ns have in them this unalterable
assertion--that what is not is. The difference between us and the
maniac is not about how things look or how things ought to look, but
about what they self-evidently are. The lunatic does not say that he
ought to be King; Perkin Warbeck might say that. He says he is King.
The lunatic does not say he is as wise as Shakespeare; Bernard Shaw
might say that. The lunatic says he _is_ Shakespeare. The lunatic
does not say he is divine in the same sense as Christ; Mr. R.J.
Campbell would say that. The lunatic says he _is_ Christ. In all cases
the difference is a difference about what is there; not a difference
touching what should be done about it.

For this reason, and for this alone, the lunatic is outside public
law. This is the abysmal difference between him and the criminal. The
criminal admits the facts, and therefore permits us to appeal to the
facts. We can so arrange the facts around him that he may really
understand that agreement is in his own interests. We can say to him,
"Do not steal apples from this tree, or we will hang you on that
tree." But if the man really thinks one tree is a lamp-post and the
other tree a Trafalgar Square fountain, we simply cannot treat with
him at all. It is obviously useless to say, "Do not steal apples from
this lamp-post, or I will hang you on that fountain." If a man denies
the facts, there is no answer but to lock him up. He cannot speak our
language: not that varying verbal language which often misses fire
even with us, but that enormous alphabet of sun and moon and green
grass and blue sky in which alone we meet, and by which alone we can
signal to each other. That unique man of genius, George Macdonald,
described in one of his weird stories two systems of space
co-incident; so that where I knew there was a piano standing in a
drawing-room you knew there was a rose-bush growing in a garden.
Something of this sort is in small or great affairs the matter with
the madman. He cannot have a vote, because he is the citizen of
another country. He is a foreigner. Nay, he is an invader and an
enemy; for the city he lives in has been super-imposed on ours.

Now these two things are primarily to be noted in his case. First,
that we can only condemn him to a _general_ doom, because we only know
his _general_ nature. All criminals, who do particular things for
particular reasons (things and reasons which, however criminal, are
always comprehensible), have be