terred him from employing so powerful an agency in his deadly struggle with England. But Lombroso goes so far as to assert that men of genius "display extraordinary energy in rejecting the discoveries of others." How can it be imagined that Napoleon, who pursued his aims with the fiercest energy and to whom every means was welcome, "displayed extraordinary energy in rejecting the discoveries of others," such as that of the man who by the invention of the steamer afforded him the best means of acquiring the supremacy of the sea? That would indeed be stamping as an "idiot," or as one of those "ordinary persons," the mightiest man of action that ever lived, a man who possessed the keenest eye for the true nature of things and who made straight for his goal, undeterred by any prejudices whatsoever. Lombroso's other proofs are on a level with these. So, for instance, the following: "Bacon laughed at Gilbert and Copernicus; he did not believe in the application of instruments, or even of mathematics, to the exact sciences." To this the answer is, no sensible man will look upon even the greatest genius as infallible. Even the intellectual force and the energy of the greatest genius will in some respects have their limits. It is, however, not these restrictions, inherent in human nature, that form the essence of genius, as Lombroso suggests, but precisely where limitations begin, there genius ceases to exist. Even Christ did not consider Himself perfect: "Why callest thou me good? There is none good but one, that is God." The view that in a man like Bacon genius was confined within narrow bounds, and limitation of intellect and character preponderated, has in recent times found more and more favour. That he thought little of the discovery of Copernicus is therefore no proof 1 The Man of Genius, p. 18. that genius generally has a "Misoneism," an animosity to novelty, but only that Bacon had his limitations in this respect. Bismarck once said that to refute one foolish thought, it would be necessary to write a whole book. According to this a complete refutation of Lombroso's hypothesis would mean the production of a vast library. But for one possessed of any insight, the hints here given will suffice. Reference may further be made to the excellent observations of William Hirsch1 that refute many of Lombroso's errors in the most complete manner, and likewise to the interesting studies of the French physician Edouard Toulouse, who in a compendious work produces the results of his scientifically exact medical investigations of Zola's physical and mental condition in proof of the fact that Lombroso's hypothesis, that every man of genius must necessarily also be an epileptic, has no scientific foundation whatever. But those who delight in the "dazzling light-balls of the insane" and take them for flashes of genius, will continue to hold by the hypothesis of Lombroso and to measure genius and insanity by the same standard: for such there is no help. But time will be the judge. For unsound productions, although for a time upheld by advertisement and fashion, will ultimately sink into oblivion, but works of true genius are never out of date. As the latter are the outcome of great vital energy and great fulness of life, they are vivifying in their effect and promote mental sanity. Hence Goethe's advice that we should never allow a day to pass without reading, seeing, or hearing something beautiful. As long, therefore, as men exist, they will delight in that which has its origin in the fulness of life and the highest mental sanity of men of true genius. 1 1 Genie und Entartung. Eine psychologische Studie. 2. Auflage, 1894. 2 Emile Zola, 1896. XI. THE NARROW-MINDED MAN AND THE ANTISOPHY OF AND IBSEN IN his "Philosophical Letters" Schiller, after extolling love, says: "Many of our thinking brains have untertaken to drive out by mockery this heavenly instinct from the human soul, to efface the effigy of Deity in the soul, and to dissolve this energy, this noble enthusiasm, in the cold, killing breath of a pusillanimous indifference. Under the slavish influence of their own unworthiness they have entered into terms with self-interest, the dangerous foe of benevolence; they have done this to explain a phænomenon which was too godlike for their narrow hearts. They have spun their comfortless doctrine out of a miserable egotism, and they have made their own limits the measure of the Creator; degenerate slaves decrying freedom amidst the rattle of their own chains." 1 It is with these dangerous thinkers that we are here going to deal, with thinkers who would substitute hate and selfishness for love and devotion, the ugly and base for the beautiful and exalted, falsehood for truth, and the "war of all against all" for peaceful intercourse and community of interests; who would, in short, everywhere 1 Esthetical and Philosophical Essays. Newly translated, 1910, p. 387. replace order by disorder, by wild anarchy or tyranny, by complete lawlessness. Now, if the assertion be correct that genius consists in nothing but true, unusually intensified interest or in genuine, disinterested love for the object with which the man of genius is occupied, then the direct opposite of genius, narrow-mindedness, can have its source in nothing but in narrowness or limitation of interest for the object, that is, in lack of true, devoted love, or according to circumstances, in want of truth in sensation, thought, or action. Love strives after unity, after the union of what is manifold, diverse and opposed; hatred, on the contrary, separates what is united, severs the bond of common interests and destroys the connection of each separate member with the whole. Love unites, builds up, produces life and existence; hatred dissolves, destroys, and brings death and annihilation in its train. But for a multiplicity of separate entities to join into a higher unity, to form a living whole or organism, each separate entity must subordinate itself to the idea of the whole, must take its place in the structure of the entire organism, and serve the common purpose, namely, that of higher unity. Each entity, therefore, simultaneously with its entrance into the higher unity, becomes subject to the law and order on which alone this higher unity depends. Hence all laws have reference only to a greater whole, of which the separate entity becomes a part, in conformity with these very laws themselves. The endeavour of single beings to join together into a higher unity, for a common purpose, to be fused into a higher life, this endeavour is called Love. Now, as each single being, on entering the higher unity, the higher life, has to subordinate itself to the law and order, or to the idea, on which the existence 1 |