A history of depression

Calvin has a reputation as a mean-spirited individual. However, this raises questions about the history of depression. I'm no expert, but it's my impression that depression must have been very widespread during much of human history. Many children were orphaned. Many mothers died in childbirth. Many fathers died young. Due to high infant mortality, many siblings watched their brothers and sisters die. Os Guinness watched his two younger brothers starve to death.

Some of the survivors were farmed out to older relatives. Among poorer families was the custom of apprenticing a young child to a stranger to teach him a trade. You can imagine the emotional alienation that caused. Even among the royalty and aristocracy, you had emotionally distant indifferent parents who used nannies until the boy was banished to boarding school at an early age. So many men must have been maladjusted due to deficient socialization.

Both Calvin's parents died when he was young. Descartes' mother died when he was two months old, and he had an absentee father. John Knox's mother died when he was young.

Racine was orphaned after both parents died when he was young. Pascal's mother died when he was three. Leibniz's father died when he was young. Swift's father died before his son was born. Isaac Newton's father died before his son was born. He had a checkered relationship with his own mother. Thomas Aquinas was farmed off to Monte Casino Abbey at the age of 5.

Dante was an orphan. His mother died when he was young. The father of Albert Camus died when he was young. Tolkien was an orphan. Catholic philosophers Peter Geach and Anthony Kenny were neglected children.

It's striking that although Newton, Leibniz, and Swift were very eligible bachelors, they never married. This despite the fact that Swift, for one, was very enamored with two women ("Stella", "Vanessa").

This is just skimming the surface. A random sample of famous men. When we assess the acerbic character of some famous men from the past, what this fails to take into account is that many famous individuals had emotionally deprived childhoods due to the death of one or both parents at an early age, not to mention watching their siblings die young. They were emotionally neglected, with lifelong insecurities. That's not to mention other factors like the gin craze, to cope with depression.

It's an interesting historical question to consider what percentage of the human race has suffered from clinical depression. A precarious, neglected childhood doesn't naturally foster generosity, but ruthless competition to survive and succeed. How many men and women stagger through life due to a miserable childhood.