THE PROCREATION OF GENIUS 149 



gress does not exactly lie in the direction commonly 

 supposed. If by a specially gifted race the theorists 

 mean a race of inspired poets and painters, we can 

 unhesitatingly tell them that their dream is not to 

 be realised. So much the study of heredity places 

 beyond doubt. Dryden's saying that "great wits 

 are sure to madness near allied" expresses a sober 

 scientific fact, pathology proving conclusively that 

 what we call genius is an unwholesome or at 

 least an unbalanced condition of mind. " In 

 families where there is a strong disposition to in- 

 sanity," says Maudsley, " one member may sometimes 

 suffer from one form of nervous disease, another from 

 another form; one perhaps has epilepsy, another 

 severe neuralgia or hysteria, a third may commit 

 suicide, a fourth may become maniacal or melan- 

 cholic, and it sometimes happens that the fifth evinces 

 remarkable artistic talent!' The same authority 

 further observes : " There is a third-rate artistic or 

 poetic temperament altogether wanting in sobriety, 

 breadth, and repose, and manifesting itself in intense 

 but narrow idealisms of an extravagant and even 

 grotesque character, or in caterwauling shrieks of 

 emotional spasm put forth as poetry, which closely 

 resembles the phthisical temperament, and which is 



