Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 27.djvu/477

Rh that our facts will compel us to reject this saving clause. There is no question among competent critics of the splendid quality of genius of Swift, of Carlyle, or of Beethoven. Nor in cases of so-called healthy genius can it be said that nothing abnormal ever shows itself. The above references to Goethe may serve to indicate the liability to abnormal deviation even in the strongest and seemingly most stable type of genius. As for Shakespeare, the instance commonly referred to by Lamb and others who have come to the defense of genius, it is enough to say that our knowledge of his personality and life is far too meager to justify any conclusion on the point.

And this brings us to another very important consideration. If too much has been made of the alleged positive instances, too much has been made also of the apparent contradictions or exceptions. The record of past greatness is far too scanty for the most plodding student to find all cases of morbid symptoms which have presented themselves. We who live in an age when a fierce light beats on the throne of intellect, when the public which genius serves is greedy of every trivial detail of information respecting its behavior in the curtained recess of private life, can hardly understand how our ancestors could have neglected to chronicle and to preserve the words and deeds of the greatest of men. Yet such is the case, and the further we go back the scantier the biographic page. Inasmuch, too, as many of the symptoms of nervous disease in the intellectual heroes themselves or their families would possess no significance to the ordinary lay mind, we may feel confident that in many cases where we have a fairly full record important data are omitted.

Another thought naturally occurs to one in this connection. Without indorsing the ancient proverb that the best men die in their youth, we may find good grounds for conjecturing that many endowed with the gift of genius have passed away before their powers culminated in the production of a great monumental work. The early collapse of so many who did attain fame suggests this conclusion. And among such short-lived and unknown recipients of the divine afflatus it seems reasonable to infer that there were a considerable number who succumbed to some of those forms of psycho-physical disease which have so often attacked their survivors.

It seems, then, to be an irresistible conclusion that the foremost among human intellects have had more than their share of the ills that flesh is heir to. The possession of genius appears in some way to be unfavorable to the maintenance of a robust mental health. And here arises the question how we are to view this connection. Is the