapter I.--THE MODERN CYCLE. By G. Lacy Hillier, Author of
“Cycling,” in the Badminton Library.