in his book of heroical love, defines it, [4750]"a continual cogitation of that which he desires, with a confidence or hope of compassing it;” which definition his commentator cavils at.  For continual cogitation is not the genus but a symptom of love; we continually think of that which we hate and abhor, as well as that which we love; and many things we covet and desire, without all hope of attaining.  Carolus a Lorme, in his Questions, makes a doubt, An amor sit morbus, whether this heroical love be a disease:  Julius Pollux Onomast. lib. 6. cap. 44. determines it.  They that are in love are likewise [4751]sick; lascivus, salax, lasciviens, et qui in venerem furit, vere est aegrotus, Arnoldus will have it improperly so called, and a malady rather of the body than mind.  Tully, in his Tusculans, defines it a furious disease of the mind.  Plato, madness itself.  Ficinus, his Commentator, cap. 12. a species of madness, “for many have run mad for women,” Esdr. iv. 26.  But [4752]Rhasis “a melancholy passion:”  and most physicians make it a species or kind of melancholy (as will appear by the symptoms), and treat of it apart; whom I mean to imitate, and to discuss it in all his kinds, to examine his several causes, to show his symptoms, indications, prognostics, effect, that so it may be with more facility cured.

The part affected in the meantime, as [4753]Arnoldus supposeth, “is the former part of the head for want of moisture,” which his Commentator rejects.  Langius, med. epist. lib. 1. cap. 24. will have this passion seated in the liver, and to keep residence in the heart, [4754]"to proceed first from the eyes so carried by our spirits, and kindled with imagination in the liver and heart;” coget amare jecur, as the saying is. Medium feret per epar, as Cupid in Anacreon.  For some such cause belike [4755] Homer feigns Titius’ liver (who was enamoured of Latona) to be still gnawed by two vultures day and night in hell, [4756]"for that young men’s bowels thus enamoured, are so continually tormented by love.”  Gordonius, cap. 2. part. 2. [4757]"will have the testicles an immediate subject or cause, the liver an antecedent.”  Fracastorius agrees in this with Gordonius, inde primitus imaginatio venerea, erectio, &c. titillatissimam partem vocat, ita ut nisi extruso semine gestiens voluptas non cessat, nec assidua veneris recordatio, addit Gnastivinius Comment. 4.  Sect. prob. 27.  Arist. But [4758]properly it is a passion of the brain, as all other melancholy, by reason of corrupt imagination, and so doth Jason Pratensis, c. 19. de morb. cerebri (who writes copiously of this erotical love), place and reckon it amongst the affections of the brain. [4759]Melancthon de anima confutes those that make the liver a part affected, and Guianerius, Tract. 15. cap. 13 et 17. though many put all the affections in the heart, refers it to the brain.  Ficinus,