Chapter I: Part 1

GENIUS AND
DEGENERATION

_A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY_

BY
DR. WILLIAM HIRSCH

Translated from the Second Edition of
the German Work

LONDON
WILLIAM HEINEMANN
1897

[_All rights reserved_]

Dedicated,
WITH THE AUTHOR’S AFFECTIONATE ESTEEM, TO
DR. E. MENDEL,
PROFESSOR OF NERVOUS AND MENTAL DISEASES AT
THE ROYAL UNIVERSITY OF BERLIN.

PREFACE.

It is a special trait of recent times that science, particularly the natural sciences, have assumed an international character. All civilized nations are equally interested in the great problems of the day, and they all contribute in greater or less degree to the mighty structure of modern science. Nevertheless, the mutual exchange of ideas is sometimes impeded by differences of language, and this difficulty is increased when not only the external form but also the presentation of the subject bears the stamp of a peculiarly national characteristic. I felt myself confronted by such a difficulty when I concluded to place the present work before an English-speaking public. The anthropological questions treated here have made it necessary to undertake a psychological analysis of certain individuals, and to attempt to penetrate as far as possible to the depths of their mental processes. It was natural that in the original production of this work the intellectual heroes of the German people should have been selected, and it is evident that the appreciation of their traits and work is more perfect among their own people than among foreign nations. Nevertheless, I am sure that the characters selected for analysis, from whose life and works I have attempted to arrive at a correct conception of both genius and degeneration, are sufficiently well known to the English reader.

The purpose of this publication was to aid in the elucidation of certain anthropological moot-questions and to clear up certain notions that were apt to create confusion not only in medical circles but also in the wider field of the cultured laity. It can hardly be necessary to disclaim any personal motives in my criticisms of the views of other writers on this subject. Nor was it my object to enter into a critique of the artistic value of the productions of those whose works I have examined, and I trust the reader will bear these facts in mind while perusing the polemical portions of the book. If I have contributed in some measure to a clearer view of the truth of the questions discussed, the purpose of this work will be fulfilled.

W. H.

_August, 1896._

CONTENTS.

PAGE
Introduction 1

The Limits of Insanity 6

The Psychology of Genius 18

Genius and Insanity 71

Degeneration 118

Influence of Education upon Genius 147

Secular Hysteria 170

Art and Insanity 199

Richard Wagner and Psychopathology 249

Conclusion 320

INTRODUCTION.

Psychiatry, or the science of mental diseases, is one of the fruits of the century now drawing to its close. It was only in 1792 that Pinel struck the fetters off the patients at the Bicêtre and began to treat them humanely; and as late as 1818 Esquirol reported to the ministry that criminals, not to say brutes, were better treated in France than were the insane. The progress of this youthful science within the last decades may, however, be contemplated with some degree of satisfaction, and with a strong confidence that the stream of knowledge will be poured out in still fuller volume in the years to come.

Maturer studies and better-reasoned treatment are gradually enlarging the class of mental disorders that are curable. Society has also to thank modern researchers into the causes--the etiology--of those diseases. By this study we are enabled to oppose the production and spread of those maladies; and general information about their causes will directly contribute to the well-being of the community.

Derangement of mind has in all ages had no inconsiderable influence upon the course of history and the development of civilization; there is much in society that is mentally unwholesome and many crazes that psychiatry can show how to avoid. That insanity is a disease of a particular organ, biologically indistinguishable from a somatic disorder, was, in former times, not understood. The notion of madness was mixed up with religious faiths and metaphysical theories. Thousands were burned at the stake simply because men were not so far enlightened as to recognise that their victims were mentally sick, instead of being, as they imagined, bewitched or possessed by devils. Think, too, of the multitudes of entirely sane and innocent persons who were sent to the rack and the stake upon the accusations of madmen--mere crazy delusions! Along with such dreadful results of ignorance, and contributing to them, we find, in ages widely separated, men’s general conceptions of the course of nature influenced by superstitions and religious enthusiasms fostered by the behaviour of the insane, and accepted largely in deference to teachings of bewildered minds.

About the end of the eighteenth century the sad veil of superstition began to be lifted. Yet the pathway of knowledge was still a thorny and difficult one. Many an obstacle remained to be removed. Many a hot fight had to be fought out. Often and often, even in this nineteenth century, theologians set their traps to render the scientific pathway personally perilous. Even as elevated a mind as Heinroth declared that the cause of insanity was sin.

Alienists to-day no longer regard mental and bodily maladies as distinct. In the majority of bodily diseases some affection of the mental powers is observable; so that no scientific physician will overlook the importance of psychical influences. On the other hand, bodily symptoms occur in by far the greater proportion of cases of insanity. We can sometimes predict a severe and almost fatal derangement of the mind, at a time when hardly any aberration has yet appeared, on the strength of somatic symptoms that no ordinary person would remark. Thus, mental and bodily disease are quite inseparable; and a rational treatment of psychoses must be based upon a solid foundation of general medical skill.

In spite of all these facts, attempts are still made to withdraw the care of the insane from the hands of physicians and to intrust it to the clergy. At a meeting of the German Union of Evangelical Curates of the Insane, the Rev. von Bodelschwingh, while admitting that “modern medico-scientific psychiatry had done good service in the recognition, treatment, and cure of the insane,” yet censured it as “at bottom materialistic and temporal.” “It leaves,” he said, “sin and grace, conscience and guilt, quite out of sight, and does not recognise that forgiveness of sins brings life and spiritual health.” He continued as follows: “Speaking broadly, the less the bodily physician uses his _materia medica_ in mental maladies, the better. Such things, for the most part, only damage body and soul. The bodily physician may be helpful in the care of the insane, but the prime thing is the treatment of the sick soul; and this should not be intrusted to the physician in the main.”[1]

Such utterances are, of course, merely the efforts of the clergy to extend their power. But inasmuch as they tend to injure patients, not to say society itself, the interests of civilization call upon men of science to combat them.

Nor is it by the clergy alone that attacks upon psychiatry are made. Various causes have conspired to create of late years some distrust of this branch of medicine. The general public is naturally liable to misinterpret cases of insanity in which the symptoms are not so obvious that no onlooker can mistake them, and where the practised eye of the specialist is required to detect their real nature. Then, too, the not infrequent differences of opinion among experts in insanity, leading, as they often do, to contrary judgments about the nature of individual cases, are cited as so many proofs that psychiatry is an illusory science, and that its practitioners are not to be trusted to decide upon the fate of a man.

But this is altogether fallacious. Similar objections would lie against any other practical science. Name, if you can, the branch of clinical medicine in which doubtful cases do not occur, or where divergences of opinion are less frequent than in psychiatry itself. No science whatsoever is perfect or infallible. In every field our knowledge and skill have their limits, and there are disputed marches between the completed conquests of science and the regions her armies have not yet invaded. Cases in law, as everybody knows, are continually arising concerning which the greatest jurists pronounce diametrically contrary opinions. Yet the ideas and terms with which the lawyer has to deal are, from the nature of things, susceptible of more rigidly exact definition than those which form the stock of the alienist.

In point of accuracy, psychical pathology simply stands upon the general level of other branches of clinical medicine. There are cases upon the border line between insanity and mental sanity, and concerning them differences of opinion are unavoidable. But how can that be considered to detract from the value of the general science? Mistakes occur wherever human judgment has to be exercised. Indeed, every remarkable advance of human knowledge is secured at the cost of temporary errors.

No doubt many tendencies in modern psychiatry spring from erroneous conceptions. The very purpose of this book is to contribute something toward the clearing up of certain psychological and psychiatrical notions which have already occasioned not a few disputes and misunderstandings.

The wisdom of early ages burned the insane as witches and sorcerers, or, at best, incarcerated them in dismal dungeons and loaded them with chains. Down to the very beginning of this century insanity was hardly recognised as a branch of medical science. But now the pendulum has swung the other way, and there are efforts in many quarters to narrow more and more the boundaries of mental sanity, until every mind, decidedly unlike those we daily come in touch with, or manifesting any extraordinary characteristics is labelled as diseased. Not only are the less gifted--particularly criminals--frequently considered as insane, but eminent writers go so far as to pronounce every mind whose capacity greatly surpasses the average to be a pathological subject.

Such doctrines are examples of a class of errors which frequently arise from the gradual modification of the meanings of scientific terms that had never been distinctly apprehended. Among such terms are those of Genius and Degeneration; and to analyze these conceptions is the purpose of this work. Their psychological and psychiatric significations have, as we shall find, been most diversely conceived, and this has led to many misunderstandings.

Before we enunciate our proper theses it will be convenient briefly to consider the main symptoms of insanity, so that we may be able to estimate how far we are in a condition to draw any sharp line of demarcation between mental sanity and mental disease.

THE LIMITS OF INSANITY.

The symptoms of psychical disorders resemble those of the body in this: that they are not phenomena absolutely unlike those of the normal state, but are mere modifications of the latter. In the vast majority of instances they consist in a relative augmentation or diminution of healthy conditions, so that for every symptom of insanity we are able to point out an analogous normal process of the mind.

Considering that even in somatic medicine, with the aid of all the appliances there at our command, we can not always draw the line between health and disease, we certainly ought not to expect to do so in every case presented to psychiatry, concerned as this branch is with a far more complicated organism than any other department of medicine. Nor should we draw the limits of health too narrowly; we have to allow sufficient room for all varieties of minds.

Let a sane man undergo a mental shock, say the death of a near relative. He will experience an intense depression of feeling, and will very likely be overwhelmed with grief. The events of the world around him will pass unnoticed, and things that had excited his interest in the highest degree will fail to make upon him the slightest impression. The intensity of this condition will vary with different men. One will be more susceptible to psychical pains than another. One will be able to fight down his feelings with his reason, while another will give himself over to unbridled grief. But whether in greater degree or less, in some measure, in the circumstances supposed, the sane man will always experience such grief. Complete psychical anæsthesia, or insensibility, is a symptom of psychical disease. We observe it in the most diverse forms of insanity.

On the other hand, it is not unusual to find persons in whom such a depression of spirits as we have described is brought on by quite trifling causes. The refusal of a new dress or seal-skin sack, rainy weather which interferes with a projected picnic, and things of that description, may suffice to bring on a shower of tears and to conjure up a state of despair, or at least of deep mental perturbation. In fact, this is the regular result with children. But in adults we call it excessive sensitiveness, or psychical hyperæsthesia. It is especially met with in hysterical and degenerate individuals.

Finally, the same state of deep depression and complete apathy is also found without the slightest outward reason, being brought on by inward conditions. In that case we diagnose a grave psychical malady--to wit, melancholia.

It is the same with the cheerful emotions. Any sound man may, upon a particularly joyful occasion, as upon the successful passage of an examination, or the winning of a lottery prize, give way to an exuberance of behaviour which a hysterical or degenerate subject will exhibit upon the most trifling occasion. But if such a state is brought on without any external reason whatever, it betokens a form of disease which may pass into foaming rage; and this we term mania.

It is just the same with anger, vexation, fear, anxiety, and other emotions. From the normal psychical action we pass through successive exaggerations of emotion to a rage quite without reason but determined by inward conditions.

Even irrational emotion is not without its analogue within the latitude of the normal state of our spirits. Almost every man has his ups and downs of spirits, his greater or less mental tone. One day, he knows not why, he is in good condition for work; another day he has to force himself to his duty. An artist says, “It is of no use; I am in no trim for work to-day; I am not in the mood for it.” If we imagined curves to be drawn of these moods in different men, we should find waves of small amplitude even in the most solid and stolid men of business; while passing to the artists, and from them to the Skimpoles, and from them, again, to persons usually called hysterical, the oscillations would be greater and greater. The slight spontaneous irregularities of temper of the perfectly sane man will be manifest only to his most intimate companions; for he will contrive to give his moods a factitious backing of reason, though this may perhaps deceive no close observer. But the hysterical, and those who abandon self-government, will in the wildest fashion give rein to every freak, quite forgetful of the company in which they may be. We can, however, assign no accurate limits to healthy variations. We can not say, At this point precisely sanity ends and madness begins. There is no such boundary in Nature. The difference between a particular disposition and insanity is but a question of more or less.

All our impressions, whether of the external world or of ourselves, are conveyed to us by the sensory-nerves. The excitation of a sensory-nerve terminal results in a sensation at the central end of the peripheral nerve, in the brain. Hence the excitation is propagated to the cortex, or outer part of the brain, where is the terminus of the sensory tract; and here the sensation, brayed, as it were, with the residua of former impressions, is converted into a perception. Every sensation that has once been worked up into a perception is capable of being spontaneously or voluntarily excited anew. The re-excitation or reminiscence of an image which has so arisen, whether by a peripheral excitation, or spontaneously, or voluntarily, brings along with it the recollection of other images. Those connecting nerve fibres, by means of which associated sensations are produced, are termed associational tracts. The aggregate of a great multitude of reminiscential images belonging to different organs of sense makes what we call a perceptual idea, or percept (_Vorstellung_). For example, let the word _bell_ be mentioned. What does it mean? It brings up the optical image of a certain cubic curve, the form of the outline of the bell; it brings up the four letters b e l l; it brings up the sound the instrument produces; and, finally, it brings up the sonorous syllable which we are accustomed to fancy resembles that sound. All these images (and mind, that in psychology we speak of auditory, olfactory, and other reminiscences as _images_) are recalled, and with them traces of other things associated with bells--some merry sleighing-party of the hearer’s youth; his wedding-day, perhaps; the dreadful summons of the people on some occasion of a fire or of anticipated invasion; and, possibly, some well-remembered funeral. All these things come welling up to us, like the swelling of the sound produced by interferences. Language has no word more vividly significant than _bell_, because the more memorial images cluster about an idea, the clearer will it be, and the easier reproduced, or, in other words, the more it clings to the memory. If you have to remember a name you ask to have it written down, because the auditory image will be more readily reproduced if once associated with the visual image.

The more intense and extraordinary an original impression of sense, the more distinctly will it be reproduced. But after a while the reproduced image loses its distinctive characters. It becomes vague, and in that sense weaker. The remembered sound of the cannon of a distant battlefield, though not perhaps less loud, is less distinguished from other remembered sounds, unless, indeed, more recent experiences refresh our memory.

The period of time within which a memorial stimulus of given power can excite a recollection of given definiteness varies through a wide range with different individuals. Within the latitude of health there are good and bad memories, and memories of different kinds. In pathological cases, this action of the cortex may sink almost or quite to zero, or be exaggerated surprisingly.

As a multitude of impressions are worked together into an image, and a multitude of images into a perceptual idea, so a complexus of perceptual ideas has for its resultant a _thought_, wherein there is a representation of the way events happen, in general, and of the relation of our ego to the macrocosm. Such general conception of the relation between the inner and outer world makes what the psychologist means by self-consciousness--or, as it has been called, the consciousness of consciousness, or superintending-consciousness (_Oberbewusstsein_).

The procedure of thought is perfected in an arrangement of ideas in sequence. In the waking state there is a ceaseless flow of percepts--that is, a continual thinking-process takes place in the brain. Those percepts are occasionally excited by the peripheral organs, or they are supplied by inward excitations following the tracts of association.

The sequence of percepts may be determined either involuntarily by spontaneous associations and outward impressions, or by the active exercise of attention.

Stimuli from the peripheral organs of sense may be called _centripetal_ actions, the operations of association _intra-central_, and the idea due to the will _centrifugal_. The function of this centrifugal action is to bring the ideas into a regular sequence by excluding unsuitable centripetal percepts, and by strengthening some associations and weakening others. In common speech we call this centrifugal action _attention_. It fulfils one of the most important offices of the mind, since without it thought could not be made purposive.

The power of attention of a sane man has to be considerable, so that he may hold his ideas in the right order for a long time without fatigue. In idiots, on the other hand, it is occasionally so completely wanting that they can not swerve the slow current of their ideas. Between these two extremes every possible grade of this power is met with. Every teacher of children knows that some of them concentrate their thoughts with comparatively little difficulty, while others are at the mercy of every little presentation in the room or out at the window, as well as of their own recollections.

The process of association may follow different principles. An idea may melt into another inwardly allied to it. I hear a musical air, for example. This sets all sorts of subconscious ideas relating to music into motion toward the surface of consciousness. Some circumstance or other, perhaps its recent prominence, gives a clear outline, let us suppose, to the idea of the Magic Flute before the others. Now, it is particularly ideas of operatic music whose gradual movement toward emergence is accelerated. I find myself reviewing several operas; or, if a number of such ideas emerge at once, a general conception of operatic music is formed in my mind. Among these pictures, perhaps one of a grand performance at La Scala may, by its splendour, obliterate others. By this time my reminiscences of oratorios, symphonies, chamber music, etc., are sinking back into slumber, while pictures of various opera houses are crowding up to the surface. Their multitude prevents my distinctly dwelling upon any one. The resultant is a general idea of theatrical architecture. Now memories of other magnificent pieces of architecture begin to take places in the composite photograph of my imagination, and as, by the operation of fatigue, the intense assertiveness of the ideas which have been longer before my mind wanes, perhaps the resultant of those that remain leaves me thinking of triumphal arches. This is an imaginary example of a train of association governed chiefly by the principle called _resemblance_--that is, by the intrinsic affinities of ideas. Another principle is that called _contiguity_, where an idea, A, calls up another, B, having no inward affinity for it, because the sequence of B upon A has an analogy, or inward affinity, with the sequence of _b_ upon _a_, where _b_ and _a_ are ideas which occurred at some previous time, _b_ following after _a_. For example, I see a porringer, let us say, which I remember to have used in my childhood. The whole scene straightway completes itself in my imagination--the chamber, the furniture, the nurse, appear before me. Thence my fancy is carried forward to the day when that nurse was married from the house, and the image of the man she married is called up. Then follows the picture of a visit I subsequently made to see how the couple were prospering, etc. These ideas follow one another because similar ideas did follow one another upon a former presentation of them. The principles of resemblance and contiguity may act in conjunction, as they do in the minds of those who are continually chasing puns and rhymes. Here ideas the most incongruous may be associated, because the former recalls by contiguity a word or phrase which by resemblance calls forth another word, which in its turn reproduces by contiguity the second idea. We make use of this sort of association in mnemonic verses, such as “Thirty days hath September,” etc. Countless systems of artificial memory repose on the same principle; and so does the very natural method of attending to a general rule observable among certain objects for the sake of remembering the objects themselves.

The rapidity with which the process of associative reproduction takes place can be little varied by any effort of the will. It depends upon the freshness or fatigue of the nervous system at the time. It differs, too, with different individuals. Under pathological conditions it may either sink to such a minimum that patients will themselves complain of their vacuity of mind and mental retardation, or it may become an abnormal rush of ideas. When the rapidity of the associative process is slightly increased, the patient feels extremely well. He is in the mood for brilliant performances, thoughts fly to him, his conversation sparkles, he improvises, he impresses those about him as being a witty and clever man. With a still greater rapidity of associative action there is such a rush of ideas that they tumble over one another, lose their logical relations, and end in a delirious whirl.

We have thus far considered only cases in which every idea is excited by a stimulus external or associational. We now come to a different phenomenon. Almost every man knows what it is, while endeavouring to think consecutively, suddenly to have an unwelcome image obtrude itself; perhaps a musical air which he has of late heard too often repeats itself in his brain without being led up to at all. We often hear it said, “I can not get that accursed tune out of my head.” Phenomena of this kind are to be explained by the tendency of some part of the cortex which has been excessively excited to pass into the active condition spontaneously. In quite an analogous way the most complicated percepts may spring up spontaneously, breaking into the normal current of thought. When an idea thus becomes a continual hindrance to rational thought, we call it an imperative idea. It forms a disease inflicting, as a rule, great torment and anguish upon the patient, and leads to further complications.

We have said that every sense-perception once experienced may be reproduced without any new stimulus. Now, if, independently of any associational process, a reminiscential image is excited spontaneously with extraordinary strength, the vividness, or subjective intensity of the idea, may be so heightened as to take on every characteristic of actual perception. Let an excitation run over the path which leads from the subcortical centre which is the seat of the primary sensation to the cortical centre of perception, and whether it have a centrifugal origin, or whether it be centripetally propagated, the result will ordinarily be the same--namely, that we shall project the percept into our idea of the outward world. We shall unhesitatingly accept the thing we see or the language we hear as real external experiences, although the whole may be nothing but hallucination.

The relative intensity with which a given perception can be reproduced by a given person depends on the intensity of the original excitation and the degree of attention that had been originally bestowed upon it. In different persons the intensity of reproductive power varies exceedingly. It is low in some minds; while others, especially artists, possess a very high degree of imagination. Some painters can at will call up visual images which they proceed to copy upon their canvas just as if they were painting from Nature; and a successful writer for the orchestra will seem to hear the effect of a given combination of instruments, so as to achieve with unerring certainty results that the greatest theoretician could not rival.

Muscular motions are of three kinds--the automatic, the reflex, and the voluntary. Automatic motions, such as the beating of the heart and ordinary respiration, are caused by the action of special centres; and though they may be influenced by reflex, or even in some measure by voluntary action, they act, nevertheless, independently. Reflex motions originate in centres which do not, like the automatic centres, produce any excitations, but only receive them from sensory nerves. Examples are the contraction of the pupil of the eye under increased illumination, and winking upon any touch of the eyelid.

To bring about a voluntary motion, a centripetal impulse is ordinarily requisite, to stimulate the psychomotor centre. Yet it is possible for the excitation to arise within that centre. Every man has his peculiar tricks, unless he has taken pains to conquer them. He pulls his beard, or sniffs, or bites his mustache, or rubs his hands, or gives some peculiar twitch, more or less annoying to his neighbours, unconsciously to himself and without any outward stimulus, simply in consequence of a chronically excited state of some centre. These excitations are sometimes sufficient to produce large and co-ordinated motions for which, in ordinary circumstances, the co-operation of the will would be requisite. Many people can not sit long still without an uncontrollable impulse to move about. They jump up from their work, take a turn or two up and down the room, and then sit down to their work again.

Such excitations as these may likewise be exaggerated to the point of disease. In mania they are seen in their most extreme form. Patients yell, rage, strike, and smash, without knowing what they are about.

Among the most important symptoms of psychical maladies, often most difficult to recognize, are delusions. The general public imagines that delusions consist essentially in believing something that is utterly absurd. Nothing could be more erroneous. A delusion may be in substance quite true, while the sheerest nonsense may be produced in the mind without any delusion. A person may fancy he has a living creature in his body, and, though it may in fact be true that he has a tapeworm, yet, if the opinion is not founded on any sound process of thought, it certainly is none the less to be classed along with genuine delusions because it accidentally happens to come true.

Of three so-called “spiritualists,” let one be a simpleton who, without any logical conviction, has been led--by sheer credulity, or weak assent to energetic assertion--to admit the phenomena of mediumship. Let the second be a learned man who has been imposed upon by legerdemain, and who endeavours to explain what he thinks he has seen in a scientific way; and let the third be one with whom the belief is of the nature of an insane delusion. They all believe the same thing; so that it can not be said that it is the nature of what is believed that constitutes the insanity. It is rather the mode in which the belief has come about, its relation to the other operations of the mind, its mode of expression, its relation to the interests of the believer, that must be relied upon to determine the alienist to diagnose a true delusion.

Anomalies of the propensities play a great part in the pathology of the mind. Like the other symptoms of insanity, abnormal impulses are but quantitative or qualitative modifications of healthy conditions. Psychiatry has never discovered any new passion. The appetites vary greatly in different individuals; and here again we must take care to allow sufficient latitude to healthy variations. The feeling of hunger, or the propensity to eat, may in the most diverse psychical disorders be enormously exalted. This is called hyperorexia. It sometimes goes so far that the patient tries to devour whatever he can lay hands on. This is called sitomania. On the other hand, the propensity may be distinctly lowered in intensity or even lost. This is called anorexia. Of course, none of these states includes cases in which the modification of the appetite is caused by derangements of the organs of digestion. Finally, the desire for food may be directed to strange substances, as often happens to pregnant women. In the insane this perversion of appetite will sometimes be so great as to induce them to eat straw, earth, worms, and even their own filth.

We sometimes find the other propensities equally deranged. The sexual impulse may be exalted to the highest degree--a state called satyriasis in men, nymphomania in women. The sexual appetite may be depressed or lost in total impotence. It may be perverted to one’s own sex or to other things.

I must apologize for this general description of the symptoms of insanity, which does not directly concern the subject of this book. I have entered upon it for the purpose of showing that, in order to determine the state of mental sanity or insanity, it does not suffice to produce certain extraordinary or absurd modes of behaviour or temper; that we can hardly pronounce a man to be insane from any conduct until we know what his motives are; and, finally, that we are not to judge from a part of his mental actions, but must get a clear notion of his whole mental condition. I have further endeavoured to show that, as far as single symptoms go, no sharp line of demarcation can be drawn between mental sanity and insanity. Just as there are physically strong men and physically weak men, men of large bodies and men of puny bodies, so within the limits of health there are mental athletes and mental weaklings. Moreover, just as no two men are in person counterparts the one of the other, so there are no two whose characters are precisely alike. There are perfectly healthy men with extraordinary physiognomies or peculiarities of bodily structure; and in like manner unusual traits of character are to be met with. The study of such men may be interesting to the psychologist, but it does not directly concern the pathology of the mind.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF GENIUS.

It is plain from the nature of psychology, as well as from its history, that it has to contend with difficulties and perplexities of a magnitude and character with which no other observational science is perplexed. An immediate acquaintance with psychical conditions can only be obtained by self-observation; so that this has always formed the foundation of the scientific edifice. Nor can any generalization of observation possibly be attained except by means of the concepts derived from self-observation. This entails the great disadvantage that there is wanting to psychology the objectivity of the observation, in that the subject and object thereof are one person. This is yet further increased by the impossibility of repeating any observation, so that in psychology we lack almost entirely one of the most important aids of natural sciences--namely, experiment.

Our knowledge of the physiology of the human body has been so much enriched by pathological facts that we may truly say that some branches of it would, as far as we can see, have remained forever closed books if the effects of disease had not been observed. So it is with psychology, in its turn. Since mental disease has been systematically studied the science of the mind has undergone a veritable revolution. Psychology and psychiatry are to-day inseparably connected. Neither could survive, were the bond between them severed.

Psychology began by being largely speculative. It preserved this character for quite a lengthy period. It has, in more modern times, passed into paths essentially different, and stands to-day, side by side with the other positive sciences, upon the solid ground of critical observation. Partly, though only to a moderate extent, it has entered upon experimental investigations.

Every observational science, after having effected a preliminary rough analysis of the ordinary facts, has fastened its scrutiny upon extreme cases and apparent departures from the uniformities of the matter in hand. From a study of these varieties and from a comparison of them with ordinary cases, it brings forth fresh knowledge. Psychologists are beginning to do this; and especially of late years much attention has been bestowed upon those extraordinary powers which we ordinarily indicate by the word genius.

The results of these inquiries are thus far as diverse as possible, and, just as in former scientific controversies, leading men assume attitudes of almost flat contradiction. Let us see whether we can not, with the investigations already at our command, attain a clearer conception of the concept of genius.

As the etymology of the word, which is derived from _genius_ or _ingenium_, directly indicates, the ancients believed, according to their view of the world, that within persons of eminence--those men who guided the destinies of nations or were able to accomplish phenomenal deeds in the domains of art or science--a divine spirit dwelt. A _genius_, for example, spoke to the people through the mediumship of the Pythian priestess; a divine spirit opened to Socrates the fountains of knowledge and science, and inspired Homer with divine song, enabling him to perceive the world as a magnificent fulness of ideals and beauties. It conducted Miltiades through the tumult of battle to glorious victory and smoothed for Plato the path to eternal wisdom.

This idealistic method of viewing things has been transmitted from century to century down to our own time. In the saints of the Middle Ages we see the idea of the Holy Ghost corporealized. By the mouths of priests and prophets “God” speaks to the people. Rulers are invested with “divine right.” They rule by the “divine will.” The powerful thinkers who guide the world by great discoveries are filled with “divine grace.” In those who by their art embellish the world there shone a “divine spark,” a fragment of the Holy Ghost. By their mouths God spoke to men. Genius was eternal and incomprehensible. Its knowledge and power were infinite.

Modern science has applied the dissecting knife to this fantastic web of speculative philosophy, has analyzed the whole matter into its elementary constituents, stripped the natural phenomena of their habiliments of superstition and mysticism, and, while thus destroying many a beloved ideal, acts in the consciousness that it is struggling after real knowledge and truth.

Psychology, having by self-observation laid down a series of conceptions, and having attained the knowledge that psychical processes, like all other phenomena of Nature, are subject to definite law, made an effort to determine the laws of the mental processes of genius, and to frame a definition of genius, which should take into account facts which are now scientifically established.

But these efforts are characterized by the same mighty error and the same important defect that has ere this provoked many a battle between scientific men. In vain had philosophers for several ages endeavoured to say in what genius consisted, until in these latter times some authors believe they have discovered the philosopher’s stone and have pronounced genius to be a variety of insanity. Unfortunately, they were not themselves clear about the definition of genius nor, perhaps, about that of insanity.

An accurate science ought to provide names only for known phenomena. It might view a complex of phenomena as one object, and apply to it a collective name. Having done so, it can again perform specification within the limits of the _genus_. But science shall always go wrong and shall exercise itself about phantoms, if it accepts _a priori_ some word or other as something laid down, so to speak, independently, and then tries to call forth from the phenomena sufficient material whereby to explain a notion somehow made inherent in this word.

To so plain a truth one might hesitate to refer. And yet how often has science sinned against it! Innumerable tomes, for example, have been written on the inquiry of whether the human will is _free_ or determined. Quarrels, bitter to the point of persecution, have been indulged in by high authorities upon this question. Finally, it has been proved to be merely a contest about “words,” for each individual combined with the word “will” some different notion regarding which he himself never for an instant was clear. Nowhere is this error of science better expressed than in the words of Goethe:

_Student._ But every word must have some sense exact.

_Mephistopheles._ Of course; but let not that your mind distract;
For oft to fill the meaning’s awkward blank,
A serviceable word we have to thank.
With words we gloriously may dispute,
With words a system constitute;
Words will suffice for faith unshaken,
For from the Word shall jot nor tittle e’er be taken.

Many authors make any person endowed with specially excellent mental powers a genius. Thus Sulzer, in his dictionary,[2] says: “Genius seems to be ascribed to any man who, in departments for which he shows a natural turn, displays remarkable skill and a more copious fertility of mind than other men.... Genius seems at bottom to be nothing but great general power of mind; so that ‘a great mind’ and ‘a man of genius’ are synonymous terms.” Du Bos[3] defines genius as “the natural skill by which a man is enabled to perform certain things well and easily that other men, whatever pains they may take, can only do ill.” Riedel,[4] Feder,[5] Baumgarten,[6] and others express themselves to the same effect. Herder[7] says: “Everybody knows that genius is nothing but the intensive or extensive quantity of psychical power exerted.” A struggling sort of definition, conceived in the same strain, is thus formulated by Flögel:[8] “Genius is unquestionably an attribute of the faculty of cognition, for no inclination for an art or a science will induce us to say of the man that feels it that he has genius.” This marvellous utterance is rendered somewhat more intelligible by the definition of the cognitive faculty that immediately follows it: “The faculty of cognition is a tree with many branches. Attention, memory, abstraction, wit, discrimination, understanding, and reason, by whatever names they may be called, belong to cognition. Experience shows that these different branches or parts are not all equally developed, but that one may in a given man preponderate over another. One man has more wit than discrimination; another has good sense but a poor memory; a third has a solid understanding but a deficiency of imagination. Thus, there is a certain degree of repugnancy between a man’s different cognitive powers; and it is their proportion which constitutes a man’s genius in its widest sense. In this sense every man has his genius.” He continues thus: “We are accustomed to deny genius to numberless men. We deny it to learned men who have written libraries; and it would be equally out of place to speak of an author as a genius who had only written a few pages in which a moderate enthusiasm was displayed. We associate the term genius with something great, something superior in its way. Whatever capacity in a man seems great, pre-eminent, of singular force, distinguishing him from average brains, is called genius, without qualification. If this superiority belongs to all he does, we say the man has universal genius; if it is confined to certain directions, we call it special or peculiar genius.” Wieland[9] divides genius into three kinds: the genius of pleasing, which operates within the domain of the graces and consists in a special facility for carrying out the ideas it prosecutes; philosophical genius, which consists in a capacity for discovering those truths resulting from correct conceptions which concern the felicity of mankind; and practical genius, which consists in a ready activity in availing itself of known facts and in producing the highest and most prompt resolutions. But there is no psychological foundation for this arbitrary division of the phenomena. Here, again, it is the mere greatness and pre-eminence of the achievements, without reference to their psychical origin, which is made to constitute the essence of genius. H. Joly[10] says that genius is “creative power, using this term in the relative sense in which alone it is permissible to apply it. It is the production of something which the combined efforts of other men have hitherto been powerless to effect. It is that which puts at the disposition of humanity either means of expression, or means of talent and invention, or means of new action, which add something to the common intelligence and common power.”

The conception of genius of all these authors is even in conflict with that of ordinary language, for which genius and talent are qualitatively different. If those authors are right, genius and talent are merely different degrees of the same quality. However this may be, according to the above definition, the word genius has, generally speaking, not much value as a psychological term.

The inadequacy of such a view to meet the popular notion being recognised, efforts have been made to find something specially characteristic of genius. A great many philosophers have taken originality to be such a characteristic. Weise[11] says: “All writers upon genius agree that invention is its essential mark.” Many authors seem quite to forget that the point is to establish a psychological conception, proceeding rather as if they had to accord a title or order for some special service. Thus Alexander Gerard[12] adopts the view that everybody who makes an invention, whether valuable or useless, and everybody who has an original idea of any description, must be a genius. According to this, any fool who gives birth to original absurdities must be reckoned as a genius. In conflict with those passages is the subsequent remark of the same author, that “invention is the capacity of producing new beauties in works of art and new truths in matters of science.” Apart from the arbitrary character of this definition of the word “invention,” it is in distinct conflict with the above extract, which does not harmonize with such a definition.

Many authors express substantially the same opinion. Flögel,[13] for example, says: “Down to Newton the colorific effects of prisms had probably been looked upon as a pretty amusement for children, unworthy the attention of philosophers; but that great mind founded upon these phenomena that acute theory of colours which by itself would have sufficed to win for him the title of genius had he been great (?) in nothing else.” The author talks as if genius were a rank like that of major or privy counsellor. Kant,[14] too, quotes with approval the definition of genius as the “exemplary originality of a man’s talent.” Hagen[15] says: “Originality, therefore, constitutes genius.... To me, accordingly, genius is the synonym of mind, but with the implication that the mental idiosyncrasy of the super-eminent individual is intended.... Now, in so far as every man has a mental individuality, he has a mind distinct from every other and is an original thinker. He has a mind of his own.... By genius, in the narrow and ordinary sense, we mean a mind of the first order endowed with a high originality of conception, of discovery, and of creative impulse.”

This conception of genius may, perhaps, accord better with common language than the previous one. At any rate, it furnishes the requisite qualitative distinction between genius and talent. Our present study, however, is not ordinary language. We are inquiring whether this definition creates a precise psychological concept of scientific value. Now, the concept of originality has nothing to do with psychical characteristics; it refers exclusively to outward facts. Originality may be produced by the most diverse psychical processes; and the same dispositions of mind may in one case lead to originality and in another not; since this is in no small measure an accident of the outward situation. A child is original at the period when its mind is awakening, when the more complex ideas of the world have not yet been apprehended, but primitive images are in his artless fashion fused together. That is why the speeches of children so often seem witty and excite smiles on the faces of the grown people who hear them. When we say a man is an “original” we often mean to imply that he is weak-minded and deficient in perception, not clearly understanding situations, and all his life long a foreigner to the world. So are those conceited fools original who, because their behaviour and propensities depart widely from commonsense, live in perpetual astonishment at their own genius. For example, the author of a recent book, intended to convince society that clothes should be discarded and men and women should go naked, was a genius, according to Gerard’s definition. A man publishes far and wide that he can cure all the ills that flesh is heir to by simply making people walk about barefoot over wet meadows. What a genius! And the prophet’s success, too, as regards the main chance, shows that the multitude honor him as a genius.

As we have seen, it has not taken long to learn that originality does not _per se_ constitute genius. Hence common consent has agreed more accurately to define and limit the “originality of genius.” But in doing this, merely the outward phenomenon is treated; and in the most favorable circumstances some symptom only comes to be considered, instead of the causes and source of the fact being reached. To originality is added the further condition that “beauties” and “truths” (as Gerard said) must be produced to entitle it to the name of genius. So Weise[16] says: “Genius is the immediate attraction of an individual in the harmonious concurrence of his mental and physical powers to the production of an ideal and typical work of intellect.” Many authors require that genius shall be “epoch-making,” that its achievements shall be “agreeable” or “useful,” etc. Gerard demands that artistic genius shall “please” and shall “gratify the taste”: “Objects and circumstances unfit to please, either do not at all occur to the artist or, being perceived at a glance to be unfit, are immediately rejected.” Dr. Blair says in his Lectures on Rhetoric (written about 1760), Lecture III:

“Genius always imports something inventive or creative, which does not rest in mere sensibility to beauty where it is perceived, but which can, moreover, produce new beauties, and exhibit them in such a manner as strongly to impress the minds of others.”

Thus, instead of returning to psychical causes, in such attempts to particularize the conditions, authors depart further and further from those causes, and dwell more and more upon the invention of others. Is there anything “beautiful” or “good” _per se_? Do these words express anything but a conformity to the ideas that are in fashion, but which at different periods vary monstrously? Is taste anything more than a personal preference? If the term genius is to be made contingent upon such wavering standards and the variable feelings of others, it must follow that many an individual will at certain periods of history be pronounced a genius to whom other generations will deny the epithet. So genius will lose all meaning as a psychological term; for if it is to be any character of the mind, the conception of it must be constructed and defined from within, and not be dependent upon outward circumstances.

Upon such outward circumstances originality is in part essentially dependent. Many great and useful discoveries and inventions have been due to accident solely. Many investigators have by a happy concatenation of circumstances been led into a line of study which has brought them to discoveries which have remained hidden from much higher minds. When the microscope was first discovered it was only necessary to apply it to any tissue of living matter to make great and important discoveries. So, too, as a matter of fact, a large number of discoveries are ascribed to persons who, under conditions other than those under which they were made, might perhaps in no way have particularly distinguished themselves. The possibility of originality is in many branches of art narrowly limited; and the chance of being original depends very much upon how far precursors have exhausted the department. In practical music we speak of a “brilliant rendering” (_geniale Auffassung_). Now, I ask whether a musician who executes a sonata of Beethoven according to his conception of it, is less a genius because others before him have had the same idea of it. Or is a musician a genius because, in his desire to be original and to be applauded as a genius, he does not reproduce the work of the composer, but rather a parody upon it? Often enough this is actually done nowadays.

Those inquirers who have sought to penetrate to the psychological laws of genius, and have sought to explain its phenomena upon recognised psychological principles, have been obliged at last to acknowledge that they had to do with the most diverse psychical conditions, which have been promiscuously labelled as genius. Even Gerard, in his psychological analysis, found himself at last compelled to recognise two essentially different varieties of genius--“genius for science” and “genius for the arts.”[17] But he shows very plainly the error into which he had fallen. Instead of recognising that these two classes refer to utterly unlike psychical conditions, he again resorts to external circumstances to explain their difference, saying: “Some difference between genius for science and genius for the arts arises necessarily from the very diversity of their ends.”[18] This is obviously putting the cart before the horse. He ought rather to say, “The diversity of their ends arises from different sources--genius for science and genius for the arts.”

Helvetius[19] likewise comes to the conclusion that different kinds of genius differ psychologically. “Few men have perceived that these metaphors (fire, inspiration, etc.), applicable to certain kinds of genius, such as that for poetry and for eloquence, are not at all so to the genius for reflection, such as that of Locke and Newton.” But, in spite of his quite correct view that the psychical conditions requisite for a man of science and a poet are utterly different, he nevertheless endeavours to frame a definition which shall include both these dissimilar cases.[20] Instead, therefore, of accounting for phenomena in scientific concepts, he avails himself of a loose usage of speech as the guide of his inquiries, and so comes to the conclusion that “invention” and the “making of an epoch” are the kernel of all genius.