with an awe and horror of himself, an, suppressing all remorse, urged him on to make himself its prophet and its martyr? While we hear it constantly asserted even in our days that, instead of a grain of salt, a grain of insanity had been given to genius, men of previous periods were more inclined to believe that, wherever madness appeared, a grain of genius and wisdom—something divine as they whispered into each other's ears—was to be found. Nay more: they expressed themselves distinctly enough: " From insanity Greece has derived its greatest benefits," thus said Plato, as the mouthpiece of the whole ancient humanity. Let us go a step further : There was nothing left for those superior intellects—who felt an irresistible desire to break down the barriers of some morality or other, and to make new laws—but to grow mad or feign to be so, if, indeed, they were not really mad. This rule applies to innovators in all departments, not only in those of priestly and political ordinances. Even the reformer of the poetic metre had to establish his authority by means of madness. Thus the poets retained a certain conventional licence of madness, even in times of a gentler mould—of which licence Solon, for instance, availed himself, when he incited the Athenians to reconquer Salamis. "How does one bring about madness, if one is not and dare not feign to be mad?" Almost all great intellects of the older civilisation lave yielded to this dreadful chain of reasoning. A
