Part I, Chapter VIII, 2

(For example,) Though the folly of people convinced they are inspired does not always show itself in any one person through an extravagantly passionate act, the rage of the whole multitude becomes plain when many of them conspire together. What greater sign of madness could there be than to shout at, strike, and throw stones at our best friends? Yet such a multitude will do more: they will shout at, fight, and destroy those who have protected them from injury throughout their lives. And if this is madness in the multitude, it is madness in each individual. For in the middle of the sea, though one hears no sound from the water immediately nearby, one knows that this part contributes as much to the sea's roar as any other equal quantity. So too, though we perceive no great disturbance in one or two people, we may be sure that their individual passions are part of the seditious roar of a troubled nation. And even if nothing else betrayed their madness, their very claim to such inspiration would be proof enough. If someone in Bedlam were to talk soberly with you, and as you took your leave you asked who he was so that you might return his courtesy another time, and he told you that he was God the Father, I think you would need no extravagant act as further proof of his madness.

This belief in inspiration, commonly called the Private Spirit, very often begins when someone has the good fortune to discover an error generally accepted by others. Not knowing or remembering what path of reasoning led them to so singular a truth—as they think it, though often they have stumbled on an untruth—they promptly marvel at themselves as especially favored by God Almighty, who has supernaturally revealed it to them through his Spirit.

Again, that madness is merely passion appearing in excess may be gathered from the effects of wine, which are the same as those of a disordered state of the organs. The varieties of behavior among people who have drunk too much are the same as among the mad: some rage, others become amorous, others laugh, all extravagantly but each according to their dominant passions. For wine merely removes their pretense and blinds them to the ugliness of their passions. Indeed, I believe even the most sober people, walking alone without cares or mental occupation, would not wish the vanity and extravagance of their thoughts at such times to be publicly seen. This amounts to an admission that unguided passions are for the most part sheer madness.

The world has held two opinions, in ancient and later times, about the cause of madness. Some derive it from the passions; others from demons or spirits, good or evil, which they supposed might enter a person, possess him, and move his organs in the strange and uncouth way mad people behave. The former called such people mad; the latter sometimes called them demoniacs, that is, possessed by spirits, sometimes Energumeni, that is, agitated or moved by spirits. And in Italy they are now called not only Pazzi, mad people, but also Spiritati, people possessed.

Once a great crowd gathered in Abdera, a city of the Greeks, for a performance of the tragedy of Andromeda on an extremely hot day. Many spectators developed fevers, and from the heat and the tragedy together they began doing nothing but reciting iambic verses containing the names of Perseus and Andromeda. This condition, along with their fever, was cured by the coming of winter; and the madness was thought to arise from the passion impressed on them by the tragedy. Likewise, in another Greek city a bout of madness seized only young women and drove many to hang themselves. Most people then considered it the work of the Devil. But someone who suspected that their contempt for life arose from some passion of the mind, and supposed they did not also despise their honor, advised the magistrates to strip the women who hanged themselves and leave them hanging naked. The story says this cured the madness. On the other hand, the same Greeks often ascribed madness to the work of the Eumenides, or Furies, and sometimes to Ceres, Phoebus, and other gods. So much did people ascribe to phantoms that they thought them living bodies of air, and generally called them spirits. The Romans shared the Greeks' opinion in this, and so did the Jews: they called mad people prophets or, according to whether they thought the spirits good or evil, demoniacs. Some called both prophets and demoniacs mad people, and some called the same person both a demoniac and mad. In the case of the Gentiles, this is no wonder, since they named and worshipped diseases and health, vices and virtues, and many natural accidents as demons. Thus by a demon they sometimes meant a fever just as readily as a devil. But it is somewhat strange that the Jews held such an opinion. Neither Moses nor Abraham claimed to prophesy by possession of a spirit, but by God's voice or through a vision or dream; nor is there anything in his law, moral or ceremonial, teaching them that any such inspiration or possession exists. When God is said (Numb. 11. 25.) to take from the Spirit in Moses and give it to the 70. Elders, the Spirit of God, if taken to mean God's substance, is not divided. By the Spirit of God in a person, the Scriptures mean a person's spirit inclined toward godliness. And where it says (Exod. 28. 3.) “Whom I have filled with the Spirit of wisdom to make garments for Aaron,” it does not mean a spirit put into them that can make garments, but the wisdom of their own spirits in that craft. Likewise, when a person's spirit produces unclean actions, it is ordinarily called an unclean spirit; and other spirits are named similarly, though not always, whenever the virtue or vice so named is extraordinary and conspicuous. Nor did the other prophets of the Old Testament claim inspiration or say that God spoke in them; he spoke to them by voice, vision, or dream, and the Burden of the Lord was not possession but command. How, then, could the Jews have come to believe in possession? I can imagine no cause but one common to all people: a lack of curiosity about natural causes, and the placement of happiness in obtaining the grosser pleasures of the senses and the things that most immediately bring them about. For when people see any strange and unusual ability or defect in another's mind, unless they also see a probable cause, they can hardly think it natural. If it is not natural, they think it must be supernatural; and then what could it be but God or the Devil within that person? Hence, when our Savior (Mark 3.21.) was surrounded by a multitude, members of his household suspected he was mad and went out to restrain him; but the scribes said he had Beelzebub, by whose power he cast out devils, as if the greater madman had overawed the lesser. And so (John 10. 20.) some said, “He has a Devil, and is mad,” while others, regarding him as a prophet, said, “These are not the words of one who has a Devil.” Likewise in the Old Testament the man who came to anoint Jehu (2 Kings 9.11.) was a prophet, yet some of Jehu's companions asked, “Why did that madman come?” In sum, it is evident that the Jews thought anyone behaving in an extraordinary way possessed by a good or evil spirit, except for the Sadducees, who erred so far in the opposite direction as to deny the existence of spirits altogether (which comes very near outright atheism), and perhaps thereby provoked others all the more to call such people demoniacs rather than mad.

But why, then, does our Savior cure them as if they were possessed rather than mad? I can offer only the same kind of answer given to those who similarly invoke Scripture against the view that the Earth moves. Scripture was written to show people the kingdom of God and prepare their minds to become his obedient subjects; it leaves the world and its philosophy to human debate and the exercise of natural reason. Whether the Earth's motion or the Sun's makes day and night, and whether people's extraordinary actions arise from passion or from the Devil, is all the same for our obedience and submission to God Almighty, provided we do not worship the Devil; for such obedience is the purpose for which Scripture was written. As for our Savior speaking to the disease as if to a person, this is the usual expression of those who cure solely by words, as Christ did, and as enchanters claim to do, whether they address a devil or not. Is not Christ also said (Math. 8.26.) to have rebuked the winds? Is he not also said (Luk. 4. 39.) to have rebuked a fever? Yet this does not prove that a fever is a devil. And where many of these devils are said to confess Christ, there is no need to interpret the passages otherwise than as saying that those mad people confessed him. And when our Savior (Math. 12. 43.) speaks of an unclean spirit that leaves a person, wanders through dry places seeking rest and finding none, and returns to the same person with seven other spirits worse than itself, it is plainly a parable alluding to a person who, after briefly trying to give up his lusts, is overcome by their strength and becomes seven times worse than before. Thus I see nothing at all in Scripture that requires belief that demoniacs were anything other than mad people.

There is still another fault in some people's discourse, which may be counted among the kinds of madness: the abuse of words that I discussed in the fifth chapter under the name of absurdity. It occurs when people utter combinations of words that have no meaning at all: some do so through misunderstanding words they have received and repeat by rote, others deliberately to deceive through obscurity. This happens only to those who engage with questions about incomprehensible matters, such as the schoolmen, or with questions of abstruse philosophy. Ordinary people seldom speak meaninglessly, and so these other eminent persons count them idiots. But to be sure that their words correspond to nothing in the mind, one would need examples. Anyone who wants them should take up the work of a schoolman and see whether he can translate a single chapter on some difficult point—the Trinity, the Deity, the nature of Christ, transubstantiation, free will, and so on—into any modern language in a way that makes it intelligible, or into any tolerable Latin such as was familiar to people when Latin was a common tongue. What do these words mean: “The first cause does not necessarily infuse anything into the second by virtue of the essential subordination of secondary causes, by which it may help it to act?” They translate the title of the sixth chapter of Suarez's first book, Of the Concurrence, Motion, and Help of God. When people write whole volumes of such stuff, are they not mad, or intent on making others so? And particularly on the question of transubstantiation: when some say that, after certain words are spoken, white-ness, round-ness, magni-tude, quali-ty, corruptibili-ty—all incorporeal things—leave the wafer and enter the body of our blessed Savior, do they not make those nesses, tudes, and ties so many spirits possessing his body? For by spirits they always mean things which, though incorporeal, can move from place to place. Thus this kind of absurdity may rightly be counted among the many kinds of madness; and all the time these people refrain from such disputation or writing, guided instead by clear thoughts about their worldly desires, is merely a lucid interval. So much for intellectual virtues and defects.

CHAPTER IX. OF THE VARIOUS SUBJECTS OF KNOWLEDGE

For example, someone convinced that they are inspired may not always do anything so strange that their folly is visible. But when many such people join together, the fury of the crowd is obvious. What clearer sign of madness could there be than shouting at our best friends, striking them, and throwing stones at them? Yet a crowd like this will do still worse. They will shout at, fight, and destroy the very people who have protected them from harm all their lives. If the crowd is mad, each person in it is mad too. In the middle of the sea, someone may hear no sound from the water immediately beside them. Yet that water contributes just as much to the sea's roar as any equal amount elsewhere. Likewise, even if we notice little disturbance in one or two people, we can be sure that each person's passions contribute to the rebellious uproar of a troubled nation. Even if nothing else revealed their madness, their claim to such inspiration would be enough. Suppose a man in Bedlam spoke calmly with you. As you left, you asked who he was so that you could repay his kindness another time, and he answered that he was God the Father. I think you would not need to wait for strange behavior to know he was mad.

This belief in inspiration, commonly called a private spirit, often begins when someone happens to find an error that most people accept. The person cannot explain or remember the reasoning that led to this supposedly unique truth, though what they found may often be false. So they immediately admire themselves and think God Almighty has specially favored them by revealing it supernaturally through his Spirit.

The effects of wine also show that madness is simply passion showing itself too strongly. Wine has the same effects as a bad condition of the organs. People who drink too much behave in the same varied ways as mad people: some rage, some become affectionate, and some laugh. All do so excessively, according to their ruling passions. Wine only takes away their ability to hide these passions and stops them from seeing how ugly the passions are. I believe even the most sober people, when walking alone with nothing to occupy their minds, would not want the vain and extravagant thoughts they then have to be made public. This admits that unguided passions are usually nothing but madness.

In ancient and more recent times, people have held two opinions about the cause of madness. Some traced it to the passions. Others blamed demons or spirits, good or bad, which they thought could enter a person, possess them, and move their organs in the strange ways mad people move. The first group called such people mad. The second sometimes called them demoniacs, meaning possessed by spirits, and sometimes energumeni, meaning driven or moved by spirits. In Italy today, they are called not only pazzi, or mad people, but also spiritati, or possessed people.

Once, a large crowd gathered in Abdera, a Greek city, to watch a performance of the tragedy Andromeda on an extremely hot day. Many spectators developed fevers. The heat and the play together left them doing nothing but reciting iambic verse with the names Perseus and Andromeda. When winter came, the fever and this condition ended. People thought the madness came from the passion stirred by the tragedy. In another Greek city, a bout of madness affected only young women and caused many to hang themselves. Most people then thought the Devil had done it. But someone suspected that their disregard for life came from a mental passion and assumed they still cared about their honor. He advised the magistrates to strip the women who hanged themselves and leave their bodies hanging naked. According to the story, this cured the madness. On the other hand, the same Greeks often attributed madness to the Eumenides, or Furies, and sometimes to Ceres, Phoebus, and other gods. They attributed so much to imagined apparitions that they thought these were living bodies made of air and generally called them spirits. The Romans shared the Greeks' view, and so did the Jews. The Jews called mad people prophets or demoniacs, depending on whether they thought the spirits were good or bad. Some called prophets and demoniacs alike mad, and some called the same person both a demoniac and mad. This is unsurprising among the non-Jewish peoples, who named and worshipped diseases and health, vices and virtues, and many natural events as demons. For them a demon might even mean a fever as well as a devil. But it is rather strange that the Jews held this view. Neither Moses nor Abraham claimed to prophesy because a spirit possessed them. They received God's voice, a vision, or a dream. Nothing in their moral or ceremonial law taught them about such inspiration or possession. When God is said in (Numb. 11. 25.) to take some of the Spirit in Moses and give it to the 70 elders, God's Spirit, if understood as God's substance, is not being divided. In speaking of God's Spirit within a person, the Scriptures mean that person's own spirit, inclined toward godliness. Likewise, in (Exod. 28. 3.), “Whom I have filled with the Spirit of wisdom to make garments for Aaron,” the meaning is not that a garment-making spirit entered them. It means their own minds had skill in that work. Similarly, a person's spirit is commonly called an unclean spirit when it produces unclean actions. The same applies to other spirits, though not always: it is used when the virtue or vice named is unusually strong. Nor did the other Old Testament prophets claim to be possessed or say that God spoke inside them. He spoke to them through a voice, vision, or dream. The Burden of the Lord was a command, not a possession. How, then, did the Jews come to believe in possession? I can think of only a reason common to all people: they lack curiosity about natural causes and seek happiness in gross pleasures of the senses and the things that most directly bring those pleasures. When people see an unusual ability or defect of mind without also seeing a likely cause, they find it hard to think it natural. If it is not natural, they think it supernatural. Then what could it be but God or the Devil inside the person? Thus, when our Savior was surrounded by a crowd (Mark 3.21.), his family thought he was mad and went to restrain him. The scribes said he had Beelzebub and used him to cast out devils, as though a greater madman had subdued lesser ones. Some said (John 10. 20.), “He has a devil and is mad.” Others, believing him a prophet, said, “These are not the words of someone who has a devil.” Likewise in the Old Testament, the man who came to anoint Jehu (2 Kings 9.11.) was a prophet, yet some of Jehu's companions asked, “Why did that madman come?” Clearly, then, Jews thought anyone who behaved unusually was possessed by a good or evil spirit. The Sadducees were the exception: they went so far in the opposite direction that they believed there were no spirits at all, a view very close to outright atheism. Perhaps this prompted other Jews all the more to call such people demoniacs rather than mad.

But why did our Savior treat them as if they were possessed rather than mad? My only answer is the kind given to those who similarly cite Scripture against the earth's motion. Scripture was written to show people the kingdom of God and prepare their minds to obey him as subjects. It leaves the physical world and its philosophy for people to debate using their natural reason. Whether the earth's motion or the sun's causes day and night, and whether unusual human actions arise from passion or from the Devil, makes no difference to obedience and submission to God Almighty, provided we do not worship the Devil. That obedience is why Scripture was written. As for our Savior speaking to the disease as if it were a person, everyone who cures by words alone speaks that way, as Christ did and as enchanters claim to do, whether or not they address a devil. Is Christ not also said (Math. 8.26.) to have rebuked the winds? Is he not said (Luk. 4. 39.) to have rebuked a fever? That does not make a fever a devil. And when many of these devils are said to confess Christ, the passage can simply mean that the mad people confessed him. Our Savior also speaks (Math. 12. 43.) of an unclean spirit leaving a person, wandering through dry places in search of rest, finding none, and returning with seven worse spirits. This is plainly a parable about someone who tries briefly to give up his desires but is overcome by their strength and becomes seven times worse. I therefore see nothing in Scripture requiring us to believe demoniacs were anything but mad people.

There is one more fault in some people's reasoning that may count as a kind of madness. I spoke of this misuse of words in chapter five and called it absurdity. It occurs when people string together words that, taken together, mean nothing. Some fall into this habit because they misunderstand words they learned and repeat by rote. Others do it deliberately to deceive through obscurity. This happens only among people who discuss incomprehensible subjects, such as the schoolmen, or obscure philosophical questions. Ordinary people rarely speak without meaning anything, though these distinguished thinkers therefore call them idiots. If you want examples to prove that the thinkers' words correspond to nothing in their minds, pick up a schoolman's work. Try to translate a chapter about a difficult question, such as the Trinity, the Deity, Christ's nature, transubstantiation, or free will, into any modern language so that it makes sense. Or try translating it into acceptable Latin of the kind spoken when Latin was an everyday language. What do these words mean? “The first cause does not necessarily send anything into the second by virtue of the essential subordination of secondary causes, through which it might help the second to act.” This translates the title of chapter six in the first book of Suarez's Of the Concourse, Motion, and Help of God. Are people who write whole volumes of this material not mad, or trying to drive others mad? Consider transubstantiation in particular. Some say that after certain words are spoken, whiteness, roundness, magnitude, quality, and corruptibility—all of which are incorporeal—leave the wafer and enter the body of our blessed Savior. Do they not thereby turn all these “-nesses,” “-tudes,” and “-ties” into spirits possessing his body? By spirits they always mean incorporeal things that can nonetheless move from one place to another. So this absurdity can rightly be listed among the many kinds of madness. Whenever clear thoughts of their worldly desires make these people stop writing or arguing in this way, they are merely having lucid intervals. That is enough about intellectual virtues and defects.

Chapter IX. Of the Different Subjects of Knowledge