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. Inthe 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 
