The prophetic spirit in its relation to wisdom and madness / by Augustus Clissold.

  • Clissold, Augustus, 1797?-1882.
Date:
1870
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The prophetic spirit in its relation to wisdom and madness / by Augustus Clissold. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

    27/348 (page 11)
    Accordingly, in the discussions whether all forms of mad- ness were to be regarded as equal subjects of regret, Socrates is represented as saying;— The^ assertion before made is not true, which declares that when a lover is present, favor ought rather to be shewn to one who is not in love, because the one is mad and the other in his sober senses ; for if it were universally true that mad- ness is an evil, the assertion would then be correct. But now the greatest blessings we have spring from madness, when granted by divine bounty. For the prophetess at Delphi, and the priestesses at Dodona have, when mad, done many and noble services for Greece, both privately and publicly ; but in their sober senses little or nothing. And if we were to speak of the Sybil and others, who, employing prophetic inspiration, have correctly predicted many things to many persons respecting the future, we should be too prolix in relating what is known to every one. This, however, deserves to be adduced by way of testimony ; that such of the ancients as gave names to things, did not consider madness as dis- graceful, or a cause of reproach ; for otherwise they would not have attached this very name to that most noble art by which the future is discerned, and have called it a mad art. It was as considering it noble when it happens by divine decree, that they gave it this name; but the men of the present day, by ignorantly inserting the letter t, have called it the prophetic art.^' in the dreams arising from an unhappy flame. The Canticles of Solomon have been a favourite subject with the Mystics and Ecsta- tics of the Roman Catholic Church ; and Calmcil considers, that, among these, there have evidently been cases of insensate de- lirium. * The quotations from Plato arc taken from the English trans- Iftliont; by Cary, Burgcs, and Davis.