Book Reviews [pp. 568-572]

BOOK REVIEWS.
the line of thought, and in trenchant and re lentless style attempts to show that degenerates
are not always criminals, prostitutes, anarchists,
and pronounced lunatics; but are often authors
and artists. These latter manifest the same
mental characteristics and for the most part the
same somatic features as those who satisfy their
unhealthy impulses with the knife of the assassin
or the bomb of the dynamiter, instead of with
pen and pencil. Into Art and Literature's domain
Nordau pushes his inquiry. It is a fierce criti cism of some of the best known and admired
authors and painters. He acknowledges "that
some among these degenerates have in recent
years come into extraordinary prominence and
are revered by numerous admirers as creators of
a new art and heralds of the coming centuries,"
but dauntlessly he attacks, and throws full light
upon the tendencies of the fashions in art and
literature, desiring to prove that these same ten dencies have their source in the degeneracy of
their. authors, and to make clear to us poor mor tals who have dared to grow enthusiastic over
the authors and their works that we have been
loudly praising manifestations more or less pro nounced of moral insanity, imbecility, and de mentia.
Nordau must not be ranked as a pessimist,
nor as a dyspeptic. His record seems to show
that his mind is of the brightest order, and that
whilst he hates sham and sensuality, he looks
with a cheerful spirit upon the world in general.
His profession is that of a physician, but he finds
time in a busy life to follow literature and himself to write books. Two of these, besides'Degeneration, have been translated ably from the
German into English; but it is to the last that
he owes his fame among English readers. Evidently as he studied authors and artists he perceived the debasing tendency existent, and a
matter which few will venture totally to deny,
partly produced by the moral tone of the artists
themselves, partly also by the tone of the age
they minister to; and bringing his lore as a
physician to bear upon the subject, he carried his
inquiries out to an end seemingly satisfactory to
himself and to many others in all parts of the
world. No one can read the book without
feeling that his idols have been rudely
shaken. Some are broken forever; scarce one
but suffers some loss. We up to now have
freely praised masters of this age in literature
and music and painting, but now we must be
careful lest we find ourselves lauding vice and
insanity. Many will not disagree with the author when he lays bare the moral degeneracy of
a Zola and a Swinburne,- but Richard Wagner,
Tolstoi, Rosetti, and even Ruskin, amid many
others, are not spared. Tennyson pleases this
arch critic. Walt Whitman was mad, according
to Lombroso, and his disciple endorses the state ment. The work is divided into five books, the
first dealing with the state of mind towards art
today, the last as to what will be that state in
the coming century if the degenerates have their
way. The three other books deal each with one
of the three forms of degeneracy in art, which
Nordau gives as Mysticism, Ego Mania, and
Realism.
The first he describes as "a state of mind in
which the subject imagines that he perceives or
divines unknown and unexplicable relations
amongst phenomena, discerns in things hints at
mysteries, and regards them as symbols, by
which a dark power seeks to unveil, or at least
to indicate all sorts of marvels, which he en deavors to guess, though generally in vain."
Of ego mania he says: "It is not from affec tation that I use this word instead of egoism
and egoist. Egoism is a lack of amiability, a
defect in education, but not a disease. The ego ist is quite able to look after himself. The ego
maniac is an invalid, who does not see things as
they are, does not understand the world, and
cannot take up a right attitude towards it." And
elsewhere of the ego maniac it is said, "He
neither knows nor takes interest in anything but
himself: he has but one occupation, that of satisfying his appetites."
As to Realism or Naturalism Nordau deals
shortly and contemptuously with it. He declares
that it plays no part whatsoever in either art or
literature. There is never any actual, accurate
copy of reality. The only real thing is the personality of the author or the artist.
We are made happy in the conclusion by the
assurance that the degenerates and the degeneration of this age cannot last nor survive into the
next. "The hysteria of the present day will
not last. People will recover from their present
fatigue... The aberrations of art have no
future."
And as to the manner of crushing the degenerates out of our midst, this is what our caustic
author has to say, "The police cannot aid us.
The public prosecutor and criminal judge are not
the proper protectors of society against crime
committed with pen and crayon. This is the
efficacious treatment: characterization of the
leading degenerates as mentally diseased; unmasking and stigmatizing of their imitators as
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