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And he concludes with the definite statement of his clear resolution:

One could not ask a more explicit revelation of Don Quixote’s secret. He knows that he is not mad, but he wishes to behave as if he were, and his mad exploits are to be merely in imitation of the exploits of famous madmen. The method which he confesses in this one case of deliberate madness superposed upon his primary madness is the very method which he follows in all the other cases in which he does not confess.

In this same passage is to be found his theory—one of the profoundest in the book—as to going mad without cause or reason. On Sancho’s asking him why he undertakes so hard a penance when Dulcinea has given him no cause, Don Quixote answers: