operation that the farther we proceeded, we found the defects
increase upon us, in number and bulk; from all which I justly formed
this conclusion to myself, that whatever philosopher or projector
can find out an art to sodder and patch up the flaws and
imperfections of Nature, will deserve much better of mankind and
teach us a more useful science than that so much in present esteem,
of widening and exposing them (like him who held anatomy to be the
ultimate end of physic). And he whose fortunes and dispositions
have placed him in a convenient station to enjoy the fruits of this
noble art, he that can with Epicurus content his ideas with the
films and images that fly off upon his senses from the superfices of
things, such a man, truly wise, creams off Nature, leaving the sour
and the dregs for philosophy and reason to lap up. This is the
sublime and refined point of felicity called the possession of being
well-deceived, the serene peaceful state of being a fool among
knaves.

But to return to madness. It is certain that, according to the
system I have above deduced, every species thereof proceeds from a
redundancy of vapour; therefore, as some kinds of frenzy give double
strength to the sinews, so there are of other species which add
vigour, and life, and spirit to the brain. Now it usually happens
that these active spirits, getting possession of the brain, resemble
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.