We GENIUS AND MENTAL DISEASE. 
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 be- 
-cause of their wisdom, but because of their extravagant 
rage and noisy behavior. 
Virgil describes the inspired priestess as full of en- 
thusiastic rage, and fiercely raving in her struggle to 
disburden her soul of the influence of the mighty god. 
Indeed, raging, foaming, and yelling, accompanied with 
antic motions, was the usual way of expressing the in- 
fluence of inspiration or ‘‘ possession.”’ 
Since Aristotle held psychological views similar to 
those of Plato, his saying that ‘‘it is the essence ofa 
great poet to be mad” adds nothing to the strength of 
the theory. 
The ‘‘madness,”’ referred to in the conversation be- 
tween Horace and Damasippus, did not specially relate 
to intellectual conditions, or to what we know as insanity, 
as has been intimated, but rather to individual and so- 
cial ethics. The Satire says: ‘‘The school and sect 
of Chrysippus deem every man mad whom vicious folly 
or whomsoever 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 iuxury, or gloomy su- 
perstition, or any other disease of the mind, . . . come 
near me, in order, while I convince you that you are 
mad... . Whoever shall form images foreign from 
truth, and be confused in the tumult of impiety, will al- 
ways be reckoned disturbed in mind; . . . where there 
is foolish 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 
