For if Tasso, 'fashioned in the pure poetry of the atmosphere of antiquity, who showed more judgment and genius than any other Italian for many a long year', now finds himself 'in so wretched a state, surviving himself', it was also because his agile and lively mind has overthrown him; the light has made him blind; his reason's grasp was so precise and so intense that it has left him quite irrational; his quest for knowledge, eager and exacting, has led to his becoming like a dumb beast; his rare aptitude for the activities of the soul has left him with no activity and no soul.