Chapter 37

[1]This passage has been misunderstood. It has been taken to mean that all the French nation had degenerated, and their race was approaching its end. However, from the concluding paragraph of this chapter, it may be clearly seen that I had in my eye only the upper ten thousand. The peasant population, and a part of the working classes and thebourgeoisie, are sound. I assert only the decay of the rich inhabitants of great cities and the leading classes. It is they who have discoveredfin-de-siècle, and it is to them also thatfin-de-raceapplies.[2]‘My thought I hasten to fulfil.’[3]A four-act comedy, by H. Micard and F. de Jouvenot, namedFin-de-Siècle, which was played in Paris in 1890, hardly avails to determine the sense of the word as the French use it. The authors were concerned, not to depict a phase of the age or a psychological state, but only to give an attractive title to their piece.[4]Traité des Dégénérescences physiques, intellectuelles et morales de l’Espèce humaine et des Causes qui produisent ces Variétés maladives.Par le Dr. B. A. Morel. Paris, 1857, p. 5.[5]At the instigation of his mistress Ebergenyi, Count Chorinsky had poisoned his wife, previously an actress. The murderer was an epileptic, and a ‘degenerate,’ in the Morelian sense. His family summoned Morel from Normandy to Munich, for the purpose of proving to the jury, before whom the case (1868) was tried, that the accused was irresponsible. The latter was singularly indignant at this; and the Attorney-General also contradicted, in the most emphatic manner, the evidence of the French alienist, and supported himself by the approbation of the most prominent alienists in Munich. Chorinsky was pronounced guilty. Nevertheless, only a short time after his conviction, insanity developed itself in him, and a few months later he died, in the deepest mental darkness, thus justifying all the previous assertions of the French physician, who had, in the German tongue, demonstrated to a German jury the incompetence of his professional confrères in Munich.[6]Morel,op. cit., p. 683.[7]L’Uomo delinquente in rapporto all’ Antropologia, Giurisprudenza e alle Discipline carcerarie.3ª edizione. Torino, 1884, p. 147et seq.See also Dr. Ch. Féré, ‘La Famille nevropathique.’ Paris, 1894, pp. 176-212.[8]‘La Famille nevropathique,’Archives de Nevrologie, 1884,Nos. 19 et 20.[9]See, on this subject, in particular, Krafft Ebing,Die Lehre vom moralischen Wahnsinn, 1871; H. Maudsley,Responsibility in Mental Disease, International Scientific Series; and Ch. Féré,Dégénérescence et Criminalité, Paris, 1888.[10]J. Roubinovitch,Hystérie mâle et Dégénérescence; Paris, 1890, p. 62: ‘The society which surrounds him (the degenerate) always remains strange to him. He knows nothing, and takes interest in nothing but himself.’Legrain,Du Délire chez les Dégénérés; Paris, 1886, p. 10: ‘The patient is ... the plaything of his passions; he is carried away by his impulses, and has only one care—to satisfy his appetites.’ P. 27: ‘They are egoistical, arrogant, conceited, self-infatuated,’ etc.[11]Henry Colin,Essai sur l’État mental des Hystériques; Paris, 1890, p. 59: ‘Two great facts control the being of the hereditary degenerate: obsession [the tyrannical domination of one thought from which a man cannot free himself; Westphal has created for this the good term ‘Zwangs-Vorstellung,’i.e., coercive idea] and impulsion—both irresistible.’[12]Morel, ‘Du Délire émotif,’Archives générales, 6 série, vol. vii., pp. 385 and 530. See also Roubinovitch,op. cit., p. 53.[13]Morel, ‘Du Délire panophobique des Aliénés gémisseurs,’Annales médico-psychologiques, 1871.[14]Roubinovitch,op. cit., p. 28.[15]Ibid., p. 37.[16]Ibid., p. 66.[17]Charcot, ‘Leçons du Mardi à la Salpétrière,’Policlinique, Paris, 1890, 2epartie, p. 392: ‘This person [the invalid mentioned] is a performer at fairs; he calls himself “artist.” The truth is that his art consists in personating a “wild man” in fair-booths.’[18]Legrain,op. cit., p. 73: ‘The patients are perpetually tormented by a multitude of questions which invade their minds, and to which they can give no answer; inexpressible moral sufferings result from this incapacity. Doubt envelops every possible subject:—metaphysics, theology, etc.’[19]Magnan, ‘Considérations sur la Folie des Héréditaires ou Dégénerés,’Progrès médical, 1886, p. 1110 (in the report of a medical case): ‘He also thought of seeking for the philosopher’s stone, and of making gold.’[20]Lombroso, ‘La Physionomie des Anarchistes,’Nouvelle Revue, May 15, 1891, p. 227: ‘They [the anarchists] frequently have those characteristics of degeneracy which are common to criminals and lunatics, for they are anomalies, and bear hereditary taints.’ See also the same author’sPazzi ed Anomali. Turin, 1884.[21]Colin,op. cit., p. 154.[22]Legrain,op. cit., p. 11.[23]Roubinovitch,op. cit., p. 33.[24]Lombroso,Genie und Irrsinn; German translation by A. Courth. Reclam’sUniversal Bibliothek, Bde. 2313-16. See also in particular, J. F. Nisbet,The Insanity of Genius. London, 1891.[25]Falret,Annales médico-psychologiques, 1867, p. 76: ‘From their childhood they usually display a very unequal development of their mental faculties, which, weak in their entirety, are remarkable for certain special aptitudes; they have shown an extraordinary gift for drawing, arithmetic, music, sculpture, or mechanics ... and, together with those specially developed aptitudes, obtaining for them the fame of “infant phenomena,” they for the most part give evidence of very great deficiencies in their intelligence, and of a radical debility in the remaining faculties.’[26]Nouvelle Revue, July 15, 1891.[27]Tarabaud,Des Rapports de la Dégénérescence mentale et de l’Hystérie. Paris, 1888, p. 12.[28]Legrain,op. cit., pp. 24 and 26.[29]Lombroso,Nouvelles recherches de Psychiatrie et d’Anthropologie criminelle. Paris, 1892, p. 74.[30]Axenfeld,Des Névroses. 2 vols., 2eédition, revue et complétée par le Dr. Huchard. Paris, 1879.[31]Paul Richer,Études cliniques sur l’Hystéro-épilepsie ou Grande Hystérie. Paris, 1891.[32]Gilles de la Tourette,Traité clinique et thérapeutique de l’Hystérie. Paris, 1891.[33]Paul Michaut,Contribution à l’Étude des Manifestations de l’Hystérie chez l’Homme. Paris, 1890.[34]Colin,op. cit., p. 14.[35]Gilles de la Tourette,op. cit., p. 548et passim.[36]Colin,op. cit., pp. 15 and 16.[37]Gilles de la Tourette,op. cit., p. 493.[38]Ibid., p. 303.[39]Legrain,op. cit., p. 39.[40]Dr. Emile Berger,Les Maladies des Yeux dans leurs rapports avec la Pathologie général. Paris, 1892, p. 129et seq.[41]Traité clinique et thérapeutique de l’Hystérie, p. 339. See also Drs. A. Marie et J. Bonnet,La Vision chez les Idiots et les Imbéciles. Paris, 1892.[42]Alfred Binet, ‘Recherches sur les Altérations de la Conscience chez les Hystériques,’Revue philosophique, 1889, vol. xxvii.[43]Op. cit., p. 150.[44]Ch. Féré, ‘Sensation et Mouvement,’Revue philosophique, 1886. See also the same author’sSensation et Mouvement, Paris, 1887;Dégénérescence et criminalité, Paris, 1888; and ‘L’Énergie et la Vitesse des Mouvements volontaires,’Revue philosophique, 1889.[45]Lombroso,L’Uomo délinquente, p. 524.[46]‘Les Nerveux se recherchent,’ Charcot,Leçons du Mardi,passim.[47]Legrain,op. cit., p. 173: ‘The true explanation of the occurrence offolie à deuxmust be sought for, on the one hand, in the predisposition to insanity, and, on the other hand, in the accompanying weakness of mind.’ See also Régis,La Folie à Deux. Paris, 1880.[48]Journal des Goncourt.Dernière série, premier volume, 1870-71. Paris, 1890, p. 17.[49]Viennese for ‘fop.’—Translator.[50]Traité des Dégénérescences,passim.[51]Personally communicated by the distinguished statistician, Herr Josef Körösi, Head of the Bureau of Statistics at Budapest.[52]Speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Goschen, in the House of Commons, April 11, 1892.[53]J. Vavasseur in theEconomiste françaisof 1890. See alsoBulletin de Statistiquefor 1891. The figures are uncertain, for they have been given differently by every statistician whom I have consulted. The fact of the increase in the consumption of alcohol alone stands out with certainty in all the publications consulted. Besides spirits, fermented drinks are consumed per head of the population, according to J. Körösi:Great Britain.WineGall.Beer and CiderGall.1830-18500.2261880-18880.427France.1840-18422331870-1872256Prussia.Quarts.183913.48187117.92German Empire.Litres.187281.71889-189090.3[54]In France the general mortality was, from 1886 to 1890, 22.21 per 1,000. But in Paris it rose to 23.4; in Marseilles to 34.8; in all towns with more than 100,000 inhabitants to a mean of 28.31; in all places with less than 5,000 inhabitants to 21.74. (La Médecine moderne, year 1891.)[55]Traité des Dégénérescences, pp. 614, 615.[56]Brouardel,La Semaine médicale. Paris, 1887, p. 254. In this very remarkable study by the Parisian Professor, the following passage appears: ‘What will these [those remaining stationary in their development] young Parisians become by-and-by? Incapable of accomplishing a long and conscientious work, they excel, as a rule, in artistic activities. If they are painters they are stronger in colour than in drawing. If they are poets, the flow of their verses assures their success rather than the vigour of the thought.’[57]The 26 German towns which to-day have more than 100,000 inhabitants, numbered altogether, in 1891, 6,000,000, and in 1835, 1,400,000. The 31 English towns of this category, in 1891, 10,870,000; in 1841, 4,590,000; the 11 French towns, in 1891, 4,180,000; in 1836, 1,710,000. It should be remarked that about a third of these 68 towns had not in 1840 as many generally as 100,000 inhabitants. To-day, in the large towns in Germany, France, and England, there reside 21,050,000 individuals, while in 1840 only 4,800,000 were living under these conditions. (Communicated by Herr Josef Körösi.)[58]Féré,La Semaine médicale. Paris, 1890, p. 192.[59]See, besides the lecture by Hofmann, the excellent book:Eine deutsche Stadt vor 60 Jahren, Kulturgeschichtliche Skizze, von Dr. Otto Bähr, 2 Auflage. Leipzig, 1891.[60]In order not to make the footnotes too unwieldy, I state here that the following figures are borrowed in part from communications made by Herr Josef Körösi, in part from a remarkable study by M. Charles Richet: ‘Dans Cent Ans,’Revue scientifique, 1891-92; and in a small degree from private publications (such asAnnuaire de la Presse,Press Directory, etc.). For some of the figures I have also used, with profit, Mulhall, and the speech of Herr von Stephan to the Reichstag, February 4, 1892.[61]See G. André,Les nouvelles maladies nerveuses. Paris, 1892.[62]Legrain,op. cit., p. 251: ‘Drinkers are “degenerates”;’ and p. 258 (after four reports of invalids which serve as a basis to the following summary): ‘Hence, at the base of all forms of alcoholism we find mental degeneracy.’[63]Revue scientifique, year 1892; vol. xlix., p. 168et seq.[64]Legrain,op. cit., p. 266.[65]Quoted by J. Roubinovitch,Hystérie mâle et Dégénérescence, p. 18.[66]Legrain,op. cit., p. 200.[67]The scientific psychologist will perhaps read with impatience expositions with which he is so familiar; but they are, unfortunately, not superfluous for a very numerous class of even highly educated persons, who have never had instruction in the laws of the operations of the brain.[68]Mosso’s experiments on, and observations of, the exposed surface of the brain during trepanning have quite established this fact.[69]The experiments of Ferrier, it is true, have led him to deny that a stimulus which touches the cortex of the frontal lobes can result in movement. The case, nevertheless, is not so simple as Ferrier sees it to be. A portion of the energy which is set free by the peripheral stimulus in the cells of the cortex of the frontal lobes certainly transmutes itself into a motor impulse, even if the immediate stimulation of the anterior brain releases no muscular contractions. But this is not the place to defend this point against Ferrier.[70]A. Herzen is the author of the hypothesis that consciousness is connected with the destruction of organic connections in the brain-cells, and the restoration of this connection with rest, sleep, and unconsciousness. All we know of the chemical composition of the secretions in sleeping and waking points to the correctness of this hypothesis.[71]‘One tread moves a thousand threads,The shuttles dart to and fro,The threads flow on invisible,One stroke sets up a thousand ties.’[72]Karl Abel,Ueber den Gegensinn der Urworte. Leipzig, 1884.[73]James Sully,Illusions. London, 1881.[74]Th. Ribot,Psychologie de l’Attention. Paris, 1889.[75]It is possible that an active expansion of the bloodvessels does not take place, but only a contraction. It has been lately denied that there are any nerves of vascular dilatation (inter aliaby Dr. Morat,La Semaine médicale, 1892, p. 112). But the effect may be the same in both cases. For through the contraction of the vessels in a single brain-circuit, the dislodged blood would be driven to other portions of the brain, and these would experience a greater access of blood, just as if their vessels were actively dilated.[76]When I wrote these words I was under the impression that I was the sole originator of the physiological theory of attention therein set forth. Since the appearance of this book, however, I have read Alfred Lehmann’s work,Die Hypnose und die damit verwandten normalen Zustände, Leipzig, 1890, and have there (pp. 27et seq.) found my theory in almost identical words. Lehmann, then, published it two years before I did, which fact I here duly acknowledge. That we arrived at this conclusion independently of each other would testify that the hypothesis of vaso-motor reflex action is really explanatory. Wundt (Hypnotismus und Suggestion, Leipzig, 1892, pp. 27-30), it is true, criticises Lehmann’s work, but he seems to agree with this hypothesis—which is also mine—or, at least, raises no objection to it.[77]Brain, January, 1886, quoted by Ribot,Psychologie de l’Attention, p. 68.[78]Ribot,op. cit., pp. 106 and 119.[79]Legrain,op. cit., p. 177.[80]Ibid., p. 156.[81]In the chapter which treats of French Neomystics, I shall give a cluster of such disconnected and mutually exclusive expressions, which are quite parallel with the instances cited by Legrain, of the manner of speech among those acknowledged to be of weak mind. In this place only one passage may be repeated from the VteE. M. de Vogué,Le Roman Russe, Paris, 1888, in which this mystical author, unconsciously and involuntarily, characterizes admirably the shadowiness and emptiness of mystic diction, while praising it as something superior. ‘One trait,’ he says (p. 215), ‘they’ (certain Russian authors) ‘have in common, viz., the art of awakening series of feelings and thoughts by a line, a word, by endless re-echoings [résonnances].... The words you read on this paper appear to be written, not in length, but in depth. They leave behind them a train of faint reverberations, which are gradually lost, no one knows where.’ And p. 227: ‘They see men and things in the gray light of earliest dawn. The weakly indicated outlines end in a confused and clouded “perhaps.” ...’[82]‘It is certain that the Beautiful never has such charms for us as when we read it attentively in a language which we only half understand. It is the ambiguity, the uncertainty,i.e.. the pliability of words, which is one of their greatest advantages, and renders it possible to make an exact [!] use of them.’—Joubert, quoted by Charles Morice,La Littérature de tout-à-l’heure. Paris, 1889, p. 171.[83]Gérard de Nerval,Le Rêve et la Vie, Paris, 1868, p. 53: ‘Everything in Nature assumed a different aspect. Mysterious voices issued from plants, trees, animals, the smallest insects, to warn and to encourage me. I discerned mysterious turns in the utterances of my companions, and understood their purport. Even formless and inanimate things ministered to the workings of my mind.’ Here is a perfect instance of that ‘comprehension of the mysterious’ which is one of the most common fancies of the insane.[84]An imbecile degenerate, the history of whose illness is related by Dr. G. Ballet, said: ‘Il y a mille ans que le monde est monde. Milan, la cathédrale de Milan’ (La Semaine médicale, 1892, p. 133). ‘Mille ans’ (a thousand years) calls up in his consciousness the like-sounding word ‘Milan,’ although there is absolutely no rational connection between the two ideas. A graphomaniac named Jasno, whose case is cited by Lombroso, says ‘la main se mène’ (the hand guides itself). He then begins to speak of ‘semaine’ (week), and continues to play upon the like-sounding words ‘se mène,’ ‘semaine,’ and ‘main’ (Genie und Irsinn, p. 264). In the book of a German graphomaniac entitledRembrandt als Erzieher, Leipzig, 1890 (a book which I shall have to refer to more than once, as an example of the lucubrations of a weak mind), I find, on the very first pages, the following juxtaposition of words according to their resemblance in sound: ‘Sie verkünden eine Rückkehr ... zur Einheit und Feinheit’ (p. 3). ‘Je ungeschliffener Jemand ist, desto mehr ist an ihm zu schleifen’ (p. 4). ‘Jede rechte Bildung ist bildend, formend, schöpferisch, und also künstlerisch’ (p. 8). ‘Rembrandt war nicht nur ein protestantischer Künstler, sondern auch ein künstlerischer Protestant’ (p. 14). ‘Sein Hundert guldenblatt allein könnte schon als ein Tausendgüldenkraut gegen so mancherlei Schäden ... dienen’ (p. 23). ‘Christus und Rembrandt haben ... darin etwas Gemeinsames, dass Jener die religiöse, dieser die künstlerische Armseligkeit—die Seligkeit der Armen—zu ... Ehren bringt’ (p. 25.), etc.[85]Dr. Paul Sollier,Psychologie de l’Idiot et de l’Imbécile. Paris, 1891, p. 153.[86]Poems by Dante Gabriel Rossetti.With a memoir of the author by Franz Hüffer. Leipzig, 1873, p. viii.[87]Gustave Freytag,Bilder aus der deutschen Vergangenheit, Bd. I.: ‘Aus dem Mittelalter.’ Leipzig, 1872, § 266. H. Taine,Histoire de la Littérature anglaise. Paris, 1866, 2eédition, vol. i., p. 46.[88]This is not an arbitrary assertion. One of D. G. Rossetti’s most famous poems, of which further mention will be made,Eden Bowers, treats of the pre-Adamite Lilith.[89]J. Ruskin,Modern Painters, American edition, vol. i., pp. xxi.et seq.[90]Ruskin,op. cit., p. 24.[91]Ibid., p. 26.[92]‘Ballade que Villon feit à la requeste de sa mère pour prier Nostre Dame.‘Femme je suis povrette et ancienne.Que riens ne scay, oncques lettres ne leuz,Au Monstier voy (dont suis parroissienne)Paradis painct, ou sont harpes et luz,Et ung enfer, où damnez sont boulluz,L’ung me faict paour, l’autre joye et liesse,La joye avoir faictz moy (haulte deesse)A qui pecheurs doivent tous recourirCombley de foy, sans faincte ne paresse,En ceste foy je vueil vivre et mourir.’It is significant that the pre-Raphaelite Rossetti has translated this very poem of Villon,His Mother’s Service to Our Lady.Poems, p. 180.[93]Edward Rod,Études sur le XIX. Siècle. Paris et Lausanne, 1888, p. 89.[94]Rossetti,Poems, p. 277.[95]‘The springing green, the violet’s scent,The trill of lark, the blackbird’s note,Sunshowers soft, and balmy breeze:If I sing such words as these,Needs there any grander thingTo praise thee with, O day of spring?’[96]Rod,op. cit., p. 67.[97]Poems, p. 16.[98]Sollier,Psychologie de l’Idiot et de l’Imbécile, p. 184. See also Lombroso,The Man of Genius(Contemporary Science Series), London, 1891, p. 216. A special characteristic found in literary mattoids, and also, as we have already seen, in the insane, is that of repeating some words or phrases hundreds of times in the same page. Thus, in one of Passanante’s chapters the wordriprovate(blame) occurs about 143 times.[99]Poems, p. 31.[100]Poems, p. 247.[101]Algernon Charles Swinburne,Poems and Ballads. London: Chatto and Windus, 1889, p. 247.[102]‘The Runic stone stands out in the sea,There sit I with my dreams,‘Mid whistling winds and wailing gulls,And wandering, foaming waves.I have loved many a lovely child,And many a good comrade—Where are they gone? The wind whistles,The waves wander foaming on.’[103]William Morris,Poems(Tauchnitz edition), p. 169:‘And if it hap that ...My master, Geoffrey Chaucer, thou do meet,Then speak ... the words:“O master! O thou great of heart and tongue!”’...[104]A history of the commencement of this society has been written by one of the members, Mathias Morhardt. See ‘Les Symboliques,’Nouvelle Revuedu 15 Février, 1892, p. 765.[105]Charles Morice,La Littérature de tout-à-l’heure. Paris, 1889, p. 274.[106]Jules Huret,Enquête sur l’Évolution littéraire. Paris, 1891, p. 65.[107]Charles Morice,op. cit., p. 271.[108]Huret,op. cit., p. 14.[109]VteE. M. de Vogüé,op. cit., p. xixet seq.[110]Morice,op. cit., pp. 5, 103, 177.[111]Rembrandt als Erzieher.Leipzig, 1890, p. 2.[112]Edouard Rod,Les Idées morales du Temps présent. Paris, 1892, p. 66.[113]Paul Desjardins,Le Devoir présent. Paris, 1892, pp. 5, 8, 39.[114]F. Paulhan,Le nouveau Mysticisme. Paris, 1891, p. 120.[115]Pierre Janet, ‘Les Actes inconscients et le Dédoublement de la Personalité,’ Revue philosophique, December, 1886. Paul Janet, ‘L’Hystérie et l’Hypnotisme d’après la Théorie de la double Personnalité,’ Revue scientifique, 1888, 1ervol., p. 616[116]Morhardt,op. cit., p. 769.[117]See the Catalogue of Scientific Papers compiled and published by the Royal Society. The first series of this catalogue, covering the time from 1800 to 1863, comprises six volumes; the second, dealing with the decade from 1864 to 1873, comprises two volumes, equivalent to at least three of the first series (1047 and 1310 pages); of the third series (1874 to 1883) only one volume has been issued as yet, but it promises to outrun the second by at least one half.[118]Jules Huret,Enquête sur l’Évolution littéraire. Paris, 1891.[119]Huret,op. cit., p. 65.[120]Paul Verlaine,Choix de Poësies. Paris, 1891.[121]Lombroso,L’Uomo delinquente, p. 184.[122]Lombroso,op. cit., p. 276.[123]Verlaine,op. cit., p. 272.[124]Verlaine,op. cit., pp. 72, 315, 317.[125]Shortly, but not immediately after, the immediate result being a sense of great relief and satisfaction.[126]Verlaine,op. cit., pp. 175, 178.[127]Legrain,Du délire chez les dégénéres, pp. 135, 140, 164.[128]Huret,op. cit., p. 8.[129]E. Marandon de Montyel, ‘De la Criminalité et de la Dégénérescence,’Archives de l’Anthropologie criminelle, Mai, 1892, p. 287.[130]Ah! if these are dream hands,So much the better, or so much the worse, or so much the better.[131]Virgil’s ‘lentus,’ when applied to aspects of nature conveys a very different meaning.[132]Charles Morice,La Littérature de tout-à-l’heure, p. 238.[133]Huret,op. cit., p. 33.[134]Since these words were written, M. Mallarmé has decided to publish his poems in one volume. This, far from invalidating what has been said, is its best justification.[135]Huret,op. cit., p. 55.[136]Hartmann,Der Gorilla. Leipzig, 1881, p. 34.[137]Dr. L. Frigerio,L’Oreille externe: Étude d’Anthropologie criminelle. Lyon, 1889, pp. 32 and 40.[138]Lombroso,L’Uomo delinquente, p. 255.[139]Huret,op. cit., p. 102.[140]Ibid., p. 106.[141]Ibid., p. 401.[142]Jean Moréas,Le Pélerin passionné. Paris, 1891, p. 3.[143]Moréas,op. cit., pp. 21 and 2.[144]Ibid., p. 43.[145]Moréas,op. cit., p. 311.[146]‘O Syrinx! do you see and understand the Earth, and the wonder of this morning, and the circulation of life!O thou, there! and I, here! O thou! O me! All is in All!’[147]Morice,op. cit., p. 30.[148]Morice,op. cit., p. 321.[149]Dr. F. Suarez de Mendoza,L’Audition colorée: Étude sur les fausses Sensations secondaires physiologiques. Paris, 1892.[150]Alfred Binet, ‘Recherche sur les altérations de la conscience chez les hystériques,’Revue philosophique, 1889, 27evol., p. 165.[151]Legrain,op. cit., p. 162.[152]Lombroso,Genie und Irrsinn. German edition, p. 233.[153]I may here be allowed to remind my readers that in the year 1885, and, accordingly, before the promulgation of the professed symbolistic programme, I laid down in myParadoxe(popular edition, part ii., p. 253) the principle that the poet must ‘to the majority of his readers utter the deep saying, “Tat twam asi!”—“That art thou!” of the Indian sage,’ and ‘must be able, with the ancient Romans, to repeat to the sound and normally developed man, “Of thee is the fable related.” In other words, the poem must be “symbolical” in the sense that it brings into view characters, destinies, feelings and laws of life which are universal.’[154]Hugues Le Roux,Portraits de Cire. Paris, 1891, p. 129.[155]VteE. M. de Vogüé,Le Roman russe. Paris, 1888, p. 293et seq.[156]See, inWar and Peace(Leo. N. Tolstoi’s collected works, published, with the author’s sanction, by Raphael Löwenfeld, Berlin, 1892, vols. v.-viii.), the soldiers’ talk, part i., p. 252; the scene at the outposts, p. 314et seq., the description of the troops on the march, p. 332; the death of Count Besuchoi, pp. 142-145; the coursing, part ii., pp. 383-407, etc.[157]See, inWar and Peace, the thoughts of the wounded Prince Andrej, part i., p. 516; Count Peter’s conversation with the freemason and Martinief Basdjejeff, part ii., pp. 106-114, etc.[158]War and Peace, the episode of Princess Maria and her suitor, part i., pp. 420-423; the confinement of the little Princess, part ii., pp. 58-65; and all the passages where Count Rostoff sees the Emperor Alexander, or where the author speaks of the Emperor Napoleon I., etc.[159]Vogüé,op. cit., p. 282.[160]Count Leo Tolstoi,A Short Exposition of the Gospel. From the Russian, by Paul Lauterbach. Leipzig: Reclam’s Universal-Bibliothek, p. 13.[161]L. Tolstoi,Short Exposition of the Gospel, p. 13.[162]Tolstoi,Short Exposition, etc., p. 172.[163]More accurately, in Vedântism.—Translator.[164]Tolstoi,Short Exposition, etc., p. 128.[165]Short Exposition, p. 60.[166]De Vogüé,op. cit., p. 333.[167]L. Tolstoi,Gesammelte Werke, Berlin, 1891, Band II.:Novels and Short Tales, part i.[168]Léon Tolstoi,La Sonate à Kreutzer. Traduit du Russe par E. Halpérine-Kaminsky. Paris: Collection des auteurs célèbres, p. 72.[169]P. 119.[170]Short Exposition of the Gospel, p. 140.[171]Le Roman du Mariage.Traduit du Russe par Michel Delines. Paris.Auteurs célèbres.[172]Ed. Rod,Les Idées morales du Temps présent. Paris, 1892, p. 241.[173]Raphael Löwenfeld,Leo N. Tolstoi, sein Leben, seine Werke, seine Weltanschauung. Erster Theil. Berlin, 1892, Introd., p. 1.[174]Lombroso,Genie und Irrsinn, p. 256, foot-note.[175]Löwenfeld,op. cit., p. 39.[176]Ibid., p. 276.[177]Professor Kowalewski, inThe Journal of Mental Science, January, 1888.[178]Griesinger, ‘Ueber einen wenig bekannten psychopathischen Zustand,’Archiv für Psychiatrie, Band I.[179]Lombroso,Genie und Irrsinn, p. 324.[180]Sollier,Psychologie de l’Idiot et de l’Imbécile.[181]Löwenfeld,op. cit., p. 100.[182]Löwenfeld,op. cit., p. 47.[183]Legrain,Du Délire chez les Dégénérés, pp. 28, 195.[184]It is not my object, in a book intended primarily for the general educated reader, to dwell on this delicate subject. Anyone wishing to be instructed more closely in the morbid eroticism of the degenerate may read the books of Paul Moreau (of Tours)Des Aberrations du Sens génésique, 2eédition, Paris, 1883; and Krafft-Ebing’sPsychopathia sexualis, Stuttgart, 1886. Papers on this subject by Westphal (Archiv für Psychiatrie, 1870 and 1876), by Charcot and Magnan (Archives de Neurologie, 1882), etc., are scarcely accessible to the general public.[185]V. Magnan,Leçons cliniques sur la Dipsomanie, faites à l’asile Sainte-Anne. Recueillies et publiées par M. le Dr. Marcel Briand. Paris, 1884.[186]Richard Wagner,Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft. Leipzig, 1850. The numbering of the pages given in quotations from this work refers to the edition here indicated.[187]Arthur Schopenhauer,Parerga und Paralipomena, Kurze Phil. Schriften. Leipzig, 1888, Band II., p. 465.[188]Charles Féré,Sensation et Mouvement. Paris, 1887.[189]Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft, p. 169: ‘It is only when the desire of the artistic sculptor has passed into the soul of thedancer, of themimic interpreter, of him who sings and speaks, that this desire can be conceived as satisfied. It is only when the art of sculpture no longer exists, or has followed another tendency than that of representing human bodies—when it has passed, as sculpture, intoarchitecture—when the rigid solitude of thisoneman carved in stone will have been resolved into the infinitely flowing plurality of veritable, living men ... it is only then, too, thatreal plasticwill exist.’ And on p. 182: ‘That which it [painting]honestlyexerts itself to attain, it attains in ... greatest perfection ... when it descends from canvas and chalk to ascend to thetragic stage.... But landscape-painting will become, as the last and most finished conclusion of all the fine arts, the life-giving soul, properly speaking, of architecture; it will teach us thus to organize thestagefor works of the dramatic art of the future, in which, itself living, it will represent the warmbackgroundofnaturefor the use of theliving, and not for the imitatedman.’

[2]‘My thought I hasten to fulfil.’

[3]A four-act comedy, by H. Micard and F. de Jouvenot, namedFin-de-Siècle, which was played in Paris in 1890, hardly avails to determine the sense of the word as the French use it. The authors were concerned, not to depict a phase of the age or a psychological state, but only to give an attractive title to their piece.

[4]Traité des Dégénérescences physiques, intellectuelles et morales de l’Espèce humaine et des Causes qui produisent ces Variétés maladives.Par le Dr. B. A. Morel. Paris, 1857, p. 5.

[5]At the instigation of his mistress Ebergenyi, Count Chorinsky had poisoned his wife, previously an actress. The murderer was an epileptic, and a ‘degenerate,’ in the Morelian sense. His family summoned Morel from Normandy to Munich, for the purpose of proving to the jury, before whom the case (1868) was tried, that the accused was irresponsible. The latter was singularly indignant at this; and the Attorney-General also contradicted, in the most emphatic manner, the evidence of the French alienist, and supported himself by the approbation of the most prominent alienists in Munich. Chorinsky was pronounced guilty. Nevertheless, only a short time after his conviction, insanity developed itself in him, and a few months later he died, in the deepest mental darkness, thus justifying all the previous assertions of the French physician, who had, in the German tongue, demonstrated to a German jury the incompetence of his professional confrères in Munich.

[6]Morel,op. cit., p. 683.

[7]L’Uomo delinquente in rapporto all’ Antropologia, Giurisprudenza e alle Discipline carcerarie.3ª edizione. Torino, 1884, p. 147et seq.See also Dr. Ch. Féré, ‘La Famille nevropathique.’ Paris, 1894, pp. 176-212.

[8]‘La Famille nevropathique,’Archives de Nevrologie, 1884,Nos. 19 et 20.

[9]See, on this subject, in particular, Krafft Ebing,Die Lehre vom moralischen Wahnsinn, 1871; H. Maudsley,Responsibility in Mental Disease, International Scientific Series; and Ch. Féré,Dégénérescence et Criminalité, Paris, 1888.

[10]J. Roubinovitch,Hystérie mâle et Dégénérescence; Paris, 1890, p. 62: ‘The society which surrounds him (the degenerate) always remains strange to him. He knows nothing, and takes interest in nothing but himself.’

Legrain,Du Délire chez les Dégénérés; Paris, 1886, p. 10: ‘The patient is ... the plaything of his passions; he is carried away by his impulses, and has only one care—to satisfy his appetites.’ P. 27: ‘They are egoistical, arrogant, conceited, self-infatuated,’ etc.

[11]Henry Colin,Essai sur l’État mental des Hystériques; Paris, 1890, p. 59: ‘Two great facts control the being of the hereditary degenerate: obsession [the tyrannical domination of one thought from which a man cannot free himself; Westphal has created for this the good term ‘Zwangs-Vorstellung,’i.e., coercive idea] and impulsion—both irresistible.’

[12]Morel, ‘Du Délire émotif,’Archives générales, 6 série, vol. vii., pp. 385 and 530. See also Roubinovitch,op. cit., p. 53.

[13]Morel, ‘Du Délire panophobique des Aliénés gémisseurs,’Annales médico-psychologiques, 1871.

[14]Roubinovitch,op. cit., p. 28.

[15]Ibid., p. 37.

[16]Ibid., p. 66.

[17]Charcot, ‘Leçons du Mardi à la Salpétrière,’Policlinique, Paris, 1890, 2epartie, p. 392: ‘This person [the invalid mentioned] is a performer at fairs; he calls himself “artist.” The truth is that his art consists in personating a “wild man” in fair-booths.’

[18]Legrain,op. cit., p. 73: ‘The patients are perpetually tormented by a multitude of questions which invade their minds, and to which they can give no answer; inexpressible moral sufferings result from this incapacity. Doubt envelops every possible subject:—metaphysics, theology, etc.’

[19]Magnan, ‘Considérations sur la Folie des Héréditaires ou Dégénerés,’Progrès médical, 1886, p. 1110 (in the report of a medical case): ‘He also thought of seeking for the philosopher’s stone, and of making gold.’

[20]Lombroso, ‘La Physionomie des Anarchistes,’Nouvelle Revue, May 15, 1891, p. 227: ‘They [the anarchists] frequently have those characteristics of degeneracy which are common to criminals and lunatics, for they are anomalies, and bear hereditary taints.’ See also the same author’sPazzi ed Anomali. Turin, 1884.

[21]Colin,op. cit., p. 154.

[22]Legrain,op. cit., p. 11.

[23]Roubinovitch,op. cit., p. 33.

[24]Lombroso,Genie und Irrsinn; German translation by A. Courth. Reclam’sUniversal Bibliothek, Bde. 2313-16. See also in particular, J. F. Nisbet,The Insanity of Genius. London, 1891.

[25]Falret,Annales médico-psychologiques, 1867, p. 76: ‘From their childhood they usually display a very unequal development of their mental faculties, which, weak in their entirety, are remarkable for certain special aptitudes; they have shown an extraordinary gift for drawing, arithmetic, music, sculpture, or mechanics ... and, together with those specially developed aptitudes, obtaining for them the fame of “infant phenomena,” they for the most part give evidence of very great deficiencies in their intelligence, and of a radical debility in the remaining faculties.’

[26]Nouvelle Revue, July 15, 1891.

[27]Tarabaud,Des Rapports de la Dégénérescence mentale et de l’Hystérie. Paris, 1888, p. 12.

[28]Legrain,op. cit., pp. 24 and 26.

[29]Lombroso,Nouvelles recherches de Psychiatrie et d’Anthropologie criminelle. Paris, 1892, p. 74.

[30]Axenfeld,Des Névroses. 2 vols., 2eédition, revue et complétée par le Dr. Huchard. Paris, 1879.

[31]Paul Richer,Études cliniques sur l’Hystéro-épilepsie ou Grande Hystérie. Paris, 1891.

[32]Gilles de la Tourette,Traité clinique et thérapeutique de l’Hystérie. Paris, 1891.

[33]Paul Michaut,Contribution à l’Étude des Manifestations de l’Hystérie chez l’Homme. Paris, 1890.

[34]Colin,op. cit., p. 14.

[35]Gilles de la Tourette,op. cit., p. 548et passim.

[36]Colin,op. cit., pp. 15 and 16.

[37]Gilles de la Tourette,op. cit., p. 493.

[38]Ibid., p. 303.

[39]Legrain,op. cit., p. 39.

[40]Dr. Emile Berger,Les Maladies des Yeux dans leurs rapports avec la Pathologie général. Paris, 1892, p. 129et seq.

[41]Traité clinique et thérapeutique de l’Hystérie, p. 339. See also Drs. A. Marie et J. Bonnet,La Vision chez les Idiots et les Imbéciles. Paris, 1892.

[42]Alfred Binet, ‘Recherches sur les Altérations de la Conscience chez les Hystériques,’Revue philosophique, 1889, vol. xxvii.

[43]Op. cit., p. 150.

[44]Ch. Féré, ‘Sensation et Mouvement,’Revue philosophique, 1886. See also the same author’sSensation et Mouvement, Paris, 1887;Dégénérescence et criminalité, Paris, 1888; and ‘L’Énergie et la Vitesse des Mouvements volontaires,’Revue philosophique, 1889.

[45]Lombroso,L’Uomo délinquente, p. 524.

[46]‘Les Nerveux se recherchent,’ Charcot,Leçons du Mardi,passim.

[47]Legrain,op. cit., p. 173: ‘The true explanation of the occurrence offolie à deuxmust be sought for, on the one hand, in the predisposition to insanity, and, on the other hand, in the accompanying weakness of mind.’ See also Régis,La Folie à Deux. Paris, 1880.

[48]Journal des Goncourt.Dernière série, premier volume, 1870-71. Paris, 1890, p. 17.

[49]Viennese for ‘fop.’—Translator.

[50]Traité des Dégénérescences,passim.

[51]Personally communicated by the distinguished statistician, Herr Josef Körösi, Head of the Bureau of Statistics at Budapest.

[52]Speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Goschen, in the House of Commons, April 11, 1892.

[53]J. Vavasseur in theEconomiste françaisof 1890. See alsoBulletin de Statistiquefor 1891. The figures are uncertain, for they have been given differently by every statistician whom I have consulted. The fact of the increase in the consumption of alcohol alone stands out with certainty in all the publications consulted. Besides spirits, fermented drinks are consumed per head of the population, according to J. Körösi:

[54]In France the general mortality was, from 1886 to 1890, 22.21 per 1,000. But in Paris it rose to 23.4; in Marseilles to 34.8; in all towns with more than 100,000 inhabitants to a mean of 28.31; in all places with less than 5,000 inhabitants to 21.74. (La Médecine moderne, year 1891.)

[55]Traité des Dégénérescences, pp. 614, 615.

[56]Brouardel,La Semaine médicale. Paris, 1887, p. 254. In this very remarkable study by the Parisian Professor, the following passage appears: ‘What will these [those remaining stationary in their development] young Parisians become by-and-by? Incapable of accomplishing a long and conscientious work, they excel, as a rule, in artistic activities. If they are painters they are stronger in colour than in drawing. If they are poets, the flow of their verses assures their success rather than the vigour of the thought.’

[57]The 26 German towns which to-day have more than 100,000 inhabitants, numbered altogether, in 1891, 6,000,000, and in 1835, 1,400,000. The 31 English towns of this category, in 1891, 10,870,000; in 1841, 4,590,000; the 11 French towns, in 1891, 4,180,000; in 1836, 1,710,000. It should be remarked that about a third of these 68 towns had not in 1840 as many generally as 100,000 inhabitants. To-day, in the large towns in Germany, France, and England, there reside 21,050,000 individuals, while in 1840 only 4,800,000 were living under these conditions. (Communicated by Herr Josef Körösi.)

[58]Féré,La Semaine médicale. Paris, 1890, p. 192.

[59]See, besides the lecture by Hofmann, the excellent book:Eine deutsche Stadt vor 60 Jahren, Kulturgeschichtliche Skizze, von Dr. Otto Bähr, 2 Auflage. Leipzig, 1891.

[60]In order not to make the footnotes too unwieldy, I state here that the following figures are borrowed in part from communications made by Herr Josef Körösi, in part from a remarkable study by M. Charles Richet: ‘Dans Cent Ans,’Revue scientifique, 1891-92; and in a small degree from private publications (such asAnnuaire de la Presse,Press Directory, etc.). For some of the figures I have also used, with profit, Mulhall, and the speech of Herr von Stephan to the Reichstag, February 4, 1892.

[61]See G. André,Les nouvelles maladies nerveuses. Paris, 1892.

[62]Legrain,op. cit., p. 251: ‘Drinkers are “degenerates”;’ and p. 258 (after four reports of invalids which serve as a basis to the following summary): ‘Hence, at the base of all forms of alcoholism we find mental degeneracy.’

[63]Revue scientifique, year 1892; vol. xlix., p. 168et seq.

[64]Legrain,op. cit., p. 266.

[65]Quoted by J. Roubinovitch,Hystérie mâle et Dégénérescence, p. 18.

[66]Legrain,op. cit., p. 200.

[67]The scientific psychologist will perhaps read with impatience expositions with which he is so familiar; but they are, unfortunately, not superfluous for a very numerous class of even highly educated persons, who have never had instruction in the laws of the operations of the brain.

[68]Mosso’s experiments on, and observations of, the exposed surface of the brain during trepanning have quite established this fact.

[69]The experiments of Ferrier, it is true, have led him to deny that a stimulus which touches the cortex of the frontal lobes can result in movement. The case, nevertheless, is not so simple as Ferrier sees it to be. A portion of the energy which is set free by the peripheral stimulus in the cells of the cortex of the frontal lobes certainly transmutes itself into a motor impulse, even if the immediate stimulation of the anterior brain releases no muscular contractions. But this is not the place to defend this point against Ferrier.

[70]A. Herzen is the author of the hypothesis that consciousness is connected with the destruction of organic connections in the brain-cells, and the restoration of this connection with rest, sleep, and unconsciousness. All we know of the chemical composition of the secretions in sleeping and waking points to the correctness of this hypothesis.

[71]

‘One tread moves a thousand threads,The shuttles dart to and fro,The threads flow on invisible,One stroke sets up a thousand ties.’

[72]Karl Abel,Ueber den Gegensinn der Urworte. Leipzig, 1884.

[73]James Sully,Illusions. London, 1881.

[74]Th. Ribot,Psychologie de l’Attention. Paris, 1889.

[75]It is possible that an active expansion of the bloodvessels does not take place, but only a contraction. It has been lately denied that there are any nerves of vascular dilatation (inter aliaby Dr. Morat,La Semaine médicale, 1892, p. 112). But the effect may be the same in both cases. For through the contraction of the vessels in a single brain-circuit, the dislodged blood would be driven to other portions of the brain, and these would experience a greater access of blood, just as if their vessels were actively dilated.

[76]When I wrote these words I was under the impression that I was the sole originator of the physiological theory of attention therein set forth. Since the appearance of this book, however, I have read Alfred Lehmann’s work,Die Hypnose und die damit verwandten normalen Zustände, Leipzig, 1890, and have there (pp. 27et seq.) found my theory in almost identical words. Lehmann, then, published it two years before I did, which fact I here duly acknowledge. That we arrived at this conclusion independently of each other would testify that the hypothesis of vaso-motor reflex action is really explanatory. Wundt (Hypnotismus und Suggestion, Leipzig, 1892, pp. 27-30), it is true, criticises Lehmann’s work, but he seems to agree with this hypothesis—which is also mine—or, at least, raises no objection to it.

[77]Brain, January, 1886, quoted by Ribot,Psychologie de l’Attention, p. 68.

[78]Ribot,op. cit., pp. 106 and 119.

[79]Legrain,op. cit., p. 177.

[80]Ibid., p. 156.

[81]In the chapter which treats of French Neomystics, I shall give a cluster of such disconnected and mutually exclusive expressions, which are quite parallel with the instances cited by Legrain, of the manner of speech among those acknowledged to be of weak mind. In this place only one passage may be repeated from the VteE. M. de Vogué,Le Roman Russe, Paris, 1888, in which this mystical author, unconsciously and involuntarily, characterizes admirably the shadowiness and emptiness of mystic diction, while praising it as something superior. ‘One trait,’ he says (p. 215), ‘they’ (certain Russian authors) ‘have in common, viz., the art of awakening series of feelings and thoughts by a line, a word, by endless re-echoings [résonnances].... The words you read on this paper appear to be written, not in length, but in depth. They leave behind them a train of faint reverberations, which are gradually lost, no one knows where.’ And p. 227: ‘They see men and things in the gray light of earliest dawn. The weakly indicated outlines end in a confused and clouded “perhaps.” ...’

[82]‘It is certain that the Beautiful never has such charms for us as when we read it attentively in a language which we only half understand. It is the ambiguity, the uncertainty,i.e.. the pliability of words, which is one of their greatest advantages, and renders it possible to make an exact [!] use of them.’—Joubert, quoted by Charles Morice,La Littérature de tout-à-l’heure. Paris, 1889, p. 171.

[83]Gérard de Nerval,Le Rêve et la Vie, Paris, 1868, p. 53: ‘Everything in Nature assumed a different aspect. Mysterious voices issued from plants, trees, animals, the smallest insects, to warn and to encourage me. I discerned mysterious turns in the utterances of my companions, and understood their purport. Even formless and inanimate things ministered to the workings of my mind.’ Here is a perfect instance of that ‘comprehension of the mysterious’ which is one of the most common fancies of the insane.

[84]An imbecile degenerate, the history of whose illness is related by Dr. G. Ballet, said: ‘Il y a mille ans que le monde est monde. Milan, la cathédrale de Milan’ (La Semaine médicale, 1892, p. 133). ‘Mille ans’ (a thousand years) calls up in his consciousness the like-sounding word ‘Milan,’ although there is absolutely no rational connection between the two ideas. A graphomaniac named Jasno, whose case is cited by Lombroso, says ‘la main se mène’ (the hand guides itself). He then begins to speak of ‘semaine’ (week), and continues to play upon the like-sounding words ‘se mène,’ ‘semaine,’ and ‘main’ (Genie und Irsinn, p. 264). In the book of a German graphomaniac entitledRembrandt als Erzieher, Leipzig, 1890 (a book which I shall have to refer to more than once, as an example of the lucubrations of a weak mind), I find, on the very first pages, the following juxtaposition of words according to their resemblance in sound: ‘Sie verkünden eine Rückkehr ... zur Einheit und Feinheit’ (p. 3). ‘Je ungeschliffener Jemand ist, desto mehr ist an ihm zu schleifen’ (p. 4). ‘Jede rechte Bildung ist bildend, formend, schöpferisch, und also künstlerisch’ (p. 8). ‘Rembrandt war nicht nur ein protestantischer Künstler, sondern auch ein künstlerischer Protestant’ (p. 14). ‘Sein Hundert guldenblatt allein könnte schon als ein Tausendgüldenkraut gegen so mancherlei Schäden ... dienen’ (p. 23). ‘Christus und Rembrandt haben ... darin etwas Gemeinsames, dass Jener die religiöse, dieser die künstlerische Armseligkeit—die Seligkeit der Armen—zu ... Ehren bringt’ (p. 25.), etc.

[85]Dr. Paul Sollier,Psychologie de l’Idiot et de l’Imbécile. Paris, 1891, p. 153.

[86]Poems by Dante Gabriel Rossetti.With a memoir of the author by Franz Hüffer. Leipzig, 1873, p. viii.

[87]Gustave Freytag,Bilder aus der deutschen Vergangenheit, Bd. I.: ‘Aus dem Mittelalter.’ Leipzig, 1872, § 266. H. Taine,Histoire de la Littérature anglaise. Paris, 1866, 2eédition, vol. i., p. 46.

[88]This is not an arbitrary assertion. One of D. G. Rossetti’s most famous poems, of which further mention will be made,Eden Bowers, treats of the pre-Adamite Lilith.

[89]J. Ruskin,Modern Painters, American edition, vol. i., pp. xxi.et seq.

[90]Ruskin,op. cit., p. 24.

[91]Ibid., p. 26.

[92]‘Ballade que Villon feit à la requeste de sa mère pour prier Nostre Dame.

‘Femme je suis povrette et ancienne.Que riens ne scay, oncques lettres ne leuz,Au Monstier voy (dont suis parroissienne)Paradis painct, ou sont harpes et luz,Et ung enfer, où damnez sont boulluz,L’ung me faict paour, l’autre joye et liesse,La joye avoir faictz moy (haulte deesse)A qui pecheurs doivent tous recourirCombley de foy, sans faincte ne paresse,En ceste foy je vueil vivre et mourir.’

It is significant that the pre-Raphaelite Rossetti has translated this very poem of Villon,His Mother’s Service to Our Lady.Poems, p. 180.

[93]Edward Rod,Études sur le XIX. Siècle. Paris et Lausanne, 1888, p. 89.

[94]Rossetti,Poems, p. 277.

[95]

‘The springing green, the violet’s scent,The trill of lark, the blackbird’s note,Sunshowers soft, and balmy breeze:If I sing such words as these,Needs there any grander thingTo praise thee with, O day of spring?’

[96]Rod,op. cit., p. 67.

[97]Poems, p. 16.

[98]Sollier,Psychologie de l’Idiot et de l’Imbécile, p. 184. See also Lombroso,The Man of Genius(Contemporary Science Series), London, 1891, p. 216. A special characteristic found in literary mattoids, and also, as we have already seen, in the insane, is that of repeating some words or phrases hundreds of times in the same page. Thus, in one of Passanante’s chapters the wordriprovate(blame) occurs about 143 times.

[99]Poems, p. 31.

[100]Poems, p. 247.

[101]Algernon Charles Swinburne,Poems and Ballads. London: Chatto and Windus, 1889, p. 247.

[102]

‘The Runic stone stands out in the sea,There sit I with my dreams,‘Mid whistling winds and wailing gulls,And wandering, foaming waves.I have loved many a lovely child,And many a good comrade—Where are they gone? The wind whistles,The waves wander foaming on.’

[103]William Morris,Poems(Tauchnitz edition), p. 169:

‘And if it hap that ...

My master, Geoffrey Chaucer, thou do meet,Then speak ... the words:“O master! O thou great of heart and tongue!”’...

[104]A history of the commencement of this society has been written by one of the members, Mathias Morhardt. See ‘Les Symboliques,’Nouvelle Revuedu 15 Février, 1892, p. 765.

[105]Charles Morice,La Littérature de tout-à-l’heure. Paris, 1889, p. 274.

[106]Jules Huret,Enquête sur l’Évolution littéraire. Paris, 1891, p. 65.

[107]Charles Morice,op. cit., p. 271.

[108]Huret,op. cit., p. 14.

[109]VteE. M. de Vogüé,op. cit., p. xixet seq.

[110]Morice,op. cit., pp. 5, 103, 177.

[111]Rembrandt als Erzieher.Leipzig, 1890, p. 2.

[112]Edouard Rod,Les Idées morales du Temps présent. Paris, 1892, p. 66.

[113]Paul Desjardins,Le Devoir présent. Paris, 1892, pp. 5, 8, 39.

[114]F. Paulhan,Le nouveau Mysticisme. Paris, 1891, p. 120.

[115]Pierre Janet, ‘Les Actes inconscients et le Dédoublement de la Personalité,’ Revue philosophique, December, 1886. Paul Janet, ‘L’Hystérie et l’Hypnotisme d’après la Théorie de la double Personnalité,’ Revue scientifique, 1888, 1ervol., p. 616

[116]Morhardt,op. cit., p. 769.

[117]See the Catalogue of Scientific Papers compiled and published by the Royal Society. The first series of this catalogue, covering the time from 1800 to 1863, comprises six volumes; the second, dealing with the decade from 1864 to 1873, comprises two volumes, equivalent to at least three of the first series (1047 and 1310 pages); of the third series (1874 to 1883) only one volume has been issued as yet, but it promises to outrun the second by at least one half.

[118]Jules Huret,Enquête sur l’Évolution littéraire. Paris, 1891.

[119]Huret,op. cit., p. 65.

[120]Paul Verlaine,Choix de Poësies. Paris, 1891.

[121]Lombroso,L’Uomo delinquente, p. 184.

[122]Lombroso,op. cit., p. 276.

[123]Verlaine,op. cit., p. 272.

[124]Verlaine,op. cit., pp. 72, 315, 317.

[125]Shortly, but not immediately after, the immediate result being a sense of great relief and satisfaction.

[126]Verlaine,op. cit., pp. 175, 178.

[127]Legrain,Du délire chez les dégénéres, pp. 135, 140, 164.

[128]Huret,op. cit., p. 8.

[129]E. Marandon de Montyel, ‘De la Criminalité et de la Dégénérescence,’Archives de l’Anthropologie criminelle, Mai, 1892, p. 287.

[130]

Ah! if these are dream hands,So much the better, or so much the worse, or so much the better.

[131]Virgil’s ‘lentus,’ when applied to aspects of nature conveys a very different meaning.

[132]Charles Morice,La Littérature de tout-à-l’heure, p. 238.

[133]Huret,op. cit., p. 33.

[134]Since these words were written, M. Mallarmé has decided to publish his poems in one volume. This, far from invalidating what has been said, is its best justification.

[135]Huret,op. cit., p. 55.

[136]Hartmann,Der Gorilla. Leipzig, 1881, p. 34.

[137]Dr. L. Frigerio,L’Oreille externe: Étude d’Anthropologie criminelle. Lyon, 1889, pp. 32 and 40.

[138]Lombroso,L’Uomo delinquente, p. 255.

[139]Huret,op. cit., p. 102.

[140]Ibid., p. 106.

[141]Ibid., p. 401.

[142]Jean Moréas,Le Pélerin passionné. Paris, 1891, p. 3.

[143]Moréas,op. cit., pp. 21 and 2.

[144]Ibid., p. 43.

[145]Moréas,op. cit., p. 311.

[146]

‘O Syrinx! do you see and understand the Earth, and the wonder of this morning, and the circulation of life!O thou, there! and I, here! O thou! O me! All is in All!’

[147]Morice,op. cit., p. 30.

[148]Morice,op. cit., p. 321.

[149]Dr. F. Suarez de Mendoza,L’Audition colorée: Étude sur les fausses Sensations secondaires physiologiques. Paris, 1892.

[150]Alfred Binet, ‘Recherche sur les altérations de la conscience chez les hystériques,’Revue philosophique, 1889, 27evol., p. 165.

[151]Legrain,op. cit., p. 162.

[152]Lombroso,Genie und Irrsinn. German edition, p. 233.

[153]I may here be allowed to remind my readers that in the year 1885, and, accordingly, before the promulgation of the professed symbolistic programme, I laid down in myParadoxe(popular edition, part ii., p. 253) the principle that the poet must ‘to the majority of his readers utter the deep saying, “Tat twam asi!”—“That art thou!” of the Indian sage,’ and ‘must be able, with the ancient Romans, to repeat to the sound and normally developed man, “Of thee is the fable related.” In other words, the poem must be “symbolical” in the sense that it brings into view characters, destinies, feelings and laws of life which are universal.’

[154]Hugues Le Roux,Portraits de Cire. Paris, 1891, p. 129.

[155]VteE. M. de Vogüé,Le Roman russe. Paris, 1888, p. 293et seq.

[156]See, inWar and Peace(Leo. N. Tolstoi’s collected works, published, with the author’s sanction, by Raphael Löwenfeld, Berlin, 1892, vols. v.-viii.), the soldiers’ talk, part i., p. 252; the scene at the outposts, p. 314et seq., the description of the troops on the march, p. 332; the death of Count Besuchoi, pp. 142-145; the coursing, part ii., pp. 383-407, etc.

[157]See, inWar and Peace, the thoughts of the wounded Prince Andrej, part i., p. 516; Count Peter’s conversation with the freemason and Martinief Basdjejeff, part ii., pp. 106-114, etc.

[158]War and Peace, the episode of Princess Maria and her suitor, part i., pp. 420-423; the confinement of the little Princess, part ii., pp. 58-65; and all the passages where Count Rostoff sees the Emperor Alexander, or where the author speaks of the Emperor Napoleon I., etc.

[159]Vogüé,op. cit., p. 282.

[160]Count Leo Tolstoi,A Short Exposition of the Gospel. From the Russian, by Paul Lauterbach. Leipzig: Reclam’s Universal-Bibliothek, p. 13.

[161]L. Tolstoi,Short Exposition of the Gospel, p. 13.

[162]Tolstoi,Short Exposition, etc., p. 172.

[163]More accurately, in Vedântism.—Translator.

[164]Tolstoi,Short Exposition, etc., p. 128.

[165]Short Exposition, p. 60.

[166]De Vogüé,op. cit., p. 333.

[167]L. Tolstoi,Gesammelte Werke, Berlin, 1891, Band II.:Novels and Short Tales, part i.

[168]Léon Tolstoi,La Sonate à Kreutzer. Traduit du Russe par E. Halpérine-Kaminsky. Paris: Collection des auteurs célèbres, p. 72.

[169]P. 119.

[170]Short Exposition of the Gospel, p. 140.

[171]Le Roman du Mariage.Traduit du Russe par Michel Delines. Paris.Auteurs célèbres.

[172]Ed. Rod,Les Idées morales du Temps présent. Paris, 1892, p. 241.

[173]Raphael Löwenfeld,Leo N. Tolstoi, sein Leben, seine Werke, seine Weltanschauung. Erster Theil. Berlin, 1892, Introd., p. 1.

[174]Lombroso,Genie und Irrsinn, p. 256, foot-note.

[175]Löwenfeld,op. cit., p. 39.

[176]Ibid., p. 276.

[177]Professor Kowalewski, inThe Journal of Mental Science, January, 1888.

[178]Griesinger, ‘Ueber einen wenig bekannten psychopathischen Zustand,’Archiv für Psychiatrie, Band I.

[179]Lombroso,Genie und Irrsinn, p. 324.

[180]Sollier,Psychologie de l’Idiot et de l’Imbécile.

[181]Löwenfeld,op. cit., p. 100.

[182]Löwenfeld,op. cit., p. 47.

[183]Legrain,Du Délire chez les Dégénérés, pp. 28, 195.

[184]It is not my object, in a book intended primarily for the general educated reader, to dwell on this delicate subject. Anyone wishing to be instructed more closely in the morbid eroticism of the degenerate may read the books of Paul Moreau (of Tours)Des Aberrations du Sens génésique, 2eédition, Paris, 1883; and Krafft-Ebing’sPsychopathia sexualis, Stuttgart, 1886. Papers on this subject by Westphal (Archiv für Psychiatrie, 1870 and 1876), by Charcot and Magnan (Archives de Neurologie, 1882), etc., are scarcely accessible to the general public.

[185]V. Magnan,Leçons cliniques sur la Dipsomanie, faites à l’asile Sainte-Anne. Recueillies et publiées par M. le Dr. Marcel Briand. Paris, 1884.

[186]Richard Wagner,Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft. Leipzig, 1850. The numbering of the pages given in quotations from this work refers to the edition here indicated.

[187]Arthur Schopenhauer,Parerga und Paralipomena, Kurze Phil. Schriften. Leipzig, 1888, Band II., p. 465.

[188]Charles Féré,Sensation et Mouvement. Paris, 1887.

[189]Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft, p. 169: ‘It is only when the desire of the artistic sculptor has passed into the soul of thedancer, of themimic interpreter, of him who sings and speaks, that this desire can be conceived as satisfied. It is only when the art of sculpture no longer exists, or has followed another tendency than that of representing human bodies—when it has passed, as sculpture, intoarchitecture—when the rigid solitude of thisoneman carved in stone will have been resolved into the infinitely flowing plurality of veritable, living men ... it is only then, too, thatreal plasticwill exist.’ And on p. 182: ‘That which it [painting]honestlyexerts itself to attain, it attains in ... greatest perfection ... when it descends from canvas and chalk to ascend to thetragic stage.... But landscape-painting will become, as the last and most finished conclusion of all the fine arts, the life-giving soul, properly speaking, of architecture; it will teach us thus to organize thestagefor works of the dramatic art of the future, in which, itself living, it will represent the warmbackgroundofnaturefor the use of theliving, and not for the imitatedman.’

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