Umeshchandra Bhattacharjee

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”