The above are but a few instances of an abnormal turn of mind; of the like the present work contains others in abundance. Anyone desirous of penetrating further into the folds and windings of a mind so involved should study Luther’s letters, particularly those dating from 1517 to 1522 and from 1540 to 1546. He will there find much of the same sort, which can hardly be termed either sane or reasonable; but even the passages we have quoted suffice to reveal in him an uncanny power of self-deception such as few historic characters display. Many a great genius has betrayed psychological peculiarities, indeed it seems at times to be the fate of those endowed with eminent gifts to overstep the boundaries and to venture further than the reason and reflection of thinking men can follow.[544] That Luther carried certain mental peculiarities to their utmost limit is plain from what we have seen, nor can it be right to close one’s eyes to the fact.
Luther showed the defects of a “genius” not least in his vituperation and in the other far from commendable methods he used in his polemics. It was precisely these defects which led Erasmus to question whether he was quite in his right mind. “Had a man said this in the delirium of fever, could he have uttered anything more insane?” Thus Erasmus in his “Hyperaspistes.”[545] He often speaks of his opponent’s feverish fancies. He denies that his spirit is a “sober” one, and maliciously supposes that he was drunk. In spite of his usual moderation and reticence, the scholar, when dealing with Luther’s assertions, constantly uses such words as “delirus,” “insanus,” “lymphatus,” “sine mente,” “mera insania.” On one occasion he says of the “devils, spectres, ‘lamiæ,’ ‘megæræ’ and other more than tragic words” which Luther was addicted to flinging at his foes, that such a habit was a “sign of coming madness” (“venturæ insaniæ præsagia”); elsewhere he views with misgiving the sort of compulsion (“non agere sed agi”) which urges Luther to abuse all who differ from him.[546]
In other circles, too, the opinion prevailed that Luther was suffering from some sort of mental disease. We may recall the remarks of Boniface Amerbach, who was not unkindly disposed to Luther, in sending the latter’s tract of 1534 against Erasmus, to his brother Basil (above, vol. iv., p. 183).
In Luther’s immediate surroundings we also find traces of a fear that the Master stood in some danger of losing his mind.
A thoroughgoing investigation of the matter by some unbiassed expert in mental diseases would, however, be of immeasurably greater value than the mere opinions of contemporary admirers and opponents. But the difficulty is to find an impartial expert. Protestant theologians will not easily be found ready to agree with Catholic writers regarding the process which made of a quondam monk the founder of the Protestant faith, or to see Luther’s scruples in quite the same light. Entire agreement would seem for ever excluded, owing to differences of outlook so deep-seated. If, to some, Luther appears as a “new Paul,” and as one who removed every obstacle to free religious research, then the view they take of his inward change and later spiritual life must perforce be coloured to some extent by this idea.
Nor must the fact be lost to sight that many of the apparently suspicious symptoms were, in Luther’s case, quite wilful. Thus his outbreaks of fury against Popery, the psychological origin of which we have already described (vol. iv., p. 306 ff.), are largely an outcome of the feelings of hatred he deliberately encouraged, and a reaction against his earlier and better convictions. Again, self-deception and lack of self-control, i.e. moral elements, played a great part in him. Since, however, even at the outset of his career he already displayed these moral defects, they must be carefully distinguished from his morbid states and no less from his doubts and remorse of conscience.
At the very least, however, we should give to the purely historical facts such unbiassed, broadminded recognition as that editor of the great Weimar Edition of Luther’s works (see above, p. 168), who, as we heard, spoke of the “pathological” explanation of certain acts and statements of Luther’s as the only one possible. The word “pathological,” and other similar ones, had, however, been used even earlier, and, that, even by non-Catholics, as descriptive of certain of Luther’s states, nor was the remark entirely new, that in many a great genius we find something pathological.[547]