86 GENIUS AND MENTAL DISEASE. 
Look at the scores of eminent names within a hundred 
years, and show therefrom, if possible, the evidence 
which justifies the statement that intellectual greatness, 
is ‘‘ beset with mental and moral infirmity,” or that 
genius is merely an expression of a morbid mind, akin 
to madness. 
Imagination gives to genius—which is the intellectual 
scout of progress, and the Titan force which organizes 
the factors of civilization—a realm wherein the soul 
throbs and burns with the fervor which comes only when 
a new truth cleaves the darkness and illumines a path- 
way hitherto unrevealed ; and where the clash and tur- 
moil of cerebral action excites the highest pleasure, 
though at the same time they often weary and exhaust. 
In this century, when the fierce blaze of modern 
thought has filled the world with unparalleled glory, and 
the inventive genius of man has made the earth a vast 
workshop of industrial arts, wherein the human brain 
is ‘‘master-workman’”’ over all, how rare is it that the 
brain-worker feels the oppression of a ‘‘ mind diseased,” 
except when, like the wage-worker, he frets and worries 
under the burdens of a weary life, and falls by the way- 
side because the struggle for existence—keen, sharp, 
and relentless—has taken from him the inspiration, the 
strength of hope! 
Mental stagnation, personal or domestic sorrow, social 
inthrallment, religious excitement, crushed hopes, and 
poverty, are the chief moral causes which contribute so 
largely to the mental infirmities of man. 
In conclusion, I hesitate not to say that the most il- 
lustrious names of ancient or modern times—in all de- 
partments of human thought or activity—have been, 
with but few exceptions, loyal to the sovereign rule of 
sane reason; and the sweep of their imagination has 
been in curves which rounded in the bright empyrean of 
truth and beauty. 
