Post Mortem

[Photo, Anderson.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES V.
From a portrait by Titian (Madrid, Prado).

WHETHER the “great man” has had anyreal influence on the world, or whetherhistory is merely a matter of ideas and tendenciesamong mankind, are still questions open to solution;but there is no doubt that great personsare still interesting; and it is the aim of thisseries of essays to throw such light upon themas is possible as regards their physical condition;and to consider how far their actionswere influenced by their health. There aremany remarkable people in history about whomwe know too little to dogmatize, though we maystrongly suspect that their mental and physicalconditions were abnormal when they were drivento take actions which have passed into history;for instances, Mahomet and St. Paul. Such Ihave purposely omitted. But there were farmore whose actions were clearly the result oftheir state of health; and some of these whohappen to have been leaders at critical epochs Ihave ventured to study from the point of viewof a doctor. This point of view appears to havebeen strangely neglected by historians andothers. If the background against which it[8]shows its heroes and heroines should appearunsentimental and harsh, at least it appears tomedical opinion as probably true; and it is ourduty to seek Truth. If it appears to assume aniconoclastic attitude towards many ideals I amsorry, and can only wish that the patina castupon their characters were more sentimentaland beautiful.

Jeanne d’Arc and the Emperor Charles V wereundoubtedly heroic figures who have been almostworshipped by many millions of people; yetundoubtedly they were human and subject tothe unhappy frailties of other people. This inno way detracts from their renown. I mustapologize for treating Don Quixote as a real person;he was quite as much a living individual asanyone in history. Through his glamour we canget a real glimpse of the character of Cervantes.

In Australia we have no access to the originalsources of European history; we must rely uponthe “printed word” as it appears in standardmonographs and essays.

I owe many thanks to Miss Kibble, of theresearch department of the Sydney PublicLibrary, without whose help this work couldnever have been undertaken.

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