Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 08.pdf/48



CURRENT TOPICS. "Degeneration."—The most extraordinary book of the last decade, and the one that has called forth the greatest amount of criticism since the appearance of Darwin's " Origin of Species," is "Degeneration," by Dr. Max Nordau of Vienna. That it should have appeared almost simultaneously with Drummond's "Ascent of Man" has added to the interest which it has evoked, for as the purpose of the latter is to show the gradual elevation, so the purpose of the other is to show a tendency to degradation of a part at least of the human race. The criticism which this book has called forth has generally been hostile, mainly from the newspapers, and of a very severe and unsparing kind. It is probable that few of the critics have read the book or have grasped its pur port, for they have assumed that the author argues a general degeneration, whereas in fact he asserts it of only a small part of the human race, influenced by the tone and teachings of a very small body of poets, novelists, musicians and philosophers. The book is a scientific one, based on the observations of a physi cian and alienist, and when considered in its real limitation to the peculiar and comparatively small classes of which it treats, it is an impregnable and wholesome work, one that was greatly needed in this era of fads and delusions, and one that breathes an invigorating and mist-dispelling spirit. If all the lunatics of whom Nordau treats were like the French poet who deems it indecent to publish, and has gained a considerable reputation thereby, there would be no need of this book; but unfortunately too many are like Nietzsche, who declares that publishing "is the only way in which he can get rid of his thoughts." (Sir Benjamin Backbite said, " 'Tis very indecent to print") The work is divided into chapters, headed "Fin-de-Siecle," " Mysticism," "Ego Mania,•' "Real ism," and "The Twentieth Century." The author first demonstrates that all the grotesque nonsense and madness characterizing the classes of persons in question grow out of the lack of the ability to fix the attention on a single healthful thought or object and segregate it from a host of irrelevant and confusing ideas and images which simultaneously arise in the mind, and whence arises incoherency. This theory

is very beautifully demonstrated, and it is one that ought to be emphasized by every instructor of youth. This power to fix the attention is that which dis tinguishes the man of intelligence from the rambler and driveller. The man of one idea is always a man of genius, though thoughtless people call him a crank. By " Ego Mania" Dr. Nordau means that modern tendency to convert the individual into his own sovereign, irrespective of and irresponsible to society or any obligation of virtue. The author specially dissects about a score of individuals, who have called themselves by various queer names —-mystics, sym bolists, pre-Raphaelites, Parnassians, realists, im pressionists and esthetes, but whom he damns with three "big, big D•s," as Decadents, Degenerates and Diabolists. Among novelists he treats of Baehr, Zola, Tolstoi, Peladin, and Tovote; among artists and art writers, of Ruskin and Rossetti : among dramatists, of Ibsen and Maeterlinck; among musi cians, of Wagner; among prose writers, of Bourget, Brandes, Baudelaire, Gautier, Flaubert, Goncourt and Wilde; among poets, of Verlaine, Mendes, Rollinat, Whitman, Moveas and Mallarini. Most of these names are unfamiliar to the English reader, and are mainly French and German, but the author might well have added the American Poe; the Eng lish-American painter of "symphonies" in one or two colors. Whistler; and the French madman Mau passant. The larger part of his pages is devoted to Tolstoi, Wagner, Ibsen, 7.ola, Nietzsche, and a more unsparing, and on the whole a juster and more un answerable dissection and denunciation does not exist in any language. What a world of madness, sensu ality, eroticism, and "rot" it is that he exposes! Here we find true portraits of Zola, who wallows in the mire of crime and fornication, and who has con verted the sense of smell into an avenue to sensu ality; of Wagner, whose prodigious dramas are tales of murder and incest; of Rossetti, who painted thick-lipped, shock-headed women, with corpsey skins, whose drawing would have disgraced a school girl, and whose weird poems are infested with sense less refrains; of Ibsen, who is hailed by the modern woman, — invalid, discontented, ambitious, whose occupation is chiefly lying abed and yearning after a wider " sphere "-—- as the emancipator of her sex, but 3'