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.
treatise of the passions of the mind, or stomach, spleen, midriff, or all the misaffected parts together, it boots not, they keep the mind in a perpetual dungeon, and oppress it with continual fears, anxieties, sorrows, &c.  It is an ordinary thing for such as are sound to laugh at this dejected pusillanimity, and those other symptoms of melancholy, to make themselves merry with them, and to wonder at such, as toys and trifles, which may be resisted and withstood, if they will themselves:  but let him that so wonders, consider with himself, that if a man should tell him on a sudden, some of his especial friends were dead, could he choose but grieve?  Or set him upon a steep rock, where he should be in danger to be precipitated, could he be secure?  His heart would tremble for fear, and his head be giddy.  P. Byaras, Tract. de pest. gives instance (as I have said) [2666]"and put case” (saith he) “in one that walks upon a plank, if it lie on the ground, he can safely do it:  but if the same plank be laid over some deep water, instead of a bridge, he is vehemently moved, and ’tis nothing but his imagination, forma cadendi impressa, to which his other members and faculties obey.”  Yea, but you infer, that such men have a just cause to fear, a true object of fear; so have melancholy men an inward cause, a perpetual fume and darkness, causing fear, grief, suspicion, which they carry with them, an object which cannot be removed; but sticks as close, and is as inseparable as a shadow to a body, and who can expel or overrun his shadow?  Remove heat of the liver, a cold stomach, weak spleen:  remove those adust humours and vapours arising from them, black blood from the heart, all outward perturbations, take away the cause, and then bid them not grieve nor fear, or be heavy, dull, lumpish, otherwise counsel can do little good; you may as well bid him that is sick of an ague not to be a dry; or him that is wounded not to feel pain.

Suspicion follows fear and sorrow at heels, arising out of the same fountain, so thinks [2667]Fracastorius, “that fear is the cause of suspicion, and still they suspect some treachery, or some secret machination to be framed against them, still they distrust.”  Restlessness proceeds from the same spring, variety of fumes make them like and dislike.  Solitariness, avoiding of light, that they are weary of their lives, hate the world, arise from the same causes, for their spirits and humours are opposite to light, fear makes them avoid company, and absent themselves, lest they should be misused, hissed at, or overshoot themselves, which still they suspect.  They are prone to venery by reason of wind.  Angry, waspish, and fretting still, out of abundance of choler, which causeth fearful dreams and violent perturbations to them, both sleeping and waking:  That they suppose they have no heads, fly, sink, they are pots, glasses, &c. is wind in their heads. [2668]Herc. de Saxonia doth ascribe this to the several motions in the animal spirits, “their

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The Anatomy of Melancholy from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.