DEGENERATION.

The riddle of heredity is yet unsolved. The seed corpuscles and

the _ovum_--the male and female germinal substances--through the

coalescence of which the new individual is created, not only transmit

bodily characters from progenitors to progeny, but psychical

peculiarities too, and thus convey family traits from forefathers to

posterity. Of the fact experience assures us, but as to its biological

causes nothing has been disclosed.

In the great catalogue of diseases, somatic and psychical, heredity

plays an important part. This has been undisputed since Hippocrates. In

most cases, however, it is not a definite disease which is inherited,

but a diathesis, a predisposition, a want of resistance to all baleful

influences of the direct exciting causes of disease.

In this way heredity is an important element in all pathogeneses,

or origins of disease; and it is especially so for derangements of

the mind. The inheritance may either be a direct one--from parent

to offspring--or an indirect one. In the latter case it is either

atavism, or reversion to the characters of grandparents, or there is a

collateral inheritance from an uncle or aunt.

Essentially distinct from heredity is gradual and progressive

_degeneration_--a phenomenon first profoundly studied by Morel de

Rouen.[81] Morel schematizes it as follows:

_First Generation:_ Nervous temperament; moral depravity; excesses.

_Second Generation:_ Tendency to apoplexy and severe neuroses;

alcoholism.

_Third Generation:_ Mental derangements; suicide; intellectual

incapacity.

_Fourth Generation:_ Hereditary imbecility; deformities; arrested

development. With this last generation the race comes to an end by

sterility.

Besides a long list of mental symptoms, Morel has collected a number

of stigmata, or bodily marks, which he has observed in degenerate

subjects. These are many kinds of deformities, want of equality in the

two halves of the face or other bilateral parts, irregularities of

the skull, protruding or unlike ears, overgrown ear-laps, squinting,

stuttering, deformed teeth, too few or too many fingers, atrophies or

abnormal formations of the organs of sex, etc.

Morel called these phenomena phenomena of _dégénérescence_. This

has been translated into German by the term _Entartung_. The German

word implies etymologically a departure from the _Art_--that is, the

species, the normal form--and might be applied to any chronic disease,

whether somatic or psychic. It need not imply, as _degeneration_ does,

a progressive pining away of the race till it is extinct.

In the course of time, however, this point has fallen out of sight.

Modern writers, and especially the French author, Magnan, who has

very industriously worked upon the subject, leave almost unnoticed

the question of progressive pining ending with the extinction of the

race, and place the whole emphasis upon the heredity. Magnan employs

the terms _dégénérés_, _héréditaires dégénérés_, _héréditaires_,

indifferently. Möbius directly declares that it is convenient to

replace the expression _hereditary_ by _degenerate_.[82]

Thus it is that at present the expressions _Belastete_ (afflicted),

_Hereditarier_ (hereditary), and _Entartete_ (degenerate) are used

promiscuously. The fact that such diversity of expression reigns is

due, in this department as elsewhere in science, to the habit of

quarrelling over words instead of making their meaning clear. So von

Krafft-Ebing, for example, terms paranoia exclusively a psychosis of

degeneration, and, in order to refute Mendel,[83] who questions the

degenerative significance of the disease, advances the argument that

paranoia is only found among the “afflicted.”[84] Now, “affliction” and

“degeneration” are two entirely different things, which have few, if

any, common features. Many paranoiacs have perfectly sane children, and

therefore in Morel’s sense they can not be called degenerate. Paranoia

is likewise found in perfectly sane persons at an advanced age; and in

them there can be no _Entartung_ or _degeneration_.

_The term “hereditary affliction” means, in psychopathology, merely

that disorders of the nervous system existed among the person’s

progenitors._ The man himself may thus not be deranged at all. In fact,

great numbers of the hereditarily afflicted are perfectly healthy. As

I have said, hereditary affliction plays an important part not only in

degeneration, but in the majority of mental diseases; and consequently

we shall do well to keep the terms “heredity” and “degeneracy” distinct.

The forms of disease described by Morel under the name of

_dégénérescence_ are referred by him and his adherents, especially

Falret, exclusively to hereditary affliction; and a “hereditary

insanity” without qualification has been spoken of. But we have seen

that, on the one hand, a pathogenic significance belongs to heredity

in most psychoses; while, on the other hand, it has been proved that

the so-called “hereditary insanity” or “_dégénérescence_” is found in

persons who have had no insanity in their families; so that there would

be here a “hereditary insanity” without heredity.

These facts shatter the very essence of Morel’s doctrine; and so

it came about that want of clearness of terms has led to many

misunderstandings and much diversity of expression. If, then, we are

to hold fast to the term _degeneration_, or _Entartung_, _this must

be understood to embrace all cases of defective development of the

psychical organ_. Degenerates are mental monstrosities; degeneration

κατ’ ἐξοχήν is idiocy.

The causes of degeneration--that is, in good English, of

_degeneracy_--may be divided into three classes, as follows:

1. _Degenerative Hereditary Transmission._--This concept is essentially

different from the above-described simple form of inheritance. In

_simple_ heredity nothing is transmitted but a predisposition, the

individual being radically sane. _Degenerative_ hereditary transmission

implies a diseased germinal substance, which may lead to progressive

degeneration of the posterity. The disease of the germinal substance is

in many cases due to actual poisoning, more especially by alcohol. Many

authors insist that chronic intoxication is not requisite, but that if

drunkenness supervenes during the act of copulation, it suffices to

transmit a degenerate state to the offspring.[85]

2. _Intra-uterine Disturbances of Development._--Here are to be placed

infectious diseases of the mother during pregnancy; bad nutrition of

the embryo in consequence of cachectic states of the mother, such as

rickets, etc.; deformities of the pelvis, and consequent compression

of the skull; injuries to the head in delivery by instruments, and in

consequence of accidents to the mother during pregnancy, etc.

3. _Extra-uterine Disturbances of Development._--Such are injuries to

the head, infectious diseases, and the like, in early childhood.

As regards the clinical portrait of degeneration, there have been many

attempts to divide it into classes and to establish specific forms

of disease under this genus. Morel divides the degenerate into four

classes, as follows:

The first embraces all those persons in whom there are no particular

anomalies, whether of the intellect or the heart, but who are

characterized by a so-called nervous temperament. Among them are

neurasthenics, hysterical women, and people who, while very eccentric,

are fully conscious of their own state.

In the second class are those persons who, while their intellectual

powers are unimpaired, display a decided disturbance of their feelings

and impulses, and consequently great defects and perversity in morals.

The third class contains imbeciles whose mental weakness is limited to

the intellect, so that the instincts hold sway over their understanding.

In the fourth class are found idiots in whom the whole mental

development is extremely low.

This and other classifications are purely arbitrary. These classes

gradually pass into one another, and single examples show the most

diverse combinations. In consequence of the disturbances of development

in degeneracy the quintessence of the malady is to be sought in the

disproportion in which the mental factors stand to one another. Thus

Magnan[86] says of the degenerate: “Doubtless the essential thing is

the discord, the want of balance of the mind.” Hence, in diagnosing the

mental state, it is not enough to inquire into the degree of general

mental development that the intellect, for example, may have attained,

for there are some men who are dull, as well as those who are bright.

But one main problem must be to determine the proportions which the

different mental factors bear to one another. A short-legged man is

just as healthy as a long-legged man, but if the relative development

of the two legs is different, one being longer than the other, there is

a state of disease, though each leg singly be sound. So it is with the

mental powers. If the feelings and moods are relatively more strongly

developed than the other mental characteristics, so that the latter

depend too much upon the former, there will be a relatively hysterical

condition. With a disproportionate development of the fancy, delusions

and hallucinations may occur; while an excessive development of the

impulses, at the expense of the sensations, joined with intellectual

weakness, may lead to moral insanity, since here the characteristics

known as conscience, pity, etc., do not exist. Of course, these are not

universal, unyielding rules, for every case has its singularities and

must be studied and diagnosed for itself.

The clinical morbid picture of these degenerates may be very manifold.

As might be expected on theoretical grounds, there is scarcely a

symptom in psychiatry which may not occasionally be observed in the

degenerate, since the disproportion of the single mental powers among

one another may produce the most diverse combinations.

That which distinguishes degeneracy from other diseases of the mind is

precisely the absence of any type in the occurrence and history of its

symptoms. While in chronic paranoia a systematized fabric of delusions

is found to which patients adhere in its unaltered form, and which only

at the end becomes mollified in the general death of the intellectual

powers, in the history of the degenerate, on the other hand, we find

the most variegated medley of symptoms wildly succeeding one another.

At one time there are imperative ideas, imperative impulses, and other

such supervenient states; then we see delusions emerge in them; but,

unlike those of the mad, they do not arise and remain systematically,

but are only temporary, and are characterized by the absence of any

marked type. “The fabric of delusions,” says Magnan, “has in the

degenerate particular marks. Whether it be delusion of greatness, or

delusion of persecution, or religious, or hypochondriacal delusion,

or whatever other variety, it appears without preparation, is often

multiform, and whether it lasts a longer or a shorter time, it never

goes through a series of determinate periods.”[87]

Manifold diseased sensations and impulses play a great part in

degeneracy, and are often motives to the most surprising behaviour.

Magnan has described a great many impulses and antipathies or

syndromes, and terms them the mental stigmata of degeneracy. The most

important are the following: The mania for asking questions; the mania

for subtleties; the mania of doubt; aichmophobia, or fear of points,

in which needles and all pointed objects put the patients into agony;

agoraphobia, or fear of public squares; claustrophobia, or fear of

inclosed places; dipsomania or periodic passion for drink; sitiomania,

or irresistible longing to eat; pyromania, or the impulse to set

things on fire; kleptomania, or the passion for stealing; oniomania,

or the impulse to make purchases; zoöphilomania, or morbid love of

animals; onomatomania, or compulsion to seek for a particular word;

arithmomania, or compulsion to count, etc. These diseased impulses and

antipathies, whose number is very great, never occur singly, so as

to form a proper variety of insanity, as was erroneously assumed in

former times, thus giving rise to the term monomania. On the contrary,

they always form a mere partial phenomenon of a diseased state of the

nervous system, consequent upon the discord of its several factors.

Here, too, belong the numerous sexual anomalies described at length by

von Krafft-Ebing. These, too, never constitute a disease proper, but

are mere symptoms of a general malady. If, therefore, it is required

of a psychiatrist to ascertain whether an act which conflicts with

morals and with law is to be considered as pathological or not, he

must not consider that act by itself. He will have to find out whether

or not the mental conduct of the person who committed it is insane

independently of that act.

The morbid symptoms of degeneracy are, as we have said, of the most

various description, and cases in which the symptoms are decided can be

diagnosed without difficulty. Since such cases strike even the general

public as insane, the relatives of such patients call in medical aid.

The consequence is that those degenerates that are known to practising

physicians are, for the most part, those of typical imbecility,

perverse sensations, etc.

It is very different with those _dégénérés supérieurs_, in whom no

direct phobias, manias, imperative ideas, delusions etc., are present,

but in whom there is merely a disturbance of the mental equilibrium,

so that Magnan terms them simply _unbalanced_, _déséquilibrés_. In

such a person every single mental faculty may have attained a degree

of development which surpasses the average; and yet the proportion of

the different mental factors to one another may be so abnormal that the

mental balance is destroyed; and thus the discord may be so prominent

that the person in question, in spite of his seemingly high mental

development, may be mentally deranged.

An acquaintance with this class of degenerates is important, not alone

for the mad-doctor, but for every physician, every jurist, every

historian, every art critic, every pedagogue. In short, every person

whose duty it is to pass judgment upon men should interest himself

in this form of degeneracy, for men thus afflicted have at all times

exercised great influence upon the arts, the politics, and the whole

civilization of their countries--all the more so that the public

have not recognised that they were insane, but have allowed them not

infrequently to play parts in social life.

One of the characteristic marks of these degenerates is their highly

emotional nature and the incalculable oscillations of their mood.

Although in great men, in consequence of the extreme refinement of

their mental organism, the moods and feelings are capable of very wide

modulation, so that Goethe said of himself that he passed in his moods

from one extreme to the other, yet in them this phenomenon is strictly

limited to their subjective sensation. Men of undisturbed mental

balance remain ever masters of themselves, and do not allow themselves

to be hurried into irrational acts. In spite of all the oscillations

of his inward state of heart, Goethe, as seen from without, was always

the same distinguished, consistent, imposing figure. This marked the

greatness of his character, the proportionate development of his

different mental factors, his pure harmony of soul. In spite of the

bold leaps of his luxuriant fancy, in spite of the great exaltations

and depressions of his moods and feelings, the great _ensemble_ of his

psychical organism was governed by his forceful thought; his every act

was guided and determined by his intellect.

In the degenerate, on the other hand, sudden gusts of passion and

fluctuations of moods not infrequently lead to the most singular and

eccentric acts. Their intellectual action is not able to set limits

to their impulsive feelings. Inward excitement runs unbridled into

outward manifestation. Irritable to the highest degree, touched by the

slightest impressions, they frequently react in the most passionate way

upon the most insignificant occasion. No occurrence is too indifferent

or insignificant to excite an emotion in them which hurries them into

the most incredible acts.

The circumstance that, with the degenerates, the emotion leads to a

total superseding of the intellectual capacity, and may then drive

them, in their utter irresponsibility, into acts of violence and crime,

has often led to the opinion that there was something morbid in that

emotion itself. But this is a superficial view, not in consonance with

the facts.

A man capable of no emotion, whom no mental stimulus is able to get

out of the common ruts, is like a stupid mule that keeps on its way

undisturbed, without regard for the strokes of the whip, and with

unmoved composure, though a cannon were discharged by its side. Such

dulness is found among a class of degenerates, including the idiots.

The sane man is usually capable of emotion, but he knows how to govern

and curb it by the action of his intellect. Emotion in the sane man as

an expression of a legitimate sentiment is beautiful, at times even

sublime. This is true even of anger. The blushing maiden repelling

unworthy propositions, the anger of the man whose honour is assailed

and who seeks satisfaction, have of a surety nothing unwholesome,

and will hardly be confusible with the uncalled-for passion of the

degenerate.

A phenomenon frequently observed among degenerates is an abnormally

lively fancy, which appears in childhood, and renders any purposive

thought impossible. Such children are inclined to dreaminess and

so-called thoughtlessness. Their mental powers are sometimes pretty

well developed, but they can make no use of them because their

dreaminess permits no persistent logical thought. They have to be

incessantly shaken up. At school they are inattentive and never

follow the matter in hand. In their earliest childhood they have

lively dreams, often wake up with a dreadful shriek, in what is

called _pavor nocturnus_, and sometimes have deceptions of sense.

Proneness to invent stories is a characteristic of these children

gifted with fancy, and their tales are narrated as actual occurrences.

This is the _pseudologia phantastica_ of Delbrück. At the age of

puberty they are often attacked by that kind of self-nursed anguish

which the Germans called _Weltschmerz_. They indulge in sentimental

effusions, and often perpetrate all sorts of eccentric follies. In

later life they fall into that class of minds whom we call dreamers,

enthusiasts, Utopians, and mystics. Their luxuriant fancy, directed by

no purposive will or intellectual plan, attracts them to whatever is

occult, incomprehensible, and wonderful. From his youth up such a man

is not habituated to look plain facts in the face, but gives himself

up to building castles in the air and to useless trifles. He lives

in dream-land; his metaphysics (for every man has a metaphysics or

general conception of the universe, a _Weltanschauung_) is not built

upon outward experience, but is the outcome of his peculiar experience,

which is one of mystical notions spun from the body of his fancy.

In this class belong these religious fanatics, the prophets, the

founders of sects, and the like, who in earlier times were able to

exercise no little influence upon the course of history. Religious

enthusiasm and the fanaticism of religious sects, which linger yet in

North America and in Russia, are in great part phenomena of psychical

degeneration. But in our days the fantastics and Utopians have

largely turned aside from the early forms of religious enthusiasm to

spiritualism, occultism, and other varieties of mysticism. Most of what

is written to-day upon spiritualism, prophetic dreams, clairvoyance,

second sight, and such matters springs from morbid, degenerate brains,

in which the creations of fancy take the lead, and the intellectual

action is too weak to exercise a rational criticism. We meet such

persons in every department of life. They make their appearance as

philanthropists and as political agitators, discoursing with pathos

and fervour upon the subjects they least understand, inciting one

class of society against another, and setting up as champions of

labour and as apostles of freedom. Though they themselves understand

nothing about the matters of which they speak and write, being utterly

incapable of subjecting their fancies and mysticisms to logical

criticism, yet they are thoroughly impressed with their own merit and

greatness. Their gift of clothing the absurdest notions in fine words

enables them to infatuate the masses, and they often collect about

them a mob of admirers. The untenable and contradictory character

of their doctrines and promises little disturbs the silly multitude

that applauds them, although their imbecility is readily detected by

rational thinkers and close observers.

Sometimes it happens that the defective development of the intellect

in such persons affects only one part of it, while some intellectual

characteristics are highly cultivated. Degenerates are found who

have remarkably good memories and good capacity for learning. They

may even acquire vast erudition, although they have no capacity for

turning their knowledge to account. Their fancy gets the better of

their intellect, and throws the manifold residua of former impressions

of sense into a promiscuous and confused heap. They lack the power

of concentrating their attention exclusively upon one object. The

procedure of their thought reminds one of a rudderless craft given over

to the caprices of the winds and waves. The extent of their erudition

may, upon a slight acquaintance, lead one to think them bright and

intelligent. But, owing to their lack of power of arranging their

ideas logically, they will never be able to accomplish anything of

any consequence, and the instability of their mental conduct will not

escape the expert observer.

History is rich in examples of such individuals. The Roman emperor

Claudius, whose imbecility is beyond question, acquired, in spite of

his intellectual weakness, a solid mastery of the Greek tongue, and

possessed marked talent as an orator. He also composed an extensive

history. Apart from these powers, he was a typical degenerate. Before

he became emperor he had a mania for hearing lawsuits as a judge, and,

owing to his simplicity and inability to reason logically, he was

generally the butt of the lawyers. On one occasion his written decision

read that “he gave his vote for those who had spoken the truth.”[88]

In still other degenerates we find a well-developed action of the

intellect combined with an almost total absence of feeling. The

moral sense, sympathy, pity, love, etc., are conditions utterly

strange to such people. They act from cold calculation. Selfishness

and heartlessness mark all their acts. Those curmudgeons whose sole

satisfaction is the heaping up of wealth, to whose life all ideal

features are foreign, who stick at no legal means of attaining their

selfish ends, who are not only without feeling for the sufferings of

their fellow-men, but are even cold and indifferent to their nearest

family, belong to this category of mental degeneration.

This unfeeling nature, combined with certain proportions of other

mental factors, will result in the so-called moral insanity, and when

prudence is deficient or circumstances push to it, produce the worst

criminals. We often find not merely a deficiency of feeling, but a

positive perversion of sentiments and feelings. Acts which other men

perform with anguish and horror occasion them delight and contentment.

Where others feel pain and sympathy they feel pleasure and a glow of

comfort. Such mental states may lead to bestial cruelty and to an

incredible pitch of brutality.

History affords numerous examples of this. The Roman emperor Nero

had evil inheritances from both parents. Insanity and epilepsy were

prevalent in both families. His father, Domitius Ahenobarbus, was so

low in the moral scale that it was said of him that he would have been

the worst man of his age if his son Nero had not lived. Suetonius

reports that when they wished him joy at the birth of Nero he remarked,

“The offspring of me and of Agrippina can only be a monster who will

scourge the world.” Everybody knows that the inclination of Nero

for cruelty, lust, and dissipation passed all bounds. His behaviour

when he had Rome set on fire, admired the spectacle from afar, and

recited verses painting the destruction of Troy, is quite typical of

a degenerate. Yet he was not without talents of an intellectual kind.

The vanity which led him first to appear in Naples as an actor, singer,

and charioteer, and later carried him to Olympia, whence he returned

richly adorned with prizes, was decidedly characteristic of his mental

degeneracy.

Moral insanity in its furthest extreme is illustrated in the later

Emperor Commodus. As a youth he displayed a lust and cruelty which

amounted to mad fury. His whole pride was in his extraordinary bodily

strength. To imitate Hercules, he often appeared clad in a lion’s skin

and armed with a club. He appeared as a gladiator seven hundred and

thirty-five times. His joy in murder knew no bounds. He often had the

companions of his orgies slain from simple delight in bloodshed. It was

a pleasure to him to bleed a man.

We not infrequently find degenerates who, in spite of their defective

development, have brilliant talents in special directions; and such

persons may attain high consideration on account of their achievements.

Their endowments are, however, always one-sided, and, whatever their

capacity, they are wanting in logical thought, energy, and force

of will. Whether in these cases the hypertrophy or overgrowth of

some parts, with consequent talents in certain departments, is to

be regarded as a consequence of the general disturbance of the

development--this partial capacity being gained at the expense of

the development of other parts--or whether we have a highly refined

organism in which particular parts are atrophied or backward in their

development, we are at present unable to decide. Each opinion has

something to support it from a theoretical standpoint, and it may be

that both cases occur in fact, so that different causes lead to the

same effect.

Sometimes such a partial development--limited, it may be, to a single

intellectual capacity--is found in a mind that is otherwise a blank.

There have been high-grade idiots who have had a decided talent for

music or painting, and who have now and then accomplished something

remarkable in one of these directions. An interesting example of an

idiot with an enormous development in a narrow, intellectual line is

that of the calculator Dase.

A partial gigantic growth is the somatic analogue of that partial

mental development. Of this Ranke says:[89] “A light is thrown upon the

morbid affinities of gigantic growth by the numerous cases in which

partial gigantic growth has been observed. Single parts of the body,

especially the extremities, sometimes attain immoderate dimensions. In

rare cases, one entire half of the body has had a gigantic development.

At other times a single limb, or only one hand or one foot, or even

only one finger or one toe, has been affected.” Ranke explains partial

gigantic growth, as well as partial dwarfing, as deformities due to

perturbations of development during fœtal life. Here, then, is a

perfectly exact somatic analogue of mental degeneracy. The same discord

between single parts, the same disturbance of equilibrium, is due to

the same general cause--disturbances of development during fœtal life.

It is well known that injuries to the heads of children originally

sane produce mental degeneracy, and even complete idiocy. Many writers

teach that such injuries have not infrequently caused hypertrophies

of single mental faculties. Lombroso reports as follows: “Cases are

by no means rare in which accidents, such as usually result in mental

derangement, injuries of the brain, and fractures of the skull,

have converted a perfectly commonplace soul into a man of genius.

Giovambattista Vico in his youth fell to the ground from a high ladder,

and was taken up with a fractured brain pan. Goetry, originally a

simple chorister, became a great composer after a heavy beam had fallen

on his head. Mabillor, who possessed very small capacities, attained

all his greatness in consequence of a wound in his head. Hall, who

narrates this, knew a Dane who was in his youth semi-idiotic, and who

showed great talent after he had fallen from a ladder and had struck

the ground headforemost.”[90]

The term “genius” appears to be applied by Lombroso, here as

elsewhere, in a pretty broad sense. Moreover, in many such cases it is

impossible to ascertain whether the mental development took place by

reason of, or in spite of, the injuries of the head. It is certainly

possible, according to the general analogies of degeneration, that a

partial hypertrophy was occasioned by the accident. This seems the

more presumable since analogous cases have been observed in somatic

medicine. Thus Ballinger reports a case observed by von Buhl. It is

that of the giant Thomas Hasler: “Thomas grew quite normally,” says

Ballinger, “up to his ninth year. About that time he was kicked by a

horse in the left cheek. He soon began to grow monstrously. He ate a

great deal, particularly of butter and other fat fare, common enough in

his country in the Bavarian mountains. At eleven Thomas was so large

that he had to leave off going to school because the seats were not

large enough. Gradually the bones of the skull and face thickened,

and that not merely on the side where he had been kicked. After he

was full-grown he ate little. Every motion he made involved effort

and fatigue. He attained the age of twenty-five, the weight of three

hundred and forty-one pounds, and the height of seven feet three

inches.”[91]

The one-sided mental development of the degenerate, the brilliant

gifts in special directions at the expense of the development of other

psychical powers, is generally called “genius”; and this confusion of

ideas, this confounding of those powerful minds whose high capacity

of achievement consists in a general refinement of the psychical

organism with those individuals of whom instability and mental discord

are the characteristics, and whose partial mental overdevelopment is

a consequence of derangements of growth, has, in no slight measure,

contributed to the belief that there is a real affinity between genius

and insanity--that is, that those great men who have always decided the

fate of mankind are results of morbid conditions.

Between the instability or disturbance of the mental balance and

the so-called normal average man there is, as we know, a gradual

transition. No sharp line can be drawn here between mental health

and mental disease. There is also a gradual series connecting fully

endowed men of genius and those partially developed degenerates. But to

establish any affinity between them on that account would necessitate

an equal affinity between “normal average men” and common degenerates.

The same reasoning would conclude an affinity between the Philistine

and the degenerate who suffers from moral insanity or imbecility.

If we are to give the name of genius to the great men in different

departments we might very well term a degenerate with partially

conspicuous development a _pseudo-genius_ (_pseudogenie_). But to

accomplish anything really great, a partial mental development is not

enough. A correct combination and balance of all the mental faculties

are needed to thread that thorny path and to climb the steep heights

which lead to immortality. Those characteristics with which we have

become acquainted in great men, that of concentrating undivided

attention upon an object, indomitable energy and staying power, the

unselfish, self-forgetting compulsion to create--these qualities are

found in the degenerate either not at all, or in insufficient measure.

In those partially gifted degenerates, those pseudo-geniuses, certain

typical characteristics are hardly ever wanting. In childhood they

already show that vanity and self-sufficient arrogance, that foolhardy

conceit which never leave them through life. While they are still

schoolboys they speak contemptuously of the greatest men of art and

science. Raphael and Titian were bunglers in their estimation. They

compassionately shrug their shoulders over the “Philistine Schiller,”

who ought long ago to have passed into oblivion. Goethe is no longer

“up to the times,” and his creations have been “greatly overrated.”

Such is the trash which they utter as boys. They learn nothing at

school, partly because they are incapable and slothful, and partly

because they are so convinced of their genius that they hold learning

to be for them superfluous. They are of the opinion that much knowledge

might damage their originality, their genius, and that their high

inward merit needs no adventitious augmentation. They leave school as

soon as convenient, but not to learn a trade or, by the study of years,

to train themselves to any specialty. They enter the world at once as

accomplished poets, writers, painters, or musicians. With the most

secure self-confidence, which is never wanting to these subjects, they

devote themselves to the most difficult departments. They write dramas,

novels, and romances, paint, compose, feel themselves to be judges of

art and critics, and write about matters far above their mental horizon.

Often enough their works carry the stamp of the silly and ridiculous.

In place of the renown and applause upon which they had calculated,

scorn and ridicule are their portion. But that will not shatter their

faith in their own merit and genius. They rather complain that their

fellow-men do not appreciate them or else envy their powers too much

to acknowledge them. The truly great man who is in advance of his age

and is not understood by his contemporaries feels an unaffected pain

at that; but he wends his way as best he may, and perseveres in his

endeavours as long as good sense permits him to do so, and very often

longer. The degenerate, on the other hand, is soon discouraged by

failure. He retires from society, considers himself a “misunderstood

genius,” looks upon every man as his enemy, and develops in later years

a decided mania of greatness and persecution.

Other degenerates have, partly by their higher gifts, partly by the

want of discrimination of the community in which they live, greater

success with their works. Their so-called “originality of genius,”

which often enough deserves to be called original madness, is able to

infatuate the multitude who fancy that the gabble of these persons

makes a “new departure” in art and the beginning of a new epoch.

Well says Kant of this class of men: “But one guild of these so-called

_men of genius_ (better, monkeys of genius) is placed under this shop

sign; they speak the language of minds extraordinarily favoured by

Nature, declare laborious learning and research to be dull-minded, and

profess to have seized the spirit of all science at one clutch, and to

dispense it in small doses, concentrated and strong. This race, cousins

of the quacks and criers at fairs, is very prejudicial to progress

in scientific and moral culture. They pronounce in decisive tones

upon religion, politics, and morals, as if they were illuminated and

adepts, envoys from the throne of wisdom, while their secret object all

the time is to conceal the real poverty of their minds. What else is

there to be done but to laugh and continue patiently at our industry,

without regard to those mountebanks?”[92]

Not infrequently the perverse impulses and sensations of the degenerate

are reflected in their artistic production. The Roman Emperor Commodus

had a rough animal strength. He also had an impulse to bestial cruelty,

and received pleasure and satisfaction from bloodletting and from

the sufferings of others. Now, that impulse, that pleasure, and that

satisfaction were marked in that strength of his. In like manner,

degenerate writers have similar impulses and sentiments; and they give

expression to them in their writings. Many modern literary men love to

wallow round in sloughs and puddles, to sweep forward what is dirty and

vulgar, and to amuse themselves with such things. This preference may

in many cases be accounted for by such a perversion of the feelings and

by a mental degeneracy. Other abnormal impulses, especially of a sexual

origin, appear in the works of degenerates.

Instability and want of mental equilibrium hold the higher degenerates

in a continual unrest. Of patience and perseverance they have

next to none at all. They precipitate themselves with zeal into a

subject, and very soon give it up. They are mostly occupied with

themselves. The world and all it contains only so far interests them

as it is the vehicle of their precious selves and what can hurt or

help them. In everything they betray the same egoism. It is typical

and characteristic of their souls. Nobler sentiments, demanding

self-forgetfulness and self-sacrifice, are alien to the degenerate.

Hence they are unacquainted with the ideal feelings of friendship and

love. Cicero says: “Amicitia non esse potest nisi inter bonos,” and

he might well have added “et mente sanos.” Never among degenerates

can such a bond of friendship be found as is frequent among great

men. Conformably to the proverb, “Birds of a feather flock together,”

degenerates are often attracted to one another. But their intercourse,

rooted as it is in mere selfish interests and morbid impulses, is more

like that of the inmates of a monkey’s cage than the self-forgetful and

ideal friendship of men.

The degenerate ever remains a stranger in the world. To comprehend what

goes on in the world, to understand and appreciate the acts of his

fellow-men, one must be able to feel with them. But the degenerate is

either wanting in the intellectual power necessary to comprehend what

is taking place, or, if that be not his defect, then his feelings and

sentiments are too narrow to enable him to make use of his perceptions.

Hence, when the degenerate poet undertakes to paint the world, it is

not the world we live in that he brings before us, but a fantastic

invention of his brain, the counterpart of his morbid ideations. In

case he belongs to the subjective class of poets, who embody in art

their own sentiments and feelings, he gives us a peep into an abyss of

aberrations and morbid sufferings.

It were vain to attempt an exhaustive description of the clinical

appearances of degeneracy. The morbid symptoms are too manifold, the

characteristics too diverse, the combinations of mental factors in

disturbed equilibrium too numerous, and new phenomena are perpetually

presenting themselves to the most experienced psychiatrist.

As an example of a degenerate painter who attained some consideration

and was even the originator of a “new departure” in painting may serve

the Frenchman Courbet, often called the “first realist.” According to

Rosenberg,[93] who gives a somewhat detailed account of him, he had

a very defective schooling, although his father sent him to Paris at

the age of twenty to study law. His spelling was atrocious. “The sight

of a book excited his anger, and he recoiled from the presence of an

inkstand.” In the genuine imbecile style he ventured the following

judgment upon the old masters while he was yet a student:

“Veronese was a superior man, a painter without weakness and without

exaggeration, an honest painter. Rembrandt bewitches the intelligent

and astounds the simple. Titian and Leonardo da Vinci are impostors. If

one of these two were to come back to earth and were to pass through

my studio, I should go for my knife. Ribera, Zurbaran, and Valasquez

before all excite my admiration. Ostade and Craesbeek seduce me.

Holbein I revere. As for Mr. Raphael, he has undoubtedly painted some

interesting portraits, but I can find no thought in him.”

He possessed a quite monstrous self-love, and loved best to paint

his own portrait. “He imagined he had an Assyrian profile, and

that imperative idea only strengthened his preference for his own

physiognomy.” A visitor to an exhibition of his pictures remarks:

“With three or four exceptions, all the rest represent Courbet

himself--‘Courbet bowing,’ ‘Courbet promenading,’ ‘Courbet standing

still,’ ‘Courbet lying down,’ ‘Courbet seated,’ ‘Courbet dead,’ Courbet

everywhere. Nothing but Courbet was to be seen.”

In his morbid vanity he endeavoured, in spite of his slight mental

capacity, to get himself talked about in reference to every possible

subject. Rosenberg reports: “In his immoderate vanity he boasted that

since the cross of Christ no other cross had been so much talked about

in the world as his own.” His letter to the minister,[94] which had

been composed for this illiterate man by one of his friends, he had

concluded with bombastic phrases which sufficed to crown him, in the

eyes of the Irreconcilables, with the civic garland of an incorruptible

republican. “I am fifty years old,” he wrote, “and I have ever lived

a free man. Let me end my life in freedom. When I am dead, it must be

said of me: This man never belonged to a school, nor to a church, nor

to an institution, nor to an academy--above all, never to a government,

not even to the government of liberty.”

Courbet played an extremely ridiculous part in the year 1870, as a

member of the Commune, at the pulling down of the column of the Place

Vendôme.

“Before the court-martial, the poor, vain soul did all he could to

repel or at least to mollify the charge brought against him. He was

punished with that with which he had erred. He was not a bad man

but a mere simpleton, whom his intolerable self-love had led into

a path where he did not belong. He regarded himself as a universal

man, when he was at best only a painter. His too highly rated and too

much disparaged works had made him known and had enabled him to live

comfortably. His absolute want of fancy, the insurmountable difficulty

which he felt of ‘composing’ a picture, had brought him to found

the so-called ‘realism’--that is to say, the exact reproduction--of

natural objects, without distinction, without choice, as they presented

themselves to view. Men attacked the ideas of Courbet. His pictures

were sent back from the _Salon_. He proclaimed himself a martyr,

sincerely considered himself to be persecuted, and so became a great

man. People were wrong; they should have left him a free field and not

tried to render innocuous the revelations of an undoubtedly imperfect,

yet in many respects interesting talent. Courbet became a sort of

leader of a school, or, rather, head of a sect. Many nobodies flocked

about him and recognised him as their master. By the side of these

naïve persons, who dreamed of wishing to paint without having learned

to paint, were grouped banterers who liked to laugh, and for whom

Courbet was a standing source of delight. They flattered the vanity

of this heavy-witted peasant, who replaced wit with malignity, drove

him to all sorts of follies, told him he was a national economist, a

moralist, a philosopher, and a statesman, and encouraged him to speak,

while they drank the beer to which he treated for the sake of finding

listeners.” Again: “The painter was of the opinion that the glory of

the emperor interfered with his own, for his pictures seemed to him

more important than victories, than the _concordat_, or than the _code

civil_.”

After he had been condemned by the court-martial to six months’

imprisonment for the overthrow of the column of the Place Vendôme and

had served out his time, he often called out boastingly in the streets

and on other occasions: “I destroyed your column. I will pay for it.”

Finally he was taken at his word, and again accused. He was obliged to

flee. After long negotiations an agreement was reached between him and

the Government, according to which he was to pay annually ten thousand

francs. He soon after died suddenly.

Here, then, was a mental degenerate who, in spite of his pathological

action of mind, possessed unquestionable talent, but, owing to lack of

ideas of his own, and his incapacity to produce anything independent,

had to content himself with reproducing what he saw.

This art of mimicry in itself, joined to that kind of “realism”

which endeavours to elevate the ugly and to suppress the beautiful,

necessarily produced, for a time, the illusion of originality, with

some, perhaps, of genius. Thus it came to pass that Courbet was almost

the founder of a school.

A great number of degenerates are found in literature. Lombroso

has collected a list of such cases and given them the name of

_graphomaniacs_. This is not a very happy designation, for,

according to the analogy of the other manias--kleptomania, pyromania,

etc.--_graphomania_ ought to mean the irresistible passion to write.

It would refer to the physical action, and would depend upon the

quantity of writing performed. But the majority of Lombroso’s cases are

distinguished by the peculiar contents of the writing, and a special

compulsion to write much only appears in a few cases.

The passion for writing is found in different forms of disease, and

there are frequent opportunities to see it in the asylums. A patient

whom I myself had occasion to observe, a woman suffering from paranoia,

had formed a system of delusions upon which a new religion was to be

founded. She was constantly occupied in the erection of churches and

schools, and wrote about these things almost all day. During several

years she had filled a great number of _cahiers_, and wrote ceaselessly

letters to magistrates, personages of high position, etc., in which she

frequently covered the inside of the envelopes with characters. What

made the case particularly interesting was that she had constructed her

own language and her own characters, of which she commonly made use.

Another case, which was that of a mathematician, was a worn-out

_hebephrenia_, or insanity of youth, which had passed over into

terminal dementia. The patient answered all questions with a few

stereotyped phrases. Going into his room, you would usually find

him working at his table. He had, in the course of years, written a

stately number of blank books full, and that in so small a hand that

a magnifying glass was necessary to make them out. He sometimes wrote

mathematical formulæ which for the most part could not be deciphered.

The common symptom of these cases might very well be termed

_graphomania_. Of course, like the other manias, it is only a symptom,

a partial phenomenon of the disease, for we know by experience that no

monomania exists. Such a mania can not form a disease _sui generis_.

Lombroso, who repeatedly speaks of “monomaniacs,” describes

“graphomania” as an independent malady. He says: “A sort of mental

disorder which I might call graphomania forms the link between the fool

of genius, the sane man, and the insane proper.”

Both Lombroso’s “fools of genius” and “graphomaniacs” are mental

degenerates. In all these people there is a disturbance of the mental

balance, a disproportion between impulse and intellect, and in most

cases a marked lowering of intelligence, a general weakness of mind.

Lombroso divides his graphomaniacs into different classes. Of one he

says: “These are given to excesses, whether of abstemiousness or of

unbridled appetite for food also to the most singular sexual excesses,

which I have cursorily noticed in my work upon Insane Love (paradoxal,

ideological, zoölogical love). They also have singular fondness for

dogs, cats, birds, etc., and still more singular inclinations to tear

up and destroy, say, costly ornaments. They throw themselves from

moving railway trains. They shun the light and only go about at night,

and not even then unless provided with a sunshade. They fear abode in

closed rooms so much that they faint if they hear doors shut; or else

they hate being in the open air, and refuse to cross public squares,”

etc. Further on we read: “These men are often overmastered by a hatred

of their fellow-beings. They withdraw into remote regions, and flee all

contact with men (claustrophilia). Others, again, although they prolong

existence in an evil life, crave society, whose cancers they are;

long for the admiration of others, be it only such as can be excited

by the most insignificant things, such as collections of buttons and

of umbrellas. They let slip no means, however ridiculous, to draw

attention to themselves. They write love-letters to themselves and read

them publicly, or smoke Trabucos while they suffer hunger. They strive

for the first places in the _cafés_ and in the political clubs. They

found little literary societies, and the more ignorant they are of the

matter in which for the moment they are engaged, the warmer is their

apostleship. Sometimes they are, from their youth up, incorrigibly

cruel, hypocritical, and thievish, make swindling and thieving their

pleasure, and are amazed when they are punished, although they

perfectly know the terms of the law. But the vanity of these men is

almost incredible. They commit crimes to satisfy this vanity, and they

do not care that what they do destroys their whole credit, nor that it

does not bring them the honour of which they are so desirous.” This is

a picture of typical cases of mental degeneracy, as we have already

learned. The symptom of graphomania is, according to Lombroso’s own

picture, not even particularly marked. There is a general imbecility

which may express itself in the most various ways. Of another class

of cases Lombroso says: “The intellectual fools are tireless talkers

who are often unable to bring their own flow of speech to an end. They

speak without logical connection, and almost always reach conclusions

contradicting something else that they had said. This happens more on

some days than on others.” Of these subjects Lombroso says: “I may add

that they are mostly incurable, since their malady is congenital. They

have the morbid and eccentric elements of genius, without its judgment

and creative power.”

He then describes another category of subjects, the “foolish

graphomaniacs.” Of the only case he adduces he says: “Stewart, the

remarkable author of the New System of Physical Philosophy, who

struggled through the world in order to discover the cynosure of truth,

asserted that all kings and potentates of the earth had entered into a

solemn pact to annihilate his work. Hence he sent his friends copies

of it with the request that they would bury them, well packed, in

secret places, and only reveal the localities on their deathbeds.” In

all probability there was in this case a system of delusions; and, so

far as one can found a diagnosis on these few words, it would seem to

be a case of paranoia. How Lombroso can call it a special disease,

above all a “foolish graphomania,” is not comprehensible. The same

thing is true of the following case, which is either one of paranoia

or of imbecility: “Martin William was the brother of Jonathan, who, in

a fit of insanity, set fire to the cathedral of York, and likewise of

that John, who invented a new method of painting. He published numerous

works to demonstrate the possibility of perpetual motion. Having

convinced himself by thirty-six experiments that no perpetual motion

was possible, he experienced in a dream that God had elected him to

discover the principle of all things and the perpetual motion, which

subject he again treated in numerous writings.” Lombroso continues:

“These people would not appear to be insane were it not that, along

with the appearance of thoroughness and of resolute persistency in

one and the same pursuit (characteristics which they share alike with

monomaniacs and with men of genius), their writings never renounce

absurdities, continual contradictions, loquacious, foolish verbosity,

and another tendency--which we have found to be the strongest of all

in insane men of genius--I mean boundless vanity.” This is as much

as to say that these people would not appear insane if they were not

what they are; for, according to Lombroso’s own description, they are

degenerate, imbecile, weak-minded men. That they share a characteristic

with men of genius is not accurate, for, as Lombroso says, their

thoroughness and perseverance are only a false appearance, while genius

really possesses these qualities.

If we are to attempt a division of degenerates into classes, the only

way will be to follow the plan of Morel and use the psychological

disproportion as our _directrix_, and thus bring degenerates with

deficient intelligence, with excessive or perverted impulses, fancy,

feeling, etc., under separate heads. To divide them upon the ground of

a not distinctly prominent symptom would be a regress rather than a

progress in our science. Perhaps the course which impels Lombroso to

select the particular symptom of writing much may be that this symptom

is the only one which can be communicated through those writings to

posterity and to the researcher in its whole extent, while others--such

as the numerous manias, weaknesses of mind, perversities, and other

weaknesses--require direct observation.

Lombroso’s designations, “intellectual fools,” “foolish

graphomaniacs,” “fools of genius,” and “foolish geniuses” lead only

to misunderstandings and confusion of ideas, while it should be our

task to make our terms as precise as possible and keep them sharply

distinguished from one another.

However various the clinical picture of the degenerate may be, yet,

in consequence of its common cause in all cases--namely, mental

instability, discord of the mental faculties--the cases always have

something to characterize them, and they give to the competent

observer no occasion to confound them with great, fully developed, and

harmonious minds.