Genius and insanity. Parallel between great people and lunatics

Lombroso was born on November 6, 1835 in Verona, the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia, into a wealthy Jewish family. His father, Aronne Lombroso, was a merchant from Verona, and his mother was Zeffora (or Zephyra) Levi of Chieri near Turin. Lombroso came from a line of rabbis, which led him to study a wide range of topics at the university. Despite conducting religious studies at the university, Lombroso ultimately decided to continue his studies in medicine, which he successfully completed at the University of Turin.

short biography

After graduating from university, military service and leaving the army, Lombroso ran a psychiatric hospital in Pesaro. Lombroso married a woman named Nina de Benedetti on April 10, 1870. They had five children, one of whom, a daughter named Gina, continued to edit Lombroso's work after his death. Lombroso later came under the influence of his brother-in-law Guglielmo Ferrero, who led him to believe that not all crime comes from innate factors and that social factors also play a significant role in the process of becoming a criminal.

The future author of "Genius and Madness" - Lombroso, studied literature, linguistics and archeology at the universities of Padua, Vienna and Paris, but changed his plans and became an army surgeon in 1859. In 1866 he was appointed lecturer at Pavia, and in 1878 became professor of forensic medicine at Turin. In the same year, the creator of "Genius and Madness" C. Lombroso wrote his most important and influential work L "uomo delinquente, which went through five editions in Italian and was published in different European languages. However, it was not until 1900 that his work was published in English. Lombroso later became professor of psychiatry (1896) and criminal anthropology (1906) at the same university. He died in Turin in 1909.

The concept of criminal atavism

The general one suggested that repeat offenders differ from malefactors in numerous physical anomalies. He suggested that the criminals represented a return to the primitive type of man, characterized by physical features reminiscent of apes, lower primates and early humans, and to some extent preserved, he said, in modern "savages". The behavior of these biological "kickbacks" will inevitably be contrary to the rules and expectations of a modern civilized society.

Years after anthropometric studies of criminals, lunatics and normal people, Lombroso became convinced that the “congenital criminal” (reo nato is a term given by Ferry) can be anatomically identified due to such features as a sloping forehead, unusually sized ears, facial asymmetry, prognathism, asymmetry skulls and other "physical stigmata". He believed that specific criminals, such as thieves, rapists, and murderers, may have specific characteristics. Lombroso also argued that criminals have less sensitivity to pain and touch, sharper eyesight, lack of moral sense (including remorse), more vanity, impulsiveness, vindictiveness and cruelty.

Criminals on a whim and all the rest

In addition to the type of "born criminal", Lombroso also described "criminoids" or random criminals, criminals on a whim, "moral idiots" and "criminal epileptics". He acknowledged the lesser role of organic factors in many habitual offenders and mentioned the delicate balance between predisposing factors (organic, genetic) and accelerating factors such as environment, positive opportunities or poverty.

Crime and women

In The Criminal Woman, presented in English translation by Nicole Hahn Rafter and Mary Gibson, Lombroso used his theory of atavism to explain the criminality of women. In the text, Lombroso sets out a comparative analysis of "normal women" against "criminal women" such as thieves and prostitutes. However, Lombroso's "stubborn beliefs" about women presented an "insoluble problem" for this theory. The creator of the concept of genius and insanity Lombroso was convinced that women are inferior to men in everything, including the propensity to commit crimes.

scientific methods

Lombroso's research methods were clinical and descriptive, with precise details of skull measurement and other anthropometric data. He did not engage in rigorous statistical comparisons of criminals and non-criminals. Although he later learned about psychological and sociological factors in the etiology of crime, he remained convinced of the superiority of his criminal anthropometry. After his death, the skull and brain were measured according to his own theories by a colleague, as requested in his will. His head has been preserved in a jar and is still on display with his collection at the Museum of Psychiatry and Criminology in Turin.

Lombroso's theories were rejected throughout Europe, especially in the schools of medicine associated with Alexandre Lacassane in France, but not in the United States, where sociological studies of crime and the criminal were dominant. It is believed that his notions of physical differentiation between criminals and non-criminals were seriously challenged by Charles Hering (The English Convict, 1913), who analyzed carefully and found minor statistical differences.

Cesare Lombroso, "Genius and Madness" - summary

In addition to his contribution to criminology and the introduction of the concept of "degeneration", he believed that genius is closely related to insanity. In his attempts to develop these concepts, Lombroso, the author of the concept of genius and insanity, went to Moscow and met with Leo Tolstoy, hoping to find out and provide evidence for his theory of genius. And he succeeded, which shows further history his famous and scandalous work.

The psychiatrist Lombroso's book, Genius and Madness, was published in 1889 and argued that artistic genius was a form of hereditary insanity. To back up this claim, he began amassing a large collection of "psychiatric art". He published an article on the subject in 1880, in which he singled out thirteen characteristic features of the "art of the insane". Although the criteria are generally considered obsolete today, his work has inspired later writers on the subject, notably Hans Prinzhorn.

Communication with the scientific world

The book "Genius and Madness" by the Italian psychiatrist C. Lombroso inspired the work of Maxim Nordau, as evidenced by his devotion to the concept of degeneration, and he considered Lombroso himself his "dear and honored teacher." In his study of geniuses descending into madness, Lombroso stated that he could only find six people who did not show symptoms of "degeneration" or insanity: Galileo, Da Vinci, Voltaire, Machiavelli, Michelangelo, and Darwin. On the other hand, Lombroso argued that people like Shakespeare, Plato, Aristotle, Mozart and Dante all showed "degenerate symptoms of insanity".

Symptoms of degeneration in geniuses

To determine which geniuses were "degenerate" or insane, Lombroso rated each genius by whether they showed "symptoms of degeneration", which included precocity, longevity, versatility, and inspiration. Lombroso supplemented these personal observations with measurements, including facial angles, "abnormalities" in bone structure, and brain fluid volumes. The measurements taken of the skulls included those of Kant, Volta, Foscolo and Fusinieri. Lombroso's approach to using skull measurements inspired research in phrenology by the German physician Franz Josef Gall.

Genius and physiology

The author of "Genius and Madness" Lombroso associated genius with various health disorders, listing signs of degeneration in the second chapter of his work, some of which include various physiological abnormalities such as excessive pallor. Lombroso listed the following geniuses as "sickly and weak in childhood": Demosthenes, Bacon, Descartes, Newton, Locke, Adam Smith, Boyle, Flaxman, Nelson, Haller, Corner, and Pascal. Other physical ills associated with degeneration, according to Lombroso, included rickets, malnutrition, infertility, leftoverness, unconsciousness, stupidity, somnambulism, dwarfism or disproportion of the body, and amnesia. In his explanation of the connection between genius and insanity, Lombroso cites Ibsen, George Eliot, Browning, Louis Blanc, Swinburne, and others. Lombroso further cited some character traits as markers of degeneration: "love for special words" and "sense of inspiration."

Criticism

The methods and explanations in the psychiatrist Lombroso's book "Genius and Madness" were refuted and criticized by the American Journal of Psychiatry. In a review of the book, they stated, "There is a hypothesis here that claims to be the result of rigorous scientific research and grudging conviction backed up by apparent truths, distortions, and speculation." Lombroso's work has also been criticized by the Italian anthropologist Giuseppe Sergi, who, in his review of Genius and Madness, concludes that all theories that attempt to explain the nature of geniuses are based on observation and subjective assumptions.

Despite the criticism of the scientific community, the success was nevertheless ensured by Lombroso's book "Genius and Madness" - reviews about it still remain enthusiastic, because the reading public, as you know, loves unusual and exotic theories.

Cesare Lombroso (Italian: Cesare Lombroso)(November 6, 1835, Verona, Italy - October 19, 1909, Turin, Italy) - Italian prison psychiatrist, founder of the anthropological trend in criminology and criminal law, whose main idea was the idea of ​​​​a born criminal.

In 1863, the Italian psychiatrist Cesare Lombroso publishes his book "Genius and insanity. An introduction to the course of a psychiatric clinic read at the Pavian University." Milan, 1863 (Russian translation by K. Tetyushinova, 1892), in which he draws a parallel between great people and lunatics.

I. Introduction to historical review

Caesar Lombroso

Referring to the opinion of the ancient Greek scientists - Plato, Aristotle, Democritus, as well as the conclusions of some modern psychiatrists, Lombroso states: "As a result of such views on madness, the ancient peoples treated the mad with great respect, considering them inspired from above, which is confirmed, in addition to historical facts, also by the fact that the words mania in Greek, navi and mesugan in Hebrew, and anigrata in Sanskrit mean both madness and prophecy.

An analysis of the lives and works of some of the great contemporary writers also supports the hypothesis that insanity promotes genius. "Recently, Lelu - in Démon de Socrate, 1856, and BAmulet de Pascal, 1846, Verga - in Lipemania del Tasso, 1850, and Lombroso in Pazzia di Cardano, 1856, proved that many brilliant people, for example Swift, Luther, Cardano, Brugam, and others have been insane, hallucinated, or monomanic for a long time."

II. The similarity of brilliant people with physiologically crazy people

"A talented person acts strictly deliberately; he knows how and why he came to famous theory, whereas a genius is completely unaware of this: all creative activity is unconscious. "Because of this circumstance, deviations of a physiological nature - bruises of the head, a tendency of the nervous system to states of acute excitement and feeling create the prerequisites for creating brilliant works.

Lombroso gives numerous examples:

"Goethe says that a certain brain irritation is necessary for a poet and that he himself composed many of his songs, being, as it were, in a fit of somnambulism. Klopstock admits that when he wrote his poem, inspiration often came to him during sleep."

Lombroso's conclusion: "Thus, greatest ideas thinkers, prepared, so to speak, by the impressions already received and by the highly sensitive organization of the subject, are born suddenly and develop as unconsciously as the rash actions of madmen.

III. The influence of atmospheric phenomena on brilliant people and on lunatics

For three years, Lombraso has been studying the influence of the atmosphere on genius and insanity. "A study of 23,602 cases of insanity proved to me that the development of insanity usually coincides with the rise in temperature in spring and summer and even runs parallel to it, but in such a way that the spring heat, due to the contrast after the winter cold, acts even more strongly than the summer one, while the comparatively even warmth of August days has a less detrimental effect. In the following colder months, a minimum of new diseases is noticed.

Studying the statements of geniuses, Lombroso comes to the conclusion that there is a high positive relationship between weather conditions and creative ups.

“I am like a barometer,” wrote Alfieri, “and the greater or lesser ease of work always corresponds to my atmospheric pressure, complete stupidity (stupidita) attacks me during strong winds, my clarity of thought is infinitely weaker in the evening than in the morning, and in the middle of winter and summer my creative abilities are more alive than in other seasons. Such dependence on external influences, against which I am almost unable to fight, humbles me.

Having studied a large number of empirical facts, Lombroso makes one of the most interesting statements: “If historians who wrote so much paper and spent so much time on the most detailed depiction of cruel battles or adventurous enterprises carried out by kings and heroes, if these historians with the same thoroughness investigated the memorable era when this or that great discovery was made, or when a wonderful work of art was conceived, they would almost certainly be convinced that the hottest months and days are the most fertile, not only for all physical nature, but also for brilliant minds. “I will add that in those few cases when the creations of great people can be traced almost day by day, their activity in winter is constantly intensified on warmer days and weakening on cold ones.”

IV. The influence of meteorological phenomena on the birth of brilliant people

Another statistical parallel:

"It has long been noticed by both the common people and scientists that in mountainous countries with a warm climate there are especially many brilliant people. A popular Tuscan proverb says: "Highlanders have thick legs and tender brains."

"The well-known fact that in mountainous countries the inhabitants are more prone to madness than in lowlands is confirmed by quite psychiatric statistics. In addition, the latest observations prove that epidemic madness occurs much more often in the mountains than in the valleys."

V. The influence of race and heredity on genius and insanity

For a vivid example of the influence of nationality on genius and insanity, Lombroso took the Jews.

"It should also be noted that almost all brilliant people of Jewish origin showed a great inclination to create new systems, to change the social structure of society; in political science they were revolutionaries, in theology - the founders of new creeds, so that the Jews, in essence, are obliged, if not their origin, at least their development, on the one hand, nihilism and socialism, and on the other, Christianity and mosaicism, just as in trade they were the first to introduce bills, in philosophy - positivism, and in literature - neo-humorism (neo- umorismo) And at the same time, it is among the Jews that there are four times and even five times as many crazy people as among their fellow citizens belonging to other nationalities.

The influence of heredity on genius and insanity also does not go unnoticed by statistics. "There is no doubt that insanity is only in rare cases the result of bad education, while the influence of heredity in this case is so great that it reaches 88 per 100 according to Tigges' calculations and up to 85 per 100 according to Golgi's calculations. As for genius, then Galton and Ribot (De l "Hérédité, 1878) consider it most often the result of hereditary abilities, especially in musical art giving such a huge percentage of lunatics. So, among the musicians, the sons of Palestrina, Benda, Dussek, Hiller, Mozart, Eichhorn distinguished themselves with remarkable talents; The Bach family gave rise to 8 generations of musicians, of which 57 people were famous.

What is the measure of the connection between talent and insanity in one family? Here Lombroso again refers to numerous historical examples.

"But even more instructive in e in that respect biographies of great people. The father of Frederick the Great and the mother of Johnson were lunatics, the son of Peter the Great was a drunkard and a maniac; Sister Richelieu imagined that her back was made of glass, and Sister Hegel that she had turned into a mail bag; Sister Nicolini considered herself condemned to eternal torment for her brother's heretical beliefs and tried several times to injure him. Sister Lamba killed her mother in a fit of rage; Charles V's mother suffered from melancholy and insanity, Zimmermann's brother was mad; Beethoven's father was a drunkard; Byron's mother is a madman, his father is a shameless debauchee, his grandfather is a famous navigator; therefore, Ribot had every right to say of Byron that "the eccentricity of his character can be fully justified by heredity, since he descended from ancestors who possessed all the vices that can disrupt the harmonious development of character and take away all the qualities necessary for family happiness." Schopenhauer's uncle and grandfather were mad, while his father was an eccentric and subsequently became suicidal. Kerner's sister suffered from melancholy, and the children were mad and prone to somnambulism. Similarly, mental disorders suffered: Carlini, Mercadante, Donizetti, Volta; Manzoni's sons were mad, Willmen's father and brothers, Comte's sister, Perticari and Puccinotti's brothers. Grandfather and brother d "Azelio were distinguished by such oddities that all of Turin spoke of them."

VI. Men of genius who suffered from insanity

Harrington, Bolian, Kodazzi, Ampère, Kent, Schumann, Tasso, Cardano, Swift, Newton, Russo, Lenau, Sheheny, Schopenhauer are vivid examples of the connection between genius and insanity, according to Lombroso.

"Schumann, a harbinger of that direction in the musical art, which is known as the "music of the future", having been born into a wealthy family, could freely practice his favorite art and in his wife, Clara Wieck, found a tender, quite worthy of his girlfriend in life. Despite this , already at the age of 24 he became a victim of lipemania, and at the age of 46 he almost lost his mind: either he was pursued by talking tables with omniscience, or he saw sounds that haunted him, which first formed into chords, and then into whole musical phrases. Beethoven and Mendelssohn from their graves dictated various melodies to him. In 1854, Schumann threw himself into the river, but he was rescued, and he died in Bonn. An autopsy revealed the formation of osteophytes in him - thickening of the meninges and atrophy of the brain. "

“Swift, the father of irony and humor, already in his youth predicted that insanity awaited him; walking one day in the garden with Jung, he saw an elm tree, at the top of its almost devoid of leaves, and said: “I will just start dying from the head” Extremely proud with the higher ones, Swift willingly visited the dirtiest taverns and spent time there in the company of gamblers.As a priest, he wrote books of anti-religious content, so it was said about him that before he was given the rank of bishop, he should be baptized again. Idiot, deaf, powerless, ungrateful of friends - this is how he described himself.Inconsistency in him was amazing: he came to terrible despair about the death of his dearly beloved Stella and at the same time composed comic letters "About servants".A few months after that, he lost his memory, and he had only his former sharp, razor-sharp tongue.Then he fell into misanthropy and spent a whole year alone, not seeing anyone, not talking to anyone. I am not reading anything; for ten hours a day he walked around his room, always ate standing up, refused meat and was furious when someone entered his room. However, after the appearance of boils (vereda) in him, he seemed to be getting better and often said about himself: "I'm crazy," but this bright interval did not last long, and poor Swift again fell into a senseless state, although glimpses of irony, preserved in him even after losing their minds, they still flared up at times; so, when in 1745 an illumination was arranged in his honor, he broke his long silence with the words: "Let these madmen at least not drive others crazy."

In 1745, Swift died in a complete mental breakdown. He left behind a will written long before that, in which he refused 11,000 pounds sterling in favor of the mentally ill. The epitaph he composed for himself at the same time serves as an expression of the terrible moral suffering that tormented him constantly: "Here lies Swift, whose heart no longer breaks with proud contempt."

VII. Examples of geniuses, poets, humorists and others between lunatics

Summing up the work of poets and humorists of psychiatric clinics, Lombroso draws several interesting conclusions. "Thanks to their more vivid imagination and rapid association of ideas, madmen often do with great ease what makes it difficult for the most gifted healthy, normal people, as the characterization of Lazaretti, which we quoted earlier, written without any effort by a madman, while many allenists worked on it in vain, including the famous Dr. Michetti, who, of course, had greater insight and, what is even more important, an incomparably greater amount of data for making a correct diagnosis.Another characteristic feature of such writers - and this is noticeable even in the works of criminals - is the passion to talk about themselves or about their relatives and compose their autobiographies, while giving full rein to selfishness and vanity.It should be noted, however, that ordinary madmen find in their writings less artificiality in expressions and less consistency than criminals, but on the other hand they have more creative power and originality compared to these last ones. Further, the writers of the insane asylum are extremely inclined to use consonances, often completely meaningless, and invent new words, or else give special meaning to already existing words and exaggerate the meaning of the most insignificant petty details; thus, Farina devotes almost half a page to describing the bar of soap he bought.

In many mentally ill people, although not as often as in mattoids (touched, damaged), there is a noticeable desire to supplement their poetic fictions with drawings, as if neither poetry nor painting separately are strong enough to express their ideas. The lack of correctness and finishing affects the syllable; but the periods are distinguished by such strength and completeness that in this respect they are not inferior to the works of exemplary writers.

Such mastery of presentation and ability to versify, manifested in people who before the disease did not even have a concept of prosody, will not seem particularly amazing to us if we recall Byron's definition of poetry: in his opinion, based on his own experience, "poetry is the expression of passion which manifests itself more powerfully, the stronger was the excitement that caused it. From this it becomes clear why the crazy develop their imagination so strongly, often turning even into complete unbridledness. The richness of fantasy and passionate excitement have always been powerful factors in creative activity.

Autobiography of a lunatic (to chapter VII)

Lombroso gives an example from his psychiatric practice, which is extremely interesting even from the point of view of forensic psychiatry, "because in this case, in addition to an undoubted literary talent, temporarily caused by insanity, we also have evidence that lunatics can pretend to be insane under the influence of some kind of affect. especially for fear of punishment.

“One poor shoemaker, by the name of Farina, whose father, uncle and cousin were crazy and cretins, while still a young man, had long suffered from insanity and hallucinations, but he seemed cheerful and calm in appearance. Suddenly a fantasy came to him to kill a woman who had not done him nothing bad, the mother of that girl whom, under the influence of the erotic delirium peculiar to the madman, he considered his mistress, although, in fact, he only glimpsed her.Imagining that this woman incited invisible enemies against him, whose voices did not give him rest stabbed her with a knife, and fled to Milan.No one would have even suspected him of committing such a crime if, having returned to Pavia, he had not come himself to the police bureau and confessed to the murder, presenting, for greater persuasiveness, the sheath from that knife , which was inflicted fatal blow. But then, when he was put in prison, he repented of this act and pretended to suffer a complete loss of reason, although he no longer had this form of insanity at that time. When I was called in as an expert to decide on the mental state of the criminal, I hesitated for a long time, what conclusion to come to his account and how to make sure that, being insane, he is also pretending to be insane. Finally he was placed in my clinic, where I could observe him carefully and where he wrote his detailed biography for me; only then it became clear to me that in front of me was a real monomaniac.

This biography*, in my opinion, is the most precious document in the field of the pathological anatomy of thought, as an obvious proof of the possibility not only of the appearance of hallucinations with the normality of all other mental functions, but also of an irresistible impulse to commit a misdeed with a consciousness of responsibility for it, as I have already pointed out Professor Herzen in his excellent essay"On Free Will".

The autobiography is given in the appendix to the main text of the book in full.

Literary works of lunatics (to chapter VII)

Of particular interest is the Diary of the Pesaro Lunatic Asylum, as it is the first of its kind in Italy, which is maintained exclusively by the mentally ill (since 1872). Therefore, it can serve as an inexhaustible source of, so to speak, frenopathic literature. It is dominated by autobiographies and biographies, sometimes written in extremely flowery language. Here, for example, is how one young man, suffering from suicidal mania and moral insanity (mania morale), depicts his state of mind, which, however, does not prevent him from being a talented painter:

Opposition (La controvolonta)

Opposition is a terrible thing, and I can speak of it from experience, even too bitter, because it took away from me all the charm of the world around me and turned my calm, pleasant past life into a heavy and painful burden. In essence, this is what we are talking about: in order to really live in this world, it is not enough for a person only to eat and sleep, he must also control his abilities, he must have a goal in life and find pleasure in his studies. But dragging out a miserable existence with difficulty, not taking any part in the joys of life, is not worth it - it is a thousand times better to die or lose all self-consciousness. This is exactly what happened to me as well. Accustomed to a quiet and peaceful life, I suddenly saw myself involved in a whirlpool of cruel suffering; my poor brain, shocked by such an absurdity, refused to work as before, I could no longer talk freely about my affairs, and hence it was born the opposition, or the restriction of a person’s natural freedom, the impossibility of working and acting, as if some kind of material force binds individuality . I do not now have sufficient power over myself to give my actions the direction I want, as a result of which fear, longing, disgust for life appear. At first I felt some kind of indefinite restlessness, a painful heaviness, then this force grew, became more powerful, more insistent, so that at last it destroyed all contentment in me and forced me to spend time in the most tormenting boredom. At night I could not sleep, usually falling asleep for an hour or two, and the days became a painful pastime for me, because I absolutely do not know what to do with myself, where to lay my head, what direction to give my thoughts - and that’s all. favor of opposition. I hear talk of marital happiness, of peace of mind, of the satisfaction of self-love, of mutual affection between people, but I myself cannot experience anything like that; slowly I measure the hours, and my whole concern is to be as little bored as possible. Therefore, I would ask to produce a strong reaction in my brain and allow me to see my family. A beneficent shock could bring me enormous benefit: a cruel emotional excitement ruined me, another excitement, only in a different way, could save me. I have not seen my family for so many years, and Mr. Director understands how unpleasant this is. If I did any inconsistencies, it depended on the evil fate (fatalita) in whose power I am, and not on my character, which has always been considered excellent, which should also be taken into account.

VIII. Crazy artists and artists

"Du Cane and I have been able to investigate in a comprehensive way the problem of the manifestation of artistic inclinations in lunatics, with the help of the rich material collected in the hospitals for the insane, located in Pesaro and Pavia, and also thanks to the recent phreniatric exhibition in Reggio * and the assistance of many specialists who helped us not only with advice, but also with the delivery of many interesting documents and facsimiles.Based on the data collected in this way, we found artistic inclinations in 107 madmen, including 46 people who were engaged in painting, 10 in sculpture, 11 in carving, 8 in music, 5 in architecture and 27 poetry."

Lombroso collects any mention of features of creativity of patients.

“Of the eight painters who were in Perugia, the characteristics of which Adriani sent me, four retained their full talent under the influence of acute or intermittent madness; in two, the talent was significantly weakened, so that upon recovery they destroyed the pictures painted during the illness; in one it completely disappeared, and finally, the last one, the Lipemaniac, has lost the correctness of drawing and coloring. One painter, Verga writes to me, used red paint in such an excess that all the figures painted by him seemed to depict drunken people. Alcoholics, on the contrary, always abuse yellow paint, which Frigerio noticed and in one patient who suffered from moral insanity.There is also a case when an alcoholic painter lost all ability to distinguish colors and so far improved in the use of only white paint for his paintings, which he painted in between periods of hard drinking, which became the first in all France artist of winter, northern landscapes . Cretins, idiots, imbeciles either draw figures of children, or constantly reproduce the same drawing, as, for example, Grandi, although they sometimes show remarkable abilities in coloring and composing arabesques: I myself happened to see cretins who drew ciphers beautifully twice. Often even people in a normal state, who did not feel any inclination for art, after an illness, suddenly begin to draw and do it most diligently precisely at the moment of its greatest development.

Lombroso examines in detail features of drawings of patients highlighting the main ones.

1) The choice of plot is determined in many by the nature of the mental disorder: the Lipemaniak constantly painted a man with a skull in his hand; a woman who suffered from megalomania certainly placed the image of a deity on her embroideries; monomaniacs mostly use some kind of emblem to denote the imaginary disasters that torment them. I have a libel composed by an official from Voger, who imagined that he was pursued by the prefect by means of the winds; therefore, he depicted in the drawing, on the one hand, a crowd of enemies chasing him, and on the other, the judges protecting him. One woman, who suffered from persecution mania and partly erotic insanity, drew an image of the Virgin, and in the caption under it she hinted that it was her own image.

2) Mental disorder often causes in patients, as we have already seen with geniuses and even with brilliant madmen, extraordinary originality in invention, which is sharply expressed even in the works of half-mad people. The reason for this is clear: their unrestrained imagination creates such bizarre images that a healthy mind would recoil from, recognizing them as illogical, absurd. So, for example, in Pesaro there was a lady who came up with a special way of embroidering or, rather, laying out: she pulled the threads out of the fabric and then pasted them with saliva onto paper.

3) But in the end, originality itself turns into something strange, bizarre, and seemingly logical for all or almost all lunatics only when we know the point of their madness and when we imagine how unbridled their imagination is. Simon noticed that in the mania of persecution, as well as in paralytic megalomania, the imagination is the more alive and the power of creative, eccentric fantasy is the more active, the less normal the state of mental faculties. One mentally ill painter, for example, assured that he sees the bowels of the earth, and in them - a lot of crystal houses, illuminated by electricity and filled with a wonderful aroma and charming images. He further described the city of Emma that seemed to him, the inhabitants of which have two mouths and two noses - one for ordinary use, and the other for more aesthetic; their brains are silver, their hair is golden, they have three or four arms, and only one leg and a small wheel is attached under it.

4) One of the characteristic features of the artistic creativity of madmen is the almost constant use of written signs along with drawings, and in these latter there is an abundance of symbols, hieroglyphs. Such mixed works are extremely similar to the paintings of the Japanese, Indians, ancient wall paintings of the Egyptians and are caused in madmen by the same reasons as in ancient peoples, i.e. the need to supplement the meaning of a word or picture that is not strong enough on its own to express a given idea with the desired clarity and completeness. This explanation is quite applicable to the fact told to me by Monti, when a dumb man, who suffered from insanity for 15 years, added a lot of incomprehensible rhymed inscriptions, epigraphs, inscribed inside the plan and around it, to the plan of some building that he drew quite correctly, obviously, for the purpose of serving as comments which the poor man could not give orally.

5) Some, although few, of the mentally ill, according to Toselli, have a strange tendency to draw arabesques and ornaments of almost geometrically correct form, but at the same time extremely elegant; however, only monomaniacs show a peculiarity of this kind, but in madmen and maniacs a chaotic disorder prevails, however, sometimes also not without elegance, as Monty told me and drawn by a madman proves, with the image of some building, composed of a thousand tiny curls, beautifully intertwined with each other in all sorts of ways.

6) Further, among many, especially among erotomaniacs, paralytics and insane, drawings and poetic works are distinguished by utter obscenity; so, one insane carpenter carved male genital organs on the corners of his furniture and on the tops of trees, which, however, again resembles the sculpture of savages and ancient peoples, in which the genital organs are found everywhere. Another, a captain from Genoa, constantly drew obscene scenes. Sometimes such artists try to disguise the cynicism of their drawings and explain it by the imaginary requirements of art itself, as, for example, a sick man who imagined that he was depicting a picture. doomsday, or a pater who painted nude figures and then shaded them so artistically that reproductive organs, breasts, etc. stood out quite clearly, and objected to accusations of obscenity that only people who were hostile to his drawings found it. This same subject often depicted a group of three persons - a woman in the arms of two men, of which one was wearing a pater (Raja) hat.

7) A common feature of most of the works of madmen is their uselessness, uselessness for the workers themselves, which is fully confirmed by the saying of Heckart: "To work on the creation of unusable things is an occupation peculiar only to madmen." Thus, one woman, who suffered from persecution mania, worked for whole years, charmingly painting fragile eggs and lemons, but, apparently, without any purpose, because she always carefully hid her works, so that even me, whom she considered her best friend , managed to see them only after her death. In the same way was the work of that patient who sewed for himself only one boot, which we spoke about earlier. You might think that madmen, like brilliant artists, also adhere to the theory of art for art's sake, only in a perverted sense.

8) Sometimes madmen also create extremely useful things, but completely unsuitable for them personally, and, moreover, not in the specialty that they were previously engaged in. For example, one deranged commissary devised and made a model of a bed for raging patients, so practical that, in my opinion, this bed should have been put into use; two other officials worked together to make pretty, carved ox-bone matchboxes, although they could not profit from any of this work, because they refused to sell their products. However, I happened to see many exceptions to this rule: for example, a melancholic, suffering from the mania of murder and suicide, arranged for himself a knife and fork from the bones left over from dinner, which was very useful for him, since, by order of the director, he They did not give metal knives and forks. A megalomaniac, a cafe attendant, treated at the hospital of Collegno, prepared an excellent sweet vodka there, although the materials brought to him by lovers of this drink were of the most varied quality. A fifty-year-old woman, suffering from attacks of rabies, sewed a huge night cap in the form of a helmet and could not sleep except by pulling it over her face up to the very neck; a maniac-criminal made himself a key out of splinters. I do not speak here of those who made for themselves real cuirasses of iron or pebbles, since in this case the work was caused by the need to protect themselves from imaginary pursuers, and therefore the work was fully rewarded by the results obtained.

9) In the artistic creation of madmen, of course, all sorts of absurdities both in terms of color and the figures themselves predominate, but this is especially evident in some maniacs due to an uneven, exaggerated association of ideas that does not give room for intermediate shades in the embodiment of the image conceived by the artist. The insane, on the other hand, have breaks in the association of ideas, as can be seen, for example, from the fact that one of them, wishing to depict the marriage in Cana, perfectly painted all the apostles, and instead of the figure of Christ, a huge bouquet of flowers.

10) With some, especially with monomaniacs, we see, on the contrary, already too much abundance of petty details, so that out of a desire to more accurately express the idea of ​​​​a drawing, they make it completely incomprehensible. In one landscape, for example, placed in Turin between paintings not accepted for the exhibition, in a field seen in the distance, all the blades of grass were clearly separated from one another, or in a huge picture the shading was made as thin as in a small pencil drawing.

11) Some of the madmen show an amazing talent in imitation, in the ability to grasp the appearance of an object, for example, they accurately copy the facade of a hospital, the heads of animals; but such, although very careful, drawings are usually devoid of grace and resemble the infantile state of art.

Features of the musical art of patients

“In the art of music, the preponderance, apparently, also turns out to be on the side of megalomaniacs and paralytics, for the same reason as in painting, namely due to the strongest mental excitement. Thus, with one of the paralytics, there were real musical paroxysms during the entire duration of the illness , during which he imitated all kinds of instruments and in playing quiet places (piano) showed an indescribable passion.Another paralytic, imagining herself a French empress, performed marches for her troops with her lips and snapping her fingers and sang to the beat of these sounds.

Another paralytic patient, who considered himself an admiral general, also often sang some kind of monotonous melodies. The original poet and painter, the megalomaniac M., who sometimes wrote charming, sometimes ridiculous poems that we have cited earlier, also wrote or, rather, scribbled some musical pieces according to a new system invented by himself, which, however, was incomprehensible to anyone.

Maniacs always prefer fast paced high notes, especially when in a cheerful mood, and like to repeat the choruses (Raji). However, in general, all patients, even if for a short time in insane asylums, show a great inclination to singing, shouting, and to any expression of their feelings through sounds, and a certain measure, rhythm is always noticeable. The reason for this phenomenon, just like the abundance between crazy poets, will be quite clear to us when we recall the opinion of Spencer and Ardigo, who prove that the law of rhythm is the most common form of manifestation of energy inherent in everything in nature, starting from stars, crystals and ending with animal organisms. Instinctively obeying this law of nature, a person strives to express it in all ways and with greater intensity, the weaker his mind is. That is why primitive peoples always love music to a passion. Spencer heard from a missionary that he sang psalms to savages to teach them, and by the next day almost all of them knew them by heart.

IX. Mattoid graphomaniacs, or psychopaths

Lombroso calls the mattoid-graphomaniacs a species that constitutes an intermediate link, a transitional stage between brilliant madmen, healthy people and actually crazy people.

Literary works of mattoids (to chapter IX)

Although they are most interested in politics, theology and poetry, they are also involved in mathematics, physics, even histology and clinical medicine. Lombroso gives several examples.

Here I have before me a work in two large volumes entitled "A New Pathology Based on Ancient Principles," where, with the help of absurd and confused quotations, the author tries to reduce all diseases to an ellipse. Even the letters should be elliptical, in his opinion, like all objects in general.

“Smells and tastes,” says the inventor of the New Pathology, “also need to be placed on an elliptical scale, since they have an abstract focus - a pleasant or unpleasant sensation they cause. Who does not know the elliptical properties of warmth? The most perfect creatures, like man and angels, form an ellipse.Man consists of soul and body, elliptically connected to each other.All tissues are composed of four substances, which, depending on whether they are dominated by the arterial or lymphatic principle, penetrate into various tissues to a greater or lesser extent. Bones also of lymphatic origin, as is noticed when they are boiled, and consist of membranes of lymphatic, arterial, calcareous or gastric (ventrale) and fibrous or venous ", etc.

Finally, there are many more works by mattoid publicists who propose various extreme measures regarding state improvement. Among them, there are especially many economists who come up with various projects in the form of improving Italy's finances. By the way, on this subject I came across a pamphlet with the following title: "On universal usury as the cause of the disturbance of the economic balance in our time - arguments most respectfully proposed by one elector for the well-being of his excellency, the chairman of the Council and the Minister of Finance, Mr. Mark Minghetti, in order to prove the necessity, possibility, convenience and justice of a patriotic loan of four billions for only one percent of a hundred, as the only means of counteracting the usury of the banks and achieving a stable equilibrium in the balance sheet, and through this the destruction of the forced exchange rate without increasing or changing taxes.

This is the full title of the pamphlet. This means is based on a voluntary subscription, or rather a forced loan through wealthy Jews. Something like two drops of water similar is also proposed in a brochure entitled: "How to deliver a billion, and after that other billions to the Ministry of Finance and Trade."

Graphomaniac criminals (to chapter IX)

Lombroso describes examples of a special variety of lunatics or semi-lunatics, "people extremely irritable and vain to such an extent, thirsting for fame that they are ready to achieve it by all means, but most often by an attempt on the life of crowned or important persons."

Someone M.A. pretended to be a professor at Oxford University, who defeated 300 candidates and received a salary of 20 thousand rubles, although he did not speak English at all and knew little Latin; but he invented such a method of teaching, with the help of which even those who do not know in English could teach it. Living in London, M.A. met a princess and imagined that she was in love with him, although she soon even refused him a house. He then published a voluminous volume of memoirs, where he accused the princess of stealing his portfolio; then he wrote accusatory articles against the minister and submitted memorandums either to Parliament or to the House of Lords. One of these latter even promised the author to interpellate about his note, but at that very time M.A. suddenly moved to Paris, where he was received under his patronage by the emperor's chaplain.

After the fall of the empire, M.A. appealed to the Bishop of Limoges; however, he immediately understood with whom he was dealing, and sent the petitioner to a hospital for the insane.

X. "Prophets" and revolutionaries. Savonarola. Lazaretti

Lombroso attempts to explain how great successes in the politics and religion of peoples have been brought about, or at least projected, by the lunatics or the semi-lunatics.

The reason for such a phenomenon is obvious: only in them, in these fanatics, next to originality, which is an integral part of both brilliant people and crazy, but even more genius madmen, exaltation and passion reach such strength that they can cause altruism, forcing a person to sacrifice his interests and even life itself to propagate ideas to the crowd, which is always hostile to any novelty and is sometimes capable of bloody reprisals against innovators.

It goes without saying that they do not create anything new, but only give impetus to the movement prepared by time and circumstances; obsessed with a positive passion for every novelty, for everything original, they are almost always inspired by a newly discovered discovery, an innovation, and are already building their conclusions about the future on it. So, Schopenhauer, who lived in an era when pessimism, with an admixture of mysticism and enthusiasm, began to come into fashion, according to Ribot, only combined the ideas of his time into a coherent philosophical system.

In the same way, Luther only summarized the views of his predecessors and contemporaries, as evidenced by the sermons of Savonarola.

“But the main reason is that many of the madmen often showed intelligence and will that significantly exceeded the general level of development of these qualities among the mass of other fellow citizens, absorbed in the cares of satisfying their material needs. Further, it is known that under the influence of passion, the strength and tension of the mind increase noticeably, in some forms of insanity, which is nothing but morbid exaltation, they are, one might say, increased tenfold.The deep faith of these people in the reality of their between their miserable obscure past and the grandeur of their present position, they naturally attached enormous importance to such crazy people in the eyes of the crowd and elevated them above the general level of sane, but ordinary, ordinary people. Lazaretti, Briand, Loyola, Malinas, Joan of Arc, Anabaptists, etc., can serve as an example of such charm. hobbies, delivered sermons, often distinguished by liveliness and eloquence.

XI. Special features of brilliant people who suffered at the same time and insanity

Speaking about the high correlation between genius and insanity, Lombroso believes that there are many geniuses who are not mentally ill. Lombroso identifies 15 features that distinguish healthy geniuses from those with insanity.

Let's take the first two as an example:

1) First of all, it should be noted that these damaged geniuses have almost no character at all, that whole, real character, never changed by the whim of the wind, which is the lot of only a select few geniuses, like Cavour, Dante, Spinoza and Columbus. So, for example, Tasso constantly scolded high-ranking officials, and he himself kowtowed before them all his life and lived at court. Cardano himself accused himself of lying, slander and passion for the game. Rousseau, who flaunted his lofty feelings, showed complete ingratitude towards the woman who showered him with benefactions, left his children to the mercy of fate, often slandered others and himself, and became an apostate three times, renouncing first Catholicism, then Protestantism, and, finally, that worst of all, from the religion of the philosophers.

2) A healthy man of genius is aware of his strength, knows his worth, and therefore does not stoop to complete equality with everyone; but on the other hand, he does not have even a shadow of that painful vanity, that monstrous pride that consumes mentally deranged geniuses and makes them capable of all sorts of absurdities.

Anomalies of the skull in great people (to the XI chapter)

Lombroso summarizes various kinds of statistical data that testify in favor of the hypothesis of the abnormal development of the brain or its parts in geniuses.

"In France, Le Bon, who examined 26 skulls of brilliant Frenchmen, such as Boileau, Descartes, Jourdan, and others, found in the most famous of them a capacity of 1732 cm3, while the ancient inhabitants of Paris had only 1559: at present At the same time, only 12 per hundred Parisians represent a capacity above 1700 cm 3. Among men of genius, 73 per hundred have a capacity greater than this average figure.

XII. Exceptional features of brilliant people

Lombroso asks the question: is there a connection between genius and insanity?

“If genius was always accompanied by madness, then how can one explain to oneself that Galileo, Kepler, Columbus, Voltaire, Napoleon, Michelangelo, Cavour, people who are undoubtedly brilliant and, moreover, who were subjected to the most difficult trials during their lives, never showed signs of insanity?

In addition, genius usually manifests itself much earlier than madness, which for the most part reaches its maximum development only after the age of 35, while genius is revealed from childhood, and in young years it already appears with full force: Alexander the Great was at the height of his fame in 20 years old, Charlemagne - at 30 years old, Charles XII - at 18, D "Alamber and Bonaparte - at 26 (Ribot)".

And yet "we are convinced that psychopaths have something in common not only with geniuses, but, unfortunately, with the dark world of crime; we see, moreover, that real lunatics are sometimes distinguished by such an outstanding mind and often by such extraordinary energy that involuntarily forces to equate them, at least for a while, with brilliant personalities, and in the common people causes first amazement, and then reverence for them.

“Having established such a close relationship between men of genius and lunatics, nature seems to want to point out to us our obligation to treat indulgently the greatest of human calamities, madness, and at the same time give us a warning not to be too carried away by the brilliant ghosts of geniuses, many of which not only do they not rise to the transcendental spheres, but, like sparkling meteors, having flashed once, they fall very low and drown in a mass of delusions.

Ideas of Lombroso in Russia

The works and views of Lombroso were ambiguously perceived in scientific circles. This did not stop the scientist, who continued to collect interesting facts about the biographies of celebrities, the mentally ill, and criminals until the end of his life. “To the caustic mockery and petty cavils of our opponents, we, following the example of that original, who, to convince people who denied the movement, moved in their presence, will only answer by collecting new facts and new evidence in favor of our theory. What could be more convincing facts and who will deny them? Only the ignorant, but their triumph will soon come to an end.

Ideas about the genius and insanity of Lombroso won wide popularity in Russia. They are represented by numerous both lifetime and posthumous Russian editions of his scientific works. In 1897, Lombroso, who participated in the congress of Russian doctors, was given an enthusiastic reception in Russia. In his memoirs dedicated to the Russian episode of his biography, Lombroso reflected a sharply negative vision of the social order of Russia, typical of the Italian left of his day, which he severely condemned for police arbitrariness (“suppression of thought, conscience and character of the individual”) and authoritarian methods of exercising power.

In Soviet Russia, the term "Lombrosianism" was widely used to denote the anthropological school of criminal law - one of the trends in the bourgeois theory of law (according to the criteria of the class approach).

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Cruel and sad as this kind of paradox may be, but, considering it with scientific point view, we will find that in some respects it is quite sound, although at first sight it seems absurd.

Many of the great thinkers are subject to, like crazy, convulsive contractions of the muscles and are distinguished by sharp, so-called "choreic" body movements. So, about Lenau and Montesquieu, they say that on the floor near the tables where they studied, one could notice indentations from the constant twitching of their legs. Buffon, immersed in his thoughts, once climbed the bell tower and descended from there by a rope quite unconsciously, as if in a fit of somnambulism. Santeil, Crebillon, Lombardini had strange facial expressions, similar to grimaces. Napoleon suffered from constant twitching of his right shoulder and lips, and during fits of anger, also of his calves. "I must have been very angry," he himself once confessed after a heated argument with Lowe, "because I felt my calves trembling, which had not happened to me for a long time." Peter the Great was prone to twitching of facial muscles, which terribly distorted his face.

"Carducci's face," says Mantegazza, "at times resembles a hurricane: lightning flashes from his eyes, and the trembling of muscles is like an earthquake."

Ampère could not speak otherwise than by walking and moving all his limbs. It is known that the normal composition of the urine and in particular the content of urea in it changes markedly after manic attacks. The same thing is noticed after intensive mental exercises. Already many years ago, Golding Bird made the observation that an English preacher, who spent the whole week in idleness and only on Sundays delivered sermons with great fervour, on that very day the content of phosphate salts in the urine increased significantly, while on other days it was extremely insignificant. Subsequently, Smith confirmed by many observations that with any mental exertion the amount of urea in the urine increases, and in this respect the analogy between genius and madness seems undoubted.

On the basis of this abnormal abundance of urea, or rather on the basis of this new confirmation of the law of balance between force and matter that governs the whole world of living beings, other, more amazing analogies can be deduced: for example, gray hair and baldness, thinness of the body, and also bad muscular and sexual activity, characteristic of all lunatics, are very common among great thinkers. Caesar was afraid of the pale and thin Cassians. D "Alamber, Fenelon, Napoleon were as thin as skeletons in their youth. Segur writes about Voltaire: "Thinness proves how much he works; his emaciated and bent body serves only as a light, almost transparent shell, through which one seems to see the soul and genius of this man.

Paleness has always been considered an accessory and even an adornment of great people. In addition, thinkers, on a par with lunatics, are characterized by: constant overflow of the brain with blood (hyperemia), intense heat in the head and cooling of the limbs, a tendency to acute brain diseases and weak sensitivity to hunger and cold.

About brilliant people, just like about crazy people, it can be said that they remain lonely, cold, indifferent to the duties of a family man and a member of society all their lives. Michelangelo constantly said that his art replaces his wife. Goethe, Heine, Byron, Cellini, Napoleon, Newton, although they did not say this, but by their actions proved something even worse.

There are frequent cases when, due to the same causes that so often cause insanity, i.e. due to diseases and injuries of the head, the most ordinary people turn into brilliant ones. As a child, Viko fell from the highest stairs and crushed his right parietal bone. Gratry, at first a bad singer, became a famous artist after being severely bruised on the head with a log. Mabil-on, completely imbecile from his youth, achieved fame for his talents, which developed in him as a result of a head wound he received. Gallus, who reported this fact, knew one half-idiot Dane whose mental abilities became brilliant after he, at the age of 13, fell head first down the stairs 3) . A few years ago, a cretin from Savoy, bitten by a mad dog, became a perfectly reasonable man in the last days own life. Dr. Galle knew limited people whose mental faculties developed unusually as a result of diseases of the brain (mi-dollo).

“It may very well be that my illness (disease of the spinal cord) gave my last works some kind of abnormal connotation,” Heine says with amazing perspicacity in one of his letters. It must, however, be added that the illness affected in this way not only his latest works, and he himself was aware of this. A few months before the intensification of his illness, Heine wrote about himself (Correspondace inedite. Paris, 1877): “My mental excitement is more the result of illness than genius - in order to at least slightly alleviate my suffering, I wrote poetry. In these terrible nights, distraught from pain, my poor head tosses from side to side and makes the bells of a worn-out stupid cap ring with cruel gaiety.

Bisha and von der Kolk noticed that people with a twisted neck have a sharper mind than ordinary people. Conolly had one patient whose mental faculties were excited during operations on him, and several such patients who showed special talent in the first periods of consumption and gout. Everyone knows how wit and cunning humpbacks are; Rokitansky even tried to explain this by saying that their aorta, having given the vessels going to the head, makes a bend, as a result of which the volume of the heart expands and blood pressure in the skull increases.

This dependence of genius on pathological changes can partly explain the curious feature of genius compared to talent, in that it is something unconscious and appears quite unexpectedly.

Jurgen Meyer says that a talented person acts strictly deliberately; he knows how and why he came to a certain theory, while a genius is completely unaware of this: all creative activity is unconscious.

Haydn attributed the creation of his famous oratorio The Creation of the World to a mysterious gift sent down from above. “When my work did not move forward well,” he said, “I, with a rosary in my hands, retired to the chapel, read the Mother of God - and inspiration returned to me again.”

The Italian poetess Milli, during the creation, almost involuntarily, of her wonderful poems, is agitated, screams, sings, runs back and forth and seems to be in a fit of epilepsy.

Those of genius who have observed themselves say that, under the influence of inspiration, they experience some inexpressibly pleasant feverish state during which thoughts involuntarily arise in their minds and splash out of themselves, like sparks from a burning brand.

This is beautifully expressed by Dante in the following three lines:

... I mi son un che, guando

Amore spira, noto ed in quel modo

Che detta dento vo significando.

(Inspired by love, I say what she tells me.)

Napoleon said that the outcome of battles depends on one moment, on one thought, temporarily remaining inactive; when a favorable moment comes, it flares up like a spark, and the result is victory (Moro).

Bauer says that Koo's best poems were dictated to him in a state close to insanity. In those moments when these wonderful stanzas flew from his lips, he was not able to reason even about the simplest things.

Foscolo confesses his Epistolario, the best work this great mind that the creative ability of the writer is determined by a special kind of mental excitement (fever), which cannot be caused at will.

“I write my letters,” he says, “not for the fatherland and not for glory, but for that inner pleasure that the exercise of our abilities gives us.”

Bettinelli calls poetry a sleep with open eyes, without loss of consciousness, and this is perhaps fair, since many poets dictated their poems in a dream-like state.

Goethe also says that a certain brain stimulation is necessary for a poet, and that he himself composed many of his songs, being, as it were, in a fit of somnambulism.

Klopstock confesses that when he wrote his poem, inspiration often came to him during sleep.

In the dream, Voltaire conceived one of the songs of the Henriade, Sardini the theory of playing the harmonica, and Seckendorf his lovely song about Fantasia. Newton and Cardano allowed in a dream math problems.

Muratori composed a pentameter in Latin in a dream many years after he stopped writing poetry. It is said that while sleeping, Lafontaine composed the fable "Two Doves", and Condillac finished the lecture he had begun the day before.

"Kubla" by Coleridge and "Fantasy" by Golde were composed in a dream.

Mozart admitted that musical ideas appear to him involuntarily, like dreams, and Hoffmann often told his friends: "I work, sitting at the piano with my eyes closed, and reproduce what someone tells me from outside."

Lagrange noticed an irregular beating of his pulse when he wrote, while Alfieri's eyes grew dark at that time.

Lamartine often said: "It is not I who think, but my thoughts think for me."

Alfieri, who called himself a barometer - his creative abilities changed to such an extent depending on the time of year - with the onset of September, he could not resist the involuntary impulse that seized him, so strong that he had to give in and wrote six comedies. On one of his sonnets, he made the following inscription with his own hand: "Random. I did not want to write it." This predominance of the unconscious in the work of brilliant people was noticed even in antiquity.

Socrates was the first to point out that poets create their works not as a result of effort or art, but due to some natural instinct. In the same way, soothsayers say beautiful things, completely unaware of it.

“All brilliant works,” says Voltaire in a letter to Diderot, “are created instinctively. The philosophers of the whole world together could not write Armida Cinema or the fable “The Sea of ​​​​Beasts”, which La Fontaine dictated, not even knowing well what would come of it. Corneille wrote the tragedy of Horace as instinctively as a bird builds a nest.

Thus, the greatest ideas of thinkers, prepared, so to speak, by the impressions already received and by the highly sensitive organization of the subject, are born suddenly and develop as unconsciously as the rash actions of madmen. The same unconsciousness explains the steadfastness of convictions in people who have assimilated fanatically known convictions. But as soon as the moment of ecstasy, excitement has passed, the genius turns into an ordinary person or falls even lower, since the lack of uniformity (balance) is one of the signs of a genius nature. Disraeli put it well when he said that the best English poets, Shakespeare and Dryden, have the worst poetry. It was said about the painter Tintoretto that he was sometimes higher than Carracci, sometimes lower than Tintoretto.

Ovidio quite correctly explains the dissimilarity of Tasso's style by his own admission that when inspiration disappeared, he got confused in his writings, did not recognize them and was not able to appreciate their merits.

There is no doubt that there is a complete resemblance between a madman during a fit and a man of genius who thinks and creates his work.

Recall Latin proverb: "Aut insanit homo, aut versus fecit" ("Either a madman, or a poet").

Here is how the doctor Revelier-Parat describes Tasso's condition:

“The pulse is weak and uneven, the skin is pale, cold, the head is hot, inflamed, the eyes are shiny, bloodshot, restless, running around. At the end of a period of creativity, the author himself often does not understand what he expounded a minute ago.”

Marini, when writing Adone, did not notice that he had badly burned his leg. Tasso during the period of creativity seemed completely crazy. In addition, thinking about something, many artificially cause a rush of blood to the brain, as, for example, Schiller, who put his feet on ice, Pitt and Fox, who prepared their speeches after immoderate use of porter, and Paisiello, who wrote only under a lot of blankets. Milton and Descartes threw their heads down on the sofa, Bossuet retired to a cold room and put warm poultices on his head; Cujas worked lying face down on the carpet. There was a saying about Leibniz that he thought only in a horizontal position - to such an extent it was necessary for him for mental activity. Milton composed with his head thrown back on the pillow, and Thomas (Thomas) and Rossini - lying in bed; Rousseau pondered his works under the bright midday sun with an open head.

Evidently they all instinctively used such remedies as temporarily increase the flow of blood to the head to the detriment of the rest of the body. Here, by the way, to mention that many of the gifted and especially brilliant people abused alcoholic beverages. Not to mention Alexander the Great, who, under the influence of intoxication, killed his best friend and died after draining the cup of Hercules ten times - Caesar himself was often carried home by soldiers on their shoulders. Socrates, Seneca, Alcibiades, Cato, and especially Septimius Severus and Mahmud II, were so intemperate that they all died of drunkenness due to delirium tremens. The constable of Bourbon, Avicenna, who is said to have devoted the second half of his life to proving the futility of scientific information acquired by him in the first half, and many painters, such as Carracci, Steen, Barbatelli, and a whole galaxy of poets - Murger, Gerard de Nerval, Musset, Kleist, Mailat and, at the head of them, Tasso, who wrote in one of his letters: "I do not deny that I am mad; but I am pleased to think that my madness came from drunkenness and love because I really drink a lot."

Many drunkards are also found among the great musicians, such as Dussek, Handel and Gluck, who said that "he considers it quite fair to love gold, wine and fame, because the first gives him the means to have the second, which, inspiring, gives him glory." However, in addition to wine, he also loved vodka and finally got drunk on it.

It has been observed that almost all the great creations of thinkers receive their final form, or at least come to light under the influence of some special sensation, which plays here, so to speak, the role of a drop of salt water in a well-arranged voltaic column. The facts prove that all great discoveries were made under the influence of the senses, as Moleschotte confirms. Several frogs, from which it was supposed to prepare a healing decoction for Galvani's wife, served to discover galvanism. The isochronous (simultaneous) swings of the chandelier and the fall of the apple prompted Newton and Galileo to create great systems. Alfieri composed and pondered his tragedies while listening to music. Mozart, at the sight of an orange, remembered a Neapolitan folk song that he heard five years ago, and immediately wrote the famous cantata for the opera Don Giovanni. Looking at some porter, Leonardo conceived his Judas, and Thorvaldsen found a suitable pose for a seated angel at the sight of his sitter's antics. Inspiration first struck Salvatore Rosa while admiring the view of Posilino, and Hogarth found types for his caricatures in a tavern after a drunkard had broken his nose in a fight there. Milton, Bacon, Leonardo, and Warburton needed to hear the bells in order to get to work; Bourdalou, before dictating his immortal sermons, always played some aria on the violin. The reading of one of Spenser's odes aroused in Cowley a penchant for poetry, and Sacrobose's book made Gammad addicted to astronomy. Considering cancer, Watt attacked the idea of ​​​​developing an extremely useful machine in industry, and Gibbon decided to write the history of Greece after he saw the ruins of the Capitol 4) .

But in exactly the same way, certain sensations cause insanity or serve as the starting point of it, being sometimes the cause of the most terrible attacks of rabies. Thus, for example, Humboldt's nurse confessed that the sight of the fresh, tender body of her pet aroused in her an uncontrollable desire to kill him. And how many people were involved in murder, arson or grave digging at the sight of an ax, a blazing fire and a corpse!

It should also be added that inspiration, ecstasy always turn into real hallucinations, because then a person sees objects that exist only in his imagination. So, Grossi said that one night, after he had worked for a long time on describing the appearance of the ghost of Prien, he saw this ghost in front of him and had to light a candle to get rid of him. Ball talks about the son (successore) Reynolds, that he could make up to 300 portraits a year, since it was enough for him to look at someone for half an hour while he sketched, so that later this face would constantly be in front of him, as if alive . The painter Martini always saw the pictures he was painting in front of him, so that one day when someone stood between him and the place where the image appeared to him, he asked this person to step aside, because it was impossible for him to continue copying while existing only in in his imagination the original was closed. Luther heard arguments from Satan that he could not have come up with before.

If we now turn to the solution of the question - what exactly is the physiological difference between a man of genius and an ordinary person, then, on the basis of autobiographies and observations, we find that for the most part the whole difference between them lies in the refined and almost painful impressionability of the first. A savage or an idiot is insensitive to physical suffering, their passions are few, and from the sensations they perceive only those that directly concern them in the sense of satisfying vital needs. As the mental faculties develop, impressionability grows and reaches its greatest strength in brilliant personalities, being the source of their suffering and glory. These chosen natures are more sensitive quantitatively and qualitatively than mere mortals, and the impressions they perceive are profound, long remembered and combined in various ways. Little things, random circumstances, details that are imperceptible to an ordinary person, sink deep into their souls and are processed in a thousand ways in order to reproduce what is usually called creativity, although these are only binary and quaternary combinations of sensations.

Haller wrote about himself: “What is left for me, besides impressionability, this powerful feeling, which is the result of a temperament that vividly perceives the joys of love and the wonders of science? Even now I am moved to tears when I read the description of some generous act. sensitivity, of course, and gives my poems that passionate tone that other poets do not have.

"Nature has not created a more sensitive soul than mine," Diderot wrote about himself. Elsewhere he says, "Increase the number of sensitive people and you will increase the number of good and bad deeds." When Alfieri heard the music for the first time, he was, in his words, “astonished to such an extent, as if the bright sun blinded my eyesight and hearing; for several days after that I felt an unusual sadness, not without pleasantness; fantastic ideas crowded into my head, and I would be able to write poetry if I knew then how it is done ... " In conclusion, he says that nothing affects the soul so irresistibly powerful as music. A similar opinion was expressed by Stern, Rousseau and J. Sand.

Corradi proves that all the misfortunes of Leopardi and his very philosophy were caused by excessive sensitivity and unsatisfied love, which he first experienced in the 18th year. Indeed, Leopardi's philosophy took on a more or less gloomy tone, depending on the state of his health, until at last the melancholy mood became a habit with him.

Urquizia fainted when he smelled the rose.

Sterne, after Shakespeare, the most profound of the poets-psychologists, says in one letter: “Reading the biographies of our ancient heroes, I weep for them as if for living people ... Inspiration and impressionability are the only tools of genius. The latter evokes in us those delightful sensations that give great strength to joy and cause tears of tenderness.

It is known in what slavish subordination Alfieri and Foscolo were in women who were not always worthy of such adoration. The beauty and love of Fornarina served as a source of inspiration for Raphael not only in painting, but also in poetry. Several of his erotic poems still have not lost their charm.

And how early passions manifest themselves in people of genius! Dante and Alfieri were in love at 9 years old, Rousseau - 11, Carron and Byron - 8. With the latter, already in the 16th year, convulsions began when he found out that the girl he loved was getting married. “Grief choked me,” he says, “although I was still unfamiliar with sexual desire, I felt love so passionate that it was unlikely that I later experienced a stronger feeling.” At one of Kitz's performances, Byron had a fit of convulsions.

Lorby saw scholars swooning with delight while reading the writings of Homer.

Painter Francia (Francia) died of admiration after he saw a painting by Raphael.

Ampère felt the beauty of nature so vividly that he almost died of happiness when he found himself on the shores of Lake Geneva. Having found a solution to some problem, Newton was so shocked that he could not continue his studies. Gay-Lussac and Davy, after their discovery, began to dance in their shoes in their office. Archimedes, delighted with the solution of the problem, in the costume of Adam ran out into the street shouting: "Eureka!" ("Found!") In general, strong minds also have strong passions, which give special vivacity to all their ideas; if in some of them many passions fade, as it were, die away with time, it is only because they are gradually drowned out by the predominant passion for fame or science.

But it is precisely this too strong impressionability of people of genius or only giftedness that in the vast majority of cases is the cause of their misfortunes, both real and imaginary.

“A precious and rare gift, which is the privilege of great geniuses,” writes Mantegazza, “is accompanied, however, by painful sensitivity to all, even the smallest, external stimuli: every breath of the breeze, the slightest increase in heat or cold, turns for them into that dried rose petal who kept the unfortunate sybarite awake." Lafontaine may have had himself in mind when he wrote:

"Un souffle, une rien leur donne la fievre".

[The slightest breath of wind, the smallest cloud, every little thing makes them feverish.]

Genius is irritated by everything, and what for ordinary people seems to be just pinpricks, then with his sensitivity it already seems to him a blow of a dagger.

Boileau and Chateaubriand could not indifferently hear the praise of anyone, even their shoemaker.

When Foscolo once spoke with Mrs. S., writes Mantegazza, whom he courted greatly, and she mocked him evilly, he became so furious that he shouted: "You want to kill me, so I will immediately crush my skull at your feet" . With these words, he flung himself headlong into the corner of the fireplace with all his might. One of those who stood nearby managed, however, to hold him by the shoulders and thereby save his life.

Painful impressionability also gives rise to exorbitant vanity, which distinguishes not only people of genius, but also scientists in general, starting from ancient times; in this respect, both of them are very similar to monomaniacs suffering from prideful insanity.

"Man is the most vain of animals, and poets are the most vain of people," wrote Heine, meaning, of course, himself. In another letter, he says: "Do not forget that I am a poet and therefore I think that everyone should stop all their affairs and start reading poetry."

Menke talks about Filelfo, how he imagined that in the whole world, even among the ancients, no one knew better than his Latin language. Abbot Cagnoli was so proud of his poem about the battle of Aquileia that he was furious when one of the writers did not bow to him. "What, you don't know Cagnoli?" he asked.

The poet Lucius did not get up when Julius Caesar entered the meeting of poets, because he considered himself superior to him in the art of versification.

Ariosto, having received Laurel wreath from Charles V, ran like a madman through the streets. The famous surgeon of Porta, when present at the Lombard Institute when reading medical writings, did his best to express his contempt and displeasure with them, whatever their dignity, while he listened calmly and attentively to writings on mathematics or linguistics.

Schopenhauer was furious and refused to pay bills if his last name was written in two paragraphs.

Barthez lost sleep with despair when, when printing his "Genie" (Genie), a sign was not placed over e. Whiston, according to Arago, did not dare to publish a refutation of Newtonian chronology for fear that Newton would not. killed him.

Everyone who had the rare happiness of living in the company of brilliant people was amazed at their ability to reinterpret every act of those around them in a bad way, to see persecution everywhere and in everything to find a reason for deep, endless melancholy. This ability is due precisely to a stronger development of mental powers, due to which a gifted person is more able to find the truth and at the same time more easily invents false arguments in support of the solidity of his painful error. Part of the gloomy view of geniuses on the environment also depends, however, on the fact that, being innovators in the mental sphere, they express convictions with unshakable firmness that are not similar to the generally accepted opinion, and thereby repel most ordinary people from themselves.

But still, the main cause of melancholy and dissatisfaction with the life of the chosen natures is the law of dynamism and balance, which also governs the nervous system, the law according to which, after the excessive expenditure or development of force, there is an excessive decline of the same force - the law, as a result of which none of the miserable mortals can show a certain strength without paying for it in another respect, and, finally, the law that determines the unequal degree of perfection of their own works is very cruel.

Melancholy, despondency, shyness, selfishness - this is a cruel retribution for the highest mental gifts that they spend, just as the abuse of sensual pleasures entails a disorder of the reproductive system, impotence and diseases of the spinal cord, and excess in food is accompanied by gastric catarrhs.

After one of those ecstasies during which the poetess Milli discovers such an enormous power of creativity that it would be enough for a lifetime of minor Italian poets, she fell into a semi-paralytic state that lasted several days. Mahomet, at the end of his sermons, fell into a state of complete stupefaction, and one day he himself told Abu-Bakr that the interpretation of three chapters of the Koran had driven him to stupefaction.

Goethe, himself a cold Goethe, confessed that his mood was sometimes too cheerful, sometimes too sad.

In general, I do not think that in the whole world there is at least one great person who, even in moments of complete bliss, would not consider himself, without any reason, unhappy and persecuted, or at least temporarily would not suffer from painful fits of melancholy.

Sometimes sensitivity is distorted and becomes one-sided, concentrating on one point. Several ideas of a certain order and some especially favorite sensations gradually acquire the significance of the main (specific) stimulus acting on the brain of great people and even on their whole organism.

Heine, who himself admitted that he was incapable of understanding simple things, Heine, paralyzed, blind and already on his last breath, when he was advised to turn to God, interrupted the wheezing of agony with the words: "Dieu me pardonnera - c" est son metier ", ending with this last irony of his life, which was not more aesthetically cynical in our time.About Aretino they say that his last words were: "Guardatemi dai topi or che son unto".

Malherbe, already quite dying, corrected the grammatical errors of his nurse and refused the parting words of the confessor because he spoke awkwardly.

Bogur (Baugours), a grammarian, dying, said: "Je vais ou je va mourir" - "both are correct."

Santenis (Santenis) went crazy with joy, having found an epithet, which he searched in vain for long time. Foscolo said of himself: "Meanwhile, as in some things I am extremely understanding, regarding others, my understanding is not only worse than that of any man, but worse than that of a woman or a child."

It is known that Corneille, Descartes, Virgil, Addison, La Fontaine, Dryden, Manzoni, Newton were almost completely unable to speak in public.

Poisson said that life is worth living just to do mathematics. D "Alamber and Menage, who calmly endured the most painful operations, wept from the light injections of criticism. Lucio de Lanceval laughed when his leg was cut off, but could not bear the sharp criticism of Geoffroy.

Sixty-year-old Linnaeus, who had fallen into a paralytic and senseless state after an apoplexy, awoke from drowsiness when he was brought to the herbarium, which he had previously especially loved.

When Lanyi lay in a deep faint and the most powerful means could not arouse consciousness in him, someone took it into his head to ask him how much 12 would be squared, and he immediately answered: 144.

Sebuya, an Arabic grammarian, died of grief because Caliph Haroun al-Rashid did not agree with his opinion regarding some grammatical rule.

It should also be noted that among the brilliant or rather learned people often there are those narrow specialists whom Wachdakoff calls monotypic subjects; all their lives they are engaged in one kind of conclusion, which first occupies their brain and then already covers it completely: for example, Beckman studied the pathology of the kidneys throughout his whole life, Fresner - the moon, Meyer - ants, which is very similar to monomaniacs.

Because of this exaggerated and concentrated sensibility, both great men and lunatics are extremely difficult to convince or dissuade of anything. And this is understandable: the source of true and false ideas lies deeper with them and is more developed than among ordinary people, for whom opinions are only a conditional form, a kind of clothing, changed at the whim of fashion or at the request of circumstances. From this it follows, on the one hand, that no one should be trusted unconditionally, not even great men, and, on the other hand, that moral treatment is of little use to lunatics.

The extreme and one-sided development of sensibility is no doubt the cause of those strange behaviors due to temporary anesthesia* and analgesia 2) that are characteristic of great geniuses as well as lunatics. Thus, it is said of Newton that one day he began to fill his pipe with his niece's finger, and that when he happened to leave the room to fetch something, he always returned without taking it. They say about Tucherel that once he even forgot his name.

Beethoven and Newton, having begun - one for musical compositions, and the other for solving problems, became so insensitive to hunger that they scolded the servants when they brought them food, assuring them that they had already had dinner.

Gioia, in a fit of creativity, wrote an entire chapter on a desk board instead of paper.

The abbot Beccaria, busy with his experiments, during the mass service, said, forgetting: "Ite, experientia facta est" ("And yet experience is a fact").

Diderot, hiring cabs, forgot to let them go, and he had to pay them for the whole days that they stood idle in front of his house in vain; he often forgot months, days, hours, even the faces with whom he began to talk, and, as if in a fit of somnambulism, uttered whole monologues in front of them.

In the same way it is explained why great geniuses sometimes fail to assimilate the concepts accessible to the most ordinary minds, and at the same time express such bold ideas that most seem absurd. The fact is that a greater impressionability corresponds to a greater limitation of thinking (concetto). The mind under the influence of ecstasy does not perceive too simple and easy positions that do not correspond to its powerful energy. So, Monge, who made the most complex differential calculations, found it difficult to extract the square root, although any student could easily solve this problem.

Hagen considers originality to be precisely the quality that sharply distinguishes genius from talent. Similarly, Jurgen Meyer says: “The fantasy of a talented person reproduces what has already been found, the fantasy of a genius is completely new. The first makes discoveries and confirms them, the second invents and creates. to a goal that is not even visible to us. Originality is in the nature of a genius. "

Bettinelli considers originality and grandiosity to be the main hallmarks of genius. "That's why," he says, "the poets used to be called trovadori" (inventors).

A genius has the ability to guess what he does not quite know: for example, Goethe described Italy in detail before he saw it. Precisely because of this perspicacity, which rises above the general level, and because the genius, absorbed in higher considerations, differs from the crowd in super-deeds or even, like madmen (but in contrast to talented people), reveals a tendency to disorderliness - genius natures are met with contempt by the majority, which, not noticing intermediate points in their work, sees only the contradictory nature of their conclusions with generally recognized ones and strangeness in their behavior. Not so long ago, the public booed Rossini's Barber of Seville and Beethoven's Fidelio, and in our time Boito (Mephistopheles) and Wagner have suffered the same fate. How many academicians with a smile of compassion reacted to poor Marzolo, who opened up an entirely new field of philology; Bolyai, who discovered the fourth dimension and wrote anti-Euclidean geometry, was called a mad geometer and compared with a miller who would think of grinding stones to make flour. Finally, everyone knows with what distrust Fulton, Columbus, Papin, and in our time Piatti, Prague and Schliemann were once met, who found Ilion where he was not suspected, and, having shown his discovery to academic academics, silenced their mockery of yourself.

By the way, the most cruel persecution of people of genius has to be experienced precisely from academic academics, who, in the struggle against genius, conditioned by vanity, use their “scholarship”, as well as the charm of their authority, which is mainly recognized for them both by ordinary people and by the ruling classes. , also for the most part consisting of dozens of people.

There are countries where the level of education is very low and where, therefore, not only brilliant, but even talented people are treated with contempt. There are two university cities in Italy, from which the people who were the only glory of these cities were forced to withdraw by all kinds of persecution. But originality, although almost always aimless, is also often noticed in the actions of mad people, and especially in their writings, which only as a result sometimes acquire a shade of genius, as, for example, the attempt of Bernard, who was in the Florentine hospital for the insane in 1529, to prove that monkeys have the ability to articulate speech (linguaggio). Incidentally, men of genius are as distinguished as lunatics by a propensity for disorderliness and complete ignorance of practical life, which seems to them so insignificant in comparison with their dreams.

Originality, on the other hand, determines the tendency of brilliant and mentally ill people to invent new words that are incomprehensible to others or to give famous words a special meaning and significance, which we find in Vico, Carraro, Alfieri, Marzolo and Dante.

1) The late Metropolitan Macarius of Moscow, who was distinguished by a remarkably bright mind, was such a sickly and stupid child that he could not study at all. But in the seminary, one of the comrades, during the game, hit his head with a stone, and after that Macarius's abilities became brilliant, and his health completely recovered.

2) Goethe created his theory of the development of the skull according to the general type of spinal vertebrae during a walk, when, pushing a sheep's skull lying on the road with his foot, he saw that it was divided into three parts.

3) Loss of tactile sensitivity.

4) Loss of pain sensitivity.

551-8460

ABSTRACT ON PHILOSOPHY ON THE TOPIC :

Psychoanalysis and the problem of man.

“GENIUS

INSANE.”

Parallel

between great people

and crazy

by Cesare Lombroso.

I.

II.

III. The influence of atmospheric phenomena on brilliant people and lunatics.

IV. The influence of meteorological phenomena on the birth of brilliant people.

v. Varieties of graphomaniac mattoids. (according to C. Lombroso)

VI. "Prophets" and revolutionaries.

VII. Exceptional features of brilliant people. Conclusion.

"Genius is a man possessed,

but he is a creator...

N. A. Berdyaev.

"Genius and insanity ” .

Introduction and historical review.

Unfortunately, sometimes, with the help of inexorable analysis, they destroy and destroy one after another those bright, iridescent illusions with which a person deceives and exalts himself. So, due to fatal necessity, he comes to the conclusion that love is, in essence, nothing but the mutual attraction of stamens and pistils ... and thoughts are a simple movement of molecules. Even genius - this only sovereign power that belonged to a person, before which one can kneel without blushing - even many psychiatrists put it on the same level with a propensity to crime, even they see in it only one of the teratological forms of the human mind, one of the varieties of insanity.

Even Aristotle, this great founder and teacher of all philosophers, noted that under the influence of a rush of blood to the head, “many individuals become poets, prophets or soothsayers and that Mark of Syracuse wrote pretty good poems while he was a maniac, but, having recovered, he completely lost this ability ".

He says in another place: “It is noticed that famous poets, politicians and artists were partly melancholy and mad, partly misanthropes, like Bellerophon. Even at the present time we see the same thing in Socrates, Empidocles, Plato, and others, and most strongly in the poets. People with cold, abundant blood are timid and limited, and people with hot blood are agile, witty and talkative.

Plato argues that “delusion is not a disease at all, but, on the contrary, the greatest of the blessings bestowed on us by the gods; under the influence of delusion, the Delphic soothsayers of Dodona rendered thousands of services to the citizens of Greece, while in the ordinary state they brought little or no use at all... heroes, which contributes to the enlightenment of future generations”.

Democritus even directly said that he does not consider a person who is of sound mind to be a true poet. Excludit sanos, Helcone poetas.

As a result of such views on madness, the ancient peoples treated the mad with great respect, considering them inspired from above, which is confirmed, in addition to historical facts, also by the fact that the words mania - in Greek, navi and mesugan - in Hebrew, and nigrata - in -Sanskrit means both madness and prophecy.

Felix Plater claims that he knew many people who, while distinguished by remarkable talent in various arts, were at the same time mad. Their insanity was expressed by an absurd passion for praise, as well as strange and indecent acts. By the way, Plater met at court those who used great fame architect, sculptor and musician, no doubt crazy. And Pascal constantly said that the greatest genius borders on sheer madness, and subsequently proved this by his own example.

The similarity of brilliant people with crazy people.

Cruel and deplorable as this kind of paradox may be, but, viewed from a scientific point of view, it can be said that in some respects it is quite reasonable, although at first glance it seems absurd.

Many of the great thinkers are subject to, like crazy, convulsive contractions of the muscles and are distinguished by sharp, so-called "choreic" body movements. So they say about Lenau and Montesquieu that on the floor near the tables where they studied, one could notice indentations from the constant twitching of their legs. Napoleon suffered from constant twitching of his right shoulder and lips, and during fits of anger, also of his calves. “I must have been very angry,” he himself once admitted after a heated argument with Lowe, because he felt his calves trembling, which had not happened to me for a long time. Peter the Great was subject to twitching of facial muscles, which terribly distorted his face.

Cesare Lombroso, on the basis of the law of the balance between force and matter, which governs the whole world of living beings, also brought out other, more amazing analogies: for example, gray hair and baldness, thinness of the body, as well as poor muscular and sexual activity, characteristic of all crazy people, are very common. and great thinkers. Caesar was “afraid” of the pale and thin Cassians. D'Alembert, Fenelon, Napoleon were as thin as skeletons in their youth. Segur writes about Voltaire: “Thinness proves how much he works, his emaciated and hunched body serves only as a shell through which you seem to see the soul and genius of this man.”

Paleness has always been considered an accessory and even an adornment of great people. In addition, thinkers, on a par with lunatics, are characterized by: constant overflow of the brain with blood (hyperemia), intense heat in the head and cooling of the limbs, a tendency to acute brain diseases and weak sensitivity to hunger and cold.

About people of genius, just like about crazy people, it can be said that they remain lonely, cold, indifferent to the duties of a family man and a member of society all their lives. Michelangelo constantly said that "his art replaces his wife." Goethe, Heine, Byron, Cellini, Napoleon, Newton, although they did not say this, but by their actions proved something even worse.

It is not uncommon for the same causes that so often cause madness, that is, due to diseases and damage to the head, the most ordinary people turn into brilliant people. As a child, Viko fell from the highest stairs and crushed his right parietal bone. Gratry, at first a bad singer, became a famous artist after being severely bruised on the head with a log. Mabillon, from his youth completely imbecile, achieved fame for his talents, which developed in him as a result of the wound he received in the head.

A few months before the intensification of his illness, Heine wrote about himself (Correspondance inedite. Paris, 1877): “My mental excitement is more the result of an illness than a genius - in order to console my suffering a little, I composed poetry. In these terrible nights, mad with pain, my poor head rushes from side to side and makes the bells of a worn-out foolish cap ring with cruel gaiety.

This dependence of genius on pathological changes can partly explain the curious feature of genius in comparison with talent: it is something unconscious and manifests itself completely unexpectedly.

Jurgen Meyer says that a talented person acts strictly deliberately; he knows how and why he came to a certain theory, while a genius is completely unaware of this: all creative activity is unconscious.

Those of genius who have observed themselves say that, under the influence of inspiration, they experience some inexpressibly pleasant feverish state, during which thoughts involuntarily arise in their minds and splash out of themselves, like sparks from a hot brand.

Napoleon said that the outcome of battles depends on one moment, on one thought, temporarily left inactive; when a favorable moment comes, it flares up like a spark, and the result is victory (Moro). Socrates was the first to point out that poets create their works not as a result of effort or art, but due to some natural instinct. In the same way, soothsayers say beautiful things, completely unaware of it.

“All works of genius,” says Voltaire in a letter to Diderot, “are created instinctively. The philosophers of the whole world together could not have written Kino's Armida or the fable "The Pestilence of the Beasts" that Lafontaine dictated without even knowing well what would come of it. Corneille wrote the tragedy "Horace" as instinctively as a bird builds a nest.

Thus, the greatest ideas of thinkers, prepared, so to speak, by the impressions already received and by the highly sensitive organization of the subject, are born suddenly and develop as unconsciously as the rash actions of madmen. The same unconsciousness explains the steadfastness of convictions in people who have fanatically assimilated certain convictions to themselves. But as soon as the moment of ecstasy, excitement has passed, the genius turns into an ordinary person or falls even lower, since the lack of uniformity (balance) is one of the signs of a genius nature. There is no doubt that there is a complete resemblance between a madman during a fit and a man of genius who thinks and creates his work. A Latin proverb says: “Aut insanit homo, aut versus fecit” (“Either a madman, or a poet”).

Evidently they all instinctively used such remedies as temporarily increase the flow of blood to the head to the detriment of the rest of the body. Here, by the way, to mention that many of the gifted and especially brilliant people abused alcoholic beverages. Not to mention Alexander the Great, who, under the influence of intoxication, killed his best friend and died after draining the cup of Hercules ten times - Caesar himself was often carried home by soldiers on their shoulders. Socrates, Seneca, Alcibiades, Cato, and especially Septimius Severus and Mahmud II, were so intemperate that they all died of delirium tremens. Tasso wrote in one of his letters: “I do not deny that I am mad; but I like to think that my madness came from drunkenness and love, because I really drink a lot.

Many drunkards are also found among the great musicians, such as Dussek, Handel and Gluck, who said that "he considers it quite fair to love gold, wine and fame, because the first gives him the means to have the second, which, inspiring, gives him glory." However, in addition to wine, he also loved vodka and finally got drunk on it.

It has been observed that almost all the great creations of thinkers receive their final form, or at least come to light under the influence of some special sensation, which plays here, so to speak, the role of a drop of salt water in a well-arranged voltaic column. The facts prove that all great discoveries were made under the influence of the senses, as Moleschotte confirms. Several frogs, from which it was supposed to prepare a healing decoction for Galvani's wife, became the reason for the discovery of galvanism. The isochronous (simultaneous) swings of the chandelier and the fall of the apple prompted Newton and Galileo to create great systems. Looking at some porter, Leonardo conceived his Judas, and Thorvaldsen found a suitable position for a seated angel at the sight of his sitter's antics, etc.

But in exactly the same way, certain sensations cause insanity or serve as the starting point of it, being sometimes the cause of the most terrible attacks of rabies. How many people have been involved in murder, arson or grave digging at the sight of an ax, a blazing fire and a corpse!

It should also be added that inspiration, ecstasy always turn into real hallucinations, because then a person sees objects that exist only in his imagination. So Grossi said that one night, after he had labored for a long time to describe the appearance of the ghost of Prien, he saw this ghost in front of him and had to light a candle to get rid of him. Bal talks about the son of Reynolds, that he could make up to three hundred portraits a year, since it was enough for him to look at someone for half an hour while he sketched out a sketch, so that later this face would constantly be in front of him, as if alive. Luther heard arguments from Satan that he had not previously been able to come up with on his own.

If we now turn to the solution of the question - what exactly is the physiological difference between a man of genius and an ordinary person, then, on the basis of autobiographies and observations, we find that for the most part the whole difference between them lies in the refined and almost painful impressionability of the first. A savage or an idiot is insensitive to physical suffering, their passions are few, and from the sensations they perceive only those that directly concern them in the sense of satisfying vital needs. As the mental faculties develop, impressionability grows and reaches its greatest strength in brilliant personalities, being the source of their suffering and glory. These chosen natures are more sensitive quantitatively and qualitatively than mere mortals, and the impressions they perceive are profound, long remembered and combined in various ways. Little things, random circumstances, details that are imperceptible to an ordinary person, sink deep into their souls and are processed in a thousand ways in order to reproduce what is usually called creativity, although these are only binary and quaternary combinations of sensations.

“Galler wrote about himself: “What is left with me, except for impressionability, this powerful feeling, which is the result of a temperament that vividly perceives the joys of love and the wonders of science? It is my sensitivity, of course, that gives my poems that passionate tone that other poets do not have.”

“Nature has not created a more sensitive soul than mine,” Diderot wrote about himself. Elsewhere he says, "Increase the number of sensitive people and you will increase the number of good and bad deeds."

Sterne, after Shakespeare, the most profound of the poets-psychologists, says in one letter: “Reading the biographies of ancient heroes, I cry about them as if about living people ... Inspiration and impressionability are the only tools of genius. The latter evokes in us those delightful sensations that give great strength to joy and cause tears of tenderness.”

It is known in what slavish subordination Alfieri and Foscolo were in women who were not always worthy of such adoration. The beauty and love of Fornarina served as a source of inspiration for Raphael not only in painting, but also in poetry.

And how early passions manifest themselves in people of genius!

Dante and Alfieri were in love at nine, Rousseau at eleven, Carron and Byron at eight. With the latter, already in the sixteenth year, convulsions began when he learned that the girl he loved was getting married. “Grief choked me,” he says, “although I was not yet familiar with sexual desire, I felt love so passionate that it is unlikely that I later experienced a stronger feeling.”

Lorby saw scholars swooning with delight while reading the writings of Homer.

The painter Francia died of admiration after he saw a painting by Raphael.

But it is precisely this too strong impressionability of people of genius or only giftedness that in the vast majority of cases is the cause of their misfortunes, both real and imaginary. Genius is irritated by everything, and what for ordinary people seems to be just pinpricks, then with his sensitivity it already seems to him a blow of a dagger. Painful impressionability also gives rise to exorbitant vanity, which distinguishes not only people of genius, but also scientists in general, starting from ancient times; in this respect, both of them are very similar to monomaniacs suffering from prideful insanity.

“Man is the most vain of animals, and poets are the most vain of people,” wrote Heine, meaning, of course, himself. In another letter, he says: “Do not forget that I -

- a poet and therefore I think that everyone should quit all their affairs and start reading poetry.

The poet Lucius did not get up when Julius Caesar appeared in the meeting of poets, because he considered himself superior to him in the art of versification.

Schopenhauer was furious and refused to pay bills if his last name was spelled with two "n".

Everyone who had the rare happiness of living in the company of brilliant people was amazed at their ability to reinterpret every act of others in a bad way, to see persecution everywhere and in everything to find a reason for deep, endless melancholy. This ability is due precisely to a stronger development of mental powers, due to which a gifted person is more able to find the truth and at the same time more easily invents false arguments in support of the solidity of his painful error. Part of the gloomy view of geniuses on the environment depends, however, on the fact that, being innovators in the mental sphere, they repel most ordinary people with unshakable firmness.

But still, the main reason for melancholy and dissatisfaction with the life of chosen natures, according to C. Lombroso, is the law of dynamism and balance, which also governs nervous system, the law according to which, following the excessive expenditure or development of force, there is an excessive decline of the same force, - the law, in consequence of which no wretched mortal can exercise a known force without paying for it in another respect, and very much cruelly, finally, the law that determines the unequal degree of perfection of their own works.

Melancholy, despondency, shyness, selfishness - this is a cruel retribution for the highest mental gifts that they spend, just as the abuse of sensual pleasures entails various disorders.

Goethe, himself a cold Goethe, confessed that his mood was sometimes too cheerful, sometimes too sad.

C. Lombroso: “In general, I don’t think that there is at least one great person in the world who, even in moments of complete bliss, would not consider himself, without any reason, unhappy and persecuted, or at least temporarily did not suffer from painful fits of melancholy” .

Sometimes sensitivity is distorted and becomes one-sided, concentrating on one point. Several ideas of a certain order and some especially favorite sensations gradually acquire the significance of the main (specific) stimulus acting on the brain of great people and even on the whole organism.

Poisson said that life is worth living just to do mathematics. D'Alembert and Menage, calmly enduring the most painful operations, wept from the slight jabs of criticism. Lucio de Lanceval laughed when his leg was cut off, but could not bear Geoffroy's harsh criticism.

It should also be noted that among people of genius or rather scientists, there are often those narrow specialists whom Wahdakof calls “monotypic” subjects; all their lives they are engaged in one kind of conclusion, first occupying their brain and then already embracing it entirely: for example, Beckman studied the pathology of the kidneys throughout his whole life, Fresner - the moon, Mkeyer - ants, which is very similar to monomaniacs.

Because of this exaggerated and concentrated sensibility, it is extremely difficult to convince or dissuade great people and lunatics of anything. And this is understandable: the source of true and false ideas lies deeper with them and is more developed than among ordinary people, for whom opinions are only the main form, a kind of clothing, changed at the whim of fashion or at the request of circumstances. From this it follows, on the one hand, that no one should be trusted unconditionally, not even great men, and, on the other hand, that moral treatment is of little use to lunatics.

The extreme and one-sided development of sensibility is no doubt the cause of those strange behaviors due to temporary anesthesia and analgesia, which are characteristic of great geniuses as well as lunatics.

Thus, it is said of Newton that one day he began to fill his pipe with his niece's finger, and that when he happened to leave the room to fetch something, he always returned without taking it. Beethoven and Newton, having begun - one for musical compositions, and the other for solving problems, became so insensitive to hunger that they scolded the servants when they brought them food, assuring them that they had already had dinner. Gioia, in a fit of creativity, wrote an entire chapter on a desk board instead of paper.

In the same way it is explained why great geniuses sometimes fail to assimilate the concepts accessible to the most ordinary minds, and at the same time express such bold ideas that most seem absurd. The fact is that a greater impressionability corresponds to a greater limitation of thinking. The mind under the influence of ecstasy does not perceive too simple and easy positions that do not correspond to its powerful energy. So, Monge, who made the most complex differential calculations, found it difficult to extract the square root, although any student could easily solve this problem.

Hagen considers originality to be the quality that sharply distinguishes genius from talent. Similarly, Jürgen Meyer says: “The fantasy of a talented person reproduces what has already been found, the fantasy of a genius is completely new. The first makes discoveries and confirms them, the second invents and creates. A talented person is a shooter who hits a target that seems to us hard to reach; genius hits a target we can't even see. Originality is in the nature of a genius.”

A genius has the ability to guess what he does not quite know: for example, Goethe described Italy in detail before he had seen it. Precisely because of this perspicacity, which rises above the general level, and because the genius, absorbed in higher considerations, differs from the crowd in super-deeds or even, like madmen (but in contrast to talented people), exhibits a propensity for disorder, genius natures meet contempt with the side of the majority, which, not noticing the intermediate points in their work, sees only the discrepancy between their conclusions and generally recognized ones and the oddities in their behavior. How many academicians with a smile of compassion reacted to poor Marzolo, who opened up an entirely new field of philology; Bolyai, who discovered the fourth dimension and wrote anti-Euclidean geometry, was called the geometer of madmen and was compared to a miller who would think of grinding stones to make flour.

There are countries where the level of education is very low and where, therefore, not only brilliant, but even talented people are treated with contempt. But originality, although almost always aimless, is also often noticed in the actions of crazy people, especially in their writings, which only as a result sometimes acquire a shade of genius. By the way, people of genius are distinguished on a par with lunatics by a propensity for disorderliness and a complete ignorance of practical life, which seems to them so insignificant in comparison with their dreams.

Originality, on the other hand, determines the tendency of brilliant and mentally ill people to invent new words that are incomprehensible to others or to give famous words a special meaning and significance, which we find in Vico, Carrado, Alfieri, Marzolo and Dante.

Influence

atmospheric phenomena

on brilliant people and lunatics.

On the basis of a number of careful observations made over the course of three years in the clinic, C. Lombroso was convinced that the mental state of the madmen changes under the influence of barometer and thermometer fluctuations. “A study of 23,602 cases has proved to me that the development of insanity usually coincides with the rise in temperature in spring and summer and even goes parallel with it, but at the same time, the spring heat, due to the contrast with the winter cold, acts even more strongly than the summer one, while the relatively even warmth of August days has a less detrimental effect.” A complete analogy with these phenomena is also seen in those people whom - it is difficult to say whether beneficent or cruel - nature has generously endowed with mental abilities. Few of these people did not say themselves that atmospheric phenomena produce an enormous influence on them. In their personal relations and in letters they constantly complain about the harmful effect on them of changes in temperature, with which they sometimes have to endure a fierce struggle in order to destroy or soften the fatal influence of bad weather, which weakens and delays the bold flight of their imagination. “When I am healthy and the weather is clear, I feel like a decent person,” Montaigne wrote. “During strong winds, it seems to me that my brain is not in order,” Diderot said.

Napoleon, who said that “man is a product of physical and moral conditions,” could not endure a light wind and loved heat so much that he ordered to heat the room even in July. The offices of Voltaire and Buffon were heated at all times of the year. Rousseau said that the sun's rays in the summer time cause creative activity in him, and he put his head under them at noon.

Byron said of himself that he was afraid of the cold, like a gazelle. Heine claimed that he was more able to write poetry in France than in Germany with its harsh climate. “Thunder rumbles, it snows,” he writes in one of his letters, “I have little fire in the fireplace, and my letter is cold.”

Salvatore Rosa, according to Lady Morgan, laughed in his youth at the exaggerated importance that the weather supposedly has on the creativity of people of genius, but, having grown old, he revived and gained the ability to think only with the onset of spring; in the last years of his life, he could paint only in the summer. In May, Schiller wrote: "I hope to do a lot if the weather does not change for the worse."

From all these examples, it can already be concluded with some reason that a high temperature, which has a favorable effect on vegetation, contributes, with few exceptions, to the productivity of a genius, just as it causes a stronger excitement in lunatics.

C. Lombroso states: “If historians, who have written so much paper and spent so much time on the most detailed depiction of cruel battles or adventurous enterprises carried out by kings and heroes, if these historians had studied with the same thoroughness the memorable era when this or that great discovery, or when a remarkable work of art was conceived, they would almost certainly be convinced that the hottest months and days are the most fertile, not only for all physical nature, but also for brilliant minds.

For all the seeming improbability of such an influence, it is confirmed by many undoubted facts. Dante composed his first sonnet on June 15, 1282, in the spring of 1300 he wrote Vita nuova, and on April 3 he began writing his great poem.

Milton conceived his poem in the spring.

Galileo discovered Saturn's ring in April 1611.

Foscolo's best things were written in July and August.

Voltaire wrote Tancred in August.

Byron finished in September the 4th song "Pelligrinaggio", in July "Dante's Prophecy", and in the summer in Switzerland - "The Prisoner of Chillon", "Darkness" and "Dream".

Leonardo da Vinci conceived the statue of Francesco Sforza and began writing his essay On Light and Shadow on April 23, 1490.

The first thought about the discovery of America came to Columbus at the end of May and at the beginning of June 1474, when he decided to find a western route to India.

Kepler in May 1618 discovered the laws of motion of the world's bodies.

Schiaparelli's discovery of shooting stars was made in August 1866.

Nicholson discovered the oxidation of metals using a voltaic column in the summer of 1800, and so on.

However, it must be said that almost all the works of great minds, and especially discoveries in physics, are not the result of instant inspiration, but rather the result of a whole series of continuous and slow research on the part of scientists who lived in the past, so that the newest inventor is, in essence, , only a compiler whose works are not chronologically applicable, since the numbers given determine the end time of this or that work rather than the moment when it was conceived. But almost all other manifestations of human activity, even the least arbitrary, can be brought under the same category. Fertilization, for example, even then depends on the good nutrition of the organism and on heredity; death itself and madness only seem to be caused by immediate or accidental causes, but in essence they are completely dependent, on the one hand, on atmospheric phenomena, and on the other, on organic conditions; in many cases it can be said that death and madness are prepared in advance and the time of their occurrence is precisely indicated at the moment of the birth of the individual.

Influence

meteorological phenomena

for the birth of brilliant people.

Convinced of the enormous influence of meteorological phenomena on the creative activity of brilliant people, it is easy to understand that the climate and soil structure must also have a powerful effect on their birth.

There is no doubt that race (for example, there are more great people in the Latin and Greek races than in others), political movements, freedom of thought and speech, the wealth of the country, and finally, the proximity of literary centers - all this has a great influence on the appearance of brilliant people, but undoubtedly also, that temperature and climate are no less important in this respect.

It has long been noticed by both the common people and scientists that in mountainous countries with a warm climate there are especially many brilliant people. A popular Tuscan proverb says: “Highlanders have thick legs and tender brains.” Vegezio wrote: “Climate affects not only physical but also mental health; Minerva chose the city of Athens as her residence for its favorable air, as a result of which wise men will be born there. Cicero also repeatedly mentions that in Athens, thanks to the warm climate, smart people will be born, and in Thebes, where the climate is harsh, stupid people. According to Vasari, Michelangelo told him: “If I managed to create something really good, then I owe this to the wonderful air of your native Arezzo.” Macaulay says that Scotland is one of poorest countries Europe, occupies the first place in it in terms of the number of scientists and writers; she owns: Michael Scott, Napier - the inventor of logarithms, then Buchanan, Walter Scott, Byron, Johnston and partly Newton.

Florence, where the climate is very mild and the soil extremely hilly, brought to Italy the most brilliant galaxy of great men. Dante, Giotto, Machiavelli, Lulli, Leonardo, Cellini, Beato Angelico, Andrea del Sarto, Vespucci, Boccaccio, Alberti, Nicolini and Donati and others are the main names that this city has the right to be proud of.

On the other hand, Pisa, being scientifically as a university city in no less favorable conditions than Florence, produced in comparison with it even a much smaller number of outstanding generals and politicians, which was the reason for its fall, despite the help of strong allies. Of the great men of Pisa, only Niccolò Pisano, Giunta, and Galileo belong to Pisa, whose parents, however, were Florentines. Meanwhile, Pisa differs from Florence only in its low-lying location.

Finally, how rich in people of genius is the mountainous province of Arezzo, where Michelangelo, Petrarch, Guido Reni, Redi, Vasari and the three Aretinos were born. Further, how many gifted personalities were from Asti (Alfieri, Ogero, S. Brunone, Belli, Natta, Cotta, Alione, Giorgio and Ventura) and so on indefinitely.

The indirect influence of the surrounding nature on the birth of brilliant people presents some analogy with its influence on the development of insanity.

The well-known fact that in mountainous countries the inhabitants are more prone to madness than in low-lying countries is confirmed by quite psychiatric statistics. In addition, recent observations prove that epidemic madness is much more common in the mountains than in the valleys. It must also not be forgotten that the hills of Judea were the cradle of many prophets, and that men gifted with clairvoyance appeared in the mountains of Scotland; both belong to the category of brilliant madmen and half-mad soothsayers.

Varieties

graphomaniac mattoids.

(according to C. Lombroso)

Mattoid graphomaniacs Cesare Lombroso names a variety that constitutes an intermediate link, a transitional stage between brilliant madmen, healthy people and actually crazy people.

This is a special type of individuals, who were first pointed out by Maudeli, who called them “people with the temperament of lunatics” and who were later called by Morel, Legrand de Sol and Schulet “suffering from hereditary neurosis”, Ballinsky and others - psychopaths, and Raji - neuropaths.

This latter, who had studied such subjects carefully and for a long time, proposed to divide them into four categories, according to whether their abnormality belongs to the field of sensual, affective or intellectual.

first category are partly hysterical subjects, partly hypochondriacs, with a sharper impressionability than other people, and with a tendency to explain their imaginary misfortunes by invented causes.

To the second category there are subjects with perverted instincts, abusing either excesses or abstinence and prone to various abnormalities. affective moral mattoid form in the full sense of the word a substratum or a transitional stage to inborn criminals. Usually such individuals become, according to Lombroso, at the head of secret societies. sitting in a cafe or a political club become the founders of new sects, and so on. Vain to the extreme, they often commit crimes out of a desire to become famous, while forgetting that along with the loss of prestige, they lose both their honest name and the respect of others, which they so passionately sought.

Smart mattoids - these, according to the Raja, are those irrepressible talkers who, once having spoken, can no longer stop the flow of their eloquence, even if they wished to. Under the influence of some kind of feverish mental excitement, they speak without logical connection and often come to conclusions that are completely opposite to what they wanted to prove. Sometimes they have an unusually developed memory, so that they remember whole pages from what they have read, or they remember well only numbers, foreign words, but forget the facial features of even their friends. Such subjects differ very little from the mentally ill, suffering from proud insanity, etc., and often become so at the first opportunity.

A variation of the same type, connecting the intellectual mattoid with the moral or affective, is graphomaniacs. A distinctive feature of the mattoid is an exaggerated opinion of himself, of his merits, and at the same time, his exclusively inherent ability to express his convictions more on paper than in words or deeds, without being indignant at all with those adversities and contradictions that are encountered at every step in practical life. and usually haunt both brilliant people and crazy people. The abnormality of Mattoid writers is not always easy to notice if, for all the seeming seriousness and enthusiasm for this idea - in which they show similarities with monomaniacs and brilliant people - their writings were not often mixed with a lot of absurd conclusions, constant contradictions, verbosity and the main image of selfishness and vanity, which are the predominant property of brilliant people who have lost their minds.

Guiteau intended to save the republic by assassinating its president and proclaiming himself a great jurist and philosopher.

Leroux, the famous Parisian deputy, who believed in the transmigration of souls and in Kabbalah, defined love this way: “the ideal reality of one part of the whole in an infinite being, etc.”.

Asgil argued that a person can live forever, if only he had faith in immortality.

Filapanti recognized the existence of three Adams and with the greatest accuracy determined in which year they lived and what they did.

It happens, however, that among the chaotic delirium in the works of graphomaniac mattoid come across completely new, sound judgments.

Passanante, in his articles, and especially in conversation, sometimes expressed apt original judgments, making many doubt whether he was really crazy. For example, his saying: "Where the scientist is lost, the ignoramus succeeds." Or here's another one: "History taught by peoples is more instructive than that which is studied from books."

However, the abnormality is expressed not so much in exaggerations regarding this or that tendency, but rather in inconsistency, in constant contradictions, so that next to sublime, sometimes beautifully stated views, there are miserable, absurd, paradoxical judgments that contradict the main plan of the work and social position. author. When reading such articles, one involuntarily recalls Don Quixote, whose magnanimous deeds, instead of sympathy, evoke a smile of compassion, although at another time they might perhaps have been recognized as heroic, worthy of admiration. In general, genius traits are a rare exception in the works of mattoids.

Genius Mattoids . Intermediate forms and imperceptible gradations exist not only between the mad and the healthy, but also between the lunatics and the mattoids. Even among these latter, representing a complete lack of genius, there are individuals who are so richly gifted that it is difficult to determine whether they are mattoid or brilliant people.

It is quite natural, therefore, to conclude that if such transitional steps exist in the realm of, so to speak, literary madness, then they are possible in the realm of criminal insanity, and that mitigating circumstances must be allowed for the so-called criminals or lunatics, although there is hardly a human mind. able to draw a very precise line between crime and insanity .

"Prophets" and revolutionaries.

It is curious how great advances in the politics and religion of nations have often been brought about, or at least projected, by the lunatics or the semi-lunatics.

The reason for this phenomenon is obvious: only in them, in these fanatics, next to originality, which is an integral part of both brilliant people and crazy people, and even more brilliant madmen, exaltation and passion reach such strength that they can cause altruism that makes a person to sacrifice one's interests and even life itself for the promotion of ideas to the crowd, which is always hostile to any novelty and is sometimes capable of bloody reprisals against innovators.

“Look,” says Maudsley, “how such subjects can catch the most intimate shades of an idea that have gone unnoticed by more powerful minds, and thereby illuminate a given phenomenon in a completely different way. And this ability is seen in people who have neither genius nor talent; they consider the subject from new points of view, not noticed by others, and in practical life they deviate from the generally accepted course of action... obstacles and without the doubts that plague skeptical, calm minds.”

That is why these people so often come out as reformers.

It goes without saying that they do not create anything new, but only give impetus to the movement prepared by time and circumstances; obsessed with a positive passion for every novelty, for everything original, they are almost always inspired by a newly discovered discovery, an innovation, and are already building their conclusions about the future on it. So, Schopenhauer, who lived in an era when pessimism, with an admixture of mysticism and enthusiasm, began to come into fashion, according to Ribot, only combined the ideas of his time into a coherent philosophical system.

In the same way, Luther only summarized the views of his predecessors, as evidenced by the sermons of Savonarola.

On the other hand, we should not forget that when a new doctrine is too sharply contrary to the beliefs that have taken root among the people, or is too absurd in itself, it disappears along with its herald and often becomes the cause of his death.

Maudeli says in his book "On Responsibility" that since the lunatic does not share the opinions of the majority, he is by his very nature a reformer; but when his convictions penetrate the masses, he again remains alone with a small circle of persons devoted to him.

It should also be added that the lunatics have always, since ancient times, aroused reverence among the common people.

Among the savages, for example, or among the ancient semi-barbarian peoples, the insane person was not only not considered sick, but inspired respect for himself; the crowd trembled before him, adored him, and he often became an unlimited master over them. In the old days in Rus' they looked at holy fools, epileptics, etc., in the same way, considering them prophets, people inspired by God himself, and often even saints.

The existence of epidemic madness among the ancient Jews and their brethren - Phoenicians, Carthaginians, etc. - is proved by biblical history and by the language itself, in which the same words are used to designate a prophet, a madman, and a criminal. The Bible tells that David, fearing to be killed, pretended to be crazy, soiled his beard and put a special sign over the door of his house, which made King Ahiz say: “Are not I crazy enough without David?” This fact indicates the frequent repetition of cases of insanity and the fact that the lunatics were inviolable, probably due to the prejudice that passed to the Jews from the Arabs, who have the same name for the prophet and the madman - “navvi”.

In Algeria, according to Berbruger, there are very numerous individuals who, under certain conditions, fall into a state very reminiscent of S. Medardo's convulsions. To see how respected madmen are in Morocco and among the neighboring nomadic tribes, one should read the book of Dummond-Gay, who, among other things, says: “According to the Berbers, only the body of madmen is on earth, their mind is held by a deity in heaven and returns to them only when they have to speak, whereby every word they say is considered a revelation.” The author of the book himself and the English consul were almost killed by one of these "saints", who often run around with weapons in their hands.

The Turks treat madmen with the same respect as they do dervishes, considering them the closest people to the deity, as a result of which they have access even to the houses of ministers.

In Bataki, according to Ida Pfeifer, the possessed person is given the greatest respect: every word of his is considered a prophecy, and his desire is a law.

In China, the only representative of mass insanity is one sect of religious fanatics - a phenomenon unusual for this skeptical nation. In addition, the followers of Tao revere the mad, the mad and carefully record their sayings, thinking that they serve as spokesmen for the demon's thoughts regarding the future.

In Oceania, on the island of Tahiti, there are also their own prophets, that is, the same madmen, who, according to the people, are under the special protection of the divine spirit.

In Peru, besides its own clergy, there are also prophets who utter various “truths” during fits of terrible convulsions. These people are highly respected by the common people, but the upper class treats them with contempt.

Such similarity in views on insanity in different countries must be due to common causes. C. Lombroso gives the following:

1) Having only a small number of familiar sensations, the common people are amazed at every new phenomenon and are ready to worship everything unusual; adoration is, one might say, a necessary reflex for him, as a result of every too strong new impression.

2) Some of the lunatics have an extraordinary physical strength and the people respect strength.

3) Often they show a striking insensitivity to cold, hunger, and all kinds of physical suffering.

4) Some of them, obsessed with religious or prideful insanity, pretend themselves to be inspired by the gods, as rulers, masters of the people, and thereby dispose of it in advance in their favor.

5) But the main reason lies in the fact that many of the madmen often showed intelligence and will that significantly exceeded the general level of development of these qualities among the mass of other fellow citizens, absorbed in worries about satisfying their material needs. Further, it is known that under the influence of passion, the strength and tension of the mind increase markedly. The deep faith of these people in the reality of their hallucinations, the powerful eloquence with which they expressed their convictions, the contrast between their miserable obscure past and the grandeur of their present position naturally gave such crazy people an enormous importance in the eyes of the crowd and elevated them above the general level of sane, but ordinary, ordinary people. An example of such charm is Lazaretti, Briand, Loyola, Malinas, Joan of Arc, Anabaptists, etc.
VII.

Exceptional Features

brilliant people.

Conclusion.

The question arises, is it possible on the basis of all of the above to come to the conclusion that genius in general is nothing but neurosis, insanity? No, such a conclusion would be erroneous. True, in the stormy and anxious life of people of genius there are moments when these people are very similar to the madmen, and in the mental activity of both there are many common features, for example, heightened sensitivity, exaltation, giving way to apathy, the originality of aesthetic works and the ability to discover, unconsciousness creativity and the use of special expressions, a strong absent-mindedness and a tendency to suicide, as well as often the abuse of alcoholic beverages, and, finally, enormous vanity. True, among the people of genius there were and are lunatics, just as among these latter there were subjects in whom illness caused flashes of genius, but to deduce from this the conclusion that all persons of genius must necessarily be mad would mean to fall into an enormous misleading and repeating, only in a different sense, the erroneous conclusion of savages who consider all madmen to be divinely inspired people.

If genius were always accompanied by madness, then how can one explain that Galileo, Kepler, Columbus, Voltaire, Napoleon, Michelangelo, Cavour, people who are undoubtedly brilliant and, moreover, who were subjected to the most difficult trials during their lives, never showed signs of insanity?

In addition, genius usually manifests itself much earlier than madness, which for the most part reaches its maximum development only after the age of thirty-five, while genius is revealed from childhood, and in young years it is already revealed in full: Alexander the Great was at the height of his fame at twenty , Charlemagne - at thirty, Charles XII - at eighteen? D'Alembert and Bonaparte - at twenty-six (Ribot).

Further, while madness is more likely than all other diseases to be inherited and, moreover, increases with each new generation, genius almost always dies with a man of genius, and hereditary genius, especially in some generations, is a rare exception. Let us suppose that a genius can also err, let us suppose that he is always distinguished by originality; but neither error nor originality in him ever reach the point of complete contradiction with himself or of obvious absurdity, which so often happens with mattoids and lunatics.

If some of these latter show remarkable mental abilities, it is only in relatively rare cases, and, moreover, their mind is always one-sided: much more often we notice in them a lack of perseverance, diligence, firmness of character, attention, accuracy, memory - the main qualities of a genius. And for the most part they remain lonely, uncommunicative, indifferent or insensitive to what worries the human race, as if they are surrounded by some special atmosphere that belongs to them alone. Is it possible to compare them with those great geniuses who calmly and with consciousness own forces steadily followed the once chosen path to their high goal, not losing heart in misfortunes and not allowing themselves to be carried away by any kind of passion!

These were: Spinoza, Bacon, Galileo, Dante, Voltaire, Columbus, Machiavelli, Michelangelo, Cavour. All of them were distinguished by the enormous strength of their mental abilities, restrained by a mighty will, but in none of them did love for truth and beauty drown out love for family and fatherland. They never changed their convictions and did not become renegades, they did not deviate from their goal, they did not abandon the work once started. How much perseverance, energy, tact they showed in carrying out the undertakings they had conceived, and what moderation, what an integral character they distinguished themselves in life!

But they also suffered a lot of suffering from the persecution of the ignorant, they also had to experience fits of exhaustion that followed impulses of inspiration, and the torment of doubt and hesitation that seized them, but all this never made them turn off the straight path to the side.

The only, favorite idea, which constituted the goal and happiness of their life, completely took possession of these great minds and, as it were, served as a guiding star for them. To accomplish their task, they spared no effort, did not stop at any obstacles, always remaining clear and calm. Their errors are too few to be worth pointing out, and even they are often of such a nature that in ordinary people they would pass for real discoveries.

Summarizing these provisions, we can come to the following conclusions: physiologically between normal state there are many points of contact between a man of genius and a pathological maniac. Among people of genius there are lunatics and among lunatics there are geniuses. But there have been and are many men of genius in whom not the slightest sign of insanity can be found, with the exception of some abnormalities in the sphere of sensitivity.

Having established such a close correspondence between men of genius and lunatics, nature seemed to want to point out to us our obligation to treat indulgently the greatest of human disasters - madness, and at the same time warn us not to be too carried away by the brilliant ghosts of geniuses, many of which are not only they do not rise to the transcendental spheres, but, like sparkling meteors, having flared up once, they fall very low and drown in a mass of delusions.

Cesare Lombroso
Genius and insanity
Content
Parallel between great people and lunatics
I. Introduction to the historical review.
II. The similarity of people of genius with crazy people in a physiological sense.
III. The influence of atmospheric phenomena on brilliant people and on lunatics.
IV. The influence of meteorological phenomena on the birth of brilliant people.
V. The influence of race and heredity on genius and insanity.
VI. Men of genius who suffered from insanity: Harrington, Bolian, Kodazzi, Ampère, Kent, Schumann, Tasso, Cardano, Swift, Newton, Rousseau, Lenau, Szcheni, Schopenhauer.
VII. Examples of geniuses, poets, humorists and others among the crazy.
VIII. Crazy artists and artists.
IX. Mattoid graphomaniacs, or psychopaths.
X. "Prophets" and revolutionaries. Savonarola. Lazaretti.
XI. Special features of brilliant people who suffered at the same time and insanity.
XII. Exceptional features of brilliant people.
Conclusion
Applications
th AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION
When, many years ago, being, as it were, under the influence of raptus, during which the relationship between genius and insanity was clearly presented to me as if in a mirror, I wrote the first chapters of this book in 12 days *. I confess that even to myself it was not clear what serious practical conclusions the theory I had created could lead to. I did not expect that it would provide a key to understanding the mysterious essence of genius and to explaining those strange religious manias that were sometimes the core of great historical events, that it would help to establish a new point of view for evaluating the artistic creativity of geniuses by comparing their works in the field of art and literature with the same works of lunatics and, finally, that she will render enormous services to forensic medicine.
[Genius and insanity. Introduction to the Psychiatric Clinic Course taught at Pavian University. Milan, 1863.]
Little by little, the documentary works of Adriani, Paoli, Frigerio, Maxime Dukan, Reeve and Verg on the development of artistic talents among the lunatics, as well as the high-profile trials of recent times - Mangione, Passanante, Lazaretti, Guiteau, who proved to everyone that the mania for writing is not only a kind of psychiatric curiosity, but directly special form mental illness and that the subjects possessed by it, apparently completely normal, are all the more dangerous members of society because it is difficult to immediately notice a mental disorder in them, and yet they are capable of extreme fanaticism and, like religious maniacs, can even cause historical upheavals in the lives of peoples. That is why it seemed to me extremely useful to revisit the old topic on the basis of the latest data and on a larger scale. I will not hide the fact that I even consider him bold, in view of the bitterness with which the rhetoricians of science and politics, with the ease of newspaper scribblers and in the interests of one party or another, try to ridicule people who prove contrary to the nonsense of metaphysicians, but with scientific data in their hands completely the insanity, due to mental illness, of some of the so-called "criminals"; and the mental disorder of many persons who have hitherto been considered, according to the generally accepted opinion, to be perfectly sane.
To the caustic mockery and petty cavils of our opponents, we, following the example of that original, who, in order to convince people who denied the movement, moved in their presence, will only respond by collecting new facts and new evidence in favor of our theory. What could be more convincing than facts, and who would deny them? Unless only ignorant ones, but their triumph will soon come to an end.
Prof. C. Lombroso Turin, January 1, 1882
I. INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORICAL REVIEW
In the highest degree, our duty is sad - with the help of inexorable analysis, to destroy and destroy one after another those bright, iridescent illusions with which man deceives and exalts himself in his arrogant insignificance; it is all the more sad that in return for these pleasant delusions, these idols, which have served for so long as an object of adoration, we can offer him nothing but a cold smile of compassion. But the servant of truth must inevitably obey its laws. Thus, due to fatal necessity, he comes to the conclusion that love is, in essence, nothing but the mutual attraction of stamens and pistils ... and thoughts are a simple movement of molecules. Even genius - this is the only sovereign power that belongs to a person, before which one can kneel without blushing - even many psychiatrists put it on the same level with a propensity to crime, even in it they see only one of the teratological (ugly) forms of the human mind, one of the varieties of madness. And note that such profanity, such blasphemy is allowed not only by doctors, and not exclusively only in our skeptical time.
Even Aristotle, this great founder and teacher of all philosophers, noted that under the influence of rushes of blood to the head, "many individuals become poets, prophets or soothsayers, and that Mark of Syracuse wrote pretty good poems while he was a maniac, but, having recovered, completely lost this ability ".
He says in another place: “It is noticed that famous poets, politicians and artists were partly melancholic and mad, partly misanthropes, like Bellerophon. Even at the present time we see the same thing in Socrates, Empedocles, Plato and others, and most strongly in poets. People with cold, abundant blood (lit. bile) are timid and limited, and people with hot blood are mobile, witty and talkative.
Plato argues that “delusion is not a disease at all, but, on the contrary, the greatest of the blessings bestowed upon us by the gods; under the influence of delusion, the Delphic and Dodonic soothsayers rendered thousands of services to the citizens of Greece, while in their ordinary state they brought little or no use at all. Many times it happened that when the gods sent epidemics to the peoples, then one of the mortals fell into sacred delirium and, under the influence of his prophet, indicated a cure for these diseases. the ability to express in beautiful poetic form the exploits of heroes, which contributes to the enlightenment of future generations.
Democritus even directly said that he does not consider a person who is of sound mind to be a true poet. Excludit sanos, Helicone poetas.
As a result of such views on madness, the ancient peoples treated the lunatics with great respect, considering them inspired from above, which is confirmed, in addition to historical facts, also by the fact that the words mania are in Greek, navi and mesugan are in Hebrew, and nigrata - - in Sanskrit they mean both madness and prophecy.
Felix Plater claims that he knew many people who, while distinguished by remarkable talent in various arts, were at the same time mad. Their insanity was expressed by an absurd passion for praise, as well as strange and indecent acts. Incidentally, Plater met at court an architect, sculptor, and musician of great renown, who were undoubtedly insane. Even more outstanding facts are collected by F. Gazoni in Italy, in the "Hospital for the incurably mentally ill." His work was translated (into Italian) by Longoal in 1620. Of the writers closer to us, Pascal constantly said that the greatest genius borders on sheer madness, and subsequently proved this by his own example. The same was confirmed by Hecart with regard to his fellows, scientists and at the same time madmen, like himself. He published his observations in 1823 under the title: "Stultiziana, or a Brief Bibliography of the Lunatics in Valenciennes, compiled by a lunatic." Delnière, a passionate bibliographer, dealt with the same subject in his interesting Histoire littraire des fous, 1860; in Bedlam, London, 1873).
Recently, Lelyu in Dmon de Socrate, 1856, and BAmulet de Pascal, 1846, Verga in Lipemania del Tasso, 1850, and Lombroso in Pazzia di Cardano, 1856, proved that many people of genius, for example, Swift, Luther, Cardano, Brugham, and others have suffered insanity, hallucinations, or been monomanic for a long time. Moreau, dwelling with special love on the facts of the least plausible, in his last essay Psychologia morbide and Schilling, in their Psychiatrische Briefe of 1863, attempted to prove by careful, though not always strictly scientific research, that genius is, at any rate, something like a nervous abnormality, often turning into real madness. Approximately similar conclusions are drawn by Hagen in his article "On the affinity between genius and madness" (Veber die Verwandschaft Gnies und Irresein, Berlin. 1877) and partly also by Jurgen Meyer in his excellent monograph "Genius and Talent". Both of these scientists, who tried to establish more precisely the physiology of genius, came by the most careful analysis of the facts to the same conclusions that were expressed more than a hundred years ago, rather on the basis of experience than strict observations, one Italian Jesuit, Bettinelli, in his, now already completely forgotten, the book Dell "entusiasmo nelle belle arti. Milan, 1769.
yyy II. SIMILARITY OF GENIUS PEOPLE WITH THE PHYSIOLOGICALLY CRAZY
Cruel and sad as this kind of paradox may be, but, considering it from a scientific point of view, we will find that in some respects it is quite reasonable, although at first glance it seems absurd.
Many of the great thinkers are subject to, like crazy, convulsive contractions of the muscles and are distinguished by sharp, so-called "choreic" body movements. So, about Lenau and Montesquieu, they say that on the floor near the tables where they studied, one could notice indentations from the constant twitching of their legs. Buffon, immersed in his thoughts, once climbed the bell tower and descended from there by a rope quite unconsciously, as if in a fit of somnambulism. Santeil, Crebillon, Lombardini had strange facial expressions, similar to grimaces. Napoleon suffered from constant twitching of his right shoulder and lips, and during fits of anger, also of his calves. "I must have been very angry," he himself once confessed after a heated argument with Lowe, "because I felt my calves trembling, which had not happened to me for a long time." Peter the Great was prone to twitching of facial muscles, which terribly distorted his face.
"Carducci's face," says Mantegazza, "at times resembles a hurricane: lightning flashes from his eyes, and the trembling of muscles is like an earthquake."
Ampère could not speak otherwise than by walking and moving all his limbs. It is known that the normal composition of the urine and in particular the content of urea in it changes markedly after manic attacks. The same thing is noticed after intensive mental exercises. Already many years ago, Golding Bird made the observation that an English preacher, who spent the whole week in idleness and only on Sundays delivered sermons with great fervour, on that very day the content of phosphate salts in the urine increased significantly, while on other days it was extremely insignificant. Subsequently, Smith confirmed by many observations that with any mental exertion the amount of urea in the urine increases, and in this respect the analogy between genius and madness seems undoubted.
On the basis of this abnormal abundance of urea, or rather on the basis of this new confirmation of the law of balance between force and matter that governs the whole world of living beings, other, more amazing analogies can be deduced: for example, gray hair and baldness, thinness of the body, and also bad muscular and sexual activity, characteristic of all lunatics, are very common among great thinkers. Caesar was afraid of the pale and thin Cassians. D "Alamber, Fenelon, Napoleon were as thin as skeletons in their youth. Segur writes about Voltaire: "Thinness proves how much he works; his emaciated and bent body serves only as a light, almost transparent shell, through which one seems to see the soul and genius of this man.
Paleness has always been considered an accessory and even an adornment of great people. In addition, thinkers, on a par with lunatics, are characterized by: constant overflow of the brain with blood (hyperemia), intense heat in the head and cooling of the limbs, a tendency to acute brain diseases and weak sensitivity to hunger and cold.
About brilliant people, just like about crazy people, it can be said that they remain lonely, cold, indifferent to the duties of a family man and a member of society all their lives. Michelangelo constantly said that his art replaces his wife. Goethe, Heine, Byron, Cellini, Napoleon, Newton, although they did not say this, but by their actions proved something even worse.
There are frequent cases when, due to the same causes that so often cause insanity, i.e. due to diseases and injuries of the head, the most ordinary people turn into brilliant ones. As a child, Viko fell from the highest stairs and crushed his right parietal bone. Gratry, at first a bad singer, became a famous artist after being severely bruised on the head with a log. Mabil-on, completely imbecile from his youth, achieved fame for his talents, which developed in him as a result of a head wound he received. Gallus, who reported this fact, knew one half-idiot Dane whose mental abilities became brilliant after he, at the age of 13, fell head first down the stairs*. A few years ago, a cretin from Savoy, bitten by a mad dog, became a perfectly reasonable man in the last days of his life. Dr. Galle knew limited people whose mental faculties developed unusually as a result of diseases of the brain (mi-dollo).
[The late Metropolitan Macarius of Moscow, who was distinguished by a remarkably bright mind, was such a sickly and stupid child that he could not study at all. But in the seminary, one of the comrades, during the game, hit his head with a stone, and after that Macarius's abilities became brilliant, and his health completely recovered.]
“It may very well be that my illness (disease of the spinal cord) gave my last works some kind of abnormal connotation,” Heine says with amazing perspicacity in one of his letters. It must, however, be added that the illness affected in this way not only his latest works, and he himself was aware of this. A few months before the intensification of his illness, Heine wrote about himself (Correspondace indite. Paris, 1877): “My mental excitement is more the result of illness than genius - in order to at least a little alleviate my suffering, I composed poetry. In these terrible nights, mad with pain, my poor head tosses from side to side and makes the bells of a worn-out foolish cap ring with cruel gaiety.
Bisha and von der Kolk noticed that people with a twisted neck have a sharper mind than ordinary people. Conolly had one patient whose mental faculties were excited during operations on him, and several such patients who showed special talent in the first periods of consumption and gout. Everyone knows how wit and cunning humpbacks are; Rokitansky even tried to explain this by saying that their aorta, having given the vessels going to the head, makes a bend, as a result of which the volume of the heart expands and blood pressure in the skull increases.
This dependence of genius on pathological changes can partly explain the curious feature of genius compared to talent, in that it is something unconscious and appears quite unexpectedly.
Jurgen Meyer says that a talented person acts strictly deliberately; he knows how and why he came to a certain theory, while a genius is completely unaware of this: all creative activity is unconscious.
Haydn attributed the creation of his famous oratorio The Creation of the World to a mysterious gift sent down from above. “When my work was not progressing well,” he said, “I, with a rosary in my hands, retired to the chapel, read the Mother of God - and inspiration returned to me again.”
The Italian poetess Milli, during the creation, almost involuntarily, of her wonderful poems, is agitated, screams, sings, runs back and forth and seems to be in a fit of epilepsy.
Those of genius who have observed themselves say that, under the influence of inspiration, they experience some inexpressibly pleasant feverish state during which thoughts involuntarily arise in their minds and splash out of themselves, like sparks from a burning brand.
This is beautifully expressed by Dante in the following three lines:
... I mi son un che, guando
Amore spira, noto ed in quel modo
Che detta dento vo significando.
(Inspired by love, I say
what she tells me.)
Napoleon said that the outcome of battles depends on one moment, on one thought, temporarily remaining inactive; when a favorable moment comes, it flares up like a spark, and the result is victory (Moro).
Bauer says that Koo's best poems were dictated to him in a state close to insanity. In those moments when these wonderful stanzas flew from his lips, he was not able to reason even about the simplest things.
Foscolo confesses in his Epistolario, the best work of this great mind, that the creative ability of the writer is determined by a special kind of mental excitement (fever), which cannot be caused at will.
“I write my letters,” he says, “not for the fatherland and not for glory, but for that inner pleasure that the exercise of our abilities gives us.”
Bettinelli calls poetry a sleep with open eyes, without loss of consciousness, and this is perhaps fair, since many poets dictated their poems in a dream-like state.
Goethe also says that a certain brain stimulation is necessary for a poet, and that he himself composed many of his songs, being, as it were, in a fit of somnambulism.
Klopstock confesses that when he wrote his poem, inspiration often came to him during sleep.
In the dream, Voltaire conceived one of the songs of the Henriade, Sardini the theory of playing the harmonica, and Seckendorf his lovely song about Fantasia. Newton and Cardano solved mathematical problems in their sleep.
Muratori composed a pentameter in Latin in a dream many years after he stopped writing poetry. It is said that while sleeping, Lafontaine composed the fable "Two Doves", and Condillac finished the lecture he had begun the day before.
"Kubla" by Coleridge and "Fantasy" by Golde were composed in a dream.
Mozart admitted that musical ideas appear to him involuntarily, like dreams, and Hoffmann often told his friends: "I work, sitting at the piano with my eyes closed, and reproduce what someone tells me from outside."
Lagrange noticed an irregular beating of his pulse when he wrote, while Alfieri's eyes grew dark at that time.
Lamartine often said: "It is not I who think, but my thoughts think for me."
Alfieri, who called himself a barometer - his creative abilities changed to such an extent depending on the time of year - with the onset of September, he could not resist the involuntary impulse that seized him, so strong that he had to give in and wrote six comedies. On one of his sonnets, he made the following inscription with his own hand: "Random. I did not want to write it." This predominance of the unconscious in the work of brilliant people was noticed even in antiquity.
Socrates was the first to point out that poets create their works not as a result of effort or art, but due to some natural instinct. In the same way, soothsayers say beautiful things, completely unaware of it.
“All works of genius,” says Voltaire in a letter to Diderot, “are created instinctively. The philosophers of the whole world together could not write Armida Kino or the fable “The Sea of ​​​​Beasts”, which La Fontaine dictated, without even knowing well what would come of it. Corneille wrote the tragedy "Horace" as instinctively as a bird builds a nest.
Thus, the greatest ideas of thinkers, prepared, so to speak, by the impressions already received and by the highly sensitive organization of the subject, are born suddenly and develop as unconsciously as the rash actions of madmen. The same unconsciousness explains the steadfastness of convictions in people who have assimilated fanatically known convictions. But as soon as the moment of ecstasy, excitement has passed, the genius turns into an ordinary person or falls even lower, since the lack of uniformity (balance) is one of the signs of a genius nature. Disraeli put it well when he said that the best English poets, Shakespeare and Dryden, have the worst poetry. It was said about the painter Tintoretto that he was sometimes higher than Carracci, sometimes lower than Tintoretto.
Ovidio quite correctly explains the dissimilarity of Tasso's style by his own admission that when inspiration disappeared, he got confused in his writings, did not recognize them and was not able to appreciate their merits.
There is no doubt that there is a complete resemblance between a madman during a fit and a man of genius who thinks and creates his work.
Remember the Latin proverb: "Aut insanit homo, aut versus fecit" ("Either a madman, or a poet").
Here is how the doctor Revelier-Parat describes Tasso's condition:
“The pulse is weak and uneven, the skin is pale, cold, the head is hot, inflamed, the eyes are shiny, bloodshot, restless, running around. At the end of a period of creativity, the author himself often does not understand what he expounded a minute ago.”
Marini, when writing Adone, did not notice that he had badly burned his leg. Tasso during the period of creativity seemed completely crazy. In addition, thinking about something, many artificially cause a rush of blood to the brain, as, for example, Schiller, who put his feet on ice, Pitt and Fox, who prepared their speeches after immoderate use of porter, and Paisiello, who wrote only under a lot of blankets. Milton and Descartes threw their heads down on the sofa, Bossuet retired to a cold room and put warm poultices on his head; Cujas worked lying face down on the carpet. There was a saying about Leibniz that he thought only in a horizontal position - to such an extent it was necessary for him for mental activity. Milton composed with his head thrown back on the pillow, and Thomas (Thomas) and Rossini - lying in bed; Rousseau pondered his works under the bright midday sun with an open head.
Evidently they all instinctively used such remedies as temporarily increase the flow of blood to the head to the detriment of the rest of the body. Here, by the way, to mention that many of the gifted and especially brilliant people abused alcoholic beverages. Not to mention Alexander the Great, who, under the influence of intoxication, killed his best friend and died after draining the cup of Hercules ten times - Caesar himself was often carried home by soldiers on their shoulders. Socrates, Seneca, Alcibiades, Cato, and especially Septimius Severus and Mahmud II, were so intemperate that they all died of drunkenness due to delirium tremens. The constable of Bourbon, Avicenna, who is said to have devoted the second half of his life to proving the futility of scientific information acquired by him in the first half, and many painters, such as Carracci, Steen, Barbatelli, and a whole galaxy of poets - Murger, Gerard de Nerval, Musset, Kleist, Mailat and Tasso at their head, who wrote in one of his letters: "I do not deny that I am mad; but I am pleased to think that my madness came from drunkenness and love because I really drink a lot."
Many drunkards are also found among the great musicians, such as Dussek, Handel and Gluck, who said that "he considers it quite fair to love gold, wine and fame, because the first gives him the means to have the second, which, inspiring, gives him glory." However, in addition to wine, he also loved vodka and finally got drunk on it.
It has been observed that almost all the great creations of thinkers take their final form, or at least come to light under the influence of some special sensation, which plays here, so to speak, the role of a drop of salt water in a well-arranged voltaic column. The facts prove that all great discoveries have been made under the influence of the senses, as Molet Schott confirms. Several frogs, from which it was supposed to prepare a healing decoction for Galvani's wife, served to discover galvanism. The isochronous (simultaneous) swings of the chandelier and the fall of the apple prompted Newton and Galileo to create great systems. Alfieri composed and pondered his tragedies while listening to music. Mozart, at the sight of an orange, remembered a Neapolitan folk song that he heard five years ago, and immediately wrote the famous cantata for the opera Don Giovanni. Looking at some porter, Leonardo conceived his Judas, and Thorvaldsen found a suitable pose for a seated angel at the sight of his sitter's antics. Inspiration first struck Salvatore Rosa while admiring the view of Posilino, and Hogarth found types for his caricatures in a tavern after a drunkard had broken his nose in a fight there. Milton, Bacon, Leonardo, and Warburton needed to hear the bells in order to get to work; Bourdalou, before dictating his immortal sermons, always played some aria on the violin. The reading of an ode by Spenser aroused in Cowley a penchant for poetry, and a book by Sacrobose made Gammad addicted to astronomy. Considering cancer, Watt attacked the idea of ​​​​developing an extremely useful machine in industry, and Gibbon decided to write a history of Greece after he saw the ruins of the Capitol *.
[Goethe created his theory of the development of the skull according to the general type of dorsal vertebrae while walking, when, having pushed a sheep's skull lying on the road with his foot, he saw that it was divided into three parts.]
But in exactly the same way, certain sensations cause insanity or serve as the starting point of it, being sometimes the cause of the most terrible attacks of rabies. Thus, for example, Humboldt's nurse confessed that the sight of the fresh, tender body of her pet aroused in her an uncontrollable desire to kill him. And how many people were involved in murder, arson or grave digging at the sight of an ax, a blazing fire and a corpse!
It should also be added that inspiration, ecstasy always turn into real hallucinations, because then a person sees objects that exist only in his imagination. So, Grossi said that one night, after he had worked for a long time on describing the appearance of the ghost of Prien, he saw this ghost in front of him and had to light a candle to get rid of him. Ball talks about the son (successore) Reynolds, that he could make up to 300 portraits a year, since it was enough for him to look at someone for half an hour while he sketched, so that later this face would constantly be in front of him, as if alive . The painter Martini always saw the pictures he was painting in front of him, so that one day when someone stood between him and the place where the image appeared to him, he asked this person to step aside, because it was impossible for him to continue copying while existing only in in his imagination the original was closed. Luther heard arguments from Satan that he could not have come up with before.
If we now turn to the solution of the question - what exactly is the physiological difference between a man of genius and an ordinary person, then, on the basis of autobiographies and observations, we find that for the most part the whole difference between them lies in the refined and almost painful impressionability of the first. A savage or an idiot is insensitive to physical suffering, their passions are few, and from the sensations they perceive only those that directly concern them in the sense of satisfying vital needs. As the mental faculties develop, impressionability grows and reaches its greatest strength in brilliant personalities, being the source of their suffering and glory. These chosen natures are more sensitive quantitatively and qualitatively than mere mortals, and the impressions they perceive are profound, long remembered and combined in various ways. Little things, random circumstances, details that are imperceptible to an ordinary person, sink deep into their souls and are processed in a thousand ways in order to reproduce what is usually called creativity, although these are only binary and quaternary combinations of sensations.
Haller wrote about himself: “What is left for me, besides impressionability, this powerful feeling, which is the result of a temperament that vividly perceives the joys of love and the wonders of science? Even now I am moved to tears when I read the description of some generous act. sensitivity, of course, and gives my poems that passionate tone that other poets do not have.
"Nature has not created a more sensitive soul than mine," wrote Diderot about himself. Elsewhere he says, "Increase the number of sensitive people and you will increase the number of good and bad deeds." When Alfieri heard the music for the first time, he was, in his words, “astonished to such an extent, as if the bright sun blinded my eyesight and hearing; for several days after that I felt an unusual sadness, not without pleasantness; fantastic ideas crowded into my head, and I would be able to write poetry if I knew then how it is done ... " In conclusion, he says that nothing affects the soul so irresistibly powerful as music. A similar opinion was expressed by Stern, Rousseau and J. Sand.
Corradi proves that all the misfortunes of Leopardi and his very philosophy were caused by excessive sensitivity and unsatisfied love, which he first experienced in the 18th year. Indeed, Leopardi's philosophy took on a more or less gloomy tone, depending on the state of his health, until at last the melancholy mood became a habit with him.
Urquizia fainted when he smelled the rose.
Sterne, after Shakespeare, the most profound of the poets-psychologists, says in one letter: “Reading the biographies of our ancient heroes, I cry about them as if about living people ... Inspiration and impressionability are the only tools of genius. delightful sensations that give great strength to joy and cause tears of tenderness."
It is known in what slavish subordination Alfieri and Foscolo were in women who were not always worthy of such adoration. The beauty and love of Fornarina served as a source of inspiration for Raphael not only in painting, but also in poetry. Several of his erotic poems still have not lost their charm.
And how early passions manifest themselves in people of genius! Dante and Alfieri were in love at the age of 9, Rousseau at 11, Carron and Byron at 8. With the latter, already in the 16th year, convulsions began when he found out that the girl he loved was getting married. “Grief choked me,” he says, “although the sexual desire was still unfamiliar to me, but I felt love so passionate that it is unlikely that I later experienced a stronger feeling.” At one of Kitz's performances, Byron had a fit of convulsions.
Lorby saw scholars swooning with delight while reading the writings of Homer.
Painter Francia (Francia) died of admiration after he saw a painting by Raphael.
Ampère felt the beauty of nature so vividly that he almost died of happiness when he found himself on the shores of Lake Geneva. Having found a solution to some problem, Newton was so shocked that he could not continue his studies. Gay-Lussac and Davy, after their discovery, began to dance in their shoes in their office. Archimedes, delighted with the solution of the problem, in the costume of Adam ran out into the street shouting: "Eureka!" ("Found!") In general, strong minds also have strong passions, which give special vivacity to all their ideas; if in some of them many passions fade, as it were, die away with time, it is only because they are gradually drowned out by the predominant passion for fame or science.
But it is precisely this too strong impressionability of people of genius or only giftedness that in the vast majority of cases is the cause of their misfortunes, both real and imaginary.
“A precious and rare gift, which is the privilege of great geniuses,” writes Mantegazza, “is accompanied, however, by a painful sensitivity to all, even the smallest, external stimuli: every breath of the breeze, the slightest increase in heat or cold, turns for them into that dried pink the petal that kept the poor sybarite awake." Lafontaine may have had himself in mind when he wrote:
"Un souffle, une rien leur donne la fivre"*.
[The slightest breath of wind, the smallest cloud, every little thing makes them feverish.]
Genius is irritated by everything, and what for ordinary people seems to be just pinpricks, then with his sensitivity it already seems to him a blow of a dagger.
Boileau and Chateaubriand could not indifferently hear the praise of anyone, even their shoemaker.
When Foscolo once spoke with Mrs. S., writes Mantegazza, whom he courted greatly, and she mocked him evilly, he became so furious that he shouted: "You want to kill me, so I will immediately crush my skull at your feet" . With these words, he flung himself headlong into the corner of the fireplace with all his might. One of those who stood nearby managed, however, to hold him by the shoulders and thereby save his life.
Painful impressionability also gives rise to exorbitant vanity, which distinguishes not only people of genius, but also scientists in general, starting from ancient times; in this respect, both of them are very similar to monomaniacs suffering from prideful insanity.
"Man is the most conceited of animals, and poets are the most vain of men," Heine wrote, referring, of course, to himself. In another letter, he says: "Do not forget that I am a poet and therefore I think that everyone should stop all their affairs and start reading poetry."
Menke talks about Filelfo, how he imagined that in the whole world, even among the ancients, no one knew better than his Latin language. Abbot Cagnoli was so proud of his poem about the battle of Aquileia that he was furious when one of the writers did not bow to him. "What, you don't know Cagnoli?" he asked.
The poet Lucius did not get up when Julius Caesar entered the meeting of poets, because he considered himself superior to him in the art of versification.
Ariosto, having received a laurel wreath from Charles V, ran like crazy through the streets. The famous surgeon of Porta, when present at the Lombard Institute when reading medical writings, did his best to express his contempt and displeasure with them, whatever their dignity, while he listened calmly and attentively to writings on mathematics or linguistics.
Schopenhauer was furious and refused to pay bills if his last name was written in two paragraphs.
Barthez lost sleep with despair when, when printing his "Genius" (Gnie), a sign was not placed over e. Whiston, according to Arago, did not dare to publish a refutation of Newton's chronology for fear that Newton would not. killed him.
Everyone who had the rare happiness of living in the company of brilliant people was amazed at their ability to reinterpret every act of those around them in a bad way, to see persecution everywhere and in everything to find a reason for deep, endless melancholy. This ability is due precisely to a stronger development of mental powers, due to which a gifted person is more able to find the truth and at the same time more easily invents false arguments in support of the solidity of his painful error. Part of the gloomy view of geniuses on the environment also depends, however, on the fact that, being innovators in the mental sphere, they express convictions with unshakable firmness that are not similar to the generally accepted opinion, and thereby repel most ordinary people from themselves.
But still, the main cause of melancholy and dissatisfaction with the life of the chosen natures is the law of dynamism and balance, which also governs the nervous system, the law according to which, after the excessive expenditure or development of force, there is an excessive decline of the same force - the law, due to which none of the miserable mortals can show a certain strength without paying for it in another respect, and very cruelly, finally, the law that determines the unequal degree of perfection of their own works.
Melancholy, despondency, shyness, selfishness - this is a cruel retribution for the highest mental gifts that they spend, just as the abuse of sensual pleasures entails a disorder of the reproductive system, impotence and diseases of the spinal cord, and excess in food is accompanied by gastric catarrhs.
After one of those ecstasies during which the poetess Milli discovers such an enormous power of creativity that it would be enough for a lifetime of minor Italian poets, she fell into a semi-paralytic state that lasted several days. Mahomet, at the end of his sermons, fell into a state of complete stupefaction, and one day he himself told Abu-Bakr that the interpretation of three chapters of the Koran had driven him to stupefaction.
Goethe, himself a cold Goethe, confessed that his mood was sometimes too cheerful, sometimes too sad.
In general, I do not think that in the whole world there is at least one great person who, even in moments of complete bliss, would not consider himself, without any reason, unhappy and persecuted, or at least temporarily would not suffer from painful fits of melancholy.
Sometimes sensitivity is distorted and becomes one-sided, concentrating on one point. Several ideas of a certain order and some especially favorite sensations gradually acquire the significance of the main (specific) stimulus acting on the brain of great people and even on their whole organism.
Heine, who himself admitted that he was incapable of understanding simple things, Heine, paralyzed, blind and already at his last breath, when he was advised to turn to God, interrupted the wheezing of agony with the words: "Dieu me pardonnera - c" est son mtier ", having ended his life with this last irony, which was not more aesthetically cynical in our time.They say about Aretino that his last words were: "Guardatemi dai topi or che son unto".
Malherbe, already quite dying, corrected the grammatical errors of his nurse and refused the parting words of the confessor because he spoke awkwardly.
Baugours, a grammarian, dying, said: "Je vais ou je va mourir" -- "both are correct."
Santenis went crazy with joy when he found an epithet that he had been looking for in vain for a long time. Foscolo said of himself: "Meanwhile, as in some things I am extremely understanding, regarding others, my understanding is not only worse than that of any man, but worse than that of a woman or a child."
It is known that Corneille, Descartes, Virgil, Addison, La Fontaine, Dryden, Manzoni, Newton were almost completely unable to speak in public.
Poisson said that life is worth living just to do mathematics. D "Alamber and Menage, who calmly endured the most painful operations, wept from the light injections of criticism. Lucio de Lanceval laughed when his leg was cut off, but could not bear the sharp criticism of Geoffroy.
Sixty-year-old Linnaeus, who had fallen into a paralytic and senseless state after an apoplexy, awoke from drowsiness when he was brought to the herbarium, which he had previously especially loved.
When Lanyi lay in a deep faint and the most powerful means could not arouse consciousness in him, someone took it into his head to ask him how much 12 would be squared, and he immediately answered: 144.
Sebuya, an Arabic grammarian, died of grief because Caliph Haroun al-Rashid did not agree with his opinion regarding some grammatical rule.
It should also be noted that among people of genius or rather scientists, there are often those narrow specialists whom Wachdakoff calls monotypic subjects; all their lives they are engaged in one kind of conclusion, which first occupies their brain and then already covers it completely: for example, Beckman studied the pathology of the kidneys throughout his whole life, Fresner - the moon, Meyer - ants, which is very similar to monomaniacs.
Because of this exaggerated and concentrated sensibility, both great men and lunatics are extremely difficult to convince or dissuade of anything. And this is understandable: the source of true and false ideas lies deeper with them and is more developed than among ordinary people, for whom opinions are only a conditional form, a kind of clothing, changed at the whim of fashion or at the request of circumstances. From this it follows, on the one hand, that no one should be trusted unconditionally, not even great men, and, on the other hand, that moral treatment is of little use to lunatics.
The extreme and one-sided development of sensibility is no doubt the cause of those strange acts, due to temporary anesthesia * and analgesia **, which are characteristic of great geniuses as well as lunatics. Thus, it is said of Newton that one day he began to fill his pipe with his niece's finger, and that when he happened to leave the room to fetch something, he always returned without taking it. They say about Tucherel that once he even forgot his name.
*[Loss of tactile sensation.]
**[Loss of pain sensitivity.]
Beethoven and Newton, having taken up - one for musical compositions, and the other for solving problems, became so insensitive to hunger that they scolded the servants when they brought them food, assuring them that they had already had dinner.
Gioia, in a fit of creativity, wrote an entire chapter on a desk board instead of paper.
The abbot Beccaria, busy with his experiments, during the mass service, said, forgetting: "Ite, experientia facta est" ("And yet experience is a fact").
Diderot, hiring cabs, forgot to let them go, and he had to pay them for the whole days that they stood idle in front of his house in vain; he often forgot months, days, hours, even the faces with whom he began to talk, and, as if in a fit of somnambulism, uttered whole monologues in front of them.
In the same way it is explained why great geniuses sometimes fail to assimilate the concepts accessible to the most ordinary minds, and at the same time express such bold ideas that most seem absurd. The fact is that a greater impressionability corresponds to a greater limitation of thinking (concetto). The mind under the influence of ecstasy does not perceive too simple and easy positions that do not correspond to its powerful energy. So, Monge, who made the most complex differential calculations, found it difficult to extract the square root, although any student could easily solve this problem.
Hagen considers originality to be precisely the quality that sharply distinguishes genius from talent. Similarly, Jürgen Meyer says: “The fantasy of a talented person reproduces what has already been found, the fantasy of a genius is completely new. The first makes discoveries and confirms them, the second invents and creates. A talented person is a shooter who hits a target that seems to us difficult to achieve "genius hits a target that is not even visible to us. Originality is in the nature of genius."
Bettinelli considers originality and grandiosity to be the main hallmarks of genius. "That's why," he says, "the poets were formerly called trovadori" (inventors).
A genius has the ability to guess what he does not quite know: for example, Goethe described Italy in detail before he saw it. Precisely because of this perspicacity, which rises above the general level, and because the genius, absorbed in higher considerations, differs from the crowd in super-deeds or even, like madmen (but in contrast to talented people), exhibits a propensity for disorder, genius natures meet contempt. on the part of the majority, which, not noticing the intermediate points in their work, sees only the contradictory nature of their conclusions with generally recognized ones and the oddities in their behavior. Not too long ago, the audience booed" Barber of Seville Rossini and Beethoven's Fidelio, and in our time Boito (Mephistopheles) and Wagner have undergone the same fate. anti-Euclidean geometry, called the geometer of madmen and compared with a miller who would take it into his head to grind stones to obtain flour.Finally, everyone knows with what distrust Fulton, Columbus, Papin, and in our time Piatti, Prague and Schliemann, who found Ilion there, were once met , where he was not suspected, and, having shown his discovery to scientific academicians, he silenced their mockery of himself.
By the way, the most cruel persecution of people of genius has to be experienced precisely from academic academics, who, in the struggle against genius, conditioned by vanity, use their “scholarship”, as well as the charm of their authority, which is mainly recognized for them both by ordinary people and by the ruling classes. , also for the most part consisting of dozens of people.
There are countries where the level of education is very low and where, therefore, not only brilliant, but even talented people are treated with contempt. There are two university cities in Italy, from which the people who were the only glory of these cities were forced to withdraw by all kinds of persecution. But originality, although almost always aimless, is also often noticed in the actions of mad people, and especially in their writings, which only as a result sometimes acquire a shade of genius, as, for example, the attempt of Bernard, who was in the Florentine hospital for the insane in 1529, to prove that monkeys have the ability to articulate speech (linguaggio). Incidentally, men of genius are as distinguished as lunatics by a propensity for disorderliness and complete ignorance of practical life, which seems to them so insignificant in comparison with their dreams.
Originality, on the other hand, determines the tendency of brilliant and mentally ill people to invent new words that are incomprehensible to others or to give famous words a special meaning and significance, which we find in Vico, Carraro, Alfieri, Marzolo and Dante.
yyy III. INFLUENCE OF ATMOSPHERIC PHENOMENA ON GENIUS PEOPLE AND ON CRAZY
On the basis of a whole series of careful observations, carried out continuously over the course of three years in my clinic, I was fully convinced that the mental state of lunatics changes under the influence of barometer and thermometer fluctuations. Thus, with an increase in temperature to 25°, 30° and 32°, especially if it occurs immediately, the number of manic attacks in madmen increased from 29 to 50; in the same way, on those days when the barometer began to fluctuate sharply and showed a maximum increase, the number of seizures increased rapidly from 34 to 46. An examination of 23,602 cases of insanity proved to me that the development of insanity usually coincides with the rise in temperature in spring and summer and even runs parallel to it. , but in such a way that the heat of spring, as a result of the contrast after the winter cold, acts even more strongly than the summer heat, while the comparatively even warmth of the August days has a less destructive effect. In the subsequent colder months, a minimum of new diseases is noticed. The attached table shows this quite clearly.
lunatic
heat
lunatic
heat
June
2701
21°.29
October
1637
12°.77
May
2642
16°.75
September
1604
19°.00
July
2614
23°.75
December
1529
1°.01
August
2261
21°.92
February
1490
5°.73
April
2237
16°,12
January
1476
1°.63
March
1829
6°,60
November
1452
7°,17
The complete analogy with these phenomena is also seen in those people whom - it is difficult to say whether beneficent or cruel - nature has more generously endowed with mental abilities. Few of these people did not themselves express that atmospheric phenomena produce an enormous influence on them. In their personal relations and in letters they constantly complain about the harmful effect on them of changes in temperature, with which they sometimes have to endure a fierce struggle in order to destroy or soften the fatal influence of bad weather, which weakens and delays the bold flight of their imagination. “When I am healthy and the weather is clear, I feel like a decent person,” wrote Montaigne. "During strong winds, it seems to me that my brain is not in order," said Diderot. Giordani, according to Mantegazza, predicted thunderstorms two days in advance. Maine Biran, a spiritualist philosopher par excellence, writes in his diary: “I don’t understand why in bad weather my mind and will are completely different from those in clear weather, bright days".
“I am like a barometer,” Alfieri wrote, “and greater or lesser ease of work always corresponds to my atmospheric pressure, complete dullness (stupidita) attacks me during strong winds, my clarity of thought is infinitely weaker in the evening than in the morning, and in the middle of winter and summer, my creative abilities are more alive than in other seasons. Such dependence on external influences, against which I can hardly fight, humbles me. "
From these examples, the influence of barometer fluctuations on men of genius is already evident, and there is a great analogy in this respect between them and lunatics; but even more noticeable, even more sharply, is the effect of temperature.
Napoleon, who said that "man is a product of physical and moral conditions," could not endure the lightest wind and loved warmth so much that he ordered to heat in his room even in the month of July. The offices of Voltaire and Buffon were heated at all times of the year. Rousseau said that the sun's rays in the summer time cause creative activity in him, and he put his head under them at noon.
Byron said of himself that he was afraid of the cold, like a gazelle. Heine claimed that he was more able to write poetry in France than in Germany with its harsh climate. “Thunder rumbles, it snows,” he writes in one of his letters, “I have little fire in the fireplace, and my letter is cold.”
Spallanzani, living in the Aeolian Islands, could do twice as much as in foggy Pavia. Leopardi in his Epistolario says: "My body cannot stand the cold, I am waiting and wishing for the coming of the kingdom of Ormuzd."
Giusti wrote in the spring: "Now inspiration will no longer hide ... if the spring will help me, as in everything else."
Giordani could not compose otherwise than in the bright light of the sun and in warm weather.
Foscolo wrote in November: "I constantly keep near the fireplace (fire), and my friends laugh at it; I try to give my members the warmth that my heart absorbs and processes inside itself." In December, he already wrote: "My natural defect - fear of the cold - forced me to stay close to the fire, which burns my eyelids."
Milton already in his Latin elegies confesses that in winter his muse becomes barren. In general, he could only compose from the spring to the autumn equinox. In one of his letters he complains about the cold in 1798 and expresses his fear that this would interfere with the free development of his imagination if the cold continued. Johnson, who relates this, can be completely trusted, because he himself, devoid of imagination and gifted only with a calm, cold critical mind, never experienced the influence of the seasons or weather on his ability to work and in Milton considered such features to be the result of his strange character. . Salvatore Rosa, according to Lady Morgan, laughed in his youth at the exaggerated importance that the weather supposedly has on the creativity of people of genius, but, having grown old, he revived and gained the ability to think only with the onset of spring; in the last years of his life, he could paint exclusively in the summer.
Reading Schiller's letters to Goethe, one is amazed that this great, humane and brilliant poet attributed to the weather some extraordinary influence on his creative abilities. “In these sad days,” he wrote in November 1871, “under this leaden sky, I need all my energy to maintain vigor in myself; I am completely incapable of taking up any serious work. for work, but the weather is so bad that it is impossible to maintain clarity of thought. In July 1818, he says, on the contrary: "Thanks to the good weather, I feel better, lyrical inspiration, which is less than any other subject to our will, will not be slow to appear." But in December of the same year, he again complains that the need to finish "Wallenstein" coincided with the most unfavorable time of the year, "therefore," he says, "I must make every possible effort to maintain clarity of thought." In May, Schiller wrote: "I hope to do a lot if the weather does not change for the worse." From all these examples, it can already be concluded with some reason that high temperature, which has a favorable effect on vegetation, contributes, with few exceptions, to the productivity of genius, just as it causes more intense excitement in madmen.
If historians, who have written so much paper and spent so much time on the most detailed depiction of fierce battles or adventurous enterprises carried out by kings and heroes, if these historians had studied with the same thoroughness the memorable era when this or that great discovery was made or when a wonderful was conceived a work of art, they would almost certainly be convinced that the most sultry months and days are the most fruitful, not only for all physical nature, but also for brilliant minds.
For all the seeming improbability of such an influence, it is confirmed by many undoubted facts. Dante composed his first sonnet on June 15, 1282; in the spring of 1300 he wrote "Vita nuova", and on April 3 he began to write his great poem.
Petrarch conceived "Africana" in March 1338. The huge picture of Michelangelo, which Cellini, the most competent judge in this field, called the most amazing of the works of a brilliant painter, was assembled and finished within three months, from April to July, 1506.
Milton conceived his poem in the spring.
Galileo discovered Saturn's ring in April 1611.
Foscolo's best things were written in July and August.
Stern wrote the first of his sermons in April, and in May he composed his famous sermon on the errors of conscience.
The newest poets - Lamartine, Musset, Hugo, Beranger, Carcano, Aleardi, Mascheroni, Zanella, Arcangeli, Carducci, Milli, Belli used to indicate on almost all of their small and lyrical poems when exactly each of them was composed. Using these precious guidelines, we have compiled the following table.
Months
Lamartine
V.Hugo
Musset and Beranger
Carcano, Arcangeli, Zanella, Carducci,
Mascheroni, Aleardi
Milli
Belly
Byron
Sum
January
11
20
8
10
28
21
1
99
February
6
25
6
11
16
13
1
78
March
18
19
4
22
16
14
3
96
April
9
46
1
11
35
16
1
122
May
16
57
13
16
30
4
1
137
June
5
52
3
11
25
7
3
106
July
9
38
9
14
24
2

109
September
16
38
4
26
17
17
1
119
October
5
40
3
12
12
5
3
80
November
12
29
8
10
20
22

82
Distributing the compositions of Alfieri by months, we see that in August he wrote "Garzia", ​​in July - "Mary Stuart"; in May - "The Conspiracy of Madmen" ("Congiura di "Pazzi"), two books "On Tyranny" and "On the Sovereign" ("Principe"); in June "Virginia", "Lorentino", "Alceste" and "Panegyric Trajan"; in September - "Sophonisba", "Agide" ("Agide"), "Myrrh" and 6 comedies; in March - "Saul"; in April - "Antigon", in February - "Merop"; in winter, both Brutes and the dialogue On Virtue, whose first two tragedies were conceived in March and May.
From Giusti's autographs I have been able to accurately determine the date of original composition of many of this poet's minor poems, but when exactly they received their final finishing is difficult to say, to such an extent they have many corrections.
Giusti's poem "The Ball" (or "Modern Democracy," as it was originally called) was written in November, "A Satire on the Pseudo-Liberals" in October; a little poem "To a Friend" in June, "Ave Maria" in March.
Voltaire wrote "Tancred" in August.
Byron finished in September the 4th song "Pelligrinaggio", in June "Dante's Prophecy", and in the summer in Switzerland - "The Prisoner of Chillon", "Darkness" and "Dream".
Schiller's correspondence with Goethe shows that in the fall he drew up a plan for the tragedies Don Carlos, Wallenstein, The Fiesco Conspiracy, and William Tell. In September he wrote Wallenstein's Camp and Aesthetic Letters. In winter, he conceived the tragedy "Louise Miller", in June - "The Corinthian Bride", "God and the La Bayadère", "The Enchanter" ("Mago"), "The Diver", "The Glove", "Polycrates' Ring", "Ivikov's Cranes" ; in June he began to write "John d" Arc.
Goethe sketched three lyric poems in the fall, and in April he began to write Werther; in May - "The Treasure Seeker", "Strophes", "Mignon" and another lyric poem; in June and July: Cellini; "Alexis", "Efrosina", "Plant Metamorphoses" and "Parnassus"; in winter: "Xenia", "Herman and Dorothea", "Sofa" and "Illegal Daughter". In the first days of March 1788, when, according to Goethe himself, a few days meant more than a whole month for him, he wrote, in addition to many lyrical plays, also the ending to Faust.
Rossini composed almost the entire opera "Semiramide" in February, and in November wrote the last part of "Stabat Mater".
Mozart composed the opera Mithridates in October.
Beethoven wrote his Ninth Symphony in February.
Donizetti in September composed the opera "Lucia di Lammermur", perhaps the whole, but probably the famous excerpt "Tu che a Dio spiegasti l" aie ". In the same way, in the autumn he wrote the opera" The Regiment's Daughter ", in the spring -" Linda di Chamouni", in the summer - "Rita", in the winter - "Don Pasquale" and "Miserere".
Canova made a model for his first piece ("Orpheus and Eurydice") in October.
Michelangelo worked on his painting "Mercy" from September to October 1498, he made a drawing of the library in December, and a wooden model of the tomb of Pope Julius I in August.
Leonardo da Vinci conceived the statue of Francesco Sforza and began writing his essay On Light and Shadow on April 23, 1490.
The first thought about the discovery of America came to Columbus at the end of May and at the beginning of June 1474, when he decided to find a western route to India.
Galileo discovered in April 1611, at the same time as Scheiner, or perhaps before him, sunspots; and a year earlier, in December, or rather in September - since the observation was made three months before its description appeared - he discovered the analogy between the phases of the Moon and Venus. In May 1609, Galileo invented the telescope, and in July 1610 he discovered those stars that later turned out to be the brightest points in the ring of Saturn. This last discovery, with his usual wit, he briefly expressed in verse:
Aitissimum planetam tergeminum observavi*.
[Watched the triple face of the highest planet.]
Kepler in May 1618 discovered the laws of motion of the world's bodies.
In August 1546, Fabricius discovered the first periodically moving star.
In October 1666 and April 1667, Cassini discovered spots indicating the rotation of Venus, and in October, December and March (1671-1684) four satellites of Saturn. Two more of them were discovered by Herschel in March 1789.
One of Saturn's moons was discovered by Huygens on March 25, 1655, and the other by Dove and Bond on the night of September 19, 1848.
The two moons of Uranus were discovered in 1787 by Herschel; he suspected that there was also a third satellite, which was found in October 1851 by Struve and Lassell, who also discovered on September 14 of this year the last satellite of Uranus - Ariel.
Lassell first saw the moons of Neptune on the night of July 8, 1846.
Uranus was discovered by Herschel in March 1781. The same astronomer observed volcanoes on the Moon in April.
Bradley discovered in September 1728 the laws of aberration (the apparent motion of fixed stars). It is remarkable that this discovery was led by his observation of the fluctuations of the pennant (weather vane) at each turn of the barge on the Thames.
The curious discoveries of Encke and Vico (1735-1738) concerning Saturn were made in March and April.
Of the comets discovered by Gambard, he found three in July, two in March and May, and one each in January, April, June, August, October and December.
Hall discovered the moons of Mars in August 1877.
The total number of 175 small planets discovered during 1877, and 247 comets discovered before 1864, is distributed by months:
minor planets
Comets
In January
11
24
In February
10
10
In March
13
24
In April
23
25
In May
14
14
In June
7
15
In July
10
37
In August
19
21
In September
29
15
In October
18
22
In November
18
22
In December
3
17
175
247
Schiaparelli's discovery of shooting stars was made in August 1866.
It appears from Malpighi's diary that in July he made his remarkable discovery concerning the accessory kidneys, and in July concerning the crowded glands*. It is curious that some months of Malpighi are especially rich in new works, for example, in 1688 and 1690 - January, and in 1671 - June, during which 3 discoveries were made. Torricelli's first idea of ​​a barometer was in May 1644, as is evident from his letter to Ritchie of June 11; in March of the same year, he made an extremely important discovery for that time regarding better way preparation of glasses for telescopes.
[This is the name of the glands, consisting of a collection of lymphatic cells that do not have a common membrane. They are located under the mucous membrane of the intestines and oral cavity.]
Pascal's first experiments on the equilibrium of liquids were made in September 1645.
In March 1752, Franklin made the first experiments with lightning rods, which, however, he finally arranged only in September. Goethe says that the most original ideas about the theory of colors came to him in May; his excellent experiments on plants were made in June.
Alessandro Volta invented his electric pole in the winter of 1800; the opinion that this invention was made in the spring is erroneous, since on March 20, 1805, Volta only reported it to the Royal Society in London. In the spring of 1775, he invented the electrophore. In the early days of November 1774, he also made a discovery regarding the separation of hydrogen during the fermentation of organic substances and in the autumn of 1776 he invented his hydrogen-charged pistol, although biographers attribute this invention to the spring of 1776. To the same year belongs the invention of the eudiometer, made, in all probability, in the spring, approximately in the month of May. In April of the same 1777, Volta wrote to Professor Barletta famous letter(kept at the Lombard Institute), where a prediction was made about the electric telegraph. In the spring of 1788, he arranged his electrometer-capacitor, the description of which he published in August.
Luigi Brugnatelli invented the art of electroforming in November 1806, as evidenced by a letter found by Volta's lawyer in the papers of his famous ancestor; Jacobi and Spencer and De la Rive have been credited with this invention, although they only improved it in 1835 and 1840.
Nicholson discovered the oxidation of metals using the Voltaic column in the summer of 1800.
The first works of Galvani on the action of atmospheric electricity on the nerves of cold-blooded animals were made by him, as he himself wrote, on April 26, 1776. In September 1786, he made the first experiments on the convulsive contractions of frogs without the mediation of a constant electrical source, using only a metal conductor, from which the theory of galvanism originated. In November 1780, Galvani began experiments on contractions of frogs by means of electricity.
It is clear from Lagrange's manuscripts that he had his first idea of ​​a variational calculation on June 12, 1755, and that he conceived Analytical Mechanics on May 19, 1756. He found the solution to the problem of vibrating strings in November 1759.
Examining Spallanzani's manuscripts, which I was able to obtain in part in the original from the public library of Reggio, and using extracts made for me from them by Professor Tamburini, I came to the conclusion that Spallanzani's experiments on mold were begun on September 26, 1770. On May 8, 1780, he undertook, in his own words, "the study of animals that freeze in the cold," and in 1776, in April or May, he found in females embryos previously fertilized (parthenogenesis). Later, April 2, 1780, is the richest day of his life in terms of experiments or deductions regarding ovulation. “I was convinced,” Spallanzani wrote with his own hand that day, after having made 43 experiments, “that the seed (sperma) acquires the ability to fertilize after a certain period of time after its release, that the mucus of the genital organs (succo vescicolare) can fertilize in exactly the same way the same as the seed, and that wine and vinegar prevent fertilization."
On May 7, 1780, he made the discovery that an infinitesimal amount of semen is sufficient for fertilization.
Judging by one letter from Spallanzani to Bonn, one can think that in the spring of 1771 he had the idea to study the effect of heart contractions on blood circulation, and in May 1781 in notebook he planned a plan for 161 new experiments on the artificial insemination of frogs.
From Leibniz's manuscripts it can be seen that on October 29, 1675, he first used the integral sign instead of the Cavalieri designation accepted at that time.
Humboldt's letter to Varnhagen shows that he began the preface to Cosmos in October.
On December 8, Davy discovered iodine, and in April 1799 he performed experiments on the action of nitrous oxide.
In November 1796, Humboldt made his first observations on the electric eel, and in March 1793, experiments on the irritability of organic tissue.
In July 1801, Gay-Lussac discovered fluorine compounds in the bone skeleton of fish and at the same time completed the analysis of alum.
In September 1876, Jackson used sulfuric ether to render patients insensible during surgical operations.
In October 1840, Armstrong invented the first hydroelectric machine.
Mateucci made in July 1830 the first experiments on the galvanoscopy of frogs, in the spring of 1836 on electric skates, in July 1837 on the electrical excitability of muscles, in May 1835 on the decomposition of acids; in May 1837 he investigated the role of electricity in meteorological phenomena, and in June 1833 the effect of heat on electricity and magnetism.
If the reader had the patience to look through this long list of various discoveries, then he could be convinced that many great people had, as it were, their own special chronology, i.e. their favorite months and seasons, in which they predominantly showed a tendency to make the greatest number of observations or discoveries and create the best works of art. Thus, with Spallanzani, this tendency manifested itself in the spring, with Giusti and Arcangeli in March, with Lamartine in August, with Carca no, Byron and Alfieri in September, with Malpighi and Schiller in June and July. , with Hugo in May, with Berenger in January, with Belly in November, with Milli in April, with Volta in late November and early December, with Galvani in April, with Gambard - in July, with Peters - in August, with Luther - in March and April, with Watson - in September.
In general, the most diverse works of brilliant people - literary (aesthetic), poetic, musical, sculptural, as well as scientific discoveries, the time of creation of which we managed to find out with accuracy, can be brought under a kind of chronology, making up a kind of calendar from them. spiritual world, as can be seen from the following table:
Months
Works in the field of fine arts and literature
Discoveries in the field in astronomy
Inventions in the field of physics, chemistry and mathematics
Sum
January
101
37

138
February
82
21
1
104
March
103
45
4
151
April
134
52
5
191
May
149
35
9
193
June
125
24
4
153
July
105
52
5
162
August
113
42

155
September
138
47
5
190
October
83
45
4
132
November
103
42
5
150
December
86
27
2
114
From this table, we can see that the most favorable month for artistic creation is May, followed by September and April, while the least productive months were February, October and December. The same is partly noticeable in relation to astronomical discoveries, only for the latter, April and July are predominant. Discoveries in the exact sciences, as the largest number of aesthetic works, and consequently the total number of all works, predominate in the same way in May, April and September, i.e. during not particularly hot months, when barometric fluctuations are more frequent compared to the hottest and coldest months.
Grouping these numbers according to the seasons, which will give us the opportunity to use some other data regarding the work done in an unknown month, we will see that the maximum of artistic and literary works falls on:
For spring, namely387 Then comes summer346 And autumn335 Then at least it happens in winter280
Similarly, from the great discoveries in physics, chemistry and mathematics:
The greatest number was made in the spring, viz.
Astronomical discoveries, which we have separated from previous ones on the grounds that the time when they are made are known with greater accuracy (which is especially important for our purpose), are likewise distributed unevenly over the seasons:
They were made in the autumn135 in the spring131 But in the winter much less83 And again a little more in the summer120
Taking the total number of 1867 great works, we find that significantly most of they fall in spring (539) and autumn (485), while in summer their number drops to 475 and in winter to 368.
The predominance of moderately warm months here is quite obvious and is expressed not only quantitatively, but even qualitatively, although in this sense it is still impossible to draw a completely accurate conclusion due to the paucity of data. There is no doubt, however, that it was in the spring months that America was discovered and that galvanism, the barometer, the telescope, and the lightning rod were invented; in the spring, Michelangelo conceived his famous painting, Dante began to write the Divine Comedy, Leonardo began writing his treatise On Shadows and Light, Goethe his Faust, Kepler discovered the laws of motion of celestial bodies, and Milton conceived his poem.
I will also add that in those few cases when the creations of great people can be traced almost day by day, their activity in winter is constantly intensified on warmer days and weakening on cold ones.
I foresee what a mass of refutations my generalizations will provoke: they will point out to me the paucity of data and their insufficient reliability; comparisons among themselves. In particular, my attempt will be disliked by the followers of that school which thinks of limiting itself in statistics to the mere use of large figures, often preferring their quantity to quality, and a priori does not allow their use for any kind of conclusions, forgetting that numbers, in essence, , the same facts that can be synthesized like all other facts, and that these figures, having no meaning in themselves, would not be of the slightest interest if thinkers did not use them for their generalizations or conclusions.
Regarding the paucity of data, I will note that, for all the inadequacy of the 1867 facts I have cited, they are still more convincing than simple hypotheses or confessions of individual authors, confessions, which, however, these facts do not contradict in the least and therefore can serve, if not for indisputable, then at least for approximate conclusions. In addition, they may cause a number of new, more eloquent psychometeorological observations, although the works of genius are not so numerous that it would be easy to fill large tables with them.
On the other hand, I fully agree that the chronological coincidence of many phenomena is due to random circumstances that apparently have nothing to do with our mental state. Thus, for example, it is most convenient for naturalists to carry out their experiments and observations during the warm months. Therefore, the abundance of discoveries made in spring and autumn is largely a consequence of the greater uniformity in the distribution of days and nights, the greater clarity of the weather, and the absence of both exhausting heat and severe cold.
In the same way, it is impossible not to be convinced that all these circumstances do not have an unconditional influence on creative activity. This can be seen, for example, from the fact that although anatomists never lack corpses and it is especially convenient to work on them in the cold of winter, nevertheless, discoveries in this area are made mainly in the warm season. On the other hand, long, clear winter nights (during which the effect of refraction is least pronounced) and warm summer nights should be especially conducive to astronomical observations, while their maximum is in spring and autumn.
Finally, who does not know that, thanks to statistical studies, the significance of chance circumstances turns out to be negligible even in such phenomena as death, suicide and birth? The correctness seen in them can only be explained by the influence of one general cause, which consists in nothing other than meteorological factors.
Further, I allowed myself to combine works of art and natural scientific discoveries into one group on the grounds that for both, that moment of mental excitement and heightened sensitivity is equally necessary, which brings together the most remote or heterogeneous facts and gives them life; in general, that fertilizing moment, rightly called creative, when the naturalist and the poet stand much closer to each other than it would seem at first sight. And indeed, what a bold, rich fantasy, what creative imagination manifest themselves in the experiments of Spalanza-ni, in the first works of Herschel, or in the two great discoveries of Schiaparelli and Le Verrier, made first on the basis of hypotheses and subsequently with the help of calculations and new observations turned into axioms! Littrov, speaking of the discovery of Vesta, notes that it was not made as a result of one accident or exclusively of a brilliant mind, but thanks to a genius who was favored by chance. The star discovered by Piazzi was seen much earlier by Zacch, but he did not pay attention to it, either because he was less brilliant than Pazzi, or because at that moment he did not have such insight as he did. The discovery of sunspots did not require, according to Secchi, anything but time, patience and luck, but in order to create a correct theory of this phenomenon, a true genius was indispensable. How many scientists-physicists, moving across the river, observed the oscillation of a pennant on a barge, and, however, only one Bradley succeeded in deriving the laws of aberration from this! Arago says. And how many people, I will add, have seen the typical figures of porters, and yet no one created Judas except Leonard, just as no one who saw oranges wrote cavatinas, with the exception of Mozart.
A more serious objection may be taken that almost all the works of great minds, and especially modern discoveries in physics, are not the result of instant inspiration, but rather the result of a whole series of continuous and slow researches on the part of scientists who lived in the past, so that the newest inventor is , in fact, only a compiler, to whose works chronology is not applicable, since the numbers we have given determine the time of the end of this or that work rather than the moment when it was conceived. But objections of this kind do not apply exclusively to our task: almost all other manifestations of human activity, even the least arbitrary, can be brought under the same category. Fertilization, for example, even then depends on the good nutrition of the organism and on heredity; death itself and madness only seem to be due to immediate or accidental causes, but in essence they are completely dependent, on the one hand, on atmospheric phenomena, and on the other, on organic conditions; in many cases it can be said that death and madness are prepared in advance, and the time of their occurrence is precisely indicated at the moment of the individual's birth.
IV. INFLUENCE OF METEOROLOGICAL PHENOMENA ON THE BIRTH OF GENIUS PEOPLE
Convinced of the enormous influence of meteorological phenomena on the creative activity of brilliant people, we can easily understand that the climate and soil structure should also have a powerful effect on their birth.
There is no doubt that race (for example, there are more great people in the Latin and Greek races than in others), political movements, freedom of thought and speech, the wealth of the country, and finally, the proximity of literary centers - all this has a great influence on the appearance of brilliant people, but there is also no doubt that temperature and climate are no less important in this respect.
To be convinced of this, it is enough to look and compare reports on recruiting in Italy in recent years. It can be seen from these reports that those regions which, apparently due to their excellent climate, although independently of the influence of nationality, give the largest number of tall soldiers and the smallest percentage of defectives, belong precisely to those in which there have always been many talented people, such as , for example, Tuscany, Liguria and Romagna.
On the contrary, in those provinces where the percentage of tall young men fit for military service is smaller - Sardinia, Basilicata and the Aosta Valley - the number of brilliant personalities is noticeably reduced. The only exceptions are Calabria and Valtellina, where talented people are not rare, despite the low growth of the majority of the population, but this is noticed only in areas open from the south or lying on a hill, as a result of which neither cretinism nor malaria develop there, so this fact in no way contradicts our position.
It has long been noticed by both common people and scientists that in mountainous countries with a warm climate there are especially many brilliant people. A popular Tuscan proverb says: "Highlanders have thick legs and tender brains." Vegezio wrote: "The climate affects not only physical, but also mental health; Minerva chose the city of Athens as her seat for its favorable air, as a result of which wise men will be born there." Cicero also repeatedly mentions that in Athens, thanks to the warm climate, smart people will be born, and in Thebes, where the climate is harsh, stupid people. Petrarch, in his "Epistolario", which constitutes a kind of autobiography of this poet, constantly points out that the best of his works were written, or at least conceived, in the midst of his favorite lovely hills of Val Chiusa. According to Vasari, Michelangelo told him: "If I managed to create something really good, then I owe this to the wonderful air of your native Arezzo." Muratori wrote to one Italian: "We have an amazing air, and I am sure that it is thanks to him that there are so many wonderfully gifted people in our country." Macaulay says that Scotland, one of the poorest countries in Europe, ranks first in the number of scientists and writers; she owns: Bede, Michael Scott, Napier - the inventor of logarithms, then Buchanan, Walter Scott, Byron, Johnston and partly Newton.
Without a doubt, it is precisely in this influence of atmospheric phenomena that one should seek an explanation for the fact that in the mountains of Tuscany, mainly in the provinces of Pistoia, Buti and Valdontani, between shepherds and peasants, there are so many poets and especially improvisers, including even women, as , for example, the shepherdess, whom Giuliani speaks of in his essay "On the Language Spoken in Tuscany," or the extraordinary Frediani family, where grandfather, father, and sons are all poets. One of the members of this family is still alive and composes poetry no worse than the great Tuscan poets of the past. Meanwhile, peasants of the same nationality living on the plains do not, as far as I know, have such talents.
In all low-lying countries, as, for example, in Belgium and Holland, and also in those too surrounded high mountains in areas where, as a result, local diseases develop - goiter and cretinism, as, for example, in Switzerland and Savoy - brilliant people are extremely rare, but there are even fewer of them in damp and swampy countries. The few geniuses that Switzerland is proud of - Bonnet, Rousseau, Tronchin, Tissot, de Candol and Bourlamaki - were born from French or Italian emigrants, i.e. under such conditions when the race could paralyze the influence of local unfavorable conditions.
Urbino, Pesaro, Forli, Como, Parma produced more famous men of genius than Pisa, Padua and Pavia, the oldest of the university cities of Italy, where, however, there was neither Raphael, nor Bramante, nor Rossini, nor Morgagni, nor Spallanzani, no Muratorno, no Fallopia, no Volta - natives of the first five cities.
Passing then from general to more particular instances, we will see that Florence, where the climate is very mild and the soil extremely hilly, delivered to Italy the most brilliant galaxy of great people. Dante, Giotto, Machiavelli, Lulli, Leonardo, Brunelleschi, Guicciardini, Cellini, Beato Angelico, Andrea del Sarto, Nicolini, Capponi, Vespucci, Viviani, Boccaccio, Alberti and Donati are the main names that this city has the right to be proud of.
On the other hand, Pisa, being scientifically as a university city in no less favorable conditions than Florence, produced in comparison with it even a much smaller number of outstanding generals and politicians, which was the reason for its fall, despite the help of strong allies. Of the great people of Pisa, only Niccolò Pisano, Giunta, and Galileo belong to Pisa, whose parents, however, were Florentines. Meanwhile, Pisa differs from Florence only in its low-lying location.
Finally, what a wealth of brilliant people is the mountainous province of Arezzo, where Michelangelo, Petrarch, Guido Reni, Redi, Vasari and three Aretino were born. Further, how many talented individuals were from Asti (Alfieri, Ogero, S. Brunone, Belli, Natta, Gualtieri, Cotta, Solari, Alione, Giorgio and Ventura) and Turin spread out on the hills (Roland, Calusa, Gioberti, Balbo, Beretta, Marochetti, Lagrange, Bogino and Cavour).
In the mountainous parts of Lombardy, and in the lakeside regions of Bergamo, Bresci, and Como, the number of great men is likewise much greater than in the lowlands. In the first we meet the names of Tasso, Mascheroni, Donizetti, Tarta-lla, Ugoni, Volta, Parini, Anpiani, Mai, Pliny, Cagnola, and others, while in low-lying Lombardy one can hardly count six such names - Alciato, Beccaria, Oriani , Cavalieri, Azelli and Bocachini. Hilly Verona produced Maffei, Paolo Veronese, Catullus, Fracastoro, Bianchini, Sammikepli, Tiraboschi, Lorna, Pindemonte; the rich and most learned Padua, only in some places representing a few hills illuminated by the sun, gave Italy only Titus Livius, Cesarotti, Peter d "Abano and a few others.
If the low-lying region of the Reggio can boast of such famous natives as Spallanzani, Ariosto, Correggio, Secchi, Nobili, Vallisneri, Bojardo, then it is partly due to these sunlit hills that meet in it; the last three of this galaxy were born precisely in the hilly Scandiano; Genoa and Naples, which are in especially favorable conditions (warm climate, proximity to the sea and mountainous location can be put on a par with Florence, if not in the number of their brilliant natives, then in their importance; Columbus, Doria, Vico, Caracciolo, Pergolese, were born here, Genovesi, Cirilo, Filangeri, etc.
Further, it is interesting to trace the influence of a moderately warm climate, especially if national qualities are also added to it, on the development musical talents. Looking through Clement's "Famous Musicians" (Clment. Les Musiciens clbres, 1868), I found that out of 110 great composers, 36, i.e. more than a third belongs to Italy and that 19 or more than half of these latter are natives of Sicily (Scarlatti, Pacini, Bellini) and Naples with its environs. This phenomenon is obviously due to the influence of the Greek race and the warm climate. The Neapolitans include Jomelli, Stradella, Piccinni, Leo, Duni, Sacchini, Carafa, Paisiello, Cimarosa, Zingarelli, Mercadante, Traetta, Durante, the two Ricci and Petrella. Of the remaining 17 musicians, only a few can consider Upper Italy their homeland: Donizetti, Verdi, Allegri, Frescobaldi, two Monteverdi, Salieri, Marcelo and Paganini. The last three are natives of coastal areas; all the rest are from Central Italy, in Rome were born Palestrina and Clementi, in Perugino and Florence - Spontini, Lulli, Pergolesi.
The enormous significance of climate and soil is felt not only in relation to outstanding artists in all kinds of art, but even in relation to the least famous of them. I became convinced of this by drawing up, with the assistance of the venerable Professor Cugne, a map of Italy, indicating the distribution of painters, sculptors and musicians in it over the past two centuries, and the predominant number of artists in the mountainous, hot provinces of Central Italy, such as Florence and Bologna, was expressed with surprising correctness, and seaside - Venice, Naples, Genoa.
The indirect influence of the surrounding nature on the birth of brilliant people presents some analogy with its influence on the development of insanity.
The well-known fact that in mountainous countries the inhabitants are more prone to madness than in low-lying countries is confirmed by quite psychiatric statistics. In addition, recent observations prove that epidemic madness is much more common in the mountains than in the valleys. Recall the psychic epidemics that have arisen in recent years and before our eyes in Monte Amiata (Lazaretti), in Busk and Montenegro. It must also not be forgotten that the hills of Judea were the cradle of many prophets, and that in the mountains of Scotland there appeared men gifted with clairvoyance (Seconda Vista); both belong to the category of brilliant madmen and half-mad soothsayers.
yyi V. THE INFLUENCE OF RACE AND HEREDITY ON GENIUS AND CRAZY
The similarity of the influence of atmospheric phenomena on tenial people and on lunatics will be even more noticeable if we consider it together with the influence of race. The Jews provide us with an excellent example in this respect.
In my monographs "Uomo bianco e l" uomo di colore" and "Pensiero e Mtore" I have already pointed out the fact that as a result of the cruel persecution experienced by the Jews in the Middle Ages (which resulted in the extermination of weak individuals, i.e. a kind of selection) , and also because of the temperate climate, the European Jews reached such a degree of mental development that, perhaps, they even outstripped the Aryan tribe, while in Africa and in the East they remained at the same low level of culture as the rest of the Semites. the data show that among the Jews there is even more general education than among other nations*, that they occupy a prominent position not only in trade, but also in many other branches of activity, for example, in music, journalism, literature, especially satirical and humorous, and in some branches of medicine.Thus, in music, the Jews belong to such geniuses as Meyerbeer, Halevi, Guzikov, Mendelssohn and Offenbach; in humorous literature: Heine, Safir, Camerini, Revere, Calisse, Jacobson, Jung, Weil, Fortis and Gozlan; in belles lettres: Auerbach, Compert and Aguilar; in linguistics: Ascoli, Munch, Fiorentino, Luzza-to, and others; in medicine: Valentin, Herman, Heidenhain, Schiff, Kasper, Hirschfeld, Stilling, Gluger, Laurens, Traube, Frenkel, Kuhn, Konheim and Hirsch; in philosophy: Spinoza, Sommer-hausen and Mendelssohn, and in sociology: Lassalle and Marx. Even in mathematics, for which the Semites are generally incapable, one can point out among the Jews such outstanding specialists as Goldschmidt, Veer and Markus.
[In 1861 in Italy there were 645 illiterates per 1,000 Catholics, and only 58 per 1,000 Jews.]
It should also be noted that almost all brilliant people of Jewish origin showed a great inclination to create new systems, to change the social structure of society; in the political sciences they were revolutionaries, in theology they were the founders of new creeds, so that the Jews, in essence, owe, if not their origin, then at least their development, on the one hand, nihilism and socialism, and on the other, Christianity and mosaicism , just as in trade they were the first to introduce bills, in philosophy - positivism, and in literature - neo-humorism (neo-umorismo). And at the same time, it is precisely among the Jews that there are four or even five times as many crazy people as among their fellow citizens belonging to other nationalities.
The famous scientist Servi calculated that in Italy in 1869 there was one madman for every 391 Jews, i.e. almost four times more than among Catholics. The same was confirmed in 1869 by Verga, according to whose calculations the percentage of lunatics among the Jews turned out to be even more significant. So,
among Catholics there is 1 madman per 1775 people - - - Protestants 1725 people - - - Jews 384 people
Tigges, who has studied more than 3,100 insane persons, says in his statistics of insanity in Westphalia that it spreads among its population in the following proportion:
From 1 to 8 per 7,000 inhabitants between Jews "1" 11" 14,000"" Catholics "1" 13" 14,000"" Lutherans
Finally, for 1871 Mayr found the number of lunatics:
In Prussia 8.7 per 40,000 Christians and 14.1 per 10,000 Jews In Bavaria 9.8 - - -25.2 In all of Germany 8.6 - - -16.1
As you can see, this is an amazingly large proportion, especially if we take into account that although there are many old people in the Jewish population, who are most often subjected to insanity from old age, there are extremely few alcoholics.
This fatal privilege of the Jewish race, however, remained unnoticed by the anti-Semites who constitute the plague of modern Germany. If they paid attention to this fact, then, of course, they would not become so indignant at the successes made by the unfortunate Jewish race, and they would understand how dearly the Jews have to pay for their intellectual superiority even in our time, not to mention the disasters, experienced by them in the past. However, it is unlikely that the Jews were more unhappy than they are now, when they are being persecuted for precisely that which is their glory.
The importance of race in the development of genius, as well as insanity, is seen from the fact that both of them are almost completely independent of education, while heredity has an enormous influence on them.
"Through education you can make bears dance," says Helvetius, "but you can't develop a man of genius."
Undoubtedly, insanity is only in rare cases the result of bad education, while the influence of heredity in this case is so great that it reaches 88 per 100 according to Tigges' calculations and up to 85 per 100 according to Golgi's calculations. As for genius, Galton and Ribot (De l "Hrdit, 1878) consider it most often the result of hereditary abilities, especially in the art of music, which gives such a huge percentage of crazy people. So, among musicians, the sons of Palestrina, Benda, Dussek, distinguished themselves with remarkable talents, Giller, Mozart, Eichhorn; the Bach family gave 8 generations of musicians, of which 57 people were famous.
Between the painters we meet hereditary talents von der Veld, Van Eyck, Murillo, Veronesi, Bellini, Carracci, Correggio, Mieris, Bassano, Tintoretto, as well as in the Cagliari family, which consisted of an uncle, father and son, and especially in the Titian family, which gave a number of painters, as can be seen from the genealogical table attached below, borrowed by me from an inexhaustible source of information on this part - from Ribot's book "De l" Hrdit.
(see fig. lombrozo_geni_01.gif)
Among the poets one can point to Aeschylus, who had two sons and nephews who were also poets; Swift, Dryden's nephew; Lucan, nephew of Seneca; Tasso, son of Bernard; Ariosto, whose brother and nephew were poets; Aristophanes with two sons who also wrote comedies; Corneille, Racine, Sophocles, Coleridge, whose sons and nephews had a poetic talent.
Of the naturalists, members of the families of Darwin, Euler, Decandole, Hooke, Herschel, Jussier, Geoffroy, Saint-Hilaire made themselves famous. The sons of Aristotle himself (whose father was a medical scientist), Nicomachus and Callisthenes, as well as his nephews, are known for their scholarship.
The son of the astronomer Cassini was also a famous astronomer, his 22-year-old nephew had already become a member of the Academy of Sciences, his great-nephew was the director of the observatory, and his great-grandnephew made himself famous as a naturalist and philologist. Then here is Bernoulli's genealogical table starting from
(see fig. lombrozo_geni_02.gif)
All of them have made a name for themselves in one branch or another of the natural sciences. As early as 1829, one of the Bernoullis was known as a chemist, and in 1863 another member of the same family, Christopher Bernoulli, who held the position of professor of natural sciences at Basel, died.
Galton, who often confuses talent with genius (a flaw from which even I could not always get rid of), says in his excellent study that the chances of relatives of famous people becoming or having to become outstanding are 15.5:100 - for fathers; 13.5:100 - for brothers; 24:100 - for sons. Or, if we put these, as well as the rest, relationships in a more convenient form, we get the following results.
In the first degree of relationship: the chances of the father - 1:6; chances of each brother -1:7; every son -- 1:4. In the second power: the chances of each grandfather is 1:25, each uncle is 1:40, each grandchild is 1:29. To the third power: the odds of each member are approximately 1:200, except for cousins, for whom it is 1:100.
This means that out of six cases, in one case, the father of a famous person is probably an outstanding person himself, in one case out of seven, the brother of a famous person is also distinguished by outstanding abilities, in one case out of four, the son inherits the properties of his father that are outstanding above the general level, etc. d.
However, these figures, in turn, vary greatly, depending on whether we apply them to brilliant artists, diplomats, warriors, etc. Nevertheless, even these enormous figures cannot give us new evidence in favor of a complete analogy between the influence of heredity on the development of genius and insanity, because the latter manifests itself, unfortunately, with much greater force and intensity than the former (as 48:80). Further, although the law deduced by Galton is quite correct with respect to judges and statesmen, but on the other hand, artists and poets do not fit under it at all, in whom the influence of heredity is reflected with extreme force on brothers, sons, and especially on nephews, while in grandfathers and uncles it is less noticeable. In general, this influence is twice as strong and intense in the transmission of insanity than in the transmission of genius, and, moreover, almost in the same degree for both sexes, while in geniuses hereditary traits pass to the male descendants in the proportion of 70:30 compared with the female descendants. Further, the majority of men of genius do not pass on their qualities to their descendants also because they remain childless*, due to degeneration, just as we see it in aristocratic families**.
[* Schopenhauer, Descartes, Leibniz, Malebranche, Comte, Kant, Spinoza, Michelangelo, Newton, Foscolo, Alfieri, Lassalle, Gogol, Lermontov, Turgenev remained single, and many great people who were married were unhappy in marriage, for example, Socrates, Shakespeare, Dante, Byron, Pushkin, Maroclo.]
[** Galton himself points out that of the 31 peers elevated to this dignity at the end of the reign of George IV, 12 families ceased completely, and mainly those whose members married noble heirs. Of the 487 families assigned to the Bernese bourgeoisie from 1583 to 1654, by 1783 only 168 survived; in the same way, out of 112 members of the Communal Council, 58 remained in 1615. When you see the grandee of Spain, says Ribot, you can say with confidence that you see before you a degenerate. Almost all of the French, and also of the Italian nobility, have now become the blind instruments of the clergy, which is not the least reason for the fragility of Italian institutions. And among the rulers (kings) of Europe, how few are those who would resemble their once famous ancestors and would inherit from them anything other than the throne and the charm of the once glorious name!]
Finally, with a few exceptions, such as the names of Darwin, Bernoulli, Cassini, St. Hilaire and Herschel, what an insignificant part of their talents and talents were usually passed on by brilliant people to their descendants and how these talents were still exaggerated, thanks to the charm of the name of a glorious ancestor. What does it mean, for example, Titianello in comparison with Titian, some Nicomachus with Aristotle, Horace Ariosto with his uncle, a great poet, or a modest professor Christopher Bernoulli next to his famous ancestor Jacob Bernoulli!
Insanity, on the contrary, is more often than not inherited in its entirety ... Moreover, it seems to even increase with each new generation. Cases of hereditary insanity in all sons and nephews - often in the same form as that of a father or uncle - are encountered at every turn. So, for example, all the descendants of one noble Hamburger, ranked among the great military geniuses, went crazy when they reached the age of 40; finally, only one member of this unfortunate family, who was in the public service, remained alive, and the senate forbade him to marry. At 40, he also went crazy. Ribot says that 11 members of the same family were admitted to the Connecticut Lunatic Hospital in succession.
Then here is another story of the family of a watchmaker who went mad as a result of the horrors of the revolution of 1789 and then recovered: he himself poisoned himself, his daughter went crazy and completely went mad, one brother plunged a knife into his stomach, another began to drink and died of delirium tremens, the third stopped eating and died of exhaustion; his healthy sister had one son who was mad and epileptic, the other did not breastfeed, two little ones died of inflammation of the brain, and the daughter, who also suffered from insanity, refused to take food.
Finally, the most indisputable evidence in favor of our theory is the attached genealogical tree of the Berti family, which gave an incomparably greater number of lunatics than the family of the famous Titian gave brilliant painters (see genealogy tree on pp. 74-75).
From this curious genealogical table it can be seen that in four generations, out of 80 descendants of one insane melancholic, 10 people went crazy and almost all suffered from the same form of mental disorder - melancholy, and 19 people - from nervous diseases, therefore, 36%. In addition, we notice that the disease developed more and more in subsequent generations, seizing the most tender age and manifesting itself with particular force in the male line, where insanity appeared already in the first generation, while in the female line - only in the 3rd and in the proportions are barely 1:4. In the 1st and 4th generation there are many crazy and nervous people in all families in the 2nd generation, on the contrary, healthy members predominate, which are also found in the 3rd, and then a terrible disease covers an increasing number of victims who have one or more another form of mental suffering. It is unlikely that people of genius have a family that is as prolific and has experienced the fatal, progressively increasing influence of heredity to the same extent.
But there are cases when this influence is manifested with even greater force, which is especially noticeable in relation to alcoholics (obsessed with drunkenness). So, for example, from one ancestor of the drunkard Max Yuquet, within 75 years, 200 thieves and murderers, 280 unfortunate people who suffered from blindness, idiocy, consumption, 90 prostitutes and 300 children who died prematurely, so that the whole family cost the state, counting losses and expenses, more than a million dollars.
And this is far from an isolated fact. On the contrary, even more striking examples can be found in modern medical research.
Targe, in his book "On the heredity of alcoholism," gives several such cases. Thus, he relates that the four Dufay brothers were subject to an unfortunate passion for wine, apparently due to the influence of heredity; the eldest of them threw himself into the water and drowned, the second hanged himself, the third cut his throat and the fourth threw himself down from the third floor.
We borrow several other facts of the same kind from Targe (see fig. lombrozo_geni_03.gif).
A certain PS, who died from softening of the brain due to drunkenness, and his wife, who died from abdominal dropsy, also, perhaps, caused by drunkenness, had children: (see fig. lombrozo_geni_04.gif and lombrozo_geni_05.gif).
These examples prove that in alcoholism an atavism is easily possible - a leap back through one generation, so that the children of drunkards remain healthy, and the disease is reflected in the grandchildren.
Here's another last example.
The drunkard L. Bert, who died of apoplexy, had only one son, also a drunkard, who had children: (see fig. lombrozo_geni_06.gif).
Morel reports of a drunkard who had seven children, that one of them went mad at the age of 22, the other was an idiot, two died in childhood, the 5th was an eccentric and misanthrope, the 6th was hysterical, the 7th He is a good worker, but suffered from a nervous breakdown. Of the 16 children of another drunkard, 15 died in childhood, and the last survivor was an epileptic.
Sometimes in people who are apparently in their right mind, insanity manifests itself in separate monstrous, insane acts.
So, one judge, a German, killed his wife, who had been ill for a long time, with a shot from a revolver and later assured that he did so out of love for her, wanting to save her from the suffering caused by the disease: he was convinced that he had done nothing wrong, and tried to put an end to it. in the same way with his mother when she fell ill. Experts hesitated for a long time whether to consider this man mentally ill, and came to the conclusion that he was insane on the basis that his grandfather and father were drunkards.
Not only drunkenness, but in general the use of alcoholic beverages leads to terrible consequences ... Fleming and Demol proved that not only drunkards pass on to their children a tendency to insanity and crime, but that even completely sober men who were under the influence of wine vapors at the time of copulation , gave birth to children - epileptics, paralytics, lunatics, idiots and mainly microcephalic or feeble-minded, very easily losing their minds.
Thus, any extra glass of wine can be the cause of the greatest disasters for many generations.
What analogy is possible here in comparison with the rare and almost always incomplete transfer of genius abilities even to the nearest offspring?
True, the fatal resemblance between madness and genius is less noticeable in this case, but it is precisely the law of heredity that reveals a close connection between them in the fact that many crazy relatives have genius abilities and that the vast majority of gifted people have children and relatives who are epileptics, idiots. , maniacs and vice versa, as the reader can be convinced by looking again at the family tree of the Bertie family.
But even more instructive in this respect are the biographies of great men. The father of Frederick the Great and the mother of Johnson were lunatics, the son of Peter the Great was a drunkard and a maniac; Sister Richelieu imagined that her back was made of glass, and Sister Hegel that she had turned into a mail bag; Sister Nicolini considered herself condemned to eternal torment for her brother's heretical beliefs and tried several times to injure him. Sister Lamba killed her mother in a fit of rage; Charles V's mother suffered from melancholy and insanity, Zimmermann's brother was mad; Beethoven's father was a drunkard; Byron's mother is a madman, his father is a shameless debauchee, his grandfather is a famous navigator; therefore, Ribot had every right to say of Byron that "the eccentricity of his character can be fully justified by heredity, since he descended from ancestors who possessed all the vices that can disrupt the harmonious development of character and take away all the qualities necessary for family happiness." Schopenhauer's uncle and grandfather were mad, while his father was an eccentric and subsequently became suicidal. Kerner's sister suffered from melancholy, and the children were mad and prone to somnambulism. Similarly, mental disorders suffered: Carlini, Mercadante, Donizetti, Volta; Manzoni's sons were mad, Willmen's father and brothers, Comte's sister, Perticari and Puccinotti's brothers. Grandfather and brother d "Azelio were distinguished by such oddities that all of Turin spoke of them.
The Prussian statistics of 1877 number 6369 of 10,676 insane people, in whose madness the influence of heredity was clearly expressed.
The influence of heredity in insanity is much more common in men of genius than in suicides or criminals, and that it is only two or three times stronger in drunkards. Of the 22 cases of hereditary insanity, Aubanel and Thoré noted two cases when the children of brilliant people suffered from this disease.
yyyyyy VI. GENIUS PEOPLE WHO SUFFERED INSANELY:
HARRINGTON, BOLIAN, CODATSZI, AMPER, KENT, SCHUMANN, TASSO, CARDANO, SWIFT, NEWTON, RUSSO, LENAU, SZCHENI, SCHOPENHAUER
The examples given here of the similarity of madness with genius, if they cannot serve as proof of their complete similarity with each other, then at least convince us that the first does not exclude the presence of the second in the same subject, and explain to us why this is possible.
Indeed, apart from the many geniuses who suffered from hallucinations for more or less long periods, like Andral, Cellini, Goethe, Hobbes, Grassi, or who lost their minds at the end of their glorious lives, like Vico and others, for example, a considerable number of brilliant people were at the same time monomaniacs or were under the influence of hallucinations all their lives. Here are some examples of such a match.
Motanus, always thirsty for solitude and distinguished by strangeness, ended up believing himself to be turned into a barleycorn, and therefore did not want to go out for fear that he would not be pecked by birds.
Lully's friend constantly spoke of him in his defense: "Pay no attention to him, he has common sense, he is entirely a genius."
Harrington imagined thoughts flying out of his mouth in the form of bees and birds, and hid in the arbor with a broom in hand to disperse them.
Galler, considering himself persecuted by people and cursed by God for his depravity, as well as for his heretical writings, experienced such terrible fear that he could only get rid of him with huge doses of opium and a conversation with priests.
Ampère burned his treatise on "The Future of Chemistry" on the grounds that it was written at the suggestion of Satan.
Mendelssohn suffered from melancholy. Latret went mad in his old age. The great Dutch painter Van Gogh thought he was possessed by a demon.
Farini, Brugham, Southey, Gounod, Govone, Gutskov, Monge, Fourcroix, Loyd, Cooper, Rocchia, Ricci, Fenicia, Engel, Pergolesi, Nerval, Batyushkov, Mur-same, B. Collins, Techner have already gone crazy , Golderlin, Von der West, Gallo, Spedalieri, Bellingeri, Salieri, the physiologist Müller, Lenz, Barbara, Fuseli, Petermann, the painter Wit Hamilton, Poe, Uhliche, and also, perhaps, Musset and Bodelen.
The famous painter Von Leyden imagined himself poisoned and spent the last years of his life without getting out of bed.
Carl Dolce, a religious Lipemaniac (Lipemania is a gloomy insanity), finally makes a vow to take only sacred subjects for his paintings and devotes his brush to the Madonna, but then he paints a portrait of his bride, Balduini, to depict her. On the day of his wedding, he disappeared, and after a long search, he was found prostrate in front of the altar of Our Lady.
Tommaso Loyd, the author of the most charming poems, presents in his character a strange combination of malice, pride, genius and mental disorder. When his poems came out not entirely successful, he dipped them into a glass of water, "to cleanse them," as he put it. Everything that he happened to find in his pockets or that came under his hands - it does not matter whether it was paper, coal, stone, tobacco - he used to mix it with food and assured that coal cleanses him, stone mineralizes etc.
Hobbes, the materialist Hobbes, could not remain in a dark room without being immediately haunted by ghosts.
The poet Holderlin, who suffered from insanity almost all his life, killed himself in a fit of melancholy in 1835.
Mozart was convinced that the Italians were going to poison him. Molière often suffered from fits of intense melancholy. Rossini (whose cousin, idiot, passionately music loving, is still alive) became in 1848 a real Lipemaniac due to grief from the unfavorable purchase of the palace. He imagined that now poverty awaited him, that he would even have to beg, and that his mental abilities had left him; in this state, he not only lost the ability to write musical works, but could not even hear conversations about music. However, the successful treatment of the venerable Dr. Sansone of Ancona, little by little, returned the brilliant musician back to his art and friends.
Reading historical writings made such an impression on Clarke that he imagined himself an eyewitness and even an actor in historical events long past. Black and Banneker imagined the fantastic images that they reproduced on the canvas as really existing, and saw them in front of them.
The famous professor P. was also often subjected to similar illusions and imagined himself either Confucius or Tamerlane.
Schumann, a harbinger of that direction in the musical art, which is known as "music of the future", having been born into a wealthy family, could freely practice his favorite art and in his wife, Clara Wieck, found a tender, quite worthy of his life mate. Despite this, already at the age of 24 he became a victim of lipemania, and at the age of 46 he almost lost his mind: either he was pursued by talking tables with omniscience, or he saw sounds that haunted him, which first formed into chords, and then and whole musical phrases. Beethoven and Mendelssohn dictated various melodies to him from their graves. In 1854, Schumann threw himself into the river, but was rescued and died in Bonn. An autopsy revealed the formation of osteophytes in him - thickening of the meninges and atrophy of the brain.

End of free trial.