[CONTENTS]

BOOK I.
FIN-DE-SIÈCLE.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
THE DUSK OF THE NATIONS[1]
CHAPTER II.
THE SYMPTOMS[7]
CHAPTER III.
DIAGNOSIS[15]
CHAPTER IV.
ETIOLOGY[34]
BOOK II.
MYSTICISM.
CHAPTER I.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MYSTICISM[45]
CHAPTER II.
THE PRE-RAPHAELITES[67]
CHAPTER III.
SYMBOLISM[100]
CHAPTER IV.
TOLSTOISM[144]
CHAPTER V.
THE RICHARD WAGNER CULT[171]
CHAPTER VI.
PARODIES OF MYSTICISM[214]
BOOK III.
EGO-MANIA.
CHAPTER I.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EGO-MANIA[241]
CHAPTER II.
PARNASSIANS AND DIABOLISTS[266]
CHAPTER III.
DECADENTS AND ÆSTHETES[296]
CHAPTER IV.
IBSENISM[338]
CHAPTER V.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE[415]
BOOK IV.
REALISM.
CHAPTER I.
ZOLA AND HIS SCHOOL[473]
CHAPTER II.
THE ‘YOUNG GERMAN’ PLAGIARISTS[506]
BOOK V.
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY.
CHAPTER I.
PROGNOSIS[536]
CHAPTER II.
THERAPEUTICS[550]

DEGENERATION

[BOOK I.]

FIN-DE-SIÈCLE.

CHAPTER I.

THE DUSK OF THE NATIONS.

Fin-de-siècle is a name covering both what is characteristic of many modern phenomena, and also the underlying mood which in them finds expression. Experience has long shown that an idea usually derives its designation from the language of the nation which first formed it. This, indeed, is a law of constant application when historians of manners and customs inquire into language, for the purpose of obtaining some notion, through the origins of some verbal root, respecting the home of the earliest inventions and the line of evolution in different human races. Fin-de-siècle is French, for it was in France that the mental state so entitled was first consciously realized. The word has flown from one hemisphere to the other, and found its way into all civilized languages. A proof this that the need of it existed. The fin-de-siècle state of mind is to-day everywhere to be met with; nevertheless, it is in many cases a mere imitation of a foreign fashion gaining vogue, and not an organic evolution. It is in the land of its birth that it appears in its most genuine form, and Paris is the right place in which to observe its manifold expressions.