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
CULT OF BEAUTY:
_A MANUAL OF PERSONAL HYGIENE_.
BY C. J. S. THOMPSON.
[EXTRACT FROM PREFACE.]
_Too much care cannot be taken of the exterior of the human body, on which the general health so largely depends. The most recent discoveries in science go to prove that cleanliness, with proper attention to bodily exercise, is the greatest enemy to disease and decay. Quackery has never been more rampant than it is to-day, and advertised secret preparations for beautifying the person meet us at every turn. It is with the object of showing how Beauty may be preserved and aided on purely hygienic principles, that this work has been written, the greatest secret of Beauty being Health._
_CONTENTS_--