  Schopenhauer sees a relationship between genius and madness.  He believes that “every increase in intellect beyond the ordinary measure is an abnormality that disposes one to madness” (WWR I, 215); since the genius is distinctive for her superfluity of intellect (WWR I, 211), which allows her to withdraw from mundane concerns more often and more sustainedly in order to perceive the Ideas in things and in the patterns of human life, she is thus disposed to madness. Also, geniuses resemble madmen insofar as they are often so engrossed in perceiving the essential in life that they pay little attention to particulars, and are generally terrible in practical affairs. But the real distinguishing factor between the “madman” and the genius has to do with memory. From his “frequent visits to madhouses” and his reflections on the symptoms of these real inmates as well as on those of characters in literature who have gone insane (e.g., Ophelia, King Lear, Ajax), Schopenhauer hypothesizes that the mad lack reliable interconnections between past and present events, and in many cases this is due to some traumatic event they have suffered in their past.  By contrast, the genius has a memory that functions normally.