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those that haunt other waste and empty dwellings, which for want of
business either vanish and carry away a piece of the house, or else
stay at home and fling it all out of the windows. By which are
mystically displayed the two principal branches of madness, and
which some philosophers, not considering so well as I, have mistook
to be different in their causes, over-hastily assigning the first to
deficiency and the other to redundance.
I think it therefore manifest, from what I have here advanced, that
the main point of skill and address is to furnish employment for
this redundancy of vapour, and prudently to adjust the seasons of
it, by which means it may certainly become of cardinal and catholic
emolument in a commonwealth. Thus one man, choosing a proper
juncture, leaps into a gulf, from thence proceeds a hero, and is
called the saviour of his country. Another achieves the same
enterprise, but unluckily timing it, has left the brand of madness
fixed as a reproach upon his memory. Upon so nice a distinction are
we taught to repeat the name of Curtius with reverence and love,
that of Empedocles with hatred and contempt. Thus also it is
usually conceived that the elder Brutus only personated the fool and
madman for the good of the public; but this was nothing else than a
redundancy of the same vapour long misapplied, called by the Latins
ingenium par negotiis, or (to translate it as nearly as I can), a
sort of frenzy never in its right element till you take it up in
business of the state.
Upon all which, and many other reasons of equal weight, though not
equally curious, I do here gladly embrace an opportunity I have long
sought for, of recommending it as a very noble undertaking to Sir
Edward Seymour, Sir Christopher Musgrave, Sir John Bowles, John
Howe, Esq., and other patriots concerned, that they would move for
leave to bring in a Bill for appointing commissioners to inspect
into Bedlam and the parts adjacent, who shall be empowered to send
for persons, papers, and records, to examine into the merits and
qualifications of every student and professor, to observe with
utmost exactness their several dispositions and behaviour, by which
means, duly distinguishing and adapting their talents, they might
produce admirable instruments for the several offices in a state, .
. . civil and military, proceeding in such methods as I shall here
humbly propose. And I hope the gentle reader will give some
allowance to my great solicitudes in this important affair, upon
account of that high esteem I have ever borne that honourable
society, whereof I had some time the happiness to be an unworthy
member.
Is any student tearing his straw in piecemeal, swearing and
blaspheming, biting his grate, foaming at the mouth, and emptying
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