GENIUS AND MENTAL DISEASE. 669 



wisdom, goodness, and all that is divine. . . . The mind of the philoso- 

 pher alone has wings ; he is ever initiated into perfect mysteries, and his 

 soul alone becomes complete. But the vulgar deem him mad and rebuke 

 him ; they do not see that he is inspired. This divine madness is kindled 

 through the renewed vision of beauty. . . . Love itself is madness." 



The soothsayers, or diviners, to whom Plato ascribed the " nobler 

 madness,'' were regarded mad, not only because of their wisdom, but 

 because of their extravagant rage and noisy behavior. 



Virgil describes the inspired priestess as full of enthusiastic rage, 

 and fiercely raving in her struggle to disburden her soul of the influ- 

 ence of the mighty god. Indeed, raging, foaming, and yelling, accom- 

 panied with antic motions, was the usual way of expressing the influ- 

 ence of inspiration or " possession." 



Since Aristotle held psychological views similar to those of Plato, 

 his saying that "it is the essence of a great poet to be mad" adds 

 nothing to the strength of the theory. 



The " madness," referred to in the conversation between Horace 

 and Damasippus, did not specially relate to intellectual conditions, or 

 to what we know as insanity, as has been intimated, but rather to in- 

 dividual and social ethics. The " Satire " says : " The school and sect 

 of Chrysippus deem every man mad whom vicious folly or whomso- 

 ever the ignorance of any truth drives blindly on. This definition 

 takes in whole nations ; this even great kings ; the wise man alone 

 being excepted. . . . Whoever is afflicted with evil ambition or the 

 love of money ; whoever is smitten with luxury, or gloomy supersti- 

 tion, or any other disease of the mind, . . . come near me, in order, 

 while I convince you that you are mad. . . . Whoever shall form im- 

 ages foreign from truth, and be confused in the tumult of impiety, 

 will always be reckoned disturbed in mind ; . . . where there is fool- 

 ish depravity, there will be the height of madness. He who is wicked 

 will be frantic too." 



I confess that, with such statements before us, it hardly seems 

 necessary to discuss the value of ancient opinions on a subject which 

 must be treated under the restrictions of modern definitions. We will, 

 therefore, examine the question from the standpoint of more modern 

 times, when the supernatural agency in insanity gives place to the de- 

 teriorating influences which unite it to other forms of nervous disease ; 

 and genius becomes a product of an age, in the expansive growth of 

 the human mind. 



That these extreme forms of mental expression are often associated, 

 there is no doubt ; and that genius is, at times, shadowed by mental 

 disease is a fact well known ; but our interest centers in the inquiry, 

 whether this relationship is such an essential one as to justify Dryden 

 in asserting — 



" Great wits are sure to madness near allied, 

 And thin partitions do their bounds divide." 



