The Calcutta Review, 3rd Series/Volume 16/The Ethics of Genius

by Umeshchandra Bhattacharjee

THE ETHICS OF GENIUS

The anthropological sciences devote themselves almost exclusively to the study of the normal man—the man whom we ordinarily meet in our daily life and who represents the bulk of society. In scientific language, he is the ‘type.’ He represents the common and essential attributes of the class and does so in their proper relation and due proportion.

But the typical man does not exhaust the class. There are deviations from the type as well. There are instances where one or other of the class-qualities is developed beyond the ordinary limit; and this is probably counterbalanced by the undergrowth of another. Thus, broadly speaking, one who has more than the ordinary dose of hunger or sleep or even speech, does to that extent deviate from the type.

This remark applies to almost all human attributes. Very few men can be regarded as types in the strictest sense of the term. Almost every power or faculty is found just a little less or just a little more developed in some man or other. One, for instance, possesses more than ordinary imagination, and is a poet; another may possess very little of imagination, but may have more than the ordinary power of calculation and the sense of expediency; he will be probably a successful business man.

These are the most ordinary deviations; and, for that reason, do not attract much special attention. But still they are deviations, and are responsible for the diversity in society.

But there are more important deviations ; in the first place, there is the criminal, in the second, the man of genius.

That the criminal is an aberration from the type, has long been recognised. So long ago as the middle of the last century, the criminal was regarded more as a deviation from the moral type than anything else. He was a moral decrepit, a sinner against the law of God. That was about all. But there was one important fact which was usually overlooked,—at any rate, never emphasised;—viz., his psychological similarities, along with many important differences, with the ordinary man.

In the first place, criminality does not imply a special instinct or a unique faculty which is not found at all in other men. A criminal, too, has more or less just the same springs of action as all of us. But there is admittedly a vast difference in the strength and intensity of these impulses. In a criminal, there are some impulses which are more developed and more intense, and some, again, which are less intense, than in an ordinary man. For instance, love of wealth is an ordinary and quite legitimate impulse; it is present in all men; but when grown to an excess, it becomes a source of criminality. The psychology of a shrewd business man bent on making profit, and that of a clever sharper, are not intrinsically different in kind. Both have more or less the same springs of action. But surely there is a remarkable difference in the intensity and magnitude of the impulses. And the difference in the intensity of impulses implies a corresponding difference in the power of self-control. Many of us possibly cast covetous eyes upon what is our neighbour’s; but we resist the impulses and are not criminals; but the unfortunate few who cannot resist, are so. Generally speaking, therefore, the criminal mind does not differ in kind from the normal mind.

Yet it does differ, in so far as there are differences in the strength and intensity, etc., of the springs of action, feelings, and so forth. And in so far as it differs from the ordinary mind, it is an aberration from the type; it is not the healthy, normal type;—it is abnormal, and for the sake of distinguishing it from genius, we may call it sub-normal.

Now, this sub-normal species, the criminal, was usually regarded as sub-moral—as an aberration from the moral type. He was a bad man, as opposed to the good. He might be good, but he was not, and he was responsible for what he was. Society condemned him and punished him for being a criminal and held out the further threat of perdition—of torment after death. In fact, he was not regarded as anything more than an aberration from the moral type only. His sub-morality eclipsed his sub-normality. This was the old way of thinking—the way of thinking that we find in the Book of Job—the way of thinking which attributed even physical goods and ills to a man’s morality.

But other truths have dawned since. A criminal is now beginning to be regarded as more an aberration from the physical type than anything else. He is now regarded as a physically degenerate—a diseased, person; diseased in the most ordinary sense. According to Lombroso and his school, the criminal is just as diseased as an insane person. In fact, he, too, is insane. A mad man or an epileptic is not morally responsible; his brain is diseased, and his mind is malformed. In the same way, it is argued, criminality too, is a disease—and presumably a disease of the brain too, and, just as an insane person cannot help being what he is and doing what he does, so,—and exactly for similar reasons—a criminal too, cannot help being what he is. In both cases, similar organic causes are at work.

We need not pause to examine he soundness of this theory. It is undeniable that the theory has found acceptance in important scientific circles. One attractive feature of the theory is that, it vouchsafes a humaner treatment for the criminal. We do not look with disfavour—and certainly never with moral disapprobation—upon a man who labours under an organic deformity. An idiot excites pity and not moral condemnation; a mad man is an object of commiseration. And so, if we could only believe that a criminal is also a diseased person, we would pity him rather than condemn him. This would decidedly ensure for him a better treatment in society.

But the question still awaits a final solution. It is not easy to prove that crime does not involve any voluntary perversion of the will—that it is purely an organic defect, a sort of malformation of the brain; nor is it easy to disprove it either. It cannot be denied that education and environment have a profound influence on mentality. It cannot be denied, again, that crimes abound in particular classes of society rather than others. These and similar reasons give plausibility to the theory, just referred to.

Whichever way the question may be decided, the ethical significance of the theory is very important. Once the theory is accepted, the moral colour of crime will at once change; and one’s view of responsibility must undergo a revision. If a lunatic is pitied rather than condemned, and if, in the eye of law as well as of ordinary mortals, he is free from responsibility for what he does, then, why should a different attitude be maintained towards the criminal, who also is diseased? Why should not the prison yield place to the hospital? Why should not the police and the magistracy be shown the door and, instead, why should not all civilised states strengthen the medical services and the clergy? Since the good old days of the celebrated ‘Vicar of Wakefield,’ the question has been insistently asked, and philosophic thought is waiting for an answer.

That crime is not a moral phenomenon only—that it is a a “phenomenon of complex origin and the result of biological, physical and social conditions”—has come to be pressed upon our attention with very great emphasis. But that this view of crime involves a change in our moral out-look and that this change in its turn, is fraught with other consequences, has not perhaps been equally emphasised. We regarded the criminal as a bad man; we are beginning to look upon him as a sick man; this means that the responsibility for a phenomenon like crime, is shifted from the will of the agent to his environment. And if doctoring the body and through it, the mind, is the proper way to mitigate crime, then, the whole moral code of mankind must undergo a severe overhauling. For Ethics and for Jurisprudence this change is pregnant with remarkable consequences.

One thing, however, is clear; whether we refer to the physical or the moral type, the criminal, in any case, is an aberration from the type. He is other than normal. Now, there is another remarkable case of aberration; it is genius. Whatever our definition of genius may be, he is not an ordinary man. He is of a different sort, and as such, away from the normal. The aberration may not be exactly of the same kind, but both crime and genius are ab-normal; and if the former has been called sub-normal, the latter may, for the sake of distinction, be called super-normal. But it is important for us, first of all, to be convinced of the fact that genius, too, is a deviation from the type.

Of course, that does not necessarily imply any disparagement of genius. For genius, on the contrary, we have nothing but adoration. He transcends the ordinary man. He has the ordinary man in him and much more besides. He begins just where an ordinary man stops—and therein lies his greatness. If the imaginative or musical faculty of an ordinary man steps at a particular point, that of a man of genius goes much further beyond; that is why he is great. He deviates from the type, but does so with advantage. And unlike the criminal, a genius is adored rather than condemned, inspite of the fact, that, he, too, like the criminal, is a deviation from the type.

Now, all this is true. Yet we must emphasise the fact that genius is a deviation from the type. And if we are not to be confounded, we must distinguish this fact of deviation from the greatness usually associated with genius. It will then be discovered that although greatness in some direction covers a host of smaller defects, yet everything in genius is not perhaps equally adorable.

Genius has been far less studied than the criminal. Society has to deal with the criminal; but for genius, the usual attitude is admiration from a distance rather than study at close quarters. But like crime, genius, too, is a problem.

Ordinary psychology usually stops at the level which development reaches in the case of a normal mind; yet, although geniuses are not as plentiful as ordinary minds, there is no reason why the science of mind, should not venture further out and investigate the laws and nature of the development which culminates in the production of a genius.

Ordinary Ethics, similarly, stops with the ordinary man. It sets up an ideal which is presumably intended for the ordinary run of mortals. But it forgets that in setting up an ideal which excludes the extra-ordinary, it tends to perpetuate mediocrity. Apart from this, geniuses, too, are men and have got to be adjusted with the moral idea. The sub-normal, i.e., the criminal, may be ignored, because, for him, Ethics still has nothing but condemnation; but the super-normal or genius, cannot be ignored with impunity; because, the very fact that he is adored, shows that he is more or less an ideal. For Ethics, therefore, genius is far more important than criminality.

In fact, genius, too, is coming in for its share of attention from the sciences. But the first fruits of such investigation are hardly very complimentary to it.

On the physical—rather, psycho-physical—side, genius has been found to be not only abnormal but sub-normal—not only a deviation from the type, but a disadvantageous deviation,—far below the normal. Physically and mentally, he has been declared to be unsound. Genius has been proclaimed to be a disease of the brain and nerves, and consequently of the mind—and a disease of the same kind as what is ordinarily called ‘insanity.’ “Medical materialism,” as William James characteristically calls it, has discovered that genius does not denote a healthy mind. Probably there is no difference of opinion as to what ‘health’ exactly means; at any rate, it is presumed that there is none. And judged according to that standard of health, genius, it is contended, is a disease.

Perhaps there are few who would not be diseased in this way and be a genius; but that does not alter the conclusions of science. “And although it may be a moot point whether the geniuses who have made this discovery are less diseased in brain than the geniuses they have studied, still the conclusion arrived at remains unaffected. In fact, it has been seriously maintained by eminent men—call them also diseased if you please, but all the same they are eminent in science—it has been maintained by such men, that, genius is a form of nervous instability.

Primarily, the theory is physiological. In the first place, genius is considered to be diseased in the body—especially, in the brain-centres and nervous system. Secondly, as a consequence of the first, he is considered to be diseased in mind, too. There is a correlation between mind and body; nervous instability, therefore, implies mental unsoundness.

Now, to refer to some leading opinions on the subject of insanity of genius, Dr. Moreau, quoted by William James, says: “Genius is but one of the many branches of the neuropathic tree.” “Genius,” says Dr. Lombroso, “is a symptom of hereditary degeneration of the epileptoid variety and is allied to moral insanity.” “Genius, like moral insanity,” says the same doctor again, “has its basis in epilepsy.” Mr. Nisbet, another author on the subject, has a whole book in which he discusses, from the medical standpoint, the biographies of more than two hundred men of genius and comes to the conclusion that genius is a form of insanity.

Everybody is aware that genius is not called insanity in the same sense in which certain men, shut up in specific asylums, are so called. But the point is that, if the brains of a genius and those of a person ordinarily called insane, were subjected to a medical scrutiny, then, in all likelihood, no difference would be traceable. In both, the hemispheres, the centres, the convolutions and the rest, are abnormally shaped and formed; both are subject to epilepsy, hallucination and other symptoms of mental ill-health.

Genius, therefore, is a disease; only unlike ordinary diseases, it makes the mind super-active and bestows upon mankind various products which are ordinarily very much appreciated. But even as to the value of the products of genius, opinion is not undivided. Max Nordeau, for instance, would not stop short of calling the entire range of production attributed to genius, an unmistakeable sign of ‘degeneration.’ According to him, genius is, of course, a degeneration; but, whatever it produces, is no less so. All works of art—all music and poetry—nay, probably all display of scientific imagination and consequent discovery—must henceforth be branded as ‘degenerate.’ It is a morbid, diseased mind—a hypochondriac, that produces music; poetry is an acute form of sentimentality and diseased imagination. And the same is of course true of all other manifestations of genius.

So, not only is genius a disease, but whatever it produces is also degenerate. If no special value is attached to the ravings of a mad man, why should we applaud poetry to the seventh sky? Why should prophecy be regarded as divine? If delirium tremens is placed under careful medical treatment, why should music enjoy the place of honour in society?

Shall we not go farther and hold that, not only is genius and its product a disease and a degeneration, but even the appreciation of genius, of which all of us are probably guilty, is a sign of impending degeneration? To listen to and to appreciate music, for instance, is to have an affinity for something which is degenerate, and cannot escape the brand.

Genius and the products of genius have been thus publicly arraigned. We may not accept the view that genius is a disease —which implies deterioration;—but we have to recognise that it is a deviation from the type. It certainly does not denote the ordinary sort of mind : probably it is a supergrowth; in some respects, it certainly involves development beyond the ordinary limit, reached by typical minds. But there is the further probability that this supergrowth in one direction may involve an undergrowth in another; in fact, it is very often found that a genius is usually deficient in some faculty or other. To that extent he is perhaps diseased. He is not diseased just in the faculty in which he excels others; but in other faculties, he may be—in fact, usually is—deficient. A military genius is not infrequently found deficient in moral perception. An artistic genius may have defective powers of retention; and so forth. So, not only is genius a deviation from the type but also is very likely diseased in some faculty or other.

We may, therefore, take it as proved, that, genius is an aberration from the type; which implies, in the first place, that he has a defective body, and, in the second place, that he has a defective mind. Now, this mental defect raises another question : Is it the same sort of defect as we find in a criminal?

Heaven, it has been said, is partitioned from hell with a thin wall. Between crime and genius, even this thin wall, according to some, does not exist. Lombroso, for instance, suggests that genius and moral insanity have a common basis in epilepsy. Epilepsy or hysteria or brain-paralysis is immaterial; if moral insanity and genius have a common or even a kindred origin, then the chances are that they will not differ in kind, nor therefore in value.

We have seen a view of crime, which refers it to organic causes; we find a similar view of genius,—almost the self-same organic interpretation. Now arises the question about its moral value. Shall we have the same estimation for both? If genius is applauded, why not crime, too? And if crime is condemned, why not genius, too?

Although there are crimes which verge on genius and evoke a similar admiration, and, although even murder may sometimes become a ‘fine art,’ still, according to ordinary judgment, crime is sub-normal, while genius is super-normal; and, morally speaking, the one is supermoral, while the other is submoral. Evidently, moral judgment condemns crime but excuses and even applauds genius. It seems to be presumed that moral judgment must stop with the ordinary man and must not attempt to soar or to clip the wings of genius.

In other words, although psycho-physically, both crime and genius sail in the same boat, yet in Ethics they meet with a different reception. Is this justified?

That genius claims to be supermoral and to be exempt from moral criticism altogether, is amply illustrated in the case of Art. Art, it has been said, is not amenable to moral judgment. If it is Art, that is enough. Morality is not to be looked for in it. And if the activity exhibited in Art is free from moral criticism, why not the agent, i.e, the Artist, too? Now, art is but one form of genius; if it is not subject to moral judgment, other forms of genius also need not be. In fact, we have such claims advanced on behalf of genius. The Super-man who has made such a violent entry into the present-day literature of Europe, embodies in their most impressive form, the claims of genius to be exempt from moral criticism. But until these claims are granted, we have to face the problem of evaluating genius in the light of its proved or presumed affinity with crime.

The problem arises in this way : Psycho-physically, crime and genius are shown to have a common basis : and moreover, each is frequently found in the company of the other; as crime may often assume the proportion of genius, so, genius too, not infrequently exhibits criminal propensities. That is to say, genius is a deviation not only from the physical type of health but also from the moral type. This is what is meant when scientists talk of the ‘insanity’ of genius. The very fact that genius claims exemption from moral criticism, implies that it has some taint of moral aberration. And the lives of great men often bear out this contention.

This leads to the thesis that a hero is but a successful villain, a genius is but a clever criminal, and a criminal on a larger scale perhaps. In other words, the sort of activity which ordinarily is called crime, if pursued on a large scale and if crowned with success, will be regarded as a stroke of genius. Poets will sing its praise and monuments and obelisks will rise in its honour. If the leader of a small party of men, starts an expedition against private property, he is, like the well-known Thracian and like Rob Roy of ballad fame, a robber and an outlaw : and his party is a gang of bandits. But if he is a mightier man, leads a bigger party and robs on an immensely larger scale, then, his party is an army and himself is a conqueror. Then the pages of history will be full of his praise; later generations will scrutinise his exploits with reverence and admiration; and his life will he the theme of many an epic poem.

The fact states us in the face that a pick-pocket and a multi-millionaire may have the same propensity—vulgarly called greed. The one robs a pice, is caught and is punished; the other robs millions, is not caught, and is not only not punished but has eulogies bestowed on him. The instincts and impulses may not be—and often are not—different in geniuses and criminals. The difference often lies in the dimensions of the act done—and probably in the magnitude of the impulse also. But this difference of quantity only, does not preclude the possibility of kinship. Magnitude apart, crime and genius may have the same moral tone. Psychologically, the difference between the Macedonian hero, and the Thracian robber, has not been established perhaps; yet the judgment of history has been different in the two cases Ethics, however, must put up its back and refuse to be dazzled and misled by the mere size of the activity.

In at least some cases, therefore, crime and genius do not differ, except of course in magnitude, and, therefore, also in consequences. In some cases, at least, the mental attitude is the same in both. There is another and a more important point. Genius usually connotes intellectual greatness rather than moral perfection. Nay more; genius is frequently found tainted with moral perversion. The lives of many great men—of the Shelleys and Byrons and others—will illustrate this truth. These had in them elements which we cannot but applaud; but at the same time, many of them had striking defects of character which we cannot but deplore.

The argument perhaps has been mainly based on an induction by simple enumeration. But from the frequency of the association of genius with moral defects, it may be fairly presumed that there is some necessary connection. If the connection can be shown to be illusory, Ethics will be relieved of a great problem. If, on the other hand, genius is really a case of moral pathology, Ethics has a Gordian knot to untie or to cut.

Genius, like other characters, must be either approved or condemned; there is no via media. But if crime and genius are but two sides of the same shield, then, to approve genius is to approve crimes of large dimensions. On the other hand, to disapprove genius, is to put a premium upon the ordinary and the mediocre and to keep humanity perpetually dwarfed. We are thus on the horns of a dilemma. Assuming that there is a necessary connection between a certain amount of moral turpitude and the phenomenon of genius, society must be prepared either to relax its moral standard or to forego the luxury of owning a genius.

If we rigorously adhere, to the moral ideal as it is usually understood, then, we may be good men, but not perhaps great. If we do not admit even the slightest deviation from the prescribed rules of conduct, then, surely, we may attain a symmetry of growth and a harmony of development, but in such a development, none of the elements of our selves will go beyond the ordinary limit : we shall have intelligence, but just the usual dose of it; we shall have imagination, but not more than the average; and in the same way, we shall probably possess all that a man ought to possess, and that in due proportion; and besides, we shall act, too, just in the reasonable way that good men should act in; but assuredly, that will mean anything but greatness. An overzealous adherence to the standard of goodness, therefore, has a tendency to prevent greatness and to dwarf humanity. Society may very well get on with an army of such good men, but it cannot go forward and improve, except with the help of great men—men of outstanding ability and, therefore, men who deviate from the standard type.

In Art and Literature and manufactures and industries, it is always found that unless one is prepared to deviate from the accepted standard of production, there will be only repetitions of the old type and no novelty, no fresh production, and no improvement will be possible. Because the ancients wore a particular kind of cloth, we do not stick to that fashion; we venture to deviate and so make improvements. Because the ancients followed a custom, should we stick to it eternally? Should we not deviate and make reform possible? In the same way, because the bulk of the race follow an ideal, should genius, too, be chained to it?

Moral health, like its physical counterpart, denotes a perfectly desirable state. It implies asymmetry, a proportion and a harmony, which can never be overvalued. But at the same time, we cannot deny the right of genius to exist. It is not an avoidable luxury but a sheer necessity for society in order that it may improve.

Assuming, therefore, that genius is a case of physical and moral ill-health, one of two things has got to be done;— either society must be content without great men or the moral defects in the case of genius must be condoned :—which means that when an immorality is compensated by greatness in some other direction, it will have to be overlooked. And in view of the fact, that, society has need for great men, we cannot but accept the second alternative. In history, in biography and in newspaper estimate of public men, this is the alternative usually chosen.

But what does it imply? Does it not imply that, after all, society adopts utility as the standard of value? And that moral rules like office regulations are intended only to ensure discipline and certainly admit of exceptions?

Umeshchandra Bhattacharyya