The Anatomy of Melancholy eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 2,057 pages of information about The Anatomy of Melancholy.

The Anatomy of Melancholy eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 2,057 pages of information about The Anatomy of Melancholy.
[1573]  ------“Corpus onustum,
Hesternis vitiis animum quoque praegravat una,”

with fear, sorrow, &c., which are ordinary symptoms of this disease:  so on the other side, the mind most effectually works upon the body, producing by his passions and perturbations miraculous alterations, as melancholy, despair, cruel diseases, and sometimes death itself.  Insomuch that it is most true which Plato saith in his Charmides, omnia corporis mala ab anima procedere; all the [1574]mischiefs of the body proceed from the soul:  and Democritus in [1575]Plutarch urgeth, Damnatam iri animam a corpore, if the body should in this behalf bring an action against the soul, surely the soul would be cast and convicted, that by her supine negligence had caused such inconveniences, having authority over the body, and using it for an instrument, as a smith doth his hammer (saith [1576]Cyprian), imputing all those vices and maladies to the mind.  Even so doth [1577]Philostratus, non coinquinatur corpus, nisi consensuanimae; the body is not corrupted, but by the soul.  Lodovicus Vives will have such turbulent commotions proceed from ignorance and indiscretion. [1578]All philosophers impute the miseries of the body to the soul, that should have governed it better, by command of reason, and hath not done it.  The Stoics are altogether of opinion (as [1579]Lipsius and [1580]Picolomineus record), that a wise man should be [Greek:  apathaes], without all manner of passions and perturbations whatsoever, as [1581]Seneca reports of Cato, the [1582] Greeks of Socrates, and [1583]Io.  Aubanus of a nation in Africa, so free from passion, or rather so stupid, that if they be wounded with a sword, they will only look back. [1584]Lactantius, 2 instit., will exclude “fear from a wise man:”  others except all, some the greatest passions.  But let them dispute how they will, set down in Thesi, give precepts to the contrary; we find that of [1585]Lemnius true by common experience; “No mortal man is free from these perturbations:  or if he be so, sure he is either a god, or a block.”  They are born and bred with us, we have them from our parents by inheritance. A parentibus habemus malum hunc assem, saith [1586]Pelezius, Nascitur una nobiscum, aliturque, ’tis propagated from Adam, Cain was melancholy, [1587]as Austin hath it, and who is not?  Good discipline, education, philosophy, divinity (I cannot deny), may mitigate and restrain these passions in some few men at some times, but most part they domineer, and are so violent, [1588]that as a torrent (torrens velut aggere rupto) bears down all before, and overflows his banks, sternit agros, sternit sata, (lays waste the fields, prostrates the crops,) they overwhelm reason, judgment, and pervert the temperature of the body; Fertur [1589] equis auriga, nec audit currus habenas.  Now such a man (saith [1590]Austin) “that is so led, in a wise man’s eye, is no better than he that

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The Anatomy of Melancholy from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.