Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 52.djvu/775

Rh square built; like Lombroso, lie has piercing eyes that shine forth acutely from behind glasses that he always wears. Psychologist, anthropologist, psychiatrist, philosopher, and literary man, Morselli has right to all these titles, and in each branch he is noteworthy. He was born in Modena in 1832, and studied at his native university, carrying off high honors. As a mere student he attracted attention by disputing the conclusions of a noted celebrity on some anthropological points, proving himself right. For a while he was the assistant of Mantegazza in arranging his Anthropological Museum, one of the finest as well as one of the most important in Europe. When only twenty-eight he was called to preside over the Turin lunatic asylum, and soon distinguished himself by his profound knowledge of everything connected with the study and treatment of the demented. Besides attending to his profession he found time to write a number of works dealing with normal and abnormal mental maladies, whose mere enumeration would fill pages, some of which, like his work on Suicide, have been translated into English. Morselli's latest work was a reply to Brunetière's assertions regarding "the bankruptcy of science," demonstrating that here was a case in which the wish was father to the thought, and for which no real foundation existed.

Paolo Mantegazza has been dealt with at length in these pages, and we need not go over the ground again. What is needful to say is, however, that he has been left behind in the rapid onward tramp of his younger colleagues. Mantegazza is perhaps entitled to lay claim to the name he loves to sport, that of the father of Italian anthropology; but, according to the more precise views of our day, he can hardly be regarded as a real scientist. As is often the case, the sons have outstripped the father, who now combats the views of his legitimate offspring. A reproach cast at Mantegazza, it would seem not without reason, is that he too closely follows Moliere's precept, "Je yrends mon bien où je le trouve" and that he has passed off as his own the conclusions and the work of German scientific men. Another reproach that is certainly well founded is his manifest delight in handling obscene themes, and handling them not in the calm, scientific spirit that removes from them a real obscene character, but treating the details with a gusto that reveals how these prurient matters rather delight than disgust him, and what is worse, these works are written in popular language, frankly appealing to a popular rather than a scientific audience. To this class belong all his works on Love, on Women, on the Art of taking a Wife, of Being a Husband, etc. It may safely be asserted that his fame is steadily declining, and that his want of perseverance and observation is itself to blame for this. By nature Mantegazza was endowed with a fine