DEGENERATION. 



293 



serpents, or the noctambulist Des Esseintes of the De- 

 cadents, sniffing and licking his lips, or Ibsen's 'solitary 

 powerful ' Stockmann and his Rosmer lusting for suicide 

 in competition with men who rise early, are not weary 

 before sunset, who have clear heads, solid stomachs, and 

 hard muscles." 



But in this connection we may remember that com- 

 petition is not destruction. The degenerates have been 

 helped on by their rivals more than they have been 

 harmed. They have been borne on the shoulders of 

 civilization, and it is the altruism of science which has 

 made their non-science comparatively safe. It is the 

 toleration of the sane that gives the insane the right to 

 live. It is the power of the strong that maintains the 

 weak. In the long run the struggle for existence will 

 destroy the lineage of the decadents of to-day. No 

 shelter can long avail against the "goodness and sever- 

 ity of God." But the folly which now exists is in- 

 trenched behind wisdom. The kindness of man post- 

 pones the judgments of Nature. 



It is not true that " genius is a disease of the 

 nerves," as certain writers have insisted, if by genius 

 is meant forcefulness of any sort. Real effectiveness 

 arises from continuous effort in high directions. We 

 are sometimes astounded by a single product of a man 

 incapable of continuous thought, but the world is not 

 moved by such men, nor has the literature of the ages 

 been produced by them. Great men live great lives. 

 The great work is the great life's impression. There is 

 nothing occult, nothing mystic, nothing hysterical in 

 greatness of mind or heart. Disease of the nerves is 

 not genius; still less is it an attribute of greatness. 



Most of the phenomena of decay described by Nor- 

 dau stand related to mental disease at once as cause, 

 effect, and symptom. Drunkenness, for example, is the 



