Chapter XXXVI · THE DARKER SIDE OF LUTHER’S INNER LIFE. HIS AILMENTS (continued 3)

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.”