Volume 1
The anatomy of melancholy / edited by Rev. A.R. Shilleto.
- Burton, Robert
- Date:
- Reprint 1896 (3 vol set)
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The anatomy of melancholy / edited by Rev. A.R. Shilleto. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)
51/581 page 11
![DEMOCRITUS JUNIOR TO THE READER. GENTLE Reader, I presume thou wilt be very inquisitive to know what antick or personate actor this is, that so inso- ently intrudes upon this common theatre to the world's view, irrogating another man's name, whence he is, why he doth it, and vhat he hath to say. Although, as 1he said, Primum si noluero, wn respondebo, quis coacturus est? I am a free man born, and nay choose whether I will tell, who can compel me ? If I be urged, I vill as readily reply as that Egyptian in 2Plutarch, when a curious ellow would needs know what he had in his basket, Quum vides wlatam, quid inquiris in rem absconditam ? It was therefore :overed, because he should not know what was in it. Seek not ifter that which is hid; if the contents please thee, 3and be for thy tse, suppose the Man in the Moon, or whom thou wilt, to be the iuthor; I would not willingly be known. Yet in some sort to ;ive thee satisfaction, which is more than I need, I will shew a eason, both of this usurped name, title, and subject. And first >f the name of Democritus; lest any man by reason of it should >e deceived, expecting a pasquil, a satire, some ridiculous treatise as I myself should have done) some prodigious tenent, or paradox 4 the Earth's motion, of infinite Worlds, in infinito vacuo, ex for- uitd atomorum collisione, in an infinite waste, so caused by an ccidental collision of Motes in the Sun, all which Democritus ield, Epicurus and their Master Leucippus of old maintained, and re lately revived by Copernicus, Brunus, and some others. Be- ides it hath been always an ordinary custom, as4 Gellius observes, or later Writers and impostors, to broach many absurd and insolent ■ctions, under the name of so noble a philosopher as Democritus, to 1 Seneca in ludo in mortem Claudii Caesaris. [Apocolocyntosis, Initium.] 2 Lib. 2 Curiositate. [§ iii]. 3 Mod6 haec tibi usui sint, quemvis auctorem fingito. Wecker. Lib. io, c. i2. Multa a male feriatis in Democriti nomine commenta data, Dbilitatis auctoritatisque ejus perfugio utentibus.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21270818_001_0055.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
