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Favorite Science: RICHARD L. FRANKLIN - Re Emily Dickinson and the murky lines between sanity and madness: In 1899, Bernard Hart published a book entitled "The Psychology of Insanity." Hart was puzzled over the question of what makes one person "sane" and another person "insane." He interviewed many people in asylums who had delusions about their identity. He found that if a person believed he were Napoleon, no amount of evidence would ever convince him otherwise. He would always discount the evidence as false, fabricated by enemies, and so forth. Hart began to wonder whether "sane" people ever adopted and held beliefs in the same manner. After interviewing countless "sane" people, namely those who are allowed to live outside insane asylums, he concluded that nearly all of them adopted and held on to political or religious beliefs in exactly the same manner. No amount of evidence or logic would ever convince them to drop those beliefs. Hart concluded that society often arbitrarily determines which sets of beliefs mark one as insane and which beliefs are accepted as sane. If one holds onto a belief about one's identity that is totally belied by logic and evidence, he is thereby insane; however, if one holds a religious or political belief that is completely refuted by logic and evidence, he is not the least bit crazy.