The Anatomy of Melancholy. Robert Burton

But we commonly mistake, and go beyond our commission, we reel to the opposite part, [464]we are not capable of it, [465]and as he said of the Greeks, Vos Graeci semper pueri, vos Britanni, Galli, Germani, Itali, &c. you are a company of fools.

      Proceed now a partibus ad totum, or from the whole to parts, and you shall find no other issue, the parts shall be sufficiently dilated in this following Preface. The whole must needs follow by a sorites or induction. Every multitude is mad, [466]bellua multorum capitum, (a many-headed beast), precipitate and rash without judgment, stultum animal, a roaring rout. [467]Roger Bacon proves it out of Aristotle, Vulgus dividi in oppositum contra sapientes, quod vulgo videtur verum, falsum est; that which the commonalty accounts true, is most part false, they are still opposite to wise men, but all the world is of this humour (vulgus), and thou thyself art de vulgo, one of the commonalty; and he, and he, and so are all the rest; and therefore, as Phocion concludes, to be approved in nought you say or do, mere idiots and asses. Begin then where you will, go backward or forward, choose out of the whole pack, wink and choose, you shall find them all alike, "never a barrel better herring."

      Copernicus, Atlas his successor, is of opinion, the earth is a planet, moves and shines to others, as the moon doth to us. Digges, Gilbert, Keplerus, Origanus, and others, defend this hypothesis of his in sober sadness, and that the moon is inhabited: if it be so that the earth is a moon, then are we also giddy, vertiginous and lunatic within this sublunary maze.

      I could produce such arguments till dark night: if you should hear the rest,

      "Ante diem clauso component vesper Olimpo:"

      "Through such a train of words if I should run,

       The day would sooner than the tale be done:"

      but according to my promise, I will descend to particulars. This melancholy extends itself not to men only, but even to vegetals and sensibles. I speak not of those creatures which are saturnine, melancholy by nature, as lead, and such like minerals, or those plants, rue, cypress, &c. and hellebore itself, of which [468]Agrippa treats, fishes, birds, and beasts, hares, conies, dormice, &c., owls, bats, nightbirds, but that artificial, which is perceived in them all. Remove a plant, it will pine away, which is especially perceived in date trees, as you may read at large in Constantine's husbandry, that antipathy betwixt the vine and the cabbage, vine and oil. Put a bird in a cage, he will die for sullenness, or a beast in a pen, or take his young ones or companions from him, and see what effect it will cause. But who perceives not these common passions of sensible creatures, fear, sorrow, &c. Of all other, dogs are most subject to this malady, insomuch some hold they dream as men do, and through violence of melancholy run mad; I could relate many stories of dogs that have died for grief, and pined away for loss of their masters, but they are common in every [469]author.

      Kingdoms, provinces, and politic bodies are likewise sensible and subject to this disease, as [470]Boterus in his politics hath proved at large. "As in human bodies" (saith he) "there be divers alterations proceeding from humours, so be there many diseases in a commonwealth, which do as diversely happen from several distempers," as you may easily perceive by their particular symptoms. For where you shall see the people civil, obedient to God and princes, judicious, peaceable and quiet, rich, fortunate, [471]and flourish, to live in peace, in unity and concord, a country well tilled, many fair built and populous cities, ubi incolae nitent as old [472]Cato said, the people are neat, polite and terse, ubi bene, beateque vivunt, which our politicians make the chief end of a commonwealth; and which [473] Aristotle, Polit. lib. 3, cap. 4, calls Commune bonum, Polybius lib. 6, optabilem et selectum statum, that country is free from melancholy; as it was in Italy in the time of Augustus, now in China, now in many other flourishing kingdoms of Europe. But whereas you shall see many discontents, common grievances, complaints, poverty, barbarism, beggary, plagues, wars, rebellions, seditions, mutinies, contentions, idleness, riot, epicurism, the land lie untilled, waste, full of bogs, fens, deserts, &c., cities decayed, base and poor towns, villages depopulated, the people squalid, ugly, uncivil; that kingdom, that country, must needs be discontent, melancholy, hath a sick body, and had need to be reformed.

      Now that cannot well be effected, till the causes of these maladies be first removed, which commonly proceed from their own default, or some accidental inconvenience: as to be situated in a bad clime, too far north, sterile, in a barren place, as the desert of Libya, deserts of Arabia, places void of waters, as those of Lop and Belgian in Asia, or in a bad air, as at Alexandretta, Bantam, Pisa, Durrazzo, S. John de Ulloa, &c., or in danger of the sea's continual inundations, as in many places of the Low Countries and elsewhere, or near some bad neighbours, as Hungarians to Turks, Podolians to Tartars, or almost any bordering countries, they live in fear still, and by reason of hostile incursions are oftentimes left desolate. So are cities by reason [474]of wars, fires, plagues, inundations, [475]wild beasts, decay of trades, barred havens, the sea's violence, as Antwerp may witness of late, Syracuse of old, Brundusium in Italy, Rye and Dover with us, and many that at this day suspect the sea's fury and rage, and labour against it as the Venetians to their inestimable charge. But the most frequent maladies are such as proceed from themselves, as first when religion and God's service is neglected, innovated or altered, where they do not fear God, obey their prince, where atheism, epicurism, sacrilege, simony, &c., and all such impieties are freely committed, that country cannot prosper. When Abraham came to Gerar, and saw a bad land, he said, sure the fear of God was not in that place. [476] Cyprian Echovius, a Spanish chorographer, above all other cities of Spain, commends Borcino, "in which there was no beggar, no man poor, &c., but all rich, and in good estate, and he gives the reason, because they were more religious than, their neighbours:" why was Israel so often spoiled by their enemies, led into captivity, &c., but for their idolatry, neglect of God's word, for sacrilege, even for one Achan's fault? And what shall we except that have such multitudes of Achans, church robbers, simoniacal patrons, &c., how can they hope to flourish, that neglect divine duties, that live most part like Epicures?

      Other common grievances are generally noxious to a body politic; alteration of laws and customs, breaking privileges, general oppressions, seditions, &c., observed by [477]Aristotle, Bodin, Boterus, Junius, Arniscus, &c. I will only point at some of chiefest. [478]Impotentia gubernandi, ataxia, confusion, ill government, which proceeds from unskilful, slothful, griping, covetous, unjust, rash, or tyrannizing magistrates, when they are fools, idiots, children, proud, wilful, partial, indiscreet, oppressors, giddy heads, tyrants, not able or unfit to manage such offices: [479]many noble cities and flourishing kingdoms by that means are desolate, the whole body groans under such heads, and all the members must needs be disaffected, as at this day those goodly provinces in Asia Minor, &c. groan under the burthen of a Turkish government; and those vast kingdoms of Muscovia, Russia, [480]under a tyrannizing duke. Who ever heard of more civil and rich populous countries than those of "Greece, Asia Minor, abounding with all [481]wealth, multitudes of inhabitants, force, power, splendour and magnificence?" and that miracle of countries, [482]the Holy Land, that in so small a compass of ground could maintain so many towns, cities, produce so many fighting men? Egypt another paradise, now barbarous and desert, and almost waste, by the despotical government of an imperious Turk, intolerabili servitutis jugo premitur ([483]one saith) not only fire and water, goods or lands, sed ipse spiritus ab insolentissimi victoris pendet nutu, such is their slavery, their lives and souls depend upon his insolent will and command. A tyrant that spoils all wheresoever he comes, insomuch that an [484]historian complains, "if an old inhabitant should now see them, he would not know them, if a traveller, or stranger, it would grieve his heart to behold them." Whereas [485]Aristotle notes, Novae exactiones, nova onera imposita, new burdens and exactions daily come upon them, like those of which Zosimus, lib. 2, so grievous, ut viri uxores, patres filios prostituerent ut exactoribus e questu, &c., they must needs be discontent, hinc civitatum gemitus et ploratus, as [486] Tully holds, hence come those complaints and tears of cities, "poor, miserable, rebellious, and desperate subjects," as [487]Hippolitus adds; and [488]as a judicious countryman of ours observed not long since, in a survey of that great Duchy of Tuscany, the people lived much grieved and discontent, as appeared by their manifold and manifest complainings in that kind. "That the state was like a sick body which had lately taken physic, whose humours are not yet well settled, and weakened