Page:The sanity of William Blake.djvu/14

 Rh man can have any faith whatsoever who builds upon evidences. No one—to come to the point before us—can judge of another man's sanity who dares not risk, when the truth claims him, the world's scorn of his own sanity.

And if we are to judge William Blake's sanity by the limited arguments of mind specialists, we shall most certainly find him lacking; though we may wish the world were less sane if the loss of its wits would bring it nearer to the Kingdom in which Blake lived.

But more than this. He was mad if we are to judge him by those many wise whose only idea of living in perfect sanity is to take in one another's washing, and yet not wash it in public. He was mad if no man may see further than his neighbours without the sanction of the Lunacy Commission; if no man has right to prophecy; if none may use terrific metaphor without being accused of coarse realism; if none may call the devil black without being stigmatized as small-minded; if none may light a candle without the sane world disputing his right to find road through the darkness.

Moreover, Blake was undoubtedly mad if