“Science itself not unfrequently derives motive-power from an ultra-scientific source. Some of its greatest discoveries have been made under the stimulus of a non-scientific ideal.... The world embraces not only a Newton, but a Shakspere—not only a Boyle, but a Raphael—not only a Kant, but a Beethoven—not only a Darwin, but a Carlyle. Not in each of these, but in all, is human nature whole. They are not opposed, but supplementary—not mutually exclusive, but reconcilable. And if, unsatisfied with them all, the human mind, with the yearning of a pilgrim for his distant home, will still turn to the Mystery from which it has emerged, seeking so to fashion it as to give unity to thought and faith, so long as this is done, not only without intolerance or bigotry of any kind, but with the enlightened recognition that ultimate fixity of conception is here unattainable, and that each succeeding age must be held free to fashion the mystery in accordance with its own needs—then, casting aside all the restrictions of Materialism, I would affirm this to be a field for the noblest exercise of what, in contrast with the knowing faculties, may be called the creative faculties of man.” Why, then, should not literature and art and music enter and occupy the very field that the apostles of Science assign to them, without being exposed to the alienists’ sneers for their symbolism and their mysticism? The truth is that Nordau is the slave of one idea, and that the logical outcome of his definition and conception of abnormality. Ribot described such a case perfectly when he said that “nothing is more common or better known than the momentary appropriation of the personality by some intense and fixed idea. As long as this idea occupies consciousness, we may say without exaggeration that it constitutes the individual.” Degeneration constitutes Nordau. He is himself an abnormality and a pathological type. Every large hospital for the insane knows his representative—the one sane man in a world of lunatics.