With unreason the case is different. She is
the natural complement of reason, without whose existence reason itself
were non-existent.
If, then, reason would be non-existent were there no such thing as
unreason, surely it follows that the more unreason there is, the more
reason there must be also? Hence the necessity for the development of
unreason, even in the interests of reason herself. The Professors of
Unreason deny that they undervalue reason: none can be more convinced
than they are, that if the double currency cannot be rigorously deduced
as a necessary consequence of human reason, the double currency should
cease forthwith; but they say that it must be deduced from no narrow and
exclusive view of reason which should deprive that admirable faculty of
the one-half of its own existence. Unreason is a part of reason; it must
therefore be allowed its full share in stating the initial conditions.
CHAPTER XXII: THE COLLEGES OF UNREASON--Continued
Of genius they make no account, for they say that every one is a genius,
more or less. No one is so physically sound that no part of him will be
even a little unsound, and no one is so diseased but that some part of
him will be healthy--so no man is so mentally and morally sound, but that
he will be in part both mad and wicked; and no man is so mad and wicked
but he will be sensible and honourable in part.
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