gr._
Tieck, Treviranus, De Prati, Meyer, and others of literary or medical
celebrity, and I remain where I was, and where the first perusal of Klug's
work had left me, without having moved an inch backward or forward. The
reply of Treviranus, the famous botanist, to me, when he was in London, is
worth recording:--'Ich habe gesehen was (ich weiss das) ich nicht wuerde
geglaubt haben auf _ihren_ erzaehlung,' &c. 'I have seen what I am certain I
would not have believed on your telling; and in all reason, therefore, I
can neither expect nor wish that you should believe on _mine_.'"--ED.]
_May_ 1. 1830.
FALL OF MAN.--MADNESS.--BROWN AND DARWIN.--NITROUS OXIDE.
A Fall of some sort or other--the creation, as it were, of the non-
absolute--is the fundamental postulate of the moral history of man. Without
this hypothesis, man is unintelligible; with it, every phenomenon is
explicable. The mystery itself is too profound for human insight.
* * * * *
Madness is not simply a bodily disease. It is the sleep of the spirit with
certain conditions of wakefulness; that is to say, lucid intervals. During
this sleep, or recession of the spirit, the lower or bestial states of life
rise up into action and prominence.
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