nce to the
different phenomena of epilepsy, which have already been described in
detail in this work, in the part treating of the connection between
epilepsy and crime. While writing his poems, Tasso appeared to be out of
his senses; Alfieri felt everything go dark around him; Lagrange's pulse
became irregular; Milton, Leibnitz, Cujas, Rossini, and Thomas could
work only under special conditions. Others have encouraged inspiration
by using those stimulants which provoke epileptic attacks. Baudelaire
made use of hashish; and wine evoked the creative spirit in Gluck,
Gerard de Nerval, Verlaine, De Musset, Hoffmann, Burns, Coleridge, Poe,
Byron, Praga, and Carducci. Gluck was wont to declare that he valued
money only because it enabled him to procure wine, and that he loved
wine because it inspired him and transported him to the seventh heaven.
Schiller was satisfied with cider; and Goethe could not work unless he
felt the warmth of a ray of sunlight on his head. Many have asserted
that their writings, inventions, and solutions of difficult problems
have been done in a state of unconsciousness. Mozart confessed that he
composed in his dreams, and Lamartine and Alfieri made similar
statements. The _Henriade_ was suggested to Voltaire in a dream; Newton
and Cardano solved the most difficult problems in a similar manner; and
Mrs. Beecher Stowe, George Eliot, and George Sand asserted that their
novels had been written in a dream-like state, and that they themselves
were ignorant of the ultimate fate of their personages. In a preface to
one of her books Mrs. Beecher Stowe even went to the length of denying
her authorship. Socrates and Tolstoi declared that their works were
written in a condition of semi-unconsciousness; Leopardi, that he
followed an inspiration; and Dante described the source of his genius in
those beautiful lines:

"... quando
Amore spira, noto, ed a quel modo
Che detta dentro, vo significando."

"When love inspires, I write,
And put my thoughts as it dictates in me."

"I call inspiration," says Beethoven, "that mysterious state during
which the whole world seems to form one vast harmony, and all the forces
of Nature become instruments, when every sentiment and thought resounds
within me, a shudder thrills through my frame, and every hair on my
head stands on end."

These expressions show that when a genius attains to the fulness of his
development and, consequently, to