dissent from the authority of
Messrs. Coleridge and Wordsworth so far as to distinguish. Where
madness is connected, as it often is, with some miserable derangement
of the stomach, liver, &c. and attacks the principle of pleasurable
life, which is manifestly seated in the central organs of the body
(i.e. in the stomach and the apparatus connected with it), there it
cannot but lead to perpetual suffering and distraction of thought; and
there the patient will be often tedious and incoherent. People who
have not suffered from any great disturbance in those organs are
little aware how indispensable to the process of thinking are the
momentary influxes of pleasurable feeling from the regular goings on
of life in its primary functions; in fact, until the pleasure is
withdrawn or obscured, most people are not aware that they _have_ any
pleasure from the due action of the great central machinery of the
system; proceeding in uninterrupted continuance, the pleasure as much
escapes the consciousness as the act of respiration; a child, in the
happiest state of its existence, does not _know_ that it is happy. And
generally whatsoever is the level state of the hourly feeling is never
put down by the unthinking (i.e. by 99 out of 100) to the account of
happiness; it is never put down with the positive sign, as equal to _+
x_; but simply as = 0. And men first become aware that it _was_ a
positive quantity, when they have lost it (i.e. fallen into _- x_).
Meantime the genial pleasure from the vital processes, though not
represented to the consciousness, is _immanent_ in every
act--impulse--motion--word--and thought; and a philosopher sees that
the idiots are in a state of pleasure, though they cannot see it
themselves. Now I say that, where this principle of pleasure is not
attached, madness is often little more than an enthusiasm highly
exalted; the animal spirits are exuberant and in excess; and the
madman becomes, if he be otherwise a man of ability and information,
all the better as a companion. I have met with several such madmen;
and I appeal to my brilliant friend, Professor W----, who is not a man
to tolerate dulness in any quarter, and is himself the ideal of a
delightful companion, whether he ever met a more amusing person than
that madman who took a post-chaise with us from ---- to Carlisle, long
years ago, when he and I were hastening with the speed of fugitive
felons to catch the Edinburgh mail. His fancy and his extravaganc