Only a few burnt clues: a fear that came back repeatedly over the centuries that madness would rise up and swamp the world; the rituals surrounding the exclusion and inclusion of the madman; that careful attention, from the nineteenth century onwards, that tried to surprise in madness something that would reveal the truth of man; the same impatience that rejected and accepted the words of madness, a hesitancy to recognise their inanity or their decisiveness.