[STEELE.

From _Tuesday, Jan. 24_, to _Thursday, Jan. 26, 1709-10_.

Quem mala stultitia, et quaecunque inscitia veri
Caecum agit, insanum Chrysippi porticus, et grex
Autumat. Haec populos, haec magnos formula reges,
Excepto sapiente, tenet.--HOR., 2 Sat. iii. 43.

* * * * *

_From my own Apartment, January 25._

There is a sect of ancient philosophers, who, I think, have left more
volumes behind them, and those better written, than any other of the
fraternities in philosophy. It was a maxim of this sect, that all those
who do not live up to the principles of reason and virtue, are madmen.
Every one, who governs himself by these rules, is allowed the title of
wise, and reputed to be in his senses; and every one in proportion, as
he deviates from them, is pronounced frantic and distracted. Cicero
having chosen this maxim for his theme, takes occasion to argue from it
very agreeably with Clodius, his implacable adversary, who had procured
his banishment. "A city," says he, "is an assembly distinguished into
bodies of men, who are in possession of their respective rights and
privileges, cast under proper subordinations, and in all its parts
obedient to the rules of law and equity." He then represents the
government from whence he was banished, at a time when the consul,
senate, and laws, had lost their authority, as a commonwealth of
lunatics. For this reason, he regards his expulsion from Rome, as a man
would being turned out of Bedlam, if the inhabitants of it should drive
him out of their walls as a person unfit for their community.[45] We are
therefore to look upon every man's brain to be touched, however he may
appear in the general conduct of his life, if he has an unjustifiable
singularity in any part of his conversation or behaviour: or if he
swerves from right reason, however common his kind of madness may be, we
shall not excuse him for its being epidemical, it being our present
design to clap up all such as have the marks of madness upon them, who
are now permitted to go about the streets, for no other reason, but
because they do no mischief in their fits. Abundance of imaginary great
men are put in straw to bring them to a right sense of themselves: and
is it not altogether as reasonable, that an insignificant man, who has
an immoderate opinion of his merits, and a quite different notion of his
own abilities from what the rest of the world e