“No,” replied the other, with a heavy, I heartless laugh, “your analogy fails; it is rather like setting a man with one eye to guide another who has none.”
“But why should not a man who has two guide him better?”
“Because the consciousness that there is but the one eye between both of them, will make him proceed more cautiously.”
“But that in the blind is an act of reason,” replied the stranger, “which cannot be applied to the insane, in whom reason is deficient.”
“But where reason does not exist,” said the doctor, “we must regulate them by the passions.”
“By the exercise of which passion do you gain the greatest ascendency over them?” asked the stranger.
“By fear, of course. We can do nothing, at least very little, without inspiring terror.”
“Ah,” thought the stranger, “I have now got the key to his conduct!—But, sir,” he added, “we never fear and love the same object at the same time.”
“True enough, sir,” replied the ruffian; “but who could or ought to calculate upon the attachment of a madman? Boys are corrected more frequently than men, because their reason is not developed: and those in whom it does not exist, or in whom it has been impaired, must be subjected to the same discipline. Terror, besides, is the principle upon which reason itself, and all society, are governed.”
“But suppose I had a brother, now, or a relative, might I not hesitate to place him in an establishment conducted on principles which I condemn?”