was far from being taken in.
His birth and upbringing in Vienna coincide with the facts as obtained from his army records. His alleged experiences at Heidelberg are recorded many times on his own testimony. He described himself as a distinguished student in that honorable university, referring to Kant and Schopenhauer and several of the Greek philosophers as special subjects of his study. He spoke also of a deep interest in Shakespeare during his student days and sought to give the idea that he was celebrated among his fellows for his knowledge of the Bard.
The shrewdness and agility of his mind were prettily demonstrated in these references to the picturesque and traditional gaieties of student life, to the works of the philosophers and poets. No less vividly and convincingly did he reveal an utter lack of any real acquaintance with all the subjects about which he boasted himself learned.
He knew the names of a half-dozen Shakespearean plays, several catch-penny lines familiar to the man on the streets, a scattering of great names among the philosophers. Not only was he totally ignorant of the systems of thought for which his philosophers are famous but also even of superficial and general facts about their lives and times that any person, however unintellectual, could not fail to remember if he ever had the interest to read of such matters. Of Shakespeare he knew practically nothing beyond the titles that rolled eloquently from his tongue and a few vague and jumbled conceptions that have crept into the ideologies of bootblacks, peasants, and street gamins the world over. Furthermore, he had no interest, as contrasted with knowledge, in any matter that could be called philosophic or poetic. He liked to rattle off his little round of fragmentary quotations, the connections and the connotations of which he realized only in the most superficial sense, to contribute a few pat and shallow saws of his own which he showed that he believed were highly original, iconoclastic, and profound, to boast generally of his wisdom and then go on to descriptions of his other attainments and experiences.
To my surprise, he was several times taken by psychiatrists who studied him briefly and by social service workers as a man of some intellectual stature. His story of Study at Heidelberg, though usually discounted, was, if the implication of the psychiatric histories is correctly read, sometimes taken as true or probably true.
Although my actual contact with Heidelberg is superficial enough, I had no difficulty in demonstrating in the patient a plain lack of acquaintance with the ways of life there. The general plan of study and the physical set-up of the university, matters that would be familiar to anyone who had been an undergraduate there, however briefly and disinterestedly, were unknown to Max. He showed that he had probably passed through the town and that he had heard and still clearly remembered gossip and legend from the streets of Vienna about the university and its customs, but he had no more real understanding of it than a shrewd but unlettered cockney would have of Cambridge.
This phase of his examination provided, in my opinion, a striking example of the ambiguity inherent in our word intelligence, Here was a man of exceptional acumen. His versatile devices to defraud, his mechanical inventions to overcome safeguards which ordinarily protect slot machines and other depositories of cash, and his shrewd practical reasoning in the many difficulties of his career demonstrate beyond question the accuracy, quickness, and subtlety of his practical thinking. His memory is unusually sound; his cleverness at manipulating bits of information so as to appear learned is exceptional. He is not a man to be taken in by the scheming of others, though he himself takes in many. One can truthfully say about him that he is bright as a dollar, smart as a whip, that his mind is like a steel trap, etc.
His ability to plan and execute schemes to provide money for himself, to escape legal consequences, and to give, when desirable, the impression that he is, in the ordinary sense, mentally deranged, could be matched by few, if any, people whom I have known. In such thinking he not only shows objective ingenuity but also remarkable knowledge of other people and their reactions (of psychology in the popular sense) at certain levels, or, perhaps one should say, in certain modes, of personality-reaction. He stands out for the swiftness and accuracy of his thinking at solving puzzles and at playing checkers. At any sort of contest based on a matching of wits he is unlikely to come off second best.
To consider his intelligence (or should one say wisdom?) from another viewpoint, from that of the ordinary man’s idea of what is good sense about working out a successful plan of life on a long-term basis, only the story of his career can speak adequately. Be it noted that the result of his conduct not only brings trouble to others but almost as regularly to himself.
To take still another point of view and consider him on a basis of those values somewhat vaguely implied by “intellectuality,” “culture,” or, in everyday speech, by “depth of mind,” we find an appalling deficiency. These concepts in which meaning or emotional significance are considered along with the mechanically rational, if applied to this man, measure him as very small, or very defective. He not only appears ignorant in such modes of function but stupid as well. He is unfamiliar with the primary facts or data of what might be called personal values and is altogether incapable of understanding such matters. It is impossible for him to take even a slight interest in the tragedy or joy or the striving of humanity as presented in serious literature or art. He is also indifferent to all these matters in life itself. Beauty and ugliness, except in a very superficial sense, goodness, evil, love, horror, and humor, have no actual meaning, no power to move him.
He is, furthermore, lacking in the ability to see that others are moved. It is as though he were colorblind, despite his sharp intelligence, to this aspect of human existence. It cannot be explained to him because there is nothing in his orbit of awareness that can bridge the gap with comparison. He can repeat the words and say glibly that he understands, and there is no way for him to realize that he does not understand.
I believe that this man has sufficient intelligence, in the ordinary sense, to acquire what often passes for learning in such fields as literature and philosophy. If he had more stability and persistence he could easily earn a Ph.D. or an M.D. degree from the average university in this country. If he had this stability and became a doctor of philosophy in literature, the plays of Shakespeare, the novels of Joseph Conrad or of Thomas Hardy, would still have no power to move him. He could remember facts and he could learn to manipulate facts and even to devise rationalizations in such a field with skill comparable to that with which he now out-thinks an opponent at checkers. If, for the sake of theory and speculation, such changes were granted to him, my contention that he would still be without this sort of understanding is, of course, Impossible to prove. It is maintained, however, that this would be clear to all observers who have real interest in such aspects of life, however diverse might be their own formulated opinions on what is good, bad, true, or beautiful about art or about living.
But let us abandon speculation and return to the patient’s conduct. He talked at length of his ability as a fencer, maintaining that he was the best swordsman, or one of the best, at Heidelberg during his student days, and also well-known and feared in Vienna. He spoke of the championship he had won at boxing while in the army, boasting often of a belt which he still possessed symbolizing this achievement. On hearing that I had had a slight experience in amateur boxing, he offered to demonstrate his skill and to give some points. Ostentatiously he insisted that I stand up and, pulling his punches, went through a number of sequences. He did this several times, always choosing a place on the ward where he could be observed by a large group of patients and attendants. He gave every indication of being a practiced boxer. This is borne out also by army records which indicate that he won some small prize as champion of his battalion or regiment.
Even before his presentation at the staff he again became dissatisfied, making complaints against the nurses and attendants, demanding special foods and privileges, bullying other patients, and inciting them to make trouble. At staff meeting the diagnosis of psychopathic personality was reaffirmed.
On failing to get his discharge at once he became even more fretful and unruly and threatened to break out of the hospital. It became difficult to care for him on the ward for well-adjusted
