The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1901-10-01
GENIUS ANDINSANITY
THE CLAIM THAT THE FORMER IS A
VARIETY OF THE LATTER.


VARIETY OF THE LATTER.
LombrOso Maintains That Genius Is
a Species of Madness and a Product
of DegeneratfOn-PecuI of
Some Master Minds.
Cesare Lombroso in his book, 1.-THE Man
of Genius" maintains the thesis that
genius is a variety Of insanity and a
product of degeneration. Lombroso him
Eelf appreciates the natural shrinking Of
the mind from such conclusion, and he
makes this reply to those who object to
his theory on sentimental grounds:
"But our nature, it is customary TO
say, revolts against conception when
tends to lower the most sublime mani
festation of humanity to the level Of the
sorrowfully degenerate, to idiocy and IN
sanity. 1t is sad, l do not deny, but has
not nature caused to grow from similar
germs, and on the same clod Of earth the
nettle and the jasmine, the aconite and
the roseY
Degeneration as described by LON
broso has many signs Among these is
extraordinary shortness Of stature or
smallness of body. He enumerates
long list of men of great genius who have
been famous for shortness of stature.
"Forgetfulness is another of the
characters of genius. 1t is said that
Newton once rammed his niece's finger
into his pipe; when he left his room to
seek for anything he usually returned
without bringing it.
"Rouelle when performing an expert
ment during lecture said to his hear
ers:
"'You see, gentlemen, this caldron
over the fame? Well, If were to leave
off stirring it an explosion would at once
occur which would make us all jump
While saying these words he did not fail
to forget to stir and the prediction was
accomplished the explosion took place
with fearful noise; the laboratory win
dows were all smashed, and the audience
fed to the garden.
"Sir Everard Home relates that he
once suddenly lost his memory for half
an hour, and was unable to recognize the
house and the street in which he lived;
he could not recall the name of the
street and seemed to hear it for the first
time.
''It is told Of Ampere that when travel
ing on horseback in the country he be-
came absorbed in a problem; then, dis
mounting, began to lead his horse and
finally lost 1t, but he did not discover his
misadventure until, on arrival, 1t at
tracted the attention of his friends.
"Babinet hired a country house and,
after making the payments. returned to
town; then he found that he had entirely
forgotten both the name of the place and
from what station he had started.
Zone day Button, lost in thought. as
cended a tower and slid down by the
ropes, unconscious of what he was doing,
like somnambulist. Mozart, in carving
meat, SO often cut his fingers, accus-
toned only to the piano, that he had to
give up this duty to other persons. OF
Bishop Munster it is said that, seeing at
the door Of his own antechamber the no.
tice, The master of the house is out he
remained there awaiting his own return.
1.-THE tendency to melancholy is COM
mon to the majority of thinkers, and de-
ponds on their hyper@sthesia. 1t is pro-
verbally said that to feel sorrow more
than other men constitutes the crown Of
thorns of genius.
Among men of genius we often find
the phenomena which characterize that
disorder termed by alienists folie du
doute, one Of the varieties of melancholia.
In this form of insanity the subject has
every appearance of mental health; he
reasons, writes and speaks like other peo-
pie; everything goes well until he has to
execute definite action, and in this he
finds all sorts of imaginary dangers.
when johnson walked along the
80 ho nollod RI
touch every post he passed. If he omit
ted one, he had to return. He always
went in or out of door or passage in
such a way that either his right or his
left foot boswell was not certain which,
should be the first to cross the threshold.
When he made any mistake in the move
ment, he would return and, having salts
factorjly performed the feat. rejoin his
companions with the afr of man who
had got something off his mind.
Napoleon | could not pass through
street even at the head of his army with
out counting and adding up the rows of
windows. Manzoni, in a letter addressed
to Giorgio Briano which has become IA
nous, declared that he was incapable Of
giving himself up to politics because he
did not know how to decide on anything.
He was always In state Of uncertainty
before every resolution, even the most
trifiing. He was afraid Of drowning In
the smallest puddle and could never re-
solve to go out alone.
Newton. of whom 1t was truly said
that his mind conquered the human race,
was In old age afflicted by mental disor-
der, though of less serious character
than that of Swift"
1t is very interesting to see Lombroso's
men of genius" and sane men of gen.
ius." Under the head Of insane and par
TALLY insane geniuses are included the
poet Tasso, Cardan. the great mathe-
matician; Socrates, Rousseau. Dean
Swift, Mohammed. Charles VII, Giorda-
no Bruno, Sir Isaac Newton lat least in
his later years., Edgar Allan Poe, Walt
Whitman. Napoleon, Comte, the philoso-
pher; Schopenhauer. Coleridge, Savona-
roIa, Luther, Dante. Julius Caesar, Fred
erick the Great-in fact, the majority Of
the names most conspicuous in history.
In many cases Lombroso regards as in
dication of insanity peculiarities and &c
centricities which most people consider
to be only oddities Of character. having
no relation to insanity.
Under the head of sane geniuses Lom-
broso finds but few, among those he
mentions being, however, some very
great names, as, for instance. Galilei,
Leonardo da Vinci, Voltaire, Machia-
velli. Michael Angelo and Darwin. APP
parently he also counts Shakespeare as a
IL