A STUDY OF BRITISH GENIUS. 271 



periods of high intellectual achievement, just as gout may alternate 

 with various neurotic conditions, but the two states are not concomitant, 

 and genius cannot be accurately defined as a disease. 



It must also be pointed out, in estimating the significance of the 

 relationship between genius and insanity, that the insane group is on 

 the whole not one of commanding intellectual preeminence. It cannot 

 compare in this respect with the gouty group, which is about the same 

 size, and the individuals of greatest eminence are contained in the 'prob- 

 able and doubtful' sections of the insane group. Among poets and men 

 of letters, of an order below the highest, insanity has been somewhat apt 

 to occur; it has been especially prevalent among antiquarians, but the 

 intellectual eminence of antiquarians is often so dubious that the ques- 

 tion of their inclusion in my list has been a frequent source of embar- 

 rassment. 



If we turn from insanity to other grave nervous diseases, we are 

 struck by their rarity. It is true that many serious nervous diseases 

 have only been accurately distinguished during the past century, and 

 that we could not expect to find much trace of them in the dictionary. 

 But that cannot be said of epilepsy, which has always been recognized, 

 and in a well-developed form cannot easily be ignored. Yet epilepsy 

 or an epileptoid affection is only mentioned twice by the national biog- 

 raphers — once as occurring in early life (Lord Herbert of Cherbury), 

 once in old age (Sir W. E. Hamilton), never during the working life. 

 Although some of the most famous men in the world's history have been 

 epileptics, it cannot be said that the lives of British men of genius favor 

 the belief in any connection between genius and epilepsy, nor, so far 

 as can be seen, do they furnish a single shred of evidence in support of 

 the theory that genius is an epileptoid neurosis. 



While, however, grave nervous diseases of definite type seem to be 

 rare rather than common among the eminent persons with whom we 

 are dealing, there is ample evidence to show that nervous s}TQptoms 

 of vaguer and more atypical character are extremely common. The 

 prevalence of eccentricity I have already mentioned. That irritable 

 condition of the nervous system which, in its Protean forms, is now 

 commonly called neurasthenia, is evidently very widespread among 

 them, and probably a large majority have been subject to it. Various 

 definite forms of minor nervous derangement are also common, espe- 

 cially stammering or stuttering; this is noted as occurring in nine 

 cases.* In seventeen other cases we are told that the voice was shrill, 



* Even this means a higher proportion than is found among the general 

 population, and it must be remembered that the real occurrence must be 

 reckoned as at least double that which may be ascertained from the 'Dictionary.' 

 The normal occurrence of stuttering and stammering among adults is much be- 

 low one per cent., and even among children it is under one per cent. 



