The morning times. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1895-1897, 1895-10-07
E0RDAU and bis MASTER
Lonbroso, Whose Disciple the Doctor
Is, Dlsagrees with Him.
If Geniuses Are So Be-
cause They Are Insane or IT In
sane Men Can Be Geniuses.

1t will be remembered that DR.. Max Nor
dau dedicated his book, Degeneration,
to Prof. Cesare Lnmbroso, and avowedly
based his heterodoX conclusions on the
Italiant alienist's researches. III an arti-
Gle, however, contributed to the October
number of the Century Magazine, Prof
Lombroso expresses dissent from some OF
his disciples ideas
The Italian teacher begins by saying some
kind things of the pupil, whose more ex-
travagant notions he finds himself coli
strained 10 reject. He considers Nordau
the man of our end of the century who has
Aost felt the pulse of the times, and who
has put his finger on our most open wound,
the egotsm which sterilzes the moral
sense and renders men cruel to one another.
Nordau is also credited with the supreme
merit" OF applying psychiatric research,
or our knowledge OF mental diseases, to
literary criticism; and il is acknowledged
that by means of this new critical instru-
ment he can manage TO overthrow the
work of the French and German decadcnts,
who would turn the back on science be-
cause in a hundred years OF toll she has not
given the keys to all the mysteries. But
when he asserts that such men as Wagner
and Tolstoi are not geniuses, but simply
craZy people, Prof. Lombroso not only
disagrees with him, but imputes to him
fundamental misconception OF the re-
lation of genius to insanity.
What Nordau did was to point out Ger
tain signs of neuroticism in Wagner, Toll
stoi and others, and then to draw the con-
clusion: They are insane. Therefore they
ar mot m no a
alienist, he was simply justified in saying:
They are geniuses. Therefore they are in
some degree insane" Prof. Lombroso
holds that the proof of degeneration, instead
of destroying, fortifies the diagnosis which
affirms such men to be geniuses. 1t is only,
he says, the mediocre, who have no maddish
or eccentric ideas or ways. They lack them
for the same rea son that they lack the fecund
originality which is the basis of genius.
or course, not all abnormal men have ge-
MUS, but every genius has touch of the
abnormal
Thus propounded, Lombrosos theory has
nothing heterodox or startling about it.
On the contrary, it embodies the Judgment
of ordinary observers everywhere and at
all epochs. From his point OF view man
Oh ldleHt IL Oile WHO upeS DETER tiiiiu tuOSt VI
his contemporaries, but in the same way; n
man of genius is one who does better than
most of his contemporaries and in a differ
ent way The latter is an exceptionally or
gained being. He has physiological and
psychological peculiarities. He is afflicted
either with the delirium of persecution or
with megalomania or with religious frenzy
or, moreoftenstin, withpsychicepilepsy.
Having thus defined his own conception
of the relation OF genius to insanity, Prof.
Lombroso fluids it easy to explain why some
OF Nordau's notions seem TO him erroneous
He insists for instance, that We must re-
gard Wagner as a great musician. That is
a question of fact. His music is great
creation, because it expresses with extra
ordinary power one of the most nearly
universal sentiments. This is not to say
that Wagner wac a great poet or a great
philosopher: nor is 1t to deny that he was
a megalomaniac, and perhaps crazy in
come other ways. These apparent con-
tradictions are really inevitable concomi-
tants. Wagner is a striking example of
the fact that it is characteristic of genius
to combine extraordinary powers with
extraordinary weaknesses. So. too, with
TOlstoi. In his books. undoubtedly, there
are certain strange and even mad,lish ideas;
but no less indubitable is 1t that besides
these, we encounter great power of obser.
Walton and profundity OF thought
Take even the theory of love developed
in The Kreutzer Sonata" upon which
mainly Nordau based the charge that
Tolstoi is no genius, but simply lunatic:
Prof Lombroso admits that the theory
is delirious one, but he contends that
when one has deducted from the book all
its extravagant philosophy there remains
''stupendous" psychology OF marriage,
though ii be a too ressimistic one. 1t is
pronounced, therefore, mistake to term
Tolstoi insane and his books nonsense,
because of his mysticism and of his de-
structiye ideas on love and science.
Finally. Prof. Lombroso considers thas
his disciple exaggerates the harmful ten
denotes imputed to this end of the century.
The currents of opinion and feeling which
Nortiau describes rs too dangerous, seem
TO his master but ripples on the surface,
which are destined to lose themselves IN
the depths of traditional ideas.