The Dallas daily herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1887, 1886-12-03


officers on his return was manifestly q
kleptomaniac --not thief. Physicians
themselves have been known to suffer
from the propensity, one of the cases
cited in the books being that Of
an eminent practitioner who
stole his patients table-cloths
whenever he got chance. With these
uncomfortable promptings may be
compared that distressing species OF
mental obscssion known rs the tyranny
of fixed idea. The sense of number,
for instance, exercises such sway
over certain minds rs to create veri-
table species of mania which impels
the person affected by il to busy him
self in numerical calculations and
computations whenever the accidents
of his external surroundings furnish
matter for the instinct or faculty to
work upon. II he enters n room he at
once proceeds to count the chairs,
table, and other articles of furniture,
and not till he has made an accurate
enumeration of everything he sees, to
the very buttons on his host wastcoat,
is his mind at rest. Napoleon, seems
to have suffered from this description
of craze ut one period of his life. IL is
recorded of him that in his early sub
atern days he could never pass q house
without counting every window in it.
Another variety of cerebral trouble
from which persons who pass for being
in full possession of all their wits are
sometimes known to suffer is that which
gives rise to or takes the form Of hallu-
cinations Dr. johnson declared that
he once heard his mother, who as he
knew. was miles off at the time, dis
tinctly calling him by name, and it
would be easy to name others not less
noted for mental and intellectual vigor
than johnson who have had similar
experiences. All the ghost stories and
tales of second sight are simply so
many histories of Authorizations, and
the visions of the saints and of the
mystics of all sccts who have claimed
direct communication with the super
natural world are no doubt to be ex-
planned in the same way.
Genius VIGOROUSLY exhibits y tcnden-
cy to deviate from the normal standard
of sanity. st. Augustine said many
centuries ago that there was never II
great intellect without some alloy of
insanity. and it is certain that some of
the most highly gifted of our species,
including not few of the master
minds which have moved the world,
have not escaped suspicion of such n
faint. The two greatest religious re-
formers whom the world has seen, Mo-
manned and Luther; Columbus. the
grandest of AL discoveries; the might
lest captains. Alexander the Great,
Charles XII, Napoleon; the Lorraine
peasant girl who restored her fallen
country to its place among the nations;
Rousseau, the precursor of the French
revolution; Pascal. the ASA liant of
Jesuitism-these were one and all re-
puted more or less insane by their con-
temporarirs Some of them were mad
beyond all doubt, others only showed
the faint by slight sympathetic traits.
like those we have been speaking of,
while in the case of all it is evident
that we are confronted with very cx-
ceptional organizations-with natures
totally influenced by the restraints of
vulgar prudence and the calculations of
vulgar wisdom. 1t may well have
been the mirtura amentG, to use ST.
Augustine's expression, with which
they have been taxed, that impelled
them to enterprises brstling tn diff
fculties which would have daunted So
bercr minds. Rousseau and Pascal
suffered from the hybrid disorder.
partly physical and partly mental,
known as hypochondriosis, the tradi-
tonal curse Of men of genius. Arts
to,le noticed long ago the liability of men
of uncommon mental powers to this
distressing affection, which stimulates
many of the phases of insanity, and
sometimes leads to it, Great wit to
madness sure is near allied, and thin
partitions do their bounds divide,
says Dryden; practically repeating the
observation of the Greek philosopher in
somewhat stronger and less scientific
form. There are, no doubt, many facts
which seem TO point TO the mysterious
alliance between genius and madness
of which the poet speaks; but 1t is GER
tain that very few men of genius have
actually gone mad. Their alterations
and eccentricities have, in the vast ma
iority of instances, not gone below the
surface nor been incompatible with u
reputation for sanity, as the term is
generally understood. London Stand
nrH