80 GENIUS AND MENTAL DISEASE. 
in the pauper-grave wherein his body was unkindly 
thrown. Now, I protest that such cases give no evi- 
dence of insane temperament, and in no way illustrate 
the kinship between mental greatness and disease. 
Again, it is said, and often with reason, that this kin- 
ship is shown by the suicidal impulse, which ‘is only 
another phase of insanity.’’ That suicide or homicide 
may result, under this impulse, I doubt not; but to 
make this fact of special value its numerical proportions 
should at least be such as to make it a factor of constant 
value. Because Goethe, Chateaubriand, George Sand 
and Johnson have said that at times they felt an impulse 
to commit suicide; because Beethoven, Schumann, and 
Cowper, who were at times morbid, really made the at- 
tempt ; and Kleist, Beneke, and Chatterton succeeded in 
self-destruction—we are not justified in saying that the 
impulse or the act itself came because genius contains 
an element of madness. Hundreds who commit suicide 
every year do not possess genius; why, then, make it 
the responsible agent for the few ? 
It is charitable to think that the misdeeds of our 
friends, or of those whom we admire, are covered by the 
plea of irresponsibility through insanity. Science, how- 
ever, deals with facts, not sentiments. That mental and 
motor impulses often occur which, because they are 
stronger than volition, regard not the consciousness of 
right or wrong, there is no doubt; that these impulses 
are very frequently the product of a morbid mind is 
also well attested, but the question before us is limited 
to the relationship which genius bears to suicide, as one 
expression of madness. 
I confess I can see only that relationship which exists 
in the organic necessities which constitute the founda- 
tion of human thought and action, and not the psychol- 
ogical relationship which makes the exaltation of mind 
the destroyer of its life. 
