Jack of Leyden, and monsieur Des Cartes. The present argument is the most abstracted, that ever I engaged in; it strains my faculties to their highest stretch: and I desire the reader to attend with the utmost perpensity; for I now proceed to unravel this knotty point.
There is in mankind a certain[1]***********Hic multa******desiderantur.*********And this I take to be a clear solution of the matter.
Having therefore so narrowly passed through this intricate difficulty, the reader will, I am sure, agree with me in the conclusion; that if the moderns mean by madness, only a disturbance or transposition of the brain, by force of certain vapours issuing up from the lower faculties; then has this madness been the parent of all those mighty revolutions, that have happened in empire, philosophy, and in religion. For, the brain, in its natural position and state of serenity, disposes its owner to pass his life in the common forms, without any thoughts of subduing multitudes to his own power, his reasons, or his visions; and the more he shapes his understanding by the pattern of human learning, the less he is inclined to form parties, after his particular notions; because that instructs him in his private infirmities, as well as in the stubborn ignorance of the people. But when a man's fancy
- ↑ Here is another defect in the manuscript; but I think the author did wisely, and that the matter, which thus strained his faculties, was not worth a solution; and it were well if all metaphysical cobweb problems were no otherwise answered.
