Specimens of the Table Talk of Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Madness is not simply a bodily disease. It is the sleep of the spirit with certain conditions of wakefulness; that is to say, lucid intervals. During this sleep, or recession of the spirit, the lower or bestial states of life rise up into action and prominence. It is an awful thing to be eternally tempted by the perverted senses. The reason may resist-it does resist-for a long time; but too often, at length, it yields for a moment, and the man is mad for ever. An act of the will is, in many...