Thou, Nature, art my goddess; to thy law 
     My services are bound. Wherefore should I 
     Stand in the plague of custom, and permit 
     The curiosity of nations to deprive me, 
     For that I am some twelve or fourteen moonshines 
     Lag of a brother?

Edmund has l’esprit de quantitŽ  so essential to tactile 
measurement and to the impersonality of the empirical mind. 
Edmund is presented as a force of nature, eccentric to mere 
human experience and “the curiosity of nations.” He is a prime 
agent in the fragmentation of human institutions. But the 
great fragmenter is Lear himself, with his inspired idea of 
setting up a constitutional monarchy by means of delegating 
by authority. His plan for himself is that he become a specialist: