WILLIAM G. STEVENSON. TT 
stance.’’ Herein is found a distinguishing factor ‘‘be- 
tween real insanity and the separate phenomena of 
genius and moral exaltation.” 
In further support of this opinion we may cite the 
hallucinations of Loyola, when he heard celestial voices ; 
of Edward Irving, who received the gift of prophecy 
and the ‘‘power of tongues’’; of Dr. Johnson, when 
the voice of his dead mother came to him; of Male- 
branche, when the deep feelings of his soul were to him 
the audible voice of Diety, and of Joan of Arc, who, 
under the guidance of saints, led the French arms to 
victory. 
That genius ‘‘has its roots in a nervous organization 
of exceptional delicacy,’’ is undoubtedly true, but it 
does not necessarily follow that the liability to mental 
discord and confusion is thereby increased, because this 
delicacy of brain-structure and its functions are ad- 
mirably adjusted, and the very perfection of the me- 
chanism enables it to work with the least possible fric- 
tion or injury. 
Under certain conditions, however, we have eccen- 
tricities of thought, feeling, and action, which indicate 
an unstable condition of nerve-element ; but it does not 
follow that this instability necessarily impairs the in- 
teerity of the mind; much less does it imply that 
‘‘venius,’’? more than the lower expressions of mental 
power, is nearer the border-land of mental disease. I 
doubt not that permutations of this unstable condition 
may occur which, by supplementing the natural gifts of 
mind, cause a variety of individual traits, which may give 
to the poet Campbell indecision and indolence ; make 
Carlyle cross and pessimistic; Byron proud, generous, 
and reckless ; Schlegel foppish in his vanity; Keats 
despondent ; Pope crafty and pretentious ; Swift satiri- 
eal, avaricious, and irascible; Chateaubriand egotistic 
and vain; Burns and Poe convivial and intemperate ; 
