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A Fall of some sort or other -- the creation, as it were, of the non- / absolute -- is the fundamental postulate of the moral history of man. Without / this hypothesis, man is unintelligible; with it, every phenomenon is / explicable. The mystery itself is too profound for human insight.
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 instances, precedent to / complete insanity. I think it was Bishop Butler who said, that he was "all / his life struggling against the devilish suggestions of his senses," which / would have maddened him, if he had relaxed the stern wakefulness of his / reason for a single moment.