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277 47 The Man of Genius 25 February 1892 The Nation The Man of Genius. By Cesare Lombroso, Professor of Legal Medicine in the University of Turin. [The Contemporary Science Series.] Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1891. Prof. Lombroso comes to us with a proposition not absolutely new, but which he makes claim now to prove for the first time. It is that genius is a mental disease, allied to epileptiform mania and in a lesser degree to the dementia of cranks, or mattoids, as he calls them; so that, far from being a mental perfection, it is a degenerate and diseased condition . The inevitable corollary must be, though Prof. Lombroso does not draw it, that the whole of civilization is due to insanity. If so, it is a disease like pearls, fat livers, and ambergris, which we had better try to propagate, in others. But our Napoleons, our Pythagorases, our Newtons , and our Dantes must no longer run at large, but be confined in Genius Asylums as fast as they betray themselves. To prove his proposition, Prof. Lombroso proceeds inductively. In order, therefore, to judge of his work, we will examine the first induction he offers with some care. This first generalization is that geniuses are, on the average, of smaller stature than ordinary men. Here is his reasoning: Famous for short stature as well as for genius were: Horace (lepidissimum homunculum dicebat Augustus [Lombroso fails to note that this implies that Augustus was himself large]), Philopœmen, Narses, Alexander (Magnus Alexander corpore parvus erat), Aristotle, Plato, Epicurus, Chrysippus, Laertes, Archimedes, Diogenes, Attila, Epictetus, who was accustomed to say, “Who am I? A little man.” Among moderns one may name, Erasmus, Socinus, Linn æus, Lipsius, Gibbon, Spinoza, Haüy, Montaigne, Mezeray, Lalande, Gray, John Hunter (5 ft. 2 in.), Mozart, Beethoven, Goldsmith, Hogarth, Thomas Moore, Thomas Campbell, Wilberforce, Heine, Meissonnier, Charles Lamb, Beccaria, Maria Edgeworth, Balzac, De Quincey, William Blake (who was scarcely five feet in height), Browning, Ibsen, George Eliot, Thiers, Mrs. Browning, Louis Blanc, Mendelssohn, Swinburne, Van Does (called the Writings of C. S. Peirce 1890–1892 278 Drum, because he was not any taller than a drum), Peter van Laer (called the Puppet). Lulli, Pomponazzi, Baldini, were very short; so, also, were Nicholas Piccinino, the philosopher Dati, and Baldo, who replied to the sarcasm of Bartolo , “Minuit præsentia famam,” with the words “Augebit cetera virtus”; and again Marsilio Ficino, of whom it was said, “Vix ad lumbos viri stabat.” Albertus Magnus was of such small size that the Pope, having allowed him to kiss his foot, commanded him to stand up, under the impression that he was still kneeling. When the coffin of St. Francis Xavier was opened at Goa in 1890, the body was found to be only four and a half feet in length. Among great men of tall stature I know only Volta, Goethe, Petrarch, Schiller, D’Azeglio, Helmholtz, Foscolo, Charlemagne, Bismarck, Moltke, Monti, Mirabeau, Dumas père, Schopenhauer, Lamartine, Voltaire, Peter the Great, Washington, Dr. Johnson, Sterne, Arago, Flaubert, Carlyle, Tourgueneff , Tennyson, Whitman. Now we remark, at once, that the thirty names in the latter list are nearly all great names; while to collect the sixty in the former list, the author has been compelled to descend to Narses, Chrysippus, Laertes, Mezeray, Lalande, Thomas Campbell, De Quincey, William Blake, Does, Laer, Pomponazzi, Baldini, Piccinino, Dati, and Baldo! Nor are the statements always accurate. As for Epictetus, his expression of submission to God has nothing to do with his stature, concerning which there seems to be no information. Ancient references to his person merely allude to the story of his master breaking his leg. It is quite unlikely that Plato was diminutive, because his beauty was such that he was believed to be the son of Apollo. The statements about Epicurus and Diogenes are very doubtful; and that about Archimedes far from certain. Attila was short, like all Huns, but not shorter than the average. Balzac, instead of being small, was colossal; Spinoza and Hunter were about of medium height, notwithstanding the measurement given of the latter; George Eliot and Linnæus were somewhat above the average; and Erasmus, though not tall, was not noticeably short. Let us be glad that Signor Lombroso’s credit for fairness is saved by one mistake on the other side, Schopenhauer being under the middle height. Making these corrections and disregarding the insignificant names, the two lists are not far from equal. Taking, however...

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