Parallel between great people and crazy people. Genius and madness

Lombroso Cesare

Genius and madness

Cesare Lombroso

Genius and madness

Parallel between great men and madmen

I. Introduction to Historical Review.

II. The similarity between genius people and crazy people in physiological terms.

III. The influence of atmospheric phenomena on people of genius and on the insane.

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

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

VI. Brilliant people who suffered from insanity: Garrington, Bolian, Codazzi, Ampere, Kent, Schumann, Tasso, Cardano, Swift, Newton, Rousseau, Lenau, Szcheni, Schopenhauer.

VII. Examples of geniuses, poets, comedians and other crazy people.

VIII. Crazy artists and artists.

IX. Mattoid graphomaniacs, or psychopaths.

X. "Prophets" and revolutionaries. Savonarola. Lazaretti.

XI. Special characteristics of brilliant people who at the same time suffered from insanity.

XII. Exceptional characteristics of brilliant people.

Conclusion

When, many years ago, being, as it were, under the influence of ecstasy (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 I myself was not clear to what serious practical conclusions the theory I created could lead to. I did not expect that it would provide the key to understanding the mysterious essence of genius and to explain those strange religious manias that were sometimes the core of great historical events, that it would help establish a new point of view for assessing the artistic creativity of geniuses by comparing their works in the field of art and literature with the same works of madmen and, finally, that it will provide enormous services to forensic medicine.

[Genius and madness. Introduction to a psychiatric clinic course given at the University of Pavia. Milan, 1863.]

Little by little, I was convinced of such an important practical significance of the new theory by both the documentary works of Adriani, Paoli, Frigerio, Maxime Ducamp, Rive and Verga regarding the development of artistic talents among the insane, 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 just a kind of psychiatric curiosity, but directly a special form of mental illness and that the subjects obsessed with 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 Meanwhile, 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 re-examine the previous topic on the basis of the latest data and on a broader scale. I will not hide that I even consider him brave, in view of the bitterness with which the rhetoricians of science and politics, with the ease of newspaper writers and in the interests of one or another party, try to ridicule people who prove, contrary to the nonsense of metaphysicians, but with scientific data in their hands complete insanity, due to mental illness, of some of the so-called “criminals” and mental disorder of many persons hitherto considered, according to generally accepted opinion, to be completely sane.

To the caustic ridicule and petty quibbles of our opponents, we, following the example of the original who moved in their presence to convince people who denied the movement, 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? Perhaps only the ignorant, but their triumph will soon come to an end.

I. INTRODUCTION TO HISTORICAL REVIEW

Our duty is extremely sad - with the help of inexorable analysis, to destroy and destroy, one after another, those bright, rosy 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 as objects of adoration for so long, we can offer him nothing but a cold smile of compassion. But the servant of truth must inevitably submit to its laws. Thus, due to fatal necessity, he comes to the conviction that love is, in essence, nothing more than the mutual attraction of stamens and pistils... and thoughts are the simple movement of molecules. Even genius - this is the only sovereign power that belongs to a person, before which one can bend the knee without blushing - even many psychiatrists have put it on the same level with the tendency 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 profanation, such blasphemy is not only allowed by doctors, and not exclusively in our skeptical times.

Even Aristotle, this great ancestor 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 quite good poetry while he was a maniac, but, having recovered, completely lost this ability ".

He says in another place: “It has been noticed that famous poets, politicians and artists were partly melancholic and insane, partly misanthropes, like Bellerophon. Even today we see the same thing in Socrates, Empedocles, Plato and others, and most powerfully in poets. People with cold, abundant blood (lit. bile) are timid and limited, and people with hot blood are active, witty and talkative."

Plato argues that “delirium is not a disease at all, but, on the contrary, the greatest of the blessings given to us by the gods; under the influence of delirium, the Delphic and Dodonian soothsayers provided thousands of services to the citizens of Greece, whereas in their ordinary state they brought little benefit or were completely useless It happened many times that when the gods sent epidemics to the people, one of the mortals fell into a sacred delirium and, under its influence, became a prophet, indicated a cure for these diseases. A special kind of delirium, excited by the muses, evokes in the simple and immaculate soul of a person the ability to express in beautiful poetic form the exploits of heroes, which contributes to the education of future generations."

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

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, the main idea of which was the idea of a born criminal.

In 1863, the Italian psychiatrist Cesare Lombroso published his book “Genius and Insanity. Introduction to a course in a psychiatric clinic given at the University of Pavia.” Milan, 1863 (Russian translation by K. Tetyushinova, 1892), in which he draws a parallel between great people and madmen.

I. Introduction to Historical Review

Caesar Lombroso

Referring to the opinion of 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 insane with great respect, considering them inspired from above, which is confirmed, in addition to historical facts, also because the words mania are in Greek, navi and mesugan are in Hebrew, and anigrata in Sanskrit mean both madness and prophecy.”

An analysis of the lives and works of some of the great modern writers also testifies in favor of the hypothesis that insanity contributes to genius. "In recent times, Lelu - in Démon de Socrate, 1856, and BAmulet de Pascal, 1846, Verga - in Lipemania del Tasso, 1850, and Lombroso in Pazzia di Cardano, 1856, have proven that many men of genius, for example Swift, Luther, Cardano, Brougham and others suffered from insanity, hallucinations or were monomaniacs for a long time."

II. Similarities between genius people and crazy people in physiological terms

“A talented person acts strictly deliberately; he knows how and why he came to a certain theory, while this is completely unknown to a genius: all creative activity is unconscious.” Due to this circumstance, deviations of a physiological nature - head bruises, the tendency of the nervous system to states of acute excitement and feeling create the prerequisites for the creation of brilliant works.

Lombroso gives numerous examples:

“Goethe says that a poet needs a certain cerebral stimulation and that he himself composed many of his songs while in a kind of fit of somnambulism. Klopstock admits that when he wrote his poem, inspiration often came to him during sleep.”

Lombroso's conclusion: "Thus, the greatest ideas of thinkers, prepared, so to speak, by 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 people of genius and on the insane

For three years, Lombrazo has been studying the influence of atmosphere on genius and insanity. “The 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 goes 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, while the comparatively even warmth of the August days has a less destructive 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 connection between weather conditions and creative upswings.

“I am like a barometer,” Alfieri wrote, “and the 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 "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 powerless to fight, humbles me."

Having examined a large number of empirical facts, Lombroso makes one of the most interesting statements: “If only the historians who have written so much paper and spent so much time in detailing the cruel battles or adventurous enterprises carried out by kings and heroes, if only these historians had examined with the same care the memorable epoch when this or that great discovery was made or when a remarkable work of art was conceived, they would almost certainly be convinced that the hottest months and days turn out to be the most fertile not only for the whole of physical nature, but also for brilliant minds." “I will also add that in those few cases where the creations of great people can be traced almost day after day, their activity in winter constantly turns out to be intensified on warmer days and weakened 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 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, but tender brains.”

“The well-known fact that in mountainous countries the inhabitants are more susceptible to madness than in lowland ones is confirmed by psychiatric statistics. In addition, the latest observations prove that epidemic madness is much more common in the mountains than in the valleys.”

V. The Influence of Race and Heredity on Genius and Insanity

Lombroso took the Jews as a striking example of the influence of nationality on genius and insanity.

“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 - 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 of exchange, in philosophy - positivism, and in literature - neo-humorism (neo-humorism). umorismo). And at the same time, it is among Jews that there are four and even five times more crazy people than 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 a consequence of bad upbringing, 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'Hérédité, 1878) considers it most often to be the result of hereditary abilities, especially in the art of music, which produces such a huge percentage of the insane. Thus, among musicians, the sons of Palestrina, Benda, Dussek, Hiller, Mozart, Eichhorn were distinguished by their remarkable talents; The Bach family produced 8 generations of musicians, of which 57 were famous."

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

"But even more instructive in this regard are the biographies of great people. Frederick the Great's father and Johnson's mother were crazy, Peter the Great's son was a drunkard and a maniac; Richelieu's sister imagined that her back was made of glass, and Hegel's sister imagined 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 wound him. Sister Lamba killed her mother in a fit of rage; Charles V's mother suffered from melancholy and insanity; Zimmermann's brother was insane; Beethoven's father was a drunkard; Byron’s mother is crazy, his father is a shameless libertine, his grandfather is a famous navigator; therefore Ribot had every right to say about Byron that “the eccentricity of his character can be fully justified by heredity, since he came from ancestors who possessed all the vices that can disrupt the harmonious development character and take away all the qualities necessary for family happiness." Schopenhauer's uncle and grandfather were crazy, but his father was an eccentric and subsequently became a suicide. Kerner's sister suffered from melancholy, and the children were insane and prone to somnambulism. In the same way, the following suffered from mental disorders: Carlini, Mercadante, Donizetti, Volta; Manzoni had crazy sons, Villemin had a father and brothers, Comte had a sister, Perticari and Puccinotti had brothers. D'Azelio's grandfather and brother were distinguished by such oddities that the whole of Turin was talking about them.

VI. Brilliant people who suffered from insanity

Garrington, Bolian, Codazzi, Ampere, Kent, Schumann, Tasso, Cardano, Swift, Newton, Rousseau, Lenau, Sheheni, Schopenhauer are vivid examples of the connection between genius and insanity, according to Lombroso.

“Schumann, the harbinger of that direction in musical art, which is known as the “music of the future,” was born into a wealthy family, could freely practice his favorite art, and in his wife, Clara Wieck, found a gentle, quite worthy lifelong friend. 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: he was either haunted by talking tables possessing omniscience, or he saw sounds that haunted him, which first formed into chords, and then into 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 - thickening of the meninges and brain atrophy."

“Swift, the father of irony and humor, already in his youth predicted that madness awaited him; while walking one day in the garden with Jung, he saw an elm tree, almost devoid of leaves at its top, and said: “I will begin to die in the same way from the head.” Extremely proud of his superiors, 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 that they said about him that before giving him the rank of bishop, he should be baptized again. Weak-minded, deaf, powerless, ungrateful regarding his friends - this is how he described himself. The inconsistency in him was amazing: he fell into terrible despair over the death of his dearly beloved Stella and at the same time composed comic letters “About Servants.” After a few months after this, he lost his memory, and all he had left was his former harsh, razor-sharp tongue.Then he fell into misanthropy and spent a whole year alone, not seeing anyone, not talking to anyone, and not reading anything; He walked around his room for ten hours a day, always ate while standing, refused meat and got furious when anyone entered his room. However, after the appearance of boils (vereda), he began to seem to be getting better and often said about himself: “I’m crazy,” but this bright period did not last long, and poor Swift again fell into a senseless state, although glimpses of irony remained in him even after losing their minds, they still flared up from time to time; Thus, when an illumination was organized in his honor in 1745, he interrupted his long silence with the words: “Let these madmen at least not drive others crazy.”

In 1745, Swift died with a complete breakdown of mental faculties. He left behind a will written long before, 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 constantly tormented him: “Here lies Swift, whose heart no longer breaks with proud contempt.”

VII. Examples of geniuses, poets, comedians and other crazy people

Summarizing the work of poets and humorists in psychiatric clinics, Lombroso makes several interesting conclusions. “Thanks to their more vivid imagination and rapid association of ideas, madmen often accomplish with great ease what the most gifted healthy, normal people find difficult, as is proved by the characterization of Lazaretti we cited earlier, written without any effort by a madman, while many Allenists labored in vain at it. including the famous Doctor Michetti, who, of course, had greater insight and - what is even more important - an incomparably large amount of data to make a correct diagnosis. Another characteristic feature of such writers - and this is noticeable even in the works of criminals - is a passion for talking about themselves or their loved ones and compose their autobiographies, while giving full rein to selfishness and vanity.It should be noted, however, that ordinary madmen display in their writings less artificiality in expression and less consistency than criminals, but they have more creative power and originality compared to these the last ones. Further, the writers of the insane asylum are extremely inclined to use consonances, often completely meaningless, and invent new words or give a special meaning to existing words and exaggerate the meaning of the most insignificant details; Thus, Farina devotes almost half a page to describing the bar of soap he bought.

Many mentally ill people, although not as often as mattoids (touched, damaged), have a noticeable desire to supplement their poetic inventions with drawings, as if neither poetry nor painting alone are strong enough to express their ideas. The style is affected by a lack of correctness and finishing; 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 the ability to versify, manifested in people who before the disease did not even have a concept of prosody, will not seem especially 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 the excitement that caused it." From this it becomes clear why the crazy develop such a strong imagination, often even turning into complete unbridledness. The richness of imagination and passionate excitement have always been powerful factors in creative activity."

Autobiography of a Madman (to Chapter VII)

Lombroso gives an example from his psychiatric practice, extremely interesting even from the point of view of forensic psychiatry, “since in this case, in addition to the undoubted literary talent temporarily caused by madness, we also have proof that insane people can feign madness under the influence of some passion , especially out of fear of punishment."

“One poor shoemaker, named Farina, whose father, uncle and cousin were crazy and cretins, still a young man, had long suffered from insanity and hallucinations, but in appearance seemed cheerful and calm. Suddenly the fantasy came to him to kill a woman who had not done anything to him. nothing bad, the mother of the girl whom, under the influence of the erotic delirium characteristic of the insane, he considered his mistress, although, in essence, he only saw her briefly.Imagining that this woman was inciting invisible enemies against him, whose voices did not give him peace, Farina stabbed her to death with a knife, and he fled to Milan. No one would have even suspected him of committing such a crime if he, having returned to Pavia, had not come to the police bureau himself and confessed to the murder, presenting for greater persuasiveness the sheath of that knife , which dealt the fatal blow, but then, when he was sent to prison, he repented of this act and pretended to suffer from a complete loss of reason, although he no longer had this form of insanity at that time. When I was invited as an expert to resolve the issue of the mental state of a criminal, I hesitated for a long time what conclusion to come to about him and how to make sure that, although he was insane, he was at the same time pretending to be insane. Finally he was admitted to my clinic, where I could observe him carefully and where he wrote his detailed biography for me; Only then did it become clear to me that in front of me was a real monomaniac.

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

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

Literary works of madmen (to Chapter VII)

Of particular interest is the Diary of the Pesaro Lunatic Asylum, since it is the first of its kind in Italy to be kept exclusively by the mentally ill (since 1872). Therefore, it can serve as an inexhaustible source of, so to speak, phrenopathic 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 does not prevent him, however, from being a talented painter:

Contravolonta

Anti-will is a terrible thing, and I can speak about it from experience, which is too bitter, because it took away from me all the charm from the world around me and turned my calm, pleasant past life into a heavy and painful burden. This is what we are essentially talking about: to really live in this world, it is not enough for a person to just eat and sleep, he also needs to manage his abilities, he needs to have a goal in life and find pleasure in his activities. 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-awareness. This is exactly the same story that happened to me. Accustomed to a quiet and calm life, I suddenly saw myself drawn into a whirlpool of cruel suffering; My poor brain, shocked by such absurdity, refused to work as before, I could no longer freely talk about my affairs, and it was from this that anti-will was born, or the constraint of a person’s natural freedom, the inability to work and act, as if some material force binds individuality . I now do not have sufficient power over myself to give my actions the direction I desire, as a result of which fear, melancholy, and aversion to life arise. At first I felt some kind of vague anxiety, a painful heaviness, then this force grew, became more powerful, more persistent, so that it finally destroyed all contentment in me and forced me to spend time in the most painful boredom. At night I could not sleep, usually falling asleep for an hour or two, and the days became a painful pastime for me, since I absolutely don’t know what to do with myself, where to lay my head, what direction to give my thoughts - and everything mercy against will. I hear talk about family happiness, peace of mind, satisfaction of pride, mutual affection between people, but I myself cannot experience anything like that; I measure the hours slowly, and my whole concern is to be as bored as possible. Therefore, I would ask that a strong reaction be produced in my brain and that I be allowed to see my family. A beneficial shock could have brought me enormous benefit: cruel emotional excitement ruined me, another emotion, only of a different kind, could have saved me. I haven’t seen my family for so many years, and Mr. Director understands how unpleasant it is. If I did any inconsistencies, it depended on the evil fate (fatalita), in the power of which I am, and not on my character, which was always considered excellent, which should also be taken into account.

VIII. Crazy artists and artists

“Du Can and I were able to comprehensively investigate the question that occupied us with the manifestation of artistic inclinations in the insane with the help of rich material collected in the insane hospitals located in Pesaro and Pavia, as well as 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 crazy people, including 46 people who were engaged in painting, 10 - sculpture, 11 - carving, 8 - music, 5 - architecture and 27 - poetry."

Lombroso collects any mention of peculiarities of creativity of patients.

“Of the eight painters who were in Perugia, whose characteristics Adriani sent me, four retained their talent completely under the influence of acute or intermittent madness; in two, the talent weakened significantly, so that upon recovery they destroyed the paintings painted during illness; in one, it completely disappeared, and finally, the last one - the lipemaniac - lost the correctness of drawing and color. One painter, Verga writes to me, used red paint in such excess that all the figures he painted 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 known case where an alcoholic painter lost all ability to distinguish colors and became so perfect in using only white paint for his paintings, which he painted in the intervals between periods of heavy drinking, that he became the first in all of France artist of winter and northern landscapes. Cretins, idiots, weak-minded people either draw figures of children, or constantly reproduce the same drawing, like Grundy, for example, although they sometimes show remarkable abilities in coloring and composing arabesques: I myself happened to see cretins twice who perfectly drew ciphers. Often, even people in a normal state, who did not feel any inclination towards art, after an illness suddenly begin to draw and work most diligently precisely at the moment of its greatest development.”

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

1) The choice of subject is determined for many by the nature of the mental disorder: the lipemaniac constantly drew a man with a skull in his hand; a woman who suffered from megalomania would certainly place an image of the deity on her embroidery; Monomaniacs for the most part use some kind of emblem to designate the imaginary disasters that torment them. I have a libel composed by an official from Voger, who imagined that he was being pursued by the prefect through the winds; Therefore, he depicted in the drawing, on one side, a crowd of enemies chasing him, and on the other, judges protecting him. One woman, suffering from persecution mania and partly from erotic insanity, painted an image of the Virgin Mary, 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 in relation to geniuses and even relatively brilliant madmen, extraordinary originality in invention, which is sharply expressed even in the works of half-insane people. The reason for this is clear: their unrestrained imagination creates such bizarre images that a healthy mind would recoil, recognizing them as illogical and 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 threads out of fabric and then glued them onto paper with saliva.

3) But in the end, even originality itself turns into something strange, bizarre and seemingly logical for all or almost all crazy people only when we know the point of their insanity and when we imagine to what extent their imagination is unbridled. Simon noticed that in persecution mania, as well as in paralytic megalomania, the imagination is the more vivid and the power of creative, eccentric fantasy is more active, the less normal the state of mental abilities. One mentally ill painter, for example, claimed that he saw the bowels of the earth, and in them - many crystal houses, illuminated by electricity and filled with a wonderful aroma and charming images. Next, he described the city of Emma that seemed to him, whose inhabitants had two mouths and two noses - one for ordinary use, and the other for more aesthetic use; their brain is silver, their hair is golden, their arms are three or four, and they have 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 together with drawings, and in these latter there is an abundance of symbols and hieroglyphs. Such mixed works are extremely similar to the paintings of the Japanese, Indians, and ancient wall paintings of the Egyptians and are determined by the madmen for the same reasons as among the ancient peoples, i.e. the need to supplement the meaning of a word or picture, which alone is not strong enough to express a given idea with the desired clarity and completeness. This explanation is quite applicable to the fact that Monty told me, when a mute man, who suffered from insanity for 15 years, added to the plan of some building that he had drawn absolutely correctly, adding a lot of incomprehensible rhyming inscriptions, epigraphs, inscribed inside the plan and around it, obviously, for the purpose of serving as comments that the poor man could not give orally.

5) Some, although few, mentally ill people have, as Toselli notes, a strange tendency to draw arabesques and ornaments of almost geometrically regular shape, but at the same time extremely graceful; however, only monomaniacs exhibit this kind of peculiarity, while in the insane and maniacs chaotic disorder prevails, although sometimes it is also not devoid of grace, as is proven by the picture Monty told me and drawn by a madman, with the image of some building composed of a thousand tiny curls, beautifully mixed up with each other in all sorts of ways.

6) Further, for many, especially erotomaniacs, paralytics and the insane, drawings and poetic works are characterized by complete obscenity; Thus, one mentally ill carpenter carved male genitals 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 genitals are found everywhere. Another, a captain from Genoa, constantly painted indecent scenes. Sometimes such artists try to disguise the cynicism of their drawings and explain it with the imaginary demands of art itself, such as, for example, a patient who imagined that he was depicting a picture of the Last Judgment, or a priest who painted naked figures and then shaded them so artistically that the genital organs, breasts and etc. stood out quite clearly, and to accusations of obscenity he objected 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, one of whom was wearing the hat of a priest (Raja).

7) A common feature of most of the works of madmen is their uselessness, unnecessaryness for the workers themselves, which is fully confirmed by Heckart’s saying: “Working to create things that are useless for anything is an activity characteristic only of madmen.” Thus, one woman, suffering 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 to me, whom she considered her best friend, , managed to see them only after her death. The work of that patient who sewed only one boot for himself, as we talked about earlier, was of the same kind. One might think that crazy people, like brilliant artists, also adhere to the theory of art for art's sake, only in a perverted sense.

8) Sometimes crazy people create extremely useful things, but they are completely unsuitable for them personally, and, moreover, not in the specialty in which they were previously engaged. For example, one crazy quartermaster official came up with 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 very pretty, carved match holders from ox bones, although they could not derive any benefit from this work, because they refused to sell their works. However, I happened to see many exceptions to this rule: for example, a melancholic man, suffering from mania for murder and suicide, made himself a knife and fork from the bones left over from dinner, which was very useful for him, since, on the orders of the director, he They did not provide metal knives and forks. A megalomaniac, a cafe attendant who was treated at the Colleño hospital, prepared excellent sweet vodka there, although the materials supplied to him by lovers of this drink were of the most varied quality. A fifty-year-old woman, suffering from fits of rabies, sewed a huge nightcap in the form of a helmet and could not sleep except by pulling it over her face to the very neck; a maniacal criminal made himself a key from splinters. I am not talking here about those who arranged for themselves real cuirasses made of iron or stones, 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 work of madmen, of course, all sorts of absurdities prevail, both regarding color and the figures themselves, but this is especially noticeable in some maniacs due to an uneven, exaggerated association of ideas, which does not give room for intermediate shades in the embodiment of the image conceived by the artist. In the case of madmen, there are breaks in the association of ideas, as can be seen, for example, from the fact that one of them, wanting to depict the marriage at Cana, excellently painted all the apostles, and instead of the figure of Christ - a huge bouquet of flowers.

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

11) Some of the crazy people show an amazing talent in imitation, in the ability to capture 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 infant state of art.

Features of the musical art of patients

“In the art of music, the preponderance also appears 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, real musical paroxysms occurred throughout the duration of the illness , during which he imitated all kinds of instruments and, when playing quiet parts (piano), showed indescribable enthusiasm. Another paralytic, imagining herself to be a French empress, performed marches for her army with her lips and snapping her fingers and sang in time with these sounds.

Another paralytic patient, who considered himself an admiral general, also often sang some monotonous melodies. The original poet and painter megalomaniac M., who wrote sometimes charming, sometimes absurd poems, which we cited earlier, also wrote, or rather scribbled, some musical pieces according to a new system he himself invented, which, however, was not understandable to anyone.

Maniacs always prefer fast tempos on high notes, especially when in a cheerful mood, and love to repeat choruses (Raji). However, in general, all patients, even if only for a short time, find themselves in mental homes, show a great tendency to sing, scream, and to express their feelings in any way through sounds, and a certain meter and rhythm are always noticeable. The reason for this phenomenon, just like the abundance of mad 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 reason is. That is why primitive peoples always love music with passion. Spencer heard from one missionary that to teach the savages he sang psalms to them, and the next day almost all of them already knew them by heart."

IX. Mattoid graphomaniacs, or psychopaths

Lombroso calls mattoids-graphomaniacs a variety that constitutes an intermediate link, a transitional stage between brilliant madmen, healthy people and the truly insane.

Literary works of the Mattoids (to Chapter IX)

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

Here in front of me is an essay in two large volumes entitled “New Pathology on Ancient Origins,” where, with the help of absurd and confusing quotes, the author tries to reduce all diseases to an ellipse. Even letters should have an elliptical shape, in his opinion, like all objects in general.

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

Finally, there are many more works by Mattoid publicists proposing various extreme measures regarding state improvement. Among them there are especially many economists who come up with various projects to improve Italy’s finances. By the way, on this issue I came across a brochure with the following title: “On universal usury as the cause of the disruption of economic balance in our time - reasoning most respectfully proposed by one voter for the benefit of His Excellency, Chairman of the Council and Minister of Finance, Mr. Mark Minghetti, in order to prove the necessity, possibility, convenience and fairness of a patriotic loan of four billion for only one percent of a hundred, as the only means to counteract the usury of banks and achieve a strong balance in the balance sheet, and through this the abolition of the forced exchange rate without increasing or changing taxes."

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

Graphomaniac criminals (to Chapter IX)

Lombroso describes examples of a special type of crazy or semi-crazy, “people extremely irritable and so vain, thirsting for fame that they are ready to achieve it by any means, but most often by attempting to kill 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 Latin poorly; but he invented a way of teaching with which even someone who did not know 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 the house. He then published a voluminous volume of memoirs, in which he accused the princess of stealing his briefcase; then he wrote accusatory articles against the minister and submitted memos either to parliament or to the House of Lords. One of these latter even promised the author to interpellate his note, but at that very time M.A. suddenly moved to Paris, where he was taken under the protection of the emperor's chaplain.

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

X. "Prophets" and revolutionaries. Savonarola. Lazaretti

Lombroso tries to explain how great successes in the field of politics and religion of peoples were caused or at least planned thanks to madmen or half-madmen.

“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 madmen, but even more so of brilliant madmen, exaltation and passion reach such strength that they can cause altruism, forcing a person to sacrifice his interests and even his very life for the propaganda of 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 a movement prepared by time and circumstances; obsessed with a positive passion for any novelty, for everything original, they are almost always inspired by a newly discovered discovery, innovation, and on it they already build their conclusions about the future. Thus, 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 merely summarized the views of his predecessors and contemporaries, as evidenced by Savonarola’s sermons.”

“But the most important reason is that many of the insane 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 concerns about satisfying their material needs. It is further known that under the influence of passion, the strength and tension of the mind increase noticeably, and in some forms of insanity, which is nothing more than a morbid exaltation, they can be said to increase tenfold. The deep faith of these people in the reality of their hallucinations, the powerful, captivating eloquence with which they expressed their convictions, the contrast between their pitiful, unknown past and the greatness of their present situation, they naturally attached enormous importance to such madmen in the eyes of the crowd and elevated them above the general level of sane, but ordinary, ordinary people. Examples of such charm are Lazaretti, Briand, Loyola, Malinas, Joan of Arc , Anabaptists, etc. During the epidemic of prophecy that took place in the Cevennes and then recently appeared in Stockholm, completely uneducated individuals, maids, children, under the influence of the passion that gripped them, delivered sermons that were often distinguished by liveliness and eloquence.”

XI. Special characteristics of brilliant people who at the same time suffered from insanity

Speaking about the high connection between genius and insanity, Lombroso believes that there are many geniuses who are not mentally ill. Lombroso identifies 15 signs that distinguish healthy geniuses from those suffering from 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 integral, real character, never changing at the whim of the wind, which is the lot of only a few chosen geniuses, like Cavour, Dante, Spinoza and Columbus. So, for example, Tasso constantly scolded high-ranking officials, and all his life he groveled before them and lived at court. Cardano himself accused himself of lies, slander and passion for the game. Rousseau, who flaunted his lofty feelings, showed complete ingratitude to the woman who showered him with blessings, abandoned 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 the worst thing is from the religion of philosophers.

2) A healthy, brilliant person is aware of his strength, knows his worth, and therefore does not humiliate himself 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 abnormal geniuses and makes them capable of all sorts of absurdities.

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

Lombroso summarizes various kinds of statistical data that testify in favor of the hypothesis of 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 among the ancient inhabitants of Paris it was only 1559: at present "while only 12 per hundred Parisians have a capacity above 1700 cm3. Among geniuses, 73 per hundred have a capacity greater than this average figure."

XII. Exceptional Features of Genius People

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

“If genius was always accompanied by insanity, then how can we explain to ourselves that Galileo, Kepler, Columbus, Voltaire, Napoleon, Michelangelo, Cavour, people undoubtedly brilliant and, moreover, subjected to the most severe 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 discovered in childhood, and in youth it already appears in 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 "Alembert and Bonaparte - at 26 (Ribault)".

And yet, “we are convinced that psychopaths have something in common not only with geniuses, but, unfortunately, also with the dark world of crime; we see, in addition, that real madmen are sometimes distinguished by such an outstanding mind and often such extraordinary energy that involuntarily forces them to equate them, at least for a while, with genius personalities, and among the common people it first evokes amazement and then reverence for them.”

“Having established such a close relationship between men of genius and madmen, nature seemed to want to point out to us our duty to treat with indulgence the greatest of human disasters - madness and at the same time give us a warning so that we are not too carried away by the brilliant ghosts of geniuses, many of whom “not only do they not rise to the transcendental spheres, but, like sparkling meteors, having once burst into flames, they fall very low and drown in a mass of delusions.”

Lombroso's ideas in Russia

Lombroso's works and views were controversially perceived in scientific circles. This did not stop the scientist, who continued until the end of his life to collect interesting facts from the biographies of celebrities, mentally ill people, and criminals. “We will respond to the caustic ridicule and petty quibbles of our opponents, following the example of that original who moved in their presence to convince people who denied the movement, only by collecting new facts and new evidence in favor of our theory. What could be more convincing facts and who will deny them? Perhaps only the ignorant, but their triumph will soon come to an end."

The ideas about Lombroso's genius and madness gained 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, received 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 structure of Russia, typical of contemporary Italian leftists, which he severely condemned for police brutality (“suppression of thought, conscience and personal character”) and authoritarian methods of exercising power.

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

Cesare LOMBROSO

Genius and madness

When, many years ago, being, as it were, under the influence of ecstasy (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 I myself was not clear to what serious practical conclusions the theory I created could lead to. I did not expect that it would provide the key to understanding the mysterious essence of genius and to explain those strange religious manias that were sometimes the core of great historical events, that it would help establish a new point of view for assessing the artistic creativity of geniuses by comparing their works in the field of art and literature with the same works of madmen and, finally, that it will provide enormous services to forensic medicine.

Little by little, I was convinced of such an important practical significance of the new theory by both the documentary works of Adriani, Paoli, Frigerio, Maxime Ducamp, Rive and Verga regarding the development of artistic talents among the insane, as well as the high-profile trials of recent times - Mangione, Passanante, Lazaretti, Guiteau, which proved everyone that the mania for writing is not just a kind of psychiatric curiosity, but directly a special form of mental illness and that the subjects obsessed with 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 between Thus, 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 re-examine the previous topic on the basis of the latest data and on a broader scale. I will not hide that I even consider him brave, in view of the bitterness with which the rhetoricians of science and politics, with the ease of newspaper writers and in the interests of one or another party, try to ridicule people who prove, contrary to the nonsense of metaphysicians, but with scientific data in their hands complete the insanity, due to mental illness, of some of the so-called "criminals" and the mental disorder of many persons hitherto considered, according to generally accepted opinion, to be completely sane.

Introduction to Historical Review

Lombroso Cesare

Genius and madness

Cesare Lombroso

Genius and madness

Parallel between great men and madmen

I. Introduction to Historical Review.

II. The similarity between genius people and crazy people in physiological terms.

III. The influence of atmospheric phenomena on people of genius and on the insane.

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

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

VI. Brilliant people who suffered from insanity: Garrington, Bolian, Codazzi, Ampere, Kent, Schumann, Tasso, Cardano, Swift, Newton, Rousseau, Lenau, Szcheni, Schopenhauer.

VII. Examples of geniuses, poets, comedians and other crazy people.

VIII. Crazy artists and artists.

IX. Mattoid graphomaniacs, or psychopaths.

X. "Prophets" and revolutionaries. Savonarola. Lazaretti.

XI. Special characteristics of brilliant people who at the same time suffered from insanity.

XII. Exceptional characteristics of brilliant people.

Conclusion

[Genius and madness. Introduction to a psychiatric clinic course given at the University of Pavia. Milan, 1863.]

I. INTRODUCTION TO HISTORICAL REVIEW

Democritus even directly said that he does not consider a person 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 insane with great respect, considering them to be inspired from above, which is confirmed, in addition to historical facts, by the fact that the words mania are in Greek, navi and mesugan are in Hebrew, and nigrata is - 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 crazy. Their insanity was expressed by an absurd passion for praise, as well as strange and indecent actions. By the way, Plater met at court an architect, sculptor and musician who enjoyed great fame and were undoubtedly crazy. Even more outstanding facts were collected by F. Gazoni in Italy, in the “Hospital for the Incurable 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 complete madness, and subsequently proved this by his own example. The same was confirmed by Hecart regarding his comrades, scientists and at the same time madmen, like himself. He published his observations in 1823 under the title: “Stultitsiana, or a short bibliography of the madmen in Valenciennes, compiled by a madman.” The same subject was dealt with by Delnier, a passionate bibliographer, in his interesting "Histoire littraire des fous", 1860, by Forgues in an excellent essay published in the Revue de Paris, 1826, and by an unknown author in "Sketches of Bedlam" (Sketches). in Bedlam. London, 1873).

Recently, Lelu - in Dmon de Socrate, 1856, and BAmulet de Pascal, 1846, Verga - in Lipemania del Tasso, 1850, and Lombroso in Pazzia di Cardano, 1856, have proven that many men of genius, for example, Swift, Luther, Cardano, Brougham and others suffered from insanity, hallucinations or were monomaniacs for a long time. Moreau, who dwells with particular love on the least plausible facts, in his last work Psychologia morbide, and Schilling in his Psychiatrische Briefe, 1863, tried to prove with the help of careful, although not always strictly scientific research, that genius is, in any case, something like a nervous abnormality, often turning into real madness. Similar conclusions, approximately, were made 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 more accurately establish the physiology of the genius, came, through the most careful analysis of the facts, to the same conclusions that were expressed more than a hundred years ago, more on the basis of experience than strict observations, by one Italian Jesuit, Bettinelli, in his now already completely forgotten, the book Dell "entusiasmo nelle belle arti. Milan, 1769.

Genius and madness

Cesare Lombroso
Genius and madness
Content
Parallel between great men and madmen
I. Introduction to Historical Review.
II. The similarity between genius people and crazy people in physiological terms.
III. The influence of atmospheric phenomena on people of genius and on the insane.
IV. The influence of meteorological phenomena on the birth of brilliant people.
V. The influence of race and heredity on genius and insanity.
VI. Brilliant people who suffered from insanity: Garrington, Bolian, Codazzi, Ampere, Kent, Schumann, Tasso, Cardano, Swift, Newton, Rousseau, Lenau, Szcheni, Schopenhauer.
VII. Examples of geniuses, poets, comedians and other crazy people.
VIII. Crazy artists and artists.
IX. Mattoid graphomaniacs, or psychopaths.
X. "Prophets" and revolutionaries. Savonarola. Lazaretti.
XI. Special characteristics of brilliant people who at the same time suffered from insanity.
XII. Exceptional characteristics 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 ecstasy (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 I myself was not clear to what serious practical conclusions the theory I created could lead to. I did not expect that it would provide the key to understanding the mysterious essence of genius and to explain those strange religious manias that were sometimes the core of great historical events, that it would help establish a new point of view for assessing the artistic creativity of geniuses by comparing their works in the field of art and literature with the same works of madmen and, finally, that it will provide enormous services to forensic medicine.
[Genius and madness. Introduction to a psychiatric clinic course given at the University of Pavia. Milan, 1863.]
Little by little, I was convinced of such an important practical significance of the new theory by both the documentary works of Adriani, Paoli, Frigerio, Maxime Ducamp, Rive and Verga regarding the development of artistic talents among the insane, 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 just a kind of psychiatric curiosity, but directly a special form of mental illness and that the subjects obsessed with 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 Meanwhile, 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 re-examine the previous topic on the basis of the latest data and on a broader scale. I will not hide that I even consider him brave, in view of the bitterness with which the rhetoricians of science and politics, with the ease of newspaper writers and in the interests of one or another party, try to ridicule people who prove, contrary to the nonsense of metaphysicians, but with scientific data in their hands complete insanity, due to mental illness, of some of the so-called “criminals” and mental disorder of many persons hitherto considered, according to generally accepted opinion, to be completely sane.
To the caustic ridicule and petty quibbles of our opponents, we, following the example of the original who moved in their presence to convince people who denied the movement, 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? Perhaps only the ignorant, but their triumph will soon come to an end.
Prof. C. Lombroso Turin, January 1, 1882
I. INTRODUCTION TO HISTORICAL REVIEW
Our duty is extremely sad - with the help of inexorable analysis, to destroy and destroy, one after another, those bright, rosy 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 as objects of adoration for so long, we can offer him nothing but a cold smile of compassion. But the servant of truth must inevitably submit to its laws. Thus, due to fatal necessity, he comes to the conviction that love is, in essence, nothing more than the mutual attraction of stamens and pistils... and thoughts are the simple movement of molecules. Even genius - this is the only sovereign power that belongs to a person, before which one can bend the knee without blushing - even many psychiatrists have put it on the same level with the tendency 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 profanation, such blasphemy is not only allowed by doctors, and not exclusively in our skeptical times.
Even Aristotle, this great ancestor 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 quite good poetry while he was a maniac, but, having recovered, completely lost this ability ".
He says in another place: “It has been noticed that famous poets, politicians and artists were partly melancholic and insane, partly misanthropes, like Bellerophon. Even today we see the same thing in Socrates, Empedocles, Plato and others, and most powerfully in poets. People with cold, abundant blood (lit. bile) are timid and limited, and people with hot blood are active, witty and talkative."
Plato argues that “delirium is not a disease at all, but, on the contrary, the greatest of the blessings given to us by the gods; under the influence of delirium, the Delphic and Dodonian soothsayers provided thousands of services to the citizens of Greece, whereas in their ordinary state they brought little benefit or were completely useless It happened many times that when the gods sent epidemics to the people, one of the mortals fell into a sacred delirium and, under its influence, became a prophet, indicated a cure for these diseases. A special kind of delirium, excited by the muses, evokes in the simple and immaculate soul of a person the ability to express in beautiful poetic form the exploits of heroes, which contributes to the education of future generations."
Democritus even directly said that he does not consider a person 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 insane with great respect, considering them to be inspired from above, which is confirmed, in addition to historical facts, by the fact that the words mania are in Greek, navi and mesugan are in Hebrew, and nigrata is - 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 crazy. Their insanity was expressed by an absurd passion for praise, as well as strange and indecent actions. By the way, Plater met at court an architect, sculptor and musician who enjoyed great fame and were undoubtedly crazy. Even more outstanding facts were collected by F. Gazoni in Italy, in the “Hospital for the Incurable 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 complete madness, and subsequently proved this by his own example. The same was confirmed by Hecart regarding his comrades, scientists and at the same time madmen, like himself. He published his observations in 1823 under the title: “Stultitsiana, or a short bibliography of the madmen in Valenciennes, compiled by a madman.” The same subject was dealt with by Delnier, a passionate bibliographer, in his interesting "Histoire littraire des fous", 1860, by Forgues in an excellent essay published in the Revue de Paris, 1826, and by an unknown author in "Sketches of Bedlam" (Sketches). in Bedlam. London, 1873).
Recently, Lelu - in Dmon de Socrate, 1856, and BAmulet de Pascal, 1846, Verga - in Lipemania del Tasso, 1850, and Lombroso in Pazzia di Cardano, 1856, have proven that many men of genius, for example, Swift, Luther, Cardano, Brougham and others suffered from insanity, hallucinations or were monomaniacs for a long time. Moreau, who dwells with particular love on the least plausible facts, in his last work Psychologia morbide, and Schilling in his Psychiatrische Briefe, 1863, tried to prove with the help of careful, although not always strictly scientific research, that genius is, in any case, something like a nervous abnormality, often turning into real madness. Similar conclusions, approximately, were made 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 more accurately establish the physiology of the genius, came, through the most careful analysis of the facts, to the same conclusions that were expressed more than a hundred years ago, more on the basis of experience than strict observations, by 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 AND PHYSIOLOGICALLY INSANE PEOPLE
No matter how cruel and sad this kind of paradox may be, if we consider 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, like madmen, to convulsive muscle contractions and are distinguished by sharp, so-called “trochaic” body movements. Thus, it is said 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. Buffon, immersed in his thoughts, once climbed the bell tower and descended from there by rope completely 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 in his calves. “I was probably very angry,” he himself once admitted 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 subject to twitching of the facial muscles, which horribly distorted his face.
“Carducci’s face,” says Mantegazza, “at times resembles a hurricane: lightning rains from his eyes, and the trembling of his muscles resembles an earthquake.”
Ampere could not speak otherwise than by walking and moving all his limbs. It is known that the normal composition of urine, and especially the urea content in it, changes markedly after manic attacks. The same thing is noticed after intense mental exercise. Already many years ago, Golding Bird made the observation that one English preacher, who spent the entire week in idleness and only preached sermons with great fervor on Sundays, precisely on that day the content of phosphate salts in the urine increased significantly, while on other days it was extremely insignificant. Subsequently, Smith confirmed with many observations the fact that with any mental stress the amount of urea in the urine increases, and in this respect the analogy between genius and madness seems undeniable.
From this abnormal abundance of urea, or rather from this new confirmation of the law of balance between force and matter, which governs the entire world of living beings, other, more amazing analogies can be deduced: for example, gray hair and baldness, thinness of the body, and also poor muscular and sexual activity, characteristic of all madmen, is very often found in great thinkers. Caesar was afraid of the pale and thin Cassiev. D'Alembert, Fenelon, Napoleon were thin as skeletons in their youth. About Voltaire, Segur writes: “Thinness proves how hard he works; his emaciated and bent body serves only as a light, almost transparent 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, along with crazy people, are characterized by: constant overflow of the brain with blood (hyperemia), intense heat in the head and cooling of the extremities, a tendency to acute diseases of the brain and poor sensitivity to hunger and cold.
It can be said about brilliant people, just like about crazy people, that they remain lonely, cold, and indifferent to the responsibilities of a family man and a member of society all their lives. Michelangelo constantly insisted that his art replaced his wife. Goethe, Heine, Byron, Cellini, Napoleon, Newton, although they did not say this, by their actions they proved something even worse.
There are frequent cases when, due to the same reasons that so often cause madness, i.e. Due to illnesses and head injuries, the most ordinary people turn into geniuses. As a child, Vico fell from a tall staircase and crushed his right parietal bone. Gratri, at first a bad singer, became a famous artist after severely bruising his head with a log. Mabille-on, completely weak-minded from a young age, achieved fame for his talents, which developed in him as a result of a wound to his head. Gall, who reported this fact, knew a half-idiot Dane whose mental abilities became brilliant after he, at the age of 13, fell head first down the stairs*. Several years ago, a cretin from Savoy, bitten by a mad dog, became a completely reasonable man in the last days of his life. Dr. Galle knew limited people whose mental abilities were unusually developed as a result of brain diseases (mi-dollo).
[The late Metropolitan of Moscow Macarius, distinguished by a remarkably bright mind, was such a sickly and stupid child that he was completely unable to study. But in the seminary, one of his comrades, during a game, pierced his head with a stone, and after that Macarius’ abilities became brilliant, and his health completely improved.]
“It may very well be that my illness (spinal cord disease) gave my latest works some kind of abnormal shade,” Heine says with amazing insight in one of his letters. It must be added, however, that the illness affected in this way not only his last works, and he himself was aware of this. A few months before his illness intensified, Heine wrote about himself (Correspondace indite. Paris, 1877): “My mental agitation is more the result of illness than genius - in order to at least a little calm my suffering, I wrote poetry. On these terrible nights, mad with pain, my poor head rushes from side to side and makes the bells of my worn-out stupid cap ring with cruel gaiety.”
Bisha and von der Kolk noticed that people with crooked necks have a more alert mind than ordinary people. Conolly had one patient whose mental faculties were stimulated during operations on him, and several such patients who showed special talent in the first periods of consumption and gout. Everyone knows how witty and cunning humpbacks are; Rokitansky even tried to explain this by the fact that their aorta, giving vessels going to the head, bends, resulting in an expansion of the volume of the heart and an increase in blood pressure in the skull.
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 manifests itself completely unexpectedly.
Jürgen Meyer says that a talented person acts strictly deliberately; he knows how and why he came to a certain theory, while this is completely unknown to a genius: all creative activity is unconscious.
Haydn attributed the creation of his famous oratorio “The Creation” to a mysterious gift sent from above. “When my work was not moving forward well,” he said, “I, with a rosary in my hands, retired to the chapel, read the Virgin Mary - and inspiration returned to me again.”
The Italian poetess Milli, while creating, almost involuntarily, her wonderful poems, worries, screams, sings, runs back and forth and seems to be in an epileptic fit.
Those people 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 their own accord, like sparks from a burning brand.
Dante expressed this beautifully 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
what she tells me.)
Napoleon said that the outcome of battles depended on one moment, on one thought that temporarily remained inactive; when a favorable moment arrives, it flares up like a spark, and the result is victory (Moreau).
Bauer says that Koo's best poems were dictated to him in a state close to insanity. In those moments when these wonderful verses flowed from his lips, he was unable to reason even about the simplest things.
Foscolo admits in his Epistolario, the best work of this great mind, that the creative ability of a 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 the sake of glory, but for that inner pleasure that the exercise of our abilities gives us.”
Bettinelli calls poetic creativity a dream with open eyes, without loss of consciousness, and this is perhaps fair, since many poets dictated their poems in a state similar to sleep.
Goethe also says that a poet requires a certain cerebral stimulation and that he himself composed many of his songs while in a state of somnambulism.
Klopstock admits that when he wrote his poem, inspiration often came to him during sleep.
In a dream, Voltaire conceived one of the songs of the Henriade, Sardi conceived a theory of playing the harmonic, and Seckendorff conceived his charming 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. They say that while he was sleeping, La Fontaine composed the fable “Two Doves,” and Condillac finished the lecture he began the day before.
Coleridge's "Kubla" and Golde's "Fantasia" were composed in a dream.
Mozart admitted that musical ideas appeared 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 from the outside tells me.”
Lagrange noticed an irregular pulse in his heart when he wrote, while Alfieri’s eyes grew dark at the same time.
Lamartine often said: “It is not I who think, but my thoughts that think for me.”
Alfieri, who called himself a barometer - to such an extent did his creative abilities change depending on the time of year - with the onset of September could not resist the involuntary impulse that took possession of him, so strong that he had to give in and wrote six comedies. On one of his sonnets, he wrote the following inscription in his own hand: “Accidental. I didn’t want to write it.” This predominance of the unconscious in the work of brilliant people was noticed in ancient times.
Socrates was the first to point out that poets create their works not as a result of effort or art, but thanks to some natural instinct. In the same way, soothsayers say beautiful things without realizing it at all.
“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 the Armides of Cinema 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 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. This same unconsciousness explains the unshakability of convictions in people who have internalized 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 expressed this perfectly when he said that the best English poets, Shakespeare and Dryden, can also find the worst poetry. They 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 was confused in his writings, did not recognize them and was not able to appreciate their merits.
There can be no doubt that there is a complete similarity between a man who is mad during a seizure and a man of genius thinking about and creating his work.
Remember the Latin proverb: “Aut insanit homo, aut versus fecit” (“Either a madman or a poet”).
This is how the doctor Revellier-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 the creative period, the author himself often does not understand what he stated a minute ago.”
Marini, when writing Adone, did not notice that he had severely burned his leg. During his creative period, Tasso seemed completely insane. In addition, when thinking about something, many artificially cause a rush of blood to the brain, such as Schiller, who put his feet on ice, Pitt and Fox, who prepared their speeches after drinking immoderate porter, and Paisiello, who composed only under the cover of many blankets. Milton and Descartes threw their heads back on the sofa, Bossuet retired to the cold room and put warm poultices on his head; Cujas worked while lying face down on the mat. There is a saying about Leibniz that he thought only in a horizontal position - to such an extent was it necessary for him for mental activity. Milton composed with his head thrown back on the pillow, and Thomas and Rossini while lying in bed; Rousseau pondered his works in the bright midday sun with his head open.
Obviously, they all instinctively used drugs that temporarily increase the flow of blood to the head to the detriment of the rest of the body. Here, by the way, it is worth mentioning 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 from 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 the scientific information he acquired in the first half, and many painters, for example Carracci, Steen, Barbatelli, and a whole galaxy of poets - Murger, Gerard de Nerval, Musset, Kleist, Mailat and at their head Tasso, who 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."
There are many drunkards among the great musicians, for example 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, besides wine, he also loved vodka and finally got drunk on it.
It has been noticed that almost all the great creations of thinkers receive their final form, or at least become clear, under the influence of some special sensation, which here plays, so to speak, the role of a drop of salt water in a well-arranged voltaic column. Facts prove that all great discoveries were made under the influence of the senses, as Mole Schott also confirms. Several frogs, from which it was supposed to prepare a healing decoction for Galvani's wife, served as the basis for the discovery of galvanism. The isochronic (simultaneous) swinging of a chandelier and the falling of an apple prompted Newton and Galileo to create great systems. Alfieri composed and thought about his tragedies while listening to music. When Mozart saw an orange, he remembered a Neapolitan folk song that he had 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 sitting angel at the sight of his sitter’s antics. Inspiration first struck Salvatore Rosa while he was admiring the view of Posilino, and Hogarth found types for his caricatures in a tavern after a drunkard broke his nose there in a fight. Milton, Bacon, Leonardo and Warburton needed to hear the ringing of bells in order to get to work; Bourdalou, before dictating his immortal sermons, always played some aria on the violin. The reading of one ode by Spenser aroused a penchant for poetry in Cowley, and the book of Sacrobose made Gammad addicted to astronomy. While considering cancer, Watt came up with the idea of constructing a machine that would be extremely useful in industry, and Gibbon decided to write the history of Greece after he saw the ruins of the Capitol*.