stands upon his head.”  It is doubted by some, Gravioresne morbi a perturbationibus, an ab humoribus, whether humours or perturbations cause the more grievous maladies.  But we find that of our Saviour, Mat. xxvi. 41, most true, “The spirit is willing, the flesh is weak,” we cannot resist; and this of [1591]Philo Judeus, “Perturbations often offend the body, and are most frequent causes of melancholy, turning it out of the hinges of his health.”  Vives compares them to [1592]"Winds upon the sea, some only move as those great gales, but others turbulent quite overturn the ship.”  Those which are light, easy, and more seldom, to our thinking, do us little harm, and are therefore contemned of us:  yet if they be reiterated, [1593]"as the rain” (saith Austin) “doth a stone, so do these perturbations penetrate the mind:”  [1594]and (as one observes) “produce a habit of melancholy at the last,” which having gotten the mastery in our souls, may well be called diseases.

How these passions produce this effect, [1595]Agrippa hath handled at large, Occult.  Philos. l. 11. c. 63. Cardan, l. 14. subtil. Lemnius, l. 1. c. 12, de occult. nat. mir. et lib. 1. cap. 16. Suarez, Met. disput. 18. sect. 1. art. 25. T. Bright, cap. 12. of his Melancholy Treatise.  Wright the Jesuit, in his Book of the Passions of the Mind, &c.  Thus in brief, to our imagination cometh by the outward sense or memory, some object to be known (residing in the foremost part of the brain), which he misconceiving or amplifying presently communicates to the heart, the seat of all affections.  The pure spirits forthwith flock from the brain to the heart, by certain secret channels, and signify what good or bad object was presented; [1596]which immediately bends itself to prosecute, or avoid it; and withal, draweth with it other humours to help it:  so in pleasure, concur great store of purer spirits; in sadness, much melancholy blood; in ire, choler.  If the imagination be very apprehensive, intent, and violent, it sends great store of spirits to, or from the heart, and makes a deeper impression, and greater tumult, as the humours in the body be likewise prepared, and the temperature itself ill or well disposed, the passions are longer and stronger; so that the first step and fountain of all our grievances in this kind, is [1597]_laesa imaginatio_, which misinforming the heart, causeth all these distemperatures, alteration and confusion of spirits and humours.  By means of which, so disturbed, concoction is hindered, and the principal parts are much debilitated; as [1598]Dr. Navarra well declared, being consulted by Montanus about a melancholy Jew.  The spirits so confounded, the nourishment must needs be abated, bad humours increased, crudities and thick spirits engendered with melancholy blood.  The other parts cannot perform their functions, having the spirits drawn from them by vehement passion, but fail in sense and motion; so we look upon a thing, and see it not; hear, and