Page:The Psychology of Shakespeare.pdf/149

134 which intervenes, and must intervene, between all the legal and medical definitions of insanity founded upon the intellectual theory and the facts as they are observed in the broad field of nature, the conclusion appears inevitable, that no state of the reasoning faculty can, by itself, be the cause or condition of madness; congenital idiocy and acquired dementia being alone excepted. The corollary of this is, that emotional disturbance is the cause and condition of insanity. This is especially obvious in the periods during which the disease is developing; "in the prodromic period of the disorder, the emotions are always perverted while the reason remains intact." Misorders of the intellectual faculties are secondary; they are often, indeed, to be recognized as the morbid emotions transformed into perverted action of the reason; but in no cases are they primary and essential.

How completely is this theory supported by the development of insanity, as it is pourtrayed in Lear! Shakespeare, who painted from vast observation of nature, as he saw it without and felt it within, places this great fact broadly and unmistakably before us. It has, indeed, been long ignored by the exponents of medical and legal science, at the cost of ever futile attempts to define insanity by its accidents and not by its essence; and, following this guidance, the literary critics of Shakespeare have completely overlooked the early symptoms of Lear's insanity; and, according to the custom of the world, have postponed its recognition until he is running about a frantic, raving, madman.

Lear is king at a time when kings are kings. Upon his will has hung the life and wealth, the being and the having, of all around. Law exists indeed; the reverend man of justice and his yoke-fellow of equity are benched high in the land, but he is the little godhead below.