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.  Everyone who governs himself by these rules is allowed the title of wise, and reputed to be in his senses:  and everyone, 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.  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 entertain, should have the same care taken of him as a beggar who fancies himself a duke or a prince?  Or why should a man who starves in the midst of plenty be trusted with himself more than he who fancies he is an emperor in the midst of poverty?  I have several women of quality in my thoughts who set so exorbitant a value upon themselves that I have often most heartily pitied them, and wished them for their recovery under the same discipline with the pewterer’s wife.  I find by several hints in ancient authors that when the Romans were in the height of power and luxury they assigned out of their vast dominions an island called Anticyra as an habitation for madmen.  This was the Bedlam of the Roman empire, whither all persons who had lost their wits used to resort from all parts of the world in quest of them.  Several of the Roman emperors were advised to repair to this island:  but most of them, instead of listening to such sober counsels, gave way to their distraction, until the people knocked them on the head as despairing of their cure.  In short, it was as usual for men of distempered brains to take a voyage to Anticyra in those days as it is in ours for persons who have a disorder in their lungs to go to Montpellier.