Aporpos of recent arguments: A view of insanity from Voltaire's
_Philosophical Dictionary_ (1764).
I do love Voltaire.
from http://163.1.91.50/vfetc_prose_phidi.html
FOLIE = MADNESS
There is no question of renewing Erasmus's book, which today would be a
rather insipid commonplace.
We call madness that disease of the organs of the brain which inevitably
prevents a man from thinking and acting like others. Unable to administer
his property he is declared incapable; unable to have ideas suitable for
society, he is excluded from it; if he is dangerous he is locked up; if he
is violent he is tied up. Sometimes he is cured by baths, blood-letting and
diet.
What is important to notice is that this man is by no means without ideas.
He has them like all other men when he is awake, and often when he is
asleep. It may be asked how his spiritual, immortal soul, lodged in his
brain, receiving all ideas very clearly and distinctly through the senses,
nevertheless never judges sanely. It sees objects as the souls of Aristotle
and Plato, Locke and Newton saw them. How then, receiving the perceptions
experienced by the wisest, does it make of them an extravagant combination,
without being able to help itself?
If this simple and eternal substance has the same instruments of action as
have the souls of the wisest brain, it must reason like them. Who could
prevent it from so doing? I most readily understand that if my madman saw
red and the wise men blue; if, when the wise men hear music, my madman
hears the braying of a donkey; if, when they listen to a sermon, my madman
thinks that he is at the theatre; if, when they hear yes, he hears no; then
his soul must think in a different manner from others. But my madman has
the same perceptions as they; there is no apparent reason why his soul,
having received all its tools from the senses, cannot use them. It is pure,
they say; in itself it is not subject to any infirmity; it is thus provided
with all necessary aid; whatever happens in its body, nothing can change
its essence; nevertheless it is conducted to Colney Hatch in its bodily
garment.
This reflection may arouse the suspicion that the faculty of thinking,
given by god to man, is subject to derangement like the senses. A lunatic
is a sick man whose brain is in bad health, just as a man who has gout is a
sick man who has pains in his feet and hands. He thought with his brain as
he walked with his feet, without knowing anything about his
incomprehensible ability to walk nor of his no less incomprehensible
ability to think. People have gout in the brain as in the feet. In short,
after a thousand arguments perhaps only faith can convince us that a simple
and immaterial substance can be ill.
Learned men or doctors will say to the madman: "My friend, although you
have lost your common sense, your soul is as spiritual, as pure, as
immortal as ours. But our souls are well housed, and yours badly, the
windows of its house are blocked up, it lacks air, it suffocates." The
madman would reply in his lucid moments: "My friends, as usual you take for
granted the matter at issue. My windows are as open as yours since I see
the same objects and hear the same words: it must therefore follow that my
soul makes bad use of my senses, or that my soul is itself only a vitiated
sense, a depraved quality. In a word, either my soul is mad in itself or I
have no soul."
One of the doctors might reply: "My dear colleague, god has perhaps created
mad souls, as he has created wise souls." The madman would reply: "If I
believed what you tell me I'd be even madder than I am. For pity's sake,
you who know so much about it, tell me why I'm mad."
If the doctors still have a little sense they would reply: "We don't know."
They will never understand why a brain has incoherent ideas; they will
understand no better why another brain has regulated and consistent ideas.
They will believe themselves to be wise, and they will be as mad as the
lunatic.
*****
By the way, I think the terminology of "client" is very unhelpful and quite
likely damaging. But that is another long argument for another day. Words
matter.
regards,
Phil
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