This opinion was supposed to have been completely confirmed by the discovery of the many “morbid symptoms” which men of genius present. Moreau collected a very considerable number of such cases, which have been injudiciously accepted by the other authors who have elaborated the same theme, and have received great accessions from new discoveries. One of the most comprehensive works in this department is that of Lombroso, whose book * has created a general sensation. Extensive as it is, its author makes no attempt to define genius, but seems to regard the meaning of the word as well settled. In the chapter entitled The Physiology of Genius, in which we might expect to find the writer’s opinion upon this point set forth, he tells us that men of genius commonly have cold feet and warm heads, etc., but unfortunately omits to inform us what he means by a man of genius. Throughout the book all sorts of men who have ever attained an}’ sort of eminence are adduced as examples of men of genius. Such characters as Columbus and Donizetti are treated promiscuously. The greatest men in the history of art and science are placed cheek by jowl with any weak-minded persons whose names have by some accident come before the public. Lombroso’s conclusion is that “ between the physiology of the man of genius and the pathology of the insane there are not a few points of agreement.” At the same time, in the book of which we are speaking, he says that there have been men of genius who, “allowance being made for some eccentricities of sense,” have never become insane. His list of these “sane geniuses “ is “Spinoza, Columbus, Dante, Michel Angelo,” etc.—a wonderfully harmonious assemblage. But subsequent studies have led this distinguished writer to modify this last opinion, and he has since declared that “ cases of genuine men of genius in which anomalies are wanting are probably illusory. In such cases either anomalies have escaped notice or defective data prevent our knowing of them.” What a pity that we neither know what he means by “genuine men of genius” nor by “anomalies “!

Before we go on to examine the numerous “morbid symptoms of genius” which Moreau and Lombroso are supposed to have discovered, let us briefly call to mind in what way we have come to specify certain phenomena as symptoms of mental derangement.