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CHAPTER II.

Genius and Degeneration..

The signs of degeneration—Height—Rickets—Pallor—Emaciation—Physiognomy—Cranium and Brain—Stammering—Lefthandedness—Sterility—Unlikeness to Parents—Precocity—Delayed development—Misoneism—Vagabondage—Unconsciousness—Instinctiveness—Somnambulism—The Inspiration of Genius—Contrast—Intermittence—Double Personality—Stupidity—Hyperesthesia—Paresthesia—Amnesia—Originality—Fondness for special words.

 

The paradox that confounds genius with neurosis, however cruel and sad it may seem, is found to be not devoid of solid foundation when examined from various points of view which have escaped even recent observers.

A theory, which has for some years flourished in the psychiatric world, admits that a large proportion of mental and physical affections are the result of degeneration, of the action, that is, of heredity in the children of the inebriate, the syphilitic, the insane, the consumptive, &c.; or of accidental causes, such as lesions of the head or the action of mercury, which profoundly change the tissues, perpetuate neuroses or other diseases in the patient, and, which is worse, aggravate them in his descendants, until the march of degeneration, constantly growing more rapid and fatal, is only stopped by complete idiocy or sterility.

Alienists have noted certain characters which very frequently, though not constantly, accompany these fatal degenerations. Such are, on the moral side, apathy, loss of moral sense, frequent tendencies to impulsiveness or doubt, psychical inequalities owing to the excess of some faculty (memory, æsthetic taste, &c.) or defect of other qualities (calculation, for example), exaggerated mutism or verbosity, morbid vanity, excessive originality, and