When asked what takes place in the conscience when one is about to commit a bad action, he replied, “In us there are, as it were, two wills--one pushing us on, the other holding us back,--and the one that proves strongest determines the action.” But it is precisely in his intermittent flashes of political insight, so strange in his position, that a morbid abnormality becomes evident. For it must be remarked that they constitute rather the exception than the rule. What we find, as a rule, is the commonplace and the absurd. In the same code he proposes to hang coiners and burn thieves, and abolish the death penalty! He wishes to kill the king, yet in another article he demands for him a pension of two-and-a-half millions![431] _Guiteau._--The same thing may be said of Guiteau, who presented an enormous number of degenerative characteristics. His handwriting is quite that of the mattoid; and he was descended from a family which counted among its members many lunatics and fanatics. Advocate, theologian, politician, and swindler, he had tried all trades, and claimed to have made a great discovery about the birth of Christ. The fact is that he had spoilt a great deal of paper, and issued one or two journals and ridiculous works on _The Existence of Hell_ and on _Truth_ which he believed to be written under Divine dictation. He thought that God would pay his debts as a reward for his eccentric preachings; it was in obedience to a Divine command that he killed Garfield--yet it was only done in revenge for his failure to appoint him U.S. consul at Liverpool, ambassador to Austria, &c.--which showed great ingratitude on Garfield’s part, considering the trouble Guiteau had taken, in his own belief, to secure his election as President.[432] _South Americans._--The number of great men in the Argentine Republic suffering from cerebral affections is so considerable that it has enabled Mejia to compose on this subject a work which is among the most curious and valuable produced in the New World.[433] Thus, according to Mejia, Rivadura was a hypochondriac, and died of softening of the brain. Manuel Garcia also suffered from hypochondria, and finally succumbed to a brain affection. Admiral Brown was subject to the delusion that he was persecuted. Varela was epileptic, Francia was a melancholiac, Rosas was morally insane, and Monteagudo was hysterical. PART IV. _SYNTHESIS. THE DEGENERATIVE PSYCHOSIS OF GENIUS._ CHAPTER I. CHARACTERISTICS OF INSANE MEN OF GENIUS. Characterlessness--Vanity--Precocity--Alcoholism--Vagabondage--Versatility--Originality--Style--Religious doubts--Sexual abnormalities--Egoism--Eccentricity--Inspiration.