is to madness near allied." But Dryden did not say that great genius
was to madness near allied. Dryden was a great genius himself,
and knew better. It would have been hard to find a man more romantic
than he, or more sensible. What Dryden said was this, "Great wits
are oft to madness near allied"; and that is true. It is the pure
promptitude of the intellect that is in peril of a breakdown.
Also people might remember of what sort of man Dryden was talking.
He was not talking of any unworldly visionary like Vaughan or
George Herbert. He was talking of a cynical man of the world,
a sceptic, a diplomatist, a great practical politician. Such men
are indeed to madness near allied. Their incessant calculation
of their own brains and other people's brains is a dangerous trade.
It is always perilous to the mind to reckon up the mind. A flippant
person has asked why we say, "As mad as a hatter." A more flippant
person might answer that a hatter is mad because he has to measure
the human head.

And if great reasoners are often maniacal, it is equally true
that maniacs are commonly great reasoners. When I was engaged
in a controversy with the CLARION on the matter of free will,
that able writer Mr. R.B.Suthers said that free will was lunacy,
because it meant causeless actions, and the actions of a lunatic
would be causeless. I do not dwell here upon the disastrous lapse
in determinist logic. Obviously if any actions, even a lunatic's,
can be causeless, determinism is done for. If the chain of
causation can be broken for a madman, it can be broken for a man.
But my purpose is to point out something more practical.
It was natural, perhaps, that a modern Marxian Socialist should not
know anything about free will. But it was certainly remarkable that
a modern Marxian Socialist should not know anything about lunatics.