Читать книгу The Vagabond in Literature - Arthur Compton-Rickett - Страница 13

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It is not unusual to hear the epithet “complex” flung with a too ready alacrity at any character who evinces eccentricity of disposition. In olden days, when regularity of conduct, and conformity even in small particulars were regarded as moral essentials, the eccentric enjoyed short shrift. The stake, the guillotine, or the dungeons of the Inquisition speedily put an end to the eccentricities. A slight measure of nonconformity was quite enough to earn the appellation of witch or wizard. One stood no chance as an eccentric unless the eccentricity was coupled with unusual force of character.

Alienists assure us that insanity is on the increase, and it is certain that modern conditions of life have favoured nervous instabilities of temperament, which express themselves in eccentricities of conduct. But nervous instability is one thing, complexity another. The fact that they may co-exist affords us no excuse for confusing them. We speak of a man’s personality, whereas it would be more correct to speak of his personalities.

Much has been written of late years about multi-personalities, until the impression has spread that the possession of a number of differing personalities is a special form of insanity. This is quite wrong. The sane, no less than the insane man has a number of personalities, and the difference between them lies in the power of co-ordination. The sane man is like a skilful driver who is able to control his team of horses; whereas the insane man has lost control of his steeds, and allows first one and then the other to get the mastery of him.

The personalities are no more numerous than before, only we are made aware of their number.

In a sense, therefore, every human being is complex. Inheritance and environment have left distinctive characteristics, which, if the power of co-ordination be weakened, take possession of the individual as opportunity may determine. We usually apply the term personality to the resulting blend of the various personalities in his nature. In the case of sane men and women the personality is a very composite affair. What we are thinking of frequently when we apply the epithet “complex” is a certain contradictoriness of temperament, the result of opposing strains of blood. It is the quality, not the quantities, of the personalities that affects us. If not altogether happy, the expression may in these cases pass as a rough indication of the opposing element in their nature. But when used, as it often is, merely to indicate an eccentricity, the epithet assumes a restricted significance. A may be far more complex than B; but his power of co-ordination, what we call his will, is strong, whereas that of B is weak, so we reserve the term complex for the weaker individual. But why reserve the term complex for a few literary decadents who have lost the power of co-ordination, and not apply it to a mind like Shakespeare’s, who was certainly as complex a personality as ever lived?

Now I do not deny that it is wrong to apply the term complexity to men of unstable, nervous equilibrium. What I do deny is the right to apply the term to these men only, thus disseminating the fallacy—too popular nowadays—that genius and insanity are inseparable.

As a matter of fact, if we turn to Spencer’s exposition of the evolutionary doctrine we shall find an illustration ready at hand to show that complexity is of two kinds. Evolution, as he tells us, is a change from homogeneity to heterogeneity, from a simple to a complex. Thus a dog is more complex than a dog-fish, a man than a dog, a Shakespeare greater than a Shaw. But complexity, though a law of Evolution, is not the law of Evolution. Mere complexity is not necessarily a sign of a higher organism. It may be induced by injury, as, for instance, the presence of a marked growth such as cancer. Here we have a more complex state, but complexity of this kind is on the road to dissolution and disintegration. Cancer, in fact, in the body is like disaffection in an army. The unity is disturbed and differences are engendered. Thus, given a measure of nervous instability, a complexity may be induced, a disintegration of the composite personality into the various separate personalities, that bespeaks a lower, not a higher organism. [21]

Now all this may seem quite impertinent to our subject, but I have discussed the point at length because complexity is certainly one of the marks of the Vagabond, and it is important to make quite clear what is connoted by that term.

Recognizing, then, the two types of complexity, the type of complexity with which I am concerned especially in these papers is the higher type. I have not selected these writers merely on account of their eccentricities or deviations from the normal. Mere eccentricity has a legitimate interest for the scientist, but for the psychologist it is of no particular moment. Hazlitt is not interesting because he was afflicted with a morbid egotism; or Borrow because he suffered from fits of melancholia; or De Quincey because he imagined he was in debt when he had plenty of money. It was because these neurotic signs were associated with powerful intellects and exceptional imaginations, and therefore gave a peculiar and distinctive character to their writings—in short, because they happened to be men of genius, men of higher complex organisms than the average individual—that they interest so strongly.

It seems to me a kind of inverted admiration that is attracted to what is bizarre and out of the way, and confounds peculiarity with cleverness and eccentricity with genius.

The real claim that individuals have upon our appreciation and sympathy is mental and moral greatness; and the sentimental weakness with the “oddity” is no more rational, no more to be respected, than a sympathy which extends to physical monstrosities and sees nothing to admire in a normal, healthy body.

It may be urged, of course, by some that I have admitted to a neurotic strain affecting more or less all the Vagabonds treated of in this volume, and this being so, it is clear that the morbid tendencies in their temperament must have conditioned the distinctive character of their genius.

Now it is quite true that the soil whence the flower of their genius sprung was in several cases not without a taint; but it does not follow that the flower itself is tainted. And here we come upon the fallacy that seems to me to lie at the basis of the doctrine which makes genius itself a kind of disease. The soil of the rose garden may be manured with refuse that Nature uses in bringing forth the lovely bloom of the rose. But the poisonous character of the refuse has been chemically transformed in giving vitality to the roses. And so from unhealthy stock, from temperaments affected by disease, have sprung the roses of genius—transformed by the mysterious alchemy of the imagination into pure and lovely things. There are, of course, poisonous flowers, just as there is a type of genius—not the highest type—that is morbid. But this does not affect my contention that genius is not necessarily morbid because it may have sprung from a morbid soil. Hazlitt is a case in point. His temperament was certainly not free from morbidity, and this morbidity may be traced in his writings. The most signal instance is the Liber Amoris—an unfortunate chapter of sentimental autobiography which did irreparable mischief to his reputation. But there is nothing morbid in Hazlitt at his best; and let it be added that the bulk of Hazlitt’s writings displays a noble sanity.

Much has been written about his less pleasing idiosyncrasies, and no writer has been called more frequently to account for deficiencies. It is time surely that we should recall once more the tribute of Lamb: “I think William Hazlitt to be in his natural and healthy state one of the wisest and finest spirits breathing.”