This unfitness for practical life, this sudden change of personality, through which the poet or the child within are confronted with unbearable conditions, brings a smile to the lips of the man who is thoroughly "fit." The man of the world does not only keep religion and business in water-tight compartments, he keeps dreams for the night, and poetical recollections for important occasions, such as weddings and funerals. He is not troubled by unexpected visitants from his subconscious self which cause inconsistencies and poetic delirium. He may well deplore the unpracticality of men like Renan who dreamily allow themselves to be exploited by "sharper" brains, whilst they spend years in contemplation of their own complexity. "I am a tissue of contradictions," wrote Renan, "... one of my halves is constantly occupied in demolishing the other, like the fabulous animal of Ctesias who ate his paws without knowing it."[3] Instead of selling his process of manufacturing iodine, Strindberg returned to the hyperchemical task which he had set himself: to eliminate the barriers between matter, and that which is called spirit. An object worthy indeed of concentrated effort, worthy even in the face of the inevitable failure of seeking to grasp that which to human intelligence is unknowable! Meanwhile he went "mad." Mad as Tasso and Cellini, Poe and Blake. We cannot dispute the madness, but we may hold that the madness of genius is more valuable to humanity than the sanity of mediocrity. In Strindberg we can clearly distinguish between cerebral derangements causing auditory hallucinations as well as delusions of persecution, and the super-conscious activity which produced the state of _clairpsychism_, which is generally classed with insanity. Dr. W. Hirsch has studied Strindberg's disease from the ordinary alienist's point of view, and concluded that he suffered from _paranoia simplex chronica_--a diagnosis which is empty of meaning when applied to such a mind. Dr. S. Rahmer[4] made Strindberg the subject of a more comprehensive psychopathic study, and defined his case as one of _melancholia daemomaniaca_. The inadequacy of such diagnoses will be apparent to every serious student of _Inferno_ and _Legends_--the books which are mostly extracts from the diary in which he recorded his madness--and of plays like _To Damascus, Advent, Easier, The Dream Play_, and _The Great Highway_, which give evidence of his lucidity, and of the mysticism which he distilled from mental torture.