The anatomy of melancholy : what it is, with all the kinds auses, symptomes, prognostickes, & seuerall cures of it, in three partitions, with their severall sections, members, & subsections, philosophically, medicinally, historically opened & cut up / By Democritus Junior [i.e. Robert Burton]. With a satyricall preface conducing to the following discourse.

Robert Burton

Date:: 1676

Credit: The anatomy of melancholy : what it is, with all the kinds auses, symptomes, prognostickes, & seuerall cures of it, in three partitions, with their severall sections, members, & subsections, philosophically, medicinally, historically opened & cut up / By Democritus Junior [i.e. Robert Burton]. With a satyricall preface conducing to the following discourse. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$'3 tlS. ^ Lib, de nut. boni- pupis, they play with babies of clouts and fuch toyes, we fpprt with greater, babies. We cannot accufe or condemn one another, be¬ ing faulty our felves, (delirawenta locjMerii^you calk idly, or as upbraided Demeu^ in- h Adelph. fanis, anfcrte ^ for we are as mad Cur own f 5- felves, and it is hard to fay which is the w'orft; Nay, 'tis univerfally fo, 'V'ltam regit fortuna^ non fapientta, When ^ Socrates had taken great pains to i< find out a wife man, and to that purpofe had ^ologia so- confulted with Philofophers, Poets, Artificers, cratis. he concludes all men were fools; and though it procured him both anggr and much en- Ivy ^ yet in all companies he would openly profefs it. When ^ Supputias in ‘Toraamis ^Ant.ViaL had travelled all over Euro^pe to conferr with a wife man, he returned at laft without his errand, and could find none. Cardan con- currs with him , Fevo there are {for ought I I, can perceive ) well in their wits. So doth fame mentis ^Tfilly^ J fee every thing to be donefoolifily I'int, and unadvifedly. I think all the Anticyra will not reftore them to a Ah uheri- their wits. ^ If thefe men now, that held ^ Xeno- biisjxfien- dot as Crates Epitietus lanchorn, tU laBatl {q fottifh, and had no more brains than fo cacutin Beetles, what fliall we think of the com- rfS'-monllcy? whatof thereft? dotl&je- Yea, but will you infer, that is true of cur crate- Heathens, if they be conferred with Chrlfti- ans, I Cor. 3.19. T'he wfdom of this world is foelifsnefs with God, earthly and deviltfi, as JamescdXh it, 3. 15, They were vain in their imaginations, and their foolifs heart was fall of darknefs, Rom. i. 21,22. When they profe^ed themfelves wife, became fools. Their witty works are aflmired hereon earth, whilft their fouls are tormented in Hell fire. In forae n Stulte Jllefiniflrorfum, hiedextrorfum, unus tstririue^^^jf^l^J^ Error, fed variis illudit partibus omnes, video. _ One reels to this, another to that wall. M ’Tis the fame error that deludes them all. oinfamT They dote all, but not alike, Uavia tmotv Heaven upon the children of men, to fee if any did Hnderfiand, Pfalm^^.2,$» but all are corrupt, err, Rom, 3.12. None doth good, no not one. Job aggravates this, 4. 18. ‘Behold he found no fiedfaflnefs in his fervants, and _ - ui laid folly upon his (Angels, 19. How much opco/«, not in the fame kind, One is covetous, £^afm.chil. more on them that dwell in houfes of clay ? In c Hie this fenfe we are all aS' fools, and the Scri- profundijft- jg jf[i„erva, wc and our wri- fodfna. fhallow and imperfed. But I do ^ ’ not fo mean •, even in our ordinary dealings, we are no better than fools* All our adions, dPanegyr. 2,%^ Pliny lo\dTra]an,uphraidus of folly, our rrajano ^y^oie courfe of life is but matter of laughter : Im^exvro- we are not foberly wife • and the world it brare f h- felf, which ought at leaft to be wife by rea- titiam vi- fon of his antiquity, as ® Hugo de Prato Flo- dentur. j^ave it, femper flultitat , is every ^dbmivaL fooliflt than other the more it is Mundus whipped, the worfe it iSy and as a child will quioban- fiH he crowned with rofes and flowers. We tiquitatm apifli in it, afmi hipedes, and every place fapimjm- inverforum nApuleiorum, of metaraor- prflulti- phofed and two-legged affes, inverforumSile- '^ati& nid- norum, childifh, pueri inflsar bimuli, tremuld Hi f^itllis dQYjffiintis in ulna, Jovianm Tonta- fdltpm <t^t7tonio;Dial, brings in feme laughing vult rofis at an old man, that by reafon of his age was a air floribiis little fond, but as he admonifheth there, Ne mireris mi hofpes, de hoc fene, marvel not at' him only, for tota htc civitas delirium, all our Town dotes in like fort, ^ we are a com¬ pany of fools. Ask not with him in the Poet, g Larva hunc intemperia infaniaque agitant putlU. Hor. fenem ? What madnefs ghofts this old man, gplaiitus what madnefs ghofts us all ? For we are ad unum omnes, all mad , femel infanivimus omnes, not once, but alway fo, Cr femel, & f%-^ mid, & femper, ever and altogether as bad as he •, and not fenex bis puer, delira anus, but fay it of us all,/mper pueri, young and old, all dote, as La^antius proves om of Seneca •, and no difference betwixt us and children, favingthat, major a ludimus, & grandioribus coronin, lln]a.num te omnes- pueri, cla- mantqiie AitbuUr, a fecond lafeivious, athird ambitious, a fourth 3. cent.ic. envious, cfrc, as Damiflppus the Stoick. hath well illuftrated in the Poet, mortalum _ ^ . A qui non P Defipmnt omnes aque ac tu. : ^Hqua in ’Tis an inbred malady in. every one of us, re defipk, there is feminarhm ftultitU, afeminaty of fo\-licet alius ly, which if it be flirred up, or get ahead, will run in infinitum, and infinitely varies, as we our felves are fever ally additted , fedih^Bal- lUe avari- thaz,ar Caftilio: and cannot fo eafily be rooted tig,ambi- out, it takes fuch fafl: hold, as holds, to. radices fiultitia, ’^fo we are bred, and fo p Hor. 1.2. we continue. Some fay there be two main j^f. 3. defedsofwit, error and ignorance, to which all others are reduced ; by ignorance we know not things neceflary , by error we know them falfly. Ignorance is a privation, ttroc paum femi- a pofitive aft. From ignorance comes vice, tz//- from error herefie, But make howma- ny kinds you will, divide and fubdivide, men are free, or that do not impinge on fome excitetur, one kind or other. ^ Sic plerumque agitat in infni- flidtos infeitia, as he that examines his own and other mens aftions, fhall find. tprimqut * Charon in Lucian, as he wittily feigns, i^x vitx was condufted by Aiercury to fuch a primafm- where he might fee all the world at once after he had fufficiently viewed, and looked about, Mercury would needs know of him tereunt what he had obferved : He told him, that he dies, their fawa vaft multitude, and a promifeuous, their * habitations like Mole-hills, the men as Em- mens, ,he could difeern Cities like fo many So fools Hives of Bees , wherein every Bee had a rommon- fiing, and they did nought elfe but fling one another, fome domineering like Hornets, big- ger than the refi, fome Hks filching Wafps, •rom.2. others as Drones. Over their heads were ho¬ vering$

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