Los Angeles daily herald., 1888-05-20
BRAIN BALANCE.
Hosts of Haunting, Hateful
HallucinatiOns.
CRANKs CRITICALLY CONSIDERED
Mental Methods of Many Minds.
Unsuspected Unsoundness and
Lucid Lunatics.

heard the ending Of very interesting
discussion between two editors--one a
thoughtful man with ideas Of his own
the other, one whose lifework runs in
the everyday rut which myriads of feet
have only deepened, never broadened.
"Your theory and philosophy is ahead
Of the ago." said the conservative editor
to the other in way of rejoinder.
"You mistake replied the one who
dared to stray beyond the beaten path,
ut is you that 1 am ahead of, not the
age"
"You are crank, was the sneering
response.
1--WE are all more or less cranks," was
the quiet reply.
Are we? That is the question ! am
trying TO decide. But what is crank
The word has grown into such extended
use, and has 80 varied an application,
that it is impossible to define it.
The multitude view as cranks broad
array of men, from the unfortunate, red
handed Guiteau, wrought by demons
leaping up from Acheronic depths, to the
gifted, transcendental Emerson, who
dwelt in the thought world. The former
was an assassin; the latter poet and
philosopher who lived an unexception-
ally pure and unbemshed life.
The political economist who advocates
high tariff is called q crank, out and
out, by the Free-trader; and the Protec-
ZIONIST hurls back at his opponent the
same epithet.
The worshippers at the altars OF the
orthodox" religion do not hesitate, be
l...nk 10. IL - 80. .,,.t 4.
pious fervor the same word crank on
those whose church affairs, although
erected in full religious faith and belief,
come under the ban OF heterodox. So
with lawyers, physicians, and the great
body OF intelligent professional men.
Even editors call each other cranks
lowing thought formuati :"
The philosophy Of the Manchester
school was primarily sound in that the
selfshness was taken as the key to
human action. Because the play OF the
not follow that the action of the SYM
pathy (the whole) should not find effect
in facilitating and hastening--in check
ing the class-selfshness, the class-en-
croachments In truth the latter ten
denotes are themselves but the express
sion OF the softened solfshness.
A confrere of ~mine--a clever, we'll read
and broad-minded man, and an editor OF
most excellent judgment--was asked to
read tho screed. He began, and when
he had reached the thirteenth word he
threw down the paper and exclaimed
"The man that will write the selfish
ness is q crank ~ There are those, per-
haps, who will comprehend the extract
in question, and will, probably, pro-
nounce it brilliant screed; those who
do not comprehend the writer's meaning
and philosophy will man for man, with
out doubt, call him crank as did my
confrere upon a mere question, Of style.
The writer Of the screed, by the way, is
one OF the most capable, far sighted and
level-headea editors in New York city.
The children are adept in the use Of
the word the school-boy delights to roll
it on his tongue, and the boarding-house
exotic, Julia, every day confidentially tells
Josie that Mamie is "real crank !''
And the multitude, ,and the thinkers, and
the children, and the philosophical editor
first mentioned are not far from tight.
DR.. Ireland in his remarkable book
"The Blot on the Brain says that there
is no dividing line between sanity and
insanity. AS the eve is not perfectly
achromatic, the mind is never perfectly
sane. People mad enough to be shut ur
in asylums are not so rare-say, one in
every five hundred in highly civilized
countries. Then, again, people with a
less dangerous or intractable degree oil
insanity are very common. The sim
plest form of insanity is hallucination.
DIR. Maudsley says that if anyone 10
the full possession of his reasoning pow
ess refuses to accept the delusions of lie
and persists in exposing the realities be-
meath appearances, he is so much out oil
harmony with his surroundings that he
will to certainty be counted more OF
less insane. On the other hand, because
mans mind is unsound, all thst he
says is not therefore folly. It is a vulgar
and mischievous error, sprlnging from
the grossest ignorance of insanity, to
suppose that person who speaks IA
tionally and behaves with propriety can
not be mad, as it is also to suppose mad
men necessarily incapable of rationalin-
tellectual exertion; athwart the murky
atmosphere OF madness lightning flashes
OF the deepest Insight occasionally shoot
and the light of genius is sometimes only
the light OF a falling star,
Comte was removed from Esquirols
asylum when there seemed to be no pros.
pect of his recovery, and under the care
OF his wife produced the wonderful sys
tenn Of the ''Positive Philosophy" Ben
venuto Celliui, in his interesting auto
biography, which has just been newly
translated and published, convinces the
candid reader that had he lived now he
would have been shut up in lunatic
asylum long before he produced his fin
est works OF art.
Curiously among the founders OF relig
GUS faiths, many are found adjudged tc
be more or less insane. Upon the au.
thority OF DR.. Ireland, George Fox, the
founder OF Quakerism, had he lived now
would have found his way into luuatic
asylum, as his journal clearly shows. II
is that of an insane man. Ann Lee,
founder of the Shakers, had visions OF
the Saviour, who, she alleged,
''became one with her in body and
spirit" The apostle of the so-caled
Church OF the New Jerusalem, Emman-
uel Swedenborg, professed to be in daily
intercourse with angels, and TO receive
revelations from them. Mohammed
was subject to hallucinations and, 'al-
though they took definite shape and
sequence, says DIR. Ireland, sit is fair
to believe that had he been without de-
lueions, and simply reasoned on virtue
and the unity of God, he would never
have seen a single idol broken in the
Kaaba." Ignatius Loyo'a, the founder
OF the Order OF Jesuits, was subject to
ectasies and visions, hearing voices from