evidence that, as Huxley anticipated, "the introduction into the
economy of a molecular mechanism which, like a cunningly contrived
torpedo, shall find its way to some particular group of living
elements, and cause an explosion among them, leaving the rest
untouched," and the multiplication of such cunningly contrived
mechanisms, were responsible for those personalities, magnificent
chemical compounds, with whose adventures historians are concerned?

THE CASE OF NAPOLEON

As a unique will and intelligence, Napoleon Bonaparte the First must
be classed as one of the Betelegeuses of the race. H.G. Wells has
called his career the "raid of an intolerable egotist across the
disordered beginning of a new time." "The figure of an adventurer and
wrecker." "This saturnine egotist." "Are men dazzled simply by the
scale of his flounderings, by the mere vastness of his notoriety?"
"This dark little archaic personage, hard, compact, capable,
unscrupulous, imitative and neatly vulgar." There are other opinions.
The Man of Destiny was worshipped by millions. Napoleona bring
fortunes today. Interest in the man as a man has multiplied with every
year. And certainly no one can deny him the quality of individuality
in its most exaggerated form.

In the second place he belongs among the moderns. Modern science and
methods of observation have had their chance at him, and have left a
conscious record of their results. Napoleon was the central figure of
his time, and was watched by trained medical eyes during his life,
and after his death. Protocols of the examination of his body are
accessible, and Napoleonic specimens, preserved by fixing agents,
may still be viewed at the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons,
England. Dr. Leonard Guthrie has worked up the material at hand in
a report which he presented to the historical section of the
International Congress of Medicine, in London in 1913. I propose to
relate his findings to some other facts and the general principles
roughly sketched in this book.

There are a number of word portraits of Napoleon extant. But for our
purposes certain of the notable features of his face and physique are
to be considered. The first characteristic that struck everyone about
him was the matter of his height. He was definitely sub-average,
at death being about five feet six inches in height. As has been
emphasized several times, deficiency or excess of growth will always
direct attention to the pituitar