Specimens of the Table Talk of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Original Text

ISBN-10
ISBN-13: 9798630190147
Series: Specimens of the Table Talk of Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Pages: 380
Language: English
Published: 2020-03-27
Author: Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Description

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. It is an awful thing to be eternally tempted by the perverted senses. The reason may resist-it does resist-for a long time; but too often, at length, it yields for a moment, and the man is mad for ever. An act of the will is, in many instances, precedent to complete insanity. I think it was Bishop Butler who said, that he was "all his life struggling against the devilish suggestions of his senses," which would have maddened him, if he had relaxed the stern wakefulness of his reason for a single moment.