n. The lunatic's theory explains
a large number of things, but it does not explain them in a large way. I
mean that if you or I were dealing with a mind that was growing morbid,
we should be chiefly concerned not so much to give it arguments as to
give it air, to convince it that there was something cleaner and cooler
outside the suffocation of a single argument. Suppose, for instance, it
were the first case that I took as typical; suppose it were the case of
a man who accused everybody of conspiring against him. If we could
express our deepest feelings of protest and appeal against this
obsession, I suppose we should say something like this: "Oh, I admit
that you have your case and have it by heart, and that many things do
fit into other things as you say. I admit that your explanation explains
a great deal; but what a great deal it leaves out! Are there no other
stories in the world except yours; and are all men busy with your
business? Suppose we grant the details; perhaps when the man in the
street did not seem to see you it was only his cunning; perhaps when the
policeman asked you your name it was only because he knew it already.
But how much happier you would be if you only knew that these people
cared nothing about you! How much larger your life would be if your self
could become smaller in it; if you could really look at other men with
common curiosity and pleasure; if you could see them walking as they are
in their sunny selfishness and their virile indifference! You would
begin to be interested in them, because they were not interested in you.
You would break out of this tiny and tawdry theatre in which your own
little plot is always being played, and you would find yourself under a
freer sky, in a street full of splendid strangers." Or suppose it were
the second case of madness, that of a man who claims the crown, your
impulse would be to answer, "All right! Perhaps you know that you are
the King of England; but why do you care? Make one magnificent effort
and you will be a human being and look down on all the kings of the
earth." Or it might be the third case, of the madman who called himself
Christ. If we said what we felt, we should say, "So you are the Creator
and Redeemer of the world: but what a small world it must be! What a
little heaven you must inhabit, with angels no bigger than butterflies!
How sad it must be to be God; and an inadequate God! Is there really no
life fuller and no love more marvello