lude all kinds of abnormalities. The
facts noted above are by no means recent knowledge, but were vaguely
recognized and commented on centuries and decades of centuries ago by
the Hebrews and kindred races of people. The Hebrew word _nabi_ means
either madman or prophet, and it is now admitted that most of the
prophets gave evidences of insanity as well as genius. The Greeks and
the Romans recognized this kinship, and we read in the Bible of a
certain Festus, who, when confronted by a man of genius, and being
unable to answer his arguments, said to him, "Paul, much learning hath
made thee mad!" Lauvergne, when speaking of the oxycephalic (sugarloaf)
skull, an unquestionable example of degeneration, wrote many years ago,
"This head announces the monstrous alliance of the most eminent faculty
of man, genius, with the most pronounced impulses to rape, murder, and
theft."

The purpose of this paper is to show that wherever genius is observed,
we find it accompanied by degeneration, which is evinced by physical
abnormalties or mental eccentricities. It is a strange fact, however,
and one not noticed by Lombroso, or any other writer, as far as I know,
that mechanical geniuses, or those who, for the most part, deal with
material facts, do not, as a rule, show any signs of degeneration. I
have only to instance Darwin, Galileo, Edison, Watts, Rumsey, Howe, and
Morse to prove the truth of this assertion. It is only the genius of
aestheticism, the genius of the emotion, that is generally accompanied
by unmistakable signs of degeneration.

Saul, the first king of Israel, was a man of genius and, at times, a
madman. We read that, before his coronation, he was seized with an
attack of madness and joined a company of kindred eccentrics. His
friends and acquaintances were naturally surprised and exclaimed: "Is
Saul among the prophets?" _i. e._, "Has Saul become insane?" Again, we
are told that he was suddenly seized with an attack of homicidal
impulse, and tried to kill David. Before this time he had had repeated
attacks of madness, which only the harp of David could control and
subdue. David himself was a man whose mental equilibrium was not well
established, as his history clearly indicates. He forsook his God,
indulged in licentious practices, and was, withal, a very, immoral man
at times. At his time, the Hebrews had reached a high degree of
civilization. Abstract ethics had become very much developed, and any
example of great im