Page:The Psychology of Shakespeare.pdf/176

Rh “First let me talk with this philosopher: What is the cause of thunder ?”

He is serious enough in the opinion: “Let me ask you one word in private.” He will not go into the shelter which Gloster at so much risk has provided, unless he is accompanied by his “ philosopher,” his “good Athenian ;” and Gloster and Kent are fain to permit the companionship of the abject Edgar : take the fellow.”

“Let him

But in the next scene in

the farm house, this delusion has given way to a third : Edgar and the Fool are believed to be the high justi ciaries of the kingdom, before whom Goneril and Regan shall be tried. This easy change of delusion is true to the form of insanity represented : acute mania, with rapid flow of ideas, and tendency to incoherence. In the more chronic forms of insanity, the delusions are more perma

nent; but in this form they arise and subside, giving place to others, with the rapidity thus faithfully represented. At every stage the king recognizes his own madness. At this point, when the somewhat blind perceptions of Kent have only just recognized the fact, that “his wits begin to unsettle,” Lear eagerly acknowledges the com pleted reality: “Fool. Pr'ythee, nuncle, tell me, whether a madman be a gentleman, or a yeoman 7

Lear. A king a king !” There never yet was an idea, sane or insane, which had not its origin in a sensation, physical or emotional, or in another idea. The laws of the genesis of thought are not abrogated in insanity: they only differ from those of the healthy mind, as the physical laws of pathology differ from those of physiology. Man's knowledge, indeed, of mental law, is far less precise than that of physical law, and he is far less able to trace its disturbed action. M

The means of