Loyola, theologian, hallucinations.
J. S. Mill, writer, suicidal impulse.
Linnæus, botanist, paresis.
The reader will observe that I have made use of the comprehensive word, writer, to designate all kinds of literary work except theology and philosophy. The above list is by no means complete, and only contains the names of those geniuses with whom the world is well acquainted.
When we come to the geniuses of the New World, we find that, though few in number, they, nevertheless, show erraticism and degeneration. Poe was undoubtedly a man of great genius, and his degeneration was indicated by his excessive use of alcohol. Aaron Burr was the victim of moral anæsthesia, and Jefferson was pseudo-epileptic and neurasthenic. Randolph was a man of marked eccentricity, and Benedict Arnold was, morally, anæsthetic. Daniel Webster was addicted to an over-indulgence in alcohol, likewise Thomas Marshall and the elder Booth. Booth also had attacks of acute mania. His son Edwin had paresis; so also had John McCullough, John T. Raymond, and Bartley Campbell. A distinguished statesman and politician, and a man who stands high in the councils of the nation, has, for a number of years, given evidence of mental obliquity by his uncontrollable desire for alcohol. No power, outside of bodily restraint, can control him and keep him from indulging his appetite for alcohol when this desire seizes him. One of the most noted poets of to-day, whose verses stir the heart with their pathos and bring smiles to the gravest countenances with their humor, was, for a number of years (and still is, so I have been told), an inordinate user of alcohol.
Robert Ingersoll was undoubtedly a man of genius and of considerable originality, and a close study of his writings shows conclusively his mental eccentricity. Judging wholly from his printed utterances, Mr. Ingersoll was only a superficial scientist and mediocre scholar. His power lay in his wonderful word imagery, and his intricately constructed verbal arabesques. He was a verbal symbolist. Symbolism, wherever found, and in whatever art, if carried to any extent, must necessarily be an evidence of atavism, consequently of degeneration.
Thomas Paine gave evidences of a lack of mental equipoise. We find scattered throughout his works the most brilliant, irrefutable, and logical truths side by side with the most inane, illogical, and stolid crudities. Among other men of genius who showed signs of degeneration we may include Alexander Stevens, Joel Hart, Adams, Train, Breckenridge, Webster, Blaine, Van Buren, Houston, Grant, Hawthorne, Bartholow, Walt Whitman. We must not confound genius and talent—the two are widely different. Genius is essentially original and spontaneous, while talent is to some extent acquired. Genius is a quasi abnormality, and one for which the world should be devoutly grateful. Psychos, in the case of genius, is not uniformly developed, one part, being more favored than the others, absorbs and uses more than its share of that element, whatsoever it be, which goes to make up intellectuality, hence the less favored or less acquisitive parts show degeneration.