Chapter XXXVI: The Darker Side of Luther’s Inner Life. His Ailments (4)

He made no odds about declaring rhetorically, of all classes of men and all branches of religious knowledge: that, “in a word, before me no one knew anything.”[530] Of the daring eloquence he can use when expressing such ideas we have a sample in the statement: “Were the Papists, particularly those who are now bawling at me in their writings, all stamped together in the wine-press and then boiled down and distilled seven times over, not a quarter would be left capable of using their tongues to teach even one article [of the Catechism], nor from the whole of their doctrine could so much be drawn as would serve to teach a manservant how to behave in God’s sight towards his master or a maid towards her mistress.”[531] He alone, Luther, it was, who had brought to all ranks and classes throughout the world “a good conscience and order.”[532]

Finally we have the paradox apparent in his practical instructions and the curious behaviour into which his belief in his mission occasionally led him. We may recall the means to be employed for overcoming temptations, one of the mildest of which was a good drink,[533] and the measures to be taken to induce peace of soul. “Break out into abuse,” such is his advice, and that will bring inward peace.[534] If this does not work, then coarse humour will often succeed, one of those jests, for instance, where the sacred and sublime is vulgarised simply to raise a laugh. “Against the devil Luther makes use of ‘stronger buffoonery’ and dismisses him curtly, nay, often rudely.”[535] Pointless jests often spoil the force of his words. For instance, he found himself in a difficulty about the second wife whom one of Carlstadt’s followers, acting on Luther’s own principles, wished to take in addition to his ailing spouse; whilst stipulating that the man must first “feel his conscience assured and convinced by the Word of God,” and doing his best to dissuade him from taking such a step, Luther adds in a jesting tone, that it were perhaps better to let the matter take its course, as at Orlamünde (under the rule of Carlstadt and his Old-Testament ideas) they would soon be introducing circumcision and the Mosaic Law in its entirety.[536]

His instability of mind and ever-changing feeling ended by impressing a peculiar stamp on his whole mentality.

At one time he is delighted to see all things subject to the new Evangel, and extols the gigantic success of his efforts; at another he complains bitterly that the world is turning its back on the Word and deserting the little flock of true Evangelicals. Thus the world could promptly assume in his mind quite contradictory aspects. Of his alternating moods of confidence and despair he told his friends: “My moods vary quite a hundred times a day—nevertheless I stand up to the devil.”[537] Hence he was aware of his vacillations, though on the same occasion he declares that he knows right well how Holy Scripture strengthens him against them. He also feels and acknowledges his inconsistency, in being, for all his changeableness, so rigid and obstinate in his dealings with his friends. They knew his character, he said, and called it “obstinate.”[538]

Profound depression can alone account for the step he took in 1530, when, for a while, he discontinued his sermons at Wittenberg because he was sick of the indifference of his hearers to the Word of God and disgusted with their conduct. The editor of the sermons of this year, which have only recently been published, remarks justly, that “the only possible explanation of this step is a pathological one.”[539] Luther even went so far as to declare from the pulpit that he was “not going to be a swine-herd.”[540] Yet, a little after, during the journey to the Coburg, a sudden change occurred, and we find Luther making jokes and writing in a quite optimistic vein, and, no sooner had he reached his new abode, than he plunged into new literary labours. Nevertheless, whilst at the Castle, he was again a victim of intense depression, was visited by Satan’s “embassy” and even vouchsafed a glimpse of the enemy of God. On his departure from the Coburg good humour again got the better of him, as we see from his jovial letter to Baumgärtner of Oct. 4, 1530, and on reaching Wittenberg, he was soon up to his ears in work, so that he could write: “I am not only Luther, but Pomeranus, Vicar-General, Moses, Jethro and I know not who else besides.”[541] The facility with which his moods altered is again apparent when, in his last days, he left Wittenberg in disgust only to return again forthwith in the best of spirits. (See below, xxxix., 1.)

Yet in his attitude to the olden Church this same man, who otherwise shows himself so instable, knows how to display such defiant obstinacy that Protestants who look too exclusively at this side of his character have even been able to speak of his inflexible firmness. What steels him here is his ardent belief in his calling.

The idea of his vocation ever serves to help him over his difficulties. An instance of that marvellous elasticity of mind with which he seizes on his calling to pacify both himself and his friends, is to be found in an intimate conversation held after the “greatest of his temptations” in 1527, and recorded by Bugenhagen. After Luther had declared that he saw nothing to regret in his severity towards his foes he went on to speak, with tears in his eyes, of the sects that would spring up and which his friends would not be able to withstand. He proceeded to admit that “he was sorry if he had given scandal by his buffoonery and by his vituperation,[542] but that the cause could not be displeasing to the pious, for he loved mankind [this is Bugenhagen’s remark] too much and was an enemy to all hypocrisy.” “God had not ordained” that he, so Luther here declares, “should appear as a stern and austere figure. The world finds no sins (‘_crimina_’) wherewith to reproach me, but, because it follows its own judgment, it takes great offence at me, as I see. Possibly,” so he goes on, “God wishes to delude the blind and ungrateful world (‘_mundum stultum facere_’) so that it may perish in its contempt and never see what excellent gifts God has bestowed on me alone out of so many thousands, wherewith I am to minister unto those who are His friends. Thus the world, which refuses to acclaim the word of salvation which God sends through me, will find in me, according to the divine counsel, what offends it and is to it a stumbling-block. For this God is answerable; for I shall pray that I may never be to any a cause of scandal by my sins.”

“This I learnt with wondrous joy from his own lips,” adds Bugenhagen.[543] Others will, however, find Luther’s enigmatical train of thought more difficult to understand.

* * * * *

The above are but a few instances of an abnormal turn of mind; of the like the present work contains others in abundance. Anyone desirous of penetrating further into the folds and windings of a mind so involved should study Luther’s letters, particularly those dating from 1517 to 1522 and from 1540 to 1546. He will there find much of the same sort, which can hardly be termed either sane or reasonable; but even the passages we have quoted suffice to reveal in him an uncanny power of self-deception such as few historic characters display. Many a great genius has betrayed psychological peculiarities, indeed it seems at times to be the fate of those endowed with eminent gifts to overstep the boundaries and to venture further than the reason and reflection of thinking men can follow.[544] That Luther carried certain mental peculiarities to their utmost limit is plain from what we have seen, nor can it be right to close one’s eyes to the fact.

Luther showed the defects of a “genius” not least in his vituperation and in the other far from commendable methods he used in his polemics. It was precisely these defects which led Erasmus to question whether he was quite in his right mind. “Had a man said this in the delirium of fever, could he have uttered anything more insane?” Thus Erasmus in his “Hyperaspistes.”[545] He often speaks of his opponent’s feverish fancies. He denies that his spirit is a “sober” one, and maliciously supposes that he was drunk. In spite of his usual moderation and reticence, the scholar, when dealing with Luther’s assertions, constantly uses such words as “_delirus_,” “_insanus_,” “_lymphatus_,” “_sine mente_,” “_mera insania_.” On one occasion he says of the “devils, spectres, ‘_lamiæ_,’ ‘_megæræ_’ and other more than tragic words” which Luther was addicted to flinging at his foes, that such a habit was a “sign of coming madness” (“_venturæ insaniæ præsagia_”); elsewhere he views with misgiving the sort of compulsion (“_non agere sed agi_”) which urges Luther to abuse all who differ from him.[546]

In other circles, too, the opinion prevailed that Luther was suffering from some sort of mental disease. We may recall the remarks of Boniface Amerbach, who was not unkindly disposed to Luther, in sending the latter’s tract of 1534 against Erasmus, to his brother Basil (above, vol. iv., p. 183).

In Luther’s immediate surroundings we also find traces of a fear that the Master stood in some danger of losing his mind.

A thoroughgoing investigation of the matter by some unbiassed expert in mental diseases would, however, be of immeasurably greater value than the mere opinions of contemporary admirers and opponents. But the difficulty is to find an impartial expert. Protestant theologians will not easily be found ready to agree with Catholic writers regarding the process which made of a quondam monk the founder of the Protestant faith, or to see Luther’s scruples in quite the same light. Entire agreement would seem for ever excluded, owing to differences of outlook so deep-seated. If, to some, Luther appears as a “new Paul,” and as one who removed every obstacle to free religious research, then the view they take of his inward change and later spiritual life must perforce be coloured to some extent by this idea.

Nor must the fact be lost to sight that many of the apparently suspicious symptoms were, in Luther’s case, quite wilful. Thus his outbreaks of fury against Popery, the psychological origin of which we have already described (vol. iv., p. 306 ff.), are largely an outcome of the feelings of hatred he deliberately encouraged, and a reaction against his earlier and better convictions. Again, self-deception and lack of self-control, i.e. moral elements, played a great part in him. Since, however, even at the outset of his career he already displayed these moral defects, they must be carefully distinguished from his morbid states and no less from his doubts and remorse of conscience.

At the very least, however, we should give to the purely historical facts such unbiassed, broadminded recognition as that editor of the great Weimar Edition of Luther’s works (see above, p. 168), who, as we heard, spoke of the “pathological” explanation of certain acts and statements of Luther’s as the only one possible. The word “pathological,” and other similar ones, had, however, been used even earlier, and, that, even by non-Catholics, as descriptive of certain of Luther’s states, nor was the remark entirely new, that in many a great genius we find something pathological.[547]

5. Luther’s Psychology according to Physicians and Historians

It is not our intention in the following to criticise the opinions quoted; they have been collected chiefly with the object in view of providing those qualified to judge with matter on which to exercise their wits. Nevertheless, we have no intention of depriving ourselves of the right of making occasional observations. Thus Hausrath’s opinion, to be given immediately, calls for some revision, as will be clear even to the lay mind. No disturbance of Luther’s intellectual functions or mental malady amounting to actual “psychosis” can be assumed at any period of his life. This, however, is a quite different thing from admitting that his case was not entirely normal.

“The psychology of men, who, like him, are engaged in such a struggle,” rightly remarks a Protestant theologian, “is exceedingly complicated. Discrepancies are to be met with side by side, and, according to the circumstances, now one element now another comes to the fore.”[548] In Luther’s case the co-existence of bouts of illness with the unfettered use of his powers, of fundamental delusions with true though misapplied ideas, of frivolity, sensuality and temptations to despair, and, on the top of all this, the contradictory statements he himself makes about himself, i.e.—he, the only man who could have told us how the facts really stood—all these circumstances render any sure conclusion extremely difficult.

No Protestant hitherto has used terms so strong to describe Luther’s overwrought nerves as his most recent biographer, Hausrath, the Heidelberg theologian, in his first edition of his “Life of Luther.” His assertions do undoubtedly err on the side of exaggeration.[549] For instance, when he says, that, owing to his illness in the monastery Luther had more than once been in danger of sinking into “the abyss of religious melancholia.”[550] Erroneously regarding the “temptations”—in reality mere remorse of conscience—from which Luther suffered, as the outcome of his morbid bodily and mental state, he even ventures to hint expressly at the nature of the malady: “The regularity with which the attacks return during all the years spent in the monastery and after he had commenced his public career, leads us to infer a recurrent psychosis, the attacks of which became less frequent after his marriage, but never altogether ceased.”[551]

In recent times, apart from Hausrath, two other writers, both of them non-Catholics, have looked more closely into Luther’s pathology. Dr. Berkhan in an article in the “Archiv für Psychiatrie” entitled “Die nervösen Beschwerden Luthers,” and Gustav Kawerau in the study “Etwas vom kranken Luther,” printed in the “Deutsch-evangelische Blätter.” The two Protestants, Küchenmeister and Ebstein, who also dealt with Luther’s maladies,[552] failed to discuss the psychological phenomena here under consideration; what interested them was more Luther’s ordinary illnesses though, it is true, they bring forward various data which may prove of interest here; these, nevertheless, must be cautiously used, as the authors are somewhat deficient in historical criticism. Older writers who treated of Luther’s illnesses, e.g. the Protestant pastor Friedrich Siegmund Keil, Garmann, the Chemnitz physician and an anonymous writer in the “Neues Hannöversche Magazin” are even less satisfactory.

Of the two first mentioned, Kawerau supplies a careful review of those statements of Luther’s which concern his nervous maladies, not, however, carrying them back to his earliest years. He gives us the picture “of a man occupying a most responsible position, ever in friction with his surroundings” and “in a state of nervous overstrain due to too much work of body and mind.”[553] With these words he seeks to pave the way for a psychological appreciation of all that, as he says, “so often appears repulsive or regrettable in Luther, for instance, his waxing irritability, his unbridled anger, the excesses he commits by word and pen, and his sudden changes of mood.” He even opines that “the spiritual temptations may be accounted for by his all-too-great labours and anxieties, and their effect upon his constitution”;[554] his conclusion is that a fuller knowledge of Luther’s ailments “helps us to understand him aright and better to appreciate his greatness.”[555]

The other writer, Dr. Berkhan, a Brunswick physician, had, previous to Kawerau, attempted to lift the veil which shrouds the “anomalies” presented by Luther; he did not, however, properly sift his materials, nor did he consider the various symptoms in their complexus.[556] He comes to the conclusion that some of Luther’s troubles, for instance, his “hallucinations,” “must be ascribed to an affection of the nerve centres.” These “hallucinations” he attributes to “fluxions” due to overwork. Such hallucinations, according to him, were, in Luther’s case, of two kinds; some optical and some auditory. They were induced, so he thinks, not only by the permanent excitement of Luther’s life, but also by “his doubts and controversies.” What Luther terms temptations Berkhan also regards as, in the main, mere psychic depression bound up with nerve disturbance. In view of certain other symptoms he diagnoses a case of præcordial trouble.[557]

After Kawerau and Berkhan we must refer to P. J. Möbius, the Leipzig expert in mental ailments. He is known in connection with his highly original studies on Rousseau, Goethe, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche; on Luther he has not expressed his views at any great length, but, such as they are, they are drastic enough.[558]

Möbius points out[559] that “in Luther’s case the pathological element is of the utmost significance.” “Even Luther’s recent biographer, Professor Hausrath,” he writes, “spoke of ‘recurrent psychosis.’[560] According to what Kraepelin now says, it would be better to term it a mild form of maniacal depression.[561] The main point is that Luther, from his youth upwards, suffered at times from the dumps without any apparent cause, was oppressed with gloomy forebodings, sadness, fear and despair. The melancholic phases may easily be traced throughout Luther’s life; probably, too, the periods when he felt his power and gave vent to his boundless wrath should be regarded as morbid and maniacal. We may take it that, in Luther’s case, the morbid mood made the illness, and that his fantastic interpretation of certain incidents—combats with the devil, intercourse with spirits and Divine inspirations—are to be explained, not as delusions, but as the explanations he sought in the ideas then current.”

“The present writer,” continues Möbius, “does not in the least believe that Luther suffered from hallucinations. It seems always to have been a case of placing a superstitious interpretation on real phenomena. The black pig in the garden and the black dog on his bed, were, most likely, of flesh and blood. In many instances (the wrestling with the demon, and so forth) the language is simply figurative. With Luther the pathological element made history. His morbid fear led him to brood over justification; the sense of his own utter weakness convinced him that man can do nothing of his own strength and by his own works, and that the only possible course is to stretch out yearning hands and seize on Grace. In his melancholic state he fell in with the doctrine of justification by faith alone of St. Paul (who himself suffered from the same ailment [!]), and, around this centre, his theological ideas grouped themselves, and, with ‘_sola fides_’ as his war-cry, he proceeded to do battle with the ancient Church. Thus, from the monk’s melancholia, sprang the Reformation.”

Proceeding on similar lines, Professor Willy Hellpach, of Carlsruhe, observed in the Berlin “Tag” (“Psychologische Rundschau,” Jan. 18, 1912): “Several years ago the Jesuit scholar, Pater Grisar, published in the ‘Kölnische Volkszeitung’ an article entitled ‘Ein Grundproblem aus Luthers Seelenleben.’ Of this work Möbius said, and quite rightly, that it was the best account so far given of the pathology of Luther’s mind. That Luther’s mind was at times morbidly depressed without any reasonable cause has never been doubted by any who knew him, even when they happened to be Evangelicals. Hausrath, in his biography, had spoken of ‘recurrent psychosis’ a statement, which, it is true, he modified later on account of the storm of indignation which broke out among those queer folk who seem to look upon a gifted man’s malady as a worse blot than the greatest crime.” Hellpach points out that laymen are wrong when they imagine that “psychosis” involves “an absolute derangement of the power of thought.”

Wilhelm Ebstein, a Professor of Medicine,[562] recently, and not without reason, registered a protest against the view of those who maintain that Luther was actually out of his mind. Himself interested in the treatment of cases of gout and calculus, he comes to the conclusion that Luther’s chief sufferings were caused by uric acid and faulty digestion, the two together constituting the principal trouble, and being accompanied, as is so often the case with gout, by “neurasthenic symptoms which at times recall psychosis”;[563] his “hypochondriacal depression which passed all bounds” was entirely due to these ailments. Not only these “nervous symptoms,” but also the other ailments of which Luther had to complain, his palpitations, headaches, dizziness, sore-throat, defective hearing, impaired digestion, fainting fits, and particularly his oppression in the region of the heart and the feelings of fear which accompanied it, all these were, according to Ebstein, due more or less to gout and the other troubles resulting from the presence of uric acid.[564]

There can be no doubt that this learned physician gives us many useful observations, but he has not himself selected his historical matter and carefully tested its source. Much of it comes from Küchenmeister, whereas, at the present stage of research, a medical opinion, to carry real weight, must necessarily enter at greater length into the facts more recently brought to light. Some of Küchenmeister’s opinions have, however, been revised by Ebstein, and not without good reason.

Among those of Ebstein’s statements that must be characterised as historically untenable are the following, viz. that Luther’s hallucinations and visions occurred “almost without exception at a time when he was yet under the influence of the asceticism of the monastery, with its night-vigils, spiritual exercises and strenuous mental labours,” i.e. in his Catholic days; likewise, that, in the monastery, he had striven “most diligently to outdo the other monks in the matter of fasting, watching,” etc.; that, in later days, he had “_always_ been able to master his morbid states, and to bid defiance to his moods of depression,” and that these latter had “in no way detracted” from his mental labours; that his method of controversy had never been a morbid one, as Küchenmeister had asserted on insufficient grounds, and that, when even Luther referred to mental sufferings and temptations, his “bodily ailments” _always_ occupied the first place and constituted the leading factor.[565]

His theory that Luther suffered from gout is also eminently doubtful.

Of any symptoms of gout, for instance, of gouty swellings, we hear nothing from Luther[566] though he was wont to expatiate on his complaints, and though, according to Ebstein, he possessed a “rare knowledge of medical matters.”[567] Nor did Luther permanently suffer from sluggishness and constipation of the bowels; we hear of it only at Worms and at the Wartburg in 1521, and then again in 1525. To put down “his moodiness, melancholia and depression” as Ebstein terms the remorse of conscience experienced in 1528 at the time of his greatest “temptations” to an attack of piles, described by Luther in a letter to his friend Jonas on Jan. 6, 1528, is to misapprehend the facts of the case; for, actually, it was three years before this that Luther had for a while been troubled with hæmorrhoids, as is evident both from the text of the inquiry made by Jonas (“_ante triennium_”), and from Luther’s answer: “My illness _was_ as follows,” etc.[568]

Moreover, Luther was not suffering from stone in 1521, and it is only in 1526 that we hear him speaking of it for the first time; after this the malady was for a long time in abeyance,[569] until, between 1537 and 1539, it once more attacked him severely; it is again referred to in 1543.

Hence we must still await a more accurate medical diagnosis to determine—if indeed this be possible—how far the history of Luther’s outward and inward troubles was dependent on uric acid.[570] Maybe, eventually, greater stress than hitherto will be laid on Luther’s heart troubles; if so, then it will become necessary to find out what the so-called “cardiogmus” was, from which, according to Melanchthon, Luther suffered severely early in 1545; for, in his friend’s opinion, it was to this that Luther’s death later on was due.[571] Ebstein himself says of the oppression in the region of the heart and the resultant anxiety[572] from which Luther suffered, until his death was ultimately brought about by “heart failure,” that it “leads us to diagnose some heart affection”; this, according to his theory, was due, in part directly to gout, in part also to the obstinate constipation which accompanied it. According to him the periodic attacks of heart-oppression suggest heart asthma or angina pectoris, which, notoriously, often co-exists with gout.

As regards Luther’s mental sufferings, Ebstein will not hear of Berkhan’s hypothesis of “fluxions”; he himself, however,—and herein lies his principal fault,—does not make sufficient account of his patient’s frequent nervous states. He thinks that Luther’s black outlook, which, according to him, resulted from gout, was not bound up directly with any sufferings.[573] As regards the “hallucinations of sight and hearing,”[574] which Luther regarded as the work of the devil, he declares, that Luther, from time to time, fell into a condition of “weakness and irritability which make the temporary disturbance of his brain-powers quite intelligible”; as to the cause of the lapses, Ebstein finds it in “the strenuous mental labour” leading to a “condition of inanition.”[575] He also allows, that, even as a monk, and in early life, Luther was a victim of moodiness.[576] He is, however, quite right when he says: “Insanity cannot be thought of, nor even epilepsy.”[577] In his admiration for Luther, he also credits him with having in his lifetime endured “more days of suffering than of well-being.” To make this statement entirely true it would, however, be necessary to include amongst the days of suffering, those when he was so paralysed by remorse of conscience as to be incapable of work. At any rate we quite admit with Ebstein that, in Luther, we have “a man, during a great part of his life, sorely tried by bodily ailments,”[578] a fact which can only make one wonder the more at the extent of his labours.

* * * * *

To pass now to some older Catholic writers. In 1874 Bruno Schön, of Vienna, published an essay in which he depicted Luther as mentally deranged.[579]

The author, who was chaplain to a lunatic asylum, was not merely no historian and still less an expert in mental disease, but lacked even a proper acquaintance with Luther’s life and writings. His historical groundwork he took from second-rate works, and his opinion was biassed by his conviction that Luther could not but be insane. He makes no real attempt to prove such a thing; all he does is to give us an account, clothed in psychiatric terminology, of the different forms of madness from which Luther suffered; in the first place he was afflicted with megalomania and the mania of persecution, two forms of insanity frequently found together.—But nervous irritability, anxiety, moodiness, excitability, a too high opinion of himself, perversion of judgment and even hallucinations—could such be proved in Luther’s case—all these would not entitle us to say that he was ever really insane. Nervous derangement, says Kirchhoff, is not psychosis, and people subject to hallucinations are not always insane.[580]

Long before this other Catholic writers had instanced certain peculiarities in Luther’s mental state, though they, like almost all recent writers, with the exception of Hausrath, were ignorant of one of the most remarkable elements to be taken into consideration, viz. the fits of terror to which Luther had been subject from early youth. The treatment of this matter was made all the harder by the fact that Luther’s extravagant after-accounts of his life in the monastery, and the growth of his ideas, were received with too much credulity, and that his letters, his Table-Talk and many details of his life were but little known.

Maximilian Prechtl, Abbot of Michaelfeld (†1832), though he refuses to regard Luther as insane, nevertheless calls attention to the many “phantoms of a sick brain” which he had seen; “Luther believed,” so he says, “that he often saw the devil, and that under different shapes.”[581] The learned Abbot brought out a new annotated edition of Luther’s “Against the Papacy founded by the Devil,” which he published at the time of the Reformation-Festival in 1817, in order to show the mad fury, hate and mental confusion to which its author had fallen a victim. Luther’s writing betrays, so he opines, “no common fury but the insane passion of the man, then almost at death’s door.”[582] Too great stress must not be laid on some of the opinions he here advances, which overstep the limits he himself had traced and appear to credit Luther with insanity. Prechtl spoke out more strongly in his “Rejoinder” to the attacks made on his remarks. He emphasises “the incontrovertible proofs” to be found in Luther “of a troubled fancy,” and asserts that “he was not always in his right mind.”

Somewhat earlier, in 1810, the Catholic layman Friedrich von Kerz, who continued Stolberg’s “Geschichte der Religion Christi,” published a book “Über den Geist und die Folgen der Reformation” in which he comes to a far too unfavourable opinion of Luther’s mental state, which he seeks to bolster up by statements incapable of historical proof. In a nutshell, what he tentatively advances is, that, “owing to the shock following the death of a friend struck down at his side, Luther had lost his reason”; “the symptoms of a twisted mind soon became apparent.” “Luther not seldom appears in the light of an inexplicable moral enigma, so that we are led, not indeed willingly, to wonder whether a certain recurrent mental aberration and periodic madness was not in reality the first and perhaps the only source of his vocation as a Reformer, of all his public acts and of the greater part of his reforms.”[583]

As against Kerz, Schön and even Prechtl, we must urge that we have no proof that Luther was actually the slave of his morbid fancies, or mentally diseased; no such proof to support the hypothesis of insanity is adduced by any of the writers named. Of the temporary clouding of the mind they make no mention.

As for the kind of megalomania met with in Luther, when he insists on his being the mouthpiece of revelation, this is not the sort usual in the case of the mentally deranged, when the patient appears to be held captive under the spell of his delusion. Luther often wavered in his statements regarding his special revelation, indeed sometimes went so far as to deny it; in other words he was open to doubt. Moreover, at the very times when he clung (or professed to cling) to it with the greatest self-complacency, he was suffering from severe attacks of depression, whereas it is not usual for megalomania and depression to exist side by side. As for the periodic fits of insanity suggested by Hausrath his moods alternated too rapidly. His morbid ideas do not constitute a paranoic system of madness, and still less is it possible to attribute everything to mere hypochondriacal lunacy.

The theory of Luther’s not being a free agent is excluded not only by his doubts and remorse of conscience, but also by the bitter determination with which at the very beginning he persuades himself of his ideas, insists upon them later when doubts arise, and finally surrenders himself to their spell by systematic self-deception. Such behaviour does not accord with that of a man who is not free. It must also be noted that the morbid symptoms of which Schön speaks, in whatever light they be regarded, do not occur simultaneously; some disappear while others become more marked as time goes on. This, however, also makes it difficult and wellnigh impossible to discover what were the components which originally went to make up Luther’s mentality before it had been seared by the errors and inward commotion of his later passionate life. Above all a fact repeatedly pointed out already must not be overlooked, viz. that, throughout, wilful giving way to passion, lack of self-control and too high an opinion of himself, united with self-deception played a great part with him, particularly in those outbreaks of fury against Pope and Papists in which one might be tempted to see the work of a maniac. In view of Luther’s aptitude to pass rapidly from craven fear to humorous self-confidence it would be necessary in order to prove his insanity, to show clearly as far as possible—a demonstration which has not yet been attempted—that periods of depression or fear really alternated with periods of exaltation, and what the duration of these periods was.

We cannot too much impress on those who may be inclined to assume that, at least at times, Luther was not in his right mind the huge and truly astounding powers of work displayed by the man. Only comparatively seldom do we hear of his being disinclined to labour or incapable of work, and almost always the reason is clear. Even were the advocates of intermittent insanity ready to allow the existence of lengthy lucid intervals still so extraordinary a power for work would prevent our agreeing with them any more than with Schön, Möbius, Hausrath and the older authors referred to above.

As to the question of the possibility of such a disability having been inherited either from his father or his mother—a matter into which modern psychiaters are always anxious to inquire: Here, again, we find nothing to support the theory of mental derangement. Hans Luther, his father, was a stern, rude man of violent temper, and his wife, Margaret, would also appear to have been a harsh woman, without any joy in life and displaying small traces of the more winning traits of affection. Neither of the pair did much to sweeten the lad’s hard boyhood and youth. This certainly explains to some extent the thread of depression and pessimism which runs side by side with the lively and more cheerful one in the monk and university professor. Of greater importance to the question in hand is the irritability and violence of temper which showed itself in his father. If the latter really committed manslaughter in a fit of anger, as seems probable, and as has also been admitted by Protestant scholars,[584] then the son’s irritability, and his startling tendency to break out into foaming rage against his opponents, may doubtless be traced back in part to the effects of heredity. In 1906 the fact came to light that another Hans Luther, besides Martin’s father, resided at Mansfeld, and the latter, according to the records of the law-courts, would appear to have borne a bad character and to have been frequently punished for brawling and for being too ready with his knife. If the latter, as the name would imply, was a relative of Martin’s we have here one more argument to prove that the family was exceptionally irritable.[585]

Luther’s nervous irritability ought, indeed, to be made more account of than it has hitherto been.

_Addendum. Some Medical Opinions on Nervous Degeneration, and Abnormal Ideas._

What was said above about Luther’s “nervousness” (p. 105 ff) may here be supplemented by some quotations from August Cramer, the expert psychiater, now of Berlin. It is true that what we shall quote is not intended to refer to Luther, yet what he says may serve to explain certain of Luther’s symptoms, and, possibly, to show that some which were put down to mental derangement may have been due rather to a form of neurasthenia.[586]

“Even perfectly normal children are sometimes inclined in their growing period to display great variations of temper, and to be violent and changeable in their affections about the age of puberty. This, however, is far more noticeable in the case of people of a strongly developed nervous temperament. Groundless outbreaks of anger, marked pathological absence of mind and entire inability to concentrate their thoughts are often the result. Fits of oppression and anxiety are not unknown; headaches are fairly frequent and the patients seem at times not to be masters of themselves. They also tend to swing from an exaggerated idea of their own importance to a despondent lack of self-confidence. In their bents and friendships they are very fickle.” Hence we have here already in a very marked degree that instability which von Magnan has pointed out as characteristic of degenerates.

In later life, too, such highly strung temperaments are often, at least in the worse cases, predisposed to sudden changes of views, and to fly to extremes, their varying moods tend at times to become periodic, they are over-sensitive, are frequently unable to bear alcohol, their sexual inclinations are abnormal and they are often addicted from an early age to masturbation.… Thus the predominant characteristic of the degenerate is lack of constancy (p. 175).

Of “nervosity” where it is combined with fear the same author says: “The change of mood is often entirely without cause and is by no means of a regular type, though instances of a periodic character are occasionally to be met with.… We meet, for example, persons whom we cannot possibly describe as ill, who at times are exceptionally capable, lively and good-tempered, and yet at other times give the impression of being downhearted, self-centred and scarcely able to get through their daily tasks.”

“Apart from those who are habitually depressed, there are others who suffer from time to time, without any outward cause, from slight fits of depression, mostly accompanied by more or less severe fits of anxiety. Looking more carefully into these various types, we shall find that they belong almost exclusively to strongly marked nervous temperaments.… In bad cases the periodic changes of mood may become stronger and stronger, and lead eventually between the fortieth and sixtieth year to actual ‘_folie circulaire_.’ Anxiety is, of course, common to all nervous people, but in many cases it plays the prominent part.… Often the patients complain of all kinds of accompanying symptoms, not seldom of palpitations, weakness in the legs, headaches, attacks of dizziness, and, particularly, of the paralysing effects of their vague dreads. When this anxiety overtakes them they become unable to work as usual, and their spirit of enterprise is checked” (p. 207 ff.).

As to how far what Cramer says is applicable to Luther’s mental states may here be left open. The same holds good of what we shall quote below from C. Wernicke and H. Friedmann. What the former says of “autochthonous” ideas may conceivably be applicable to Luther’s conviction of the private revelations he had received and of which he speaks so strongly above (p. 142 ff.) as even to suggest actual auditory hallucination; that there was no real hallucination seems more likely for the reason that Luther elsewhere is disposed to regard the incidents as of an inward character and is not quite so wholly under their sway as would have been the case had they been strictly speaking hallucinatory.

As to “exalted ideas,” of which both speak, they put us in mind of some of Luther’s ideas concerning his own person, position, achievements and persecutions (cp. our summary in vol. iv., pp. 329-41).

It must, however, be noted that “exalted ideas” can be present in a mind otherwise perfectly sound, and that, consequently, even if Luther had such ideas it would not prove him to have been mentally deranged; the same holds good of “autochthonous” ideas, which, occurring singly, are no warrant of insanity.

Again, even should Luther’s idea of his revelations turn out to be originally “autochthonous,” yet the reception he accorded it, the interpretation he placed on it and the use he made of it seem, as we have already set forth, to have been both deliberate and responsible. This is confirmed by the circumstance that, in time, his keen sense of such impressions waned under the objections brought against them, and that his insistence on the “revelations” and his interpretation of them no longer found quite the same vigorous expression as before. Nevertheless, we repeat it once more: It is for experts to pass a definite judgment, but, in order to do so fairly, they must not submit to the microscope merely one class of Luther’s mental manifestations, but consider him as a whole, as monk no less than as Reformer, and examine his mentality on all its sides.

Writing of certain kinds of abnormal ideas, viz. those which he calls “autochthonous,” Carl Wernicke says:[587] “The patient becomes aware of ideas springing up in his mind that are alien to him and not his own, i.e. which have not arisen along the normal ideas and on the ordinary lines of association.” Speaking of those actually suffering from mental derangement, Wernicke again alludes to this class: “Objective observers, who are quite conscious of the alien character of the autochthonous ideas and attach no fundamental importance to them, are only to be found as the exception among those who are really mentally unsound. Almost always the ideas are conceived as ‘ready-made,’ as ‘forced upon the mind,’ as ‘inspired,’ or as ‘derived,’ but, from whom, depends entirely on the individuality of the patient and on the nature of the autochthonous idea (which is not uninfluenced by the former). Pious thoughts are inspired by God, evil thoughts by the devil; more enlightened people have recourse to material remedies and put their case in the hands of a doctor.”

Of the so-called “exalted ideas” Wernicke says: “These are sharply defined from autochthonous ideas by the fact that they are in no way regarded by the patient himself as alien intruders into his consciousness: on the contrary, he sees in them the stamp of his innermost self, and fancies that, in vindicating them, he is in reality asserting his own personality.”

“One has to determine in each individual case whether the idea is truly morbid and ‘exalted,’ or does not come within normal bounds.”[588] On the next page he declares: “That almost any incident may give rise to an ‘exalted idea,’ that the nature of the emotion may be of the most varied character, and that ideas exist, which, though in themselves normal, are nevertheless able so to determine the individual’s action as to impress on it a morbid stamp.”

H. Friedmann[589] says of the same class of ideas: “According to its origin the ‘exalted’ idea … may find a place in the mental process without any apparent cause. A strong emotion may, so to speak, fling itself on a single idea, and, without any actual derangement of the mind, allow it, and it alone, to assume a morbid supremacy.” A few pages further we read:[590] “Hence, as a matter of fact, in the case of the ‘exalted’ idea, we have not an isolated monomaniacal affection but a general disturbance of the emotions and judgment. The result, likewise, is not an _idée fixe_ as in the case of mania, but merely a strong belief.”