whatsoever, we desire help and health, a present recovery, if by any means possible it may be procured; we will freely part with all our other fortunes, substance, endure any misery, drink bitter potions, swallow those distasteful pills, suffer our joints to be seared, to be cut off, anything for future health:  so sweet, so dear, so precious above all other things in this world is life:  ’tis that we chiefly desire, long life and happy days, [2757]_multos da Jupiter annos_, increase of years all men wish; but to a melancholy man, nothing so tedious, nothing so odious; that which they so carefully seek to preserve [2758]he abhors, he alone; so intolerable are his pains; some make a question, graviores morbi corporis an animi, whether the diseases of the body or mind be more grievous, but there is no comparison, no doubt to be made of it, multo enim saevior longeque est atrocior animi, quam corporis cruciatus (Lem. l. 1. c. 12.) the diseases of the mind are far more grievous.—­Totum hic pro vulnere corpus, body and soul is misaffected here, but the soul especially.  So Cardan testifies de rerum var. lib. 8. 40. [2759]Maximus Tyrius a Platonist, and Plutarch, have made just volumes to prove it. [2760]_Dies adimit aegritudinem hominibus_, in other diseases there is some hope likely, but these unhappy men are born to misery, past all hope of recovery, incurably sick, the longer they live the worse they are, and death alone must ease them.

Another doubt is made by some philosophers, whether it be lawful for a man in such extremity of pain and grief, to make away himself:  and how these men that so do are to be censured.  The Platonists approve of it, that it is lawful in such cases, and upon a necessity; Plotinus l. de beatitud. c. 7. and Socrates himself defends it, in Plato’s Phaedon, “if any man labour of an incurable disease, he may despatch himself, if it be to his good.”  Epicurus and his followers, the cynics and stoics in general affirm it, Epictetus and [2761]Seneca amongst the rest, quamcunque veram esse viam ad libertatem, any way is allowable that leads to liberty, [2762]"let us give God thanks, that no man is compelled to live against his will;” [2763] quid ad hominem claustra, career, custodia? liberum ostium habet, death is always ready and at hand. Vides illum praecipitem locum, illud flumen, dost thou see that steep place, that river, that pit, that tree, there’s liberty at hand, effugia servitutis et doloris sunt, as that Laconian lad cast himself headlong (non serviam aiebat puer) to be freed of his misery:  every vein in thy body, if these be nimis operosi exitus, will set thee free, quid tua refert finem facias an accipias? there’s no necessity for a man to live in misery. Malum est necessitati vivere; sed in necessitate vivere, necessitas nulla est.  Ignavus qui sine causa moritur, et stultus qui cum dolore vivit. Idem