philosopher, _folie du doute_.

Swift, writer, _paresis_.

Socrates, philosopher, _chorea_.

Schumann, musician, _paresis_.

Shelley, writer, _hallucinations_.

Bunyan, writer, _hallucinations_.

Swedenborg, theologian, _hallucinations_.

Loyola, theologian, _hallucinations_.

J. S. Mill, writer, _suicidal impulse_.

Linnaeus, 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
anaesthesia, and Jefferson was pseudo-epileptic and neurasthenic.
Randolph was a man of marked eccentricity, and Benedict Arnold was,
morally, anaesthetic. 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.

Thoma