* * * * *

A word may be in place regarding the anthropological status of the doubting
folly and allied mental states. Men of genius have suffered from them all.
A long list may be found in Lombroso's "Man of Genius." Under _folie du
doute_ we find, for example, Tolstoi, Manzoni, Flaubert and Amiel.

Lombroso regards genius as degenerative, and places among the signs of
degeneration, deviations from the average normal, whether physical or
mental. This plan has been quite generally followed. The nomenclature seems
to me unfortunate and hardly justified by the facts. I can think of no more
potent objection to such inclusive use of the term degenerate, than the
fact that Lombroso includes, under the signs of degeneration, the enormous
development of the cerebral speech-area in the case of an accomplished
orator. If such evolutional spurts are to be deemed degenerative, the fate
of the four-leaved clover is sealed.

The application of the term degeneration may be, and should be, it seems
to me, limited to the signs, whether physical or mental, which indicate an
obviously downward tendency. I have elsewhere suggested, and the suggestion
has already found some acceptance, that when the variation is not
definitely downward, _deviation_ and _deviate_ be substituted for the
unnecessarily opprobrious and often inappropriate terms, _degeneration_ and
_degenerate_.