MEMB. III.
Immediate cause of these precedent Symptoms.
To give some satisfaction to melancholy men that are troubled with these
symptoms, a better means in my judgment cannot be taken, than to show them
the causes whence they proceed; not from devils as they suppose, or that
they are bewitched or forsaken of God, hear or see, &c. as many of them
think, but from natural and inward causes, that so knowing them, they may
better avoid the effects, or at least endure them with more patience. The
most grievous and common symptoms are fear and sorrow, and that without a
cause to the wisest and discreetest men, in this malady not to be avoided.
The reason why they are so, Aetius discusseth at large, Tetrabib. 2. 2. in
his first problem out of Galen, lib. 2. de causis sympt. 1. For Galen
imputeth all to the cold that is black, and thinks that the spirits being
darkened, and the substance of the brain cloudy and dark, all the objects
thereof appear terrible, and the [2660]mind itself, by those dark,
obscure, gross fumes, ascending from black humours, is in continual
darkness, fear, and sorrow; divers terrible monstrous fictions in a
thousand shapes and apparitions occur, with violent passions, by which the
brain and fantasy are troubled and eclipsed. [2661]Fracastorius, lib. 2.
de intellect, will have cold to be the cause of fear and sorrow; for
such as are cold are ill-disposed to mirth, dull, and heavy, by nature
solitary, silent; and not for any inward darkness (as physicians think) for
many melancholy men dare boldly be, continue, and walk in the dark, and
delight in it: solum frigidi timidi: if they be hot, they are merry; and
the more hot, the more furious, and void of fear, as we see in madmen; but
this reason holds not, for then no melancholy, proceeding from choler
adust, should fear. [2662]Averroes scoffs at Galen for his reasons, and
brings five arguments to repel them: so doth Herc. de Saxonia, Tract. de
Melanch. cap. 3. assigning other causes, which are copiously censured
and confuted by Aelianus Montaltus, cap. 5 and 6. Lod. Mercatus de
Inter. morb. cur. lib. 1. cap. 17. Altomarus, cap. 7. de mel.
Guianerius, tract. 15. c. 1. Bright cap. 37. Laurentius, cap. 5.
Valesius, med. cont. lib. 5, con. 1. [2663]Distemperature, they
conclude, makes black juice, blackness obscures the spirits, the spirits
obscured, cause fear and sorrow. Laurentius, cap. 13. supposeth these
black fumes offend specially the diaphragma or midriff, and so per
consequens the mind, which is obscured as [2664]the sun by a cloud. To
this opinion of Galen, almost all the Greeks and Arabians subscribe, the
Latins new and old, internae, tenebrae offuscant animum, ut externae
nocent pueris, as children are affrighted in the dark, so are melancholy
men at all times, [2665]as having the inward cause with them, and still
carrying it about. Which black vapours, whether they proceed from the black
blood about the heart, as T. W. Jes. thinks in his 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 dilation, contraction,
confusion, alteration, tenebrosity, hot or cold distemperature, excluding
all material humours. [2669]Fracastorius accounts it a thing worthy of
inquisition, why they should entertain such false conceits, as that they
have horns, great noses, that they are birds, beasts, &c., why they should
think themselves kings, lords, cardinals. For the first, [2670]
Fracastorius gives two reasons: One is the disposition of the body; the
other, the occasion of the fantasy, as if their eyes be purblind, their
ears sing, by reason of some cold and rheum, &c. To the second, Laurentius
answers, the imagination inwardly or outwardly moved, represents to the
understanding, not enticements only, to favour the passion or dislike, but
a very intensive pleasure follows the passion or displeasure, and the will
and reason are captivated by delighting in it.
Why students and lovers are so often melancholy and mad, the philosopher of
[2671]Conimbra assigns this reason, because by a vehement and continual
meditation of that wherewith they are affected, they fetch up the spirits
into the brain, and with the heat brought with them, they incend it beyond
measure: and the cells of the inner senses dissolve their temperature,
which being dissolved, they cannot perform their offices as they ought.
Why melancholy men are witty, which Aristotle hath long since maintained in
his problems; and that [2672]all learned men, famous philosophers, and
lawgivers, ad unum fere omnes melancholici, have still been melancholy,
is a problem much controverted. Jason Pratensis will have it understood of
natural melancholy, which opinion Melancthon inclines to, in his book de
Anima, and Marcilius Ficinus de san. tuend. lib. 1. cap. 5. but not
simple, for that makes men stupid, heavy, dull, being cold and dry,
fearful, fools, and solitary, but mixed with the other humours, phlegm only
excepted; and they not adust, [2673]but so mixed as that blood he half,
with little or no adustion, that they be neither too hot nor too cold.
Aponensis, cited by Melancthon, thinks it proceeds from melancholy adust,
excluding all natural melancholy as too cold. Laurentius condemns his
tenet, because adustion of humours makes men mad, as lime burns when water
is cast on it. It must be mixed with blood, and somewhat adust, and so that
old aphorism of Aristotle may be verified, Nullum magnum ingenium sine
mixtura dementiae, no excellent wit without a mixture of madness.
Fracastorius shall decide the controversy, [2674]phlegmatic are dull:
sanguine lively, pleasant, acceptable, and merry, but not witty; choleric
are too swift in motion, and furious, impatient of contemplation, deceitful
wits: melancholy men have the most excellent wits, but not all; this humour
may be hot or cold, thick, or thin; if too hot, they are furious and mad:
if too cold, dull, stupid, timorous, and sad: if temperate, excellent,
rather inclining to that extreme of heat, than cold. This sentence of his
will agree with that of Heraclitus, a dry light makes a wise mind,
temperate heat and dryness are the chief causes of a good wit; therefore,
saith Aelian, an elephant is the wisest of all brute beasts, because his
brain is driest, et ob atrae, bilis capiam: this reason Cardan approves,
subtil. l. 12. Jo. Baptista Silvaticus, a physician of Milan, in his
first controversy, hath copiously handled this question: Rulandus in his
problems, Caelius Rhodiginus, lib. 17. Valleriola 6to. narrat. med.
Herc. de Saxonia, Tract. posth. de mel. cap. 3. Lodovicus Mercatus, de
inter. morb. cur. lib. cap. 17. Baptista Porta, Physiog. lib. 1. c.
13. and many others.
Weeping, sighing, laughing, itching, trembling, sweating, blushing, hearing
and seeing strange noises, visions, wind, crudity, are motions of the body,
depending upon these precedent motions of the mind: neither are tears,
affections, but actions (as Scaliger holds) [2675]the voice of such as
are afraid, trembles, because the heart is shaken (Conimb. prob. 6.
sec. 3. de som.) why they stutter or falter in their speech,
Mercurialis and Montaltus, cap. 17. give like reasons out of Hippocrates,
[2676]dryness, which makes the nerves of the tongue torpid. Fast
speaking (which is a symptom of some few) Aetius will have caused [2677]
from abundance of wind, and swiftness of imagination: [2678]baldness
comes from excess of dryness, hirsuteness from a dry temperature. The
cause of much waking in a dry brain, continual meditation, discontent,
fears and cares, that suffer not the mind to be at rest, incontinency is
from wind, and a hot liver, Montanus, cons. 26. Rumbling in the guts is
caused from wind, and wind from ill concoction, weakness of natural heat,
or a distempered heat and cold; [2679]Palpitation of the heart from
vapours, heaviness and aching from the same cause. That the belly is hard,
wind is a cause, and of that leaping in many parts. Redness of the face,
and itching, as if they were flea-bitten, or stung with pismires, from a
sharp subtle wind. [2680]Cold sweat from vapours arising from the
hypochondries, which pitch upon the skin; leanness for want of good
nourishment. Why their appetite is so great, [2681]Aetius answers: Os
ventris frigescit, cold in those inner parts, cold belly, and hot liver,
causeth crudity, and intention proceeds from perturbations, [2682]our
souls for want of spirits cannot attend exactly to so many intentive
operations, being exhaust, and overswayed by passion, she cannot consider
the reasons which may dissuade her from such affections.
[2683]Bashfulness and blushing, is a passion proper to men alone, and is
not only caused for [2684]some shame and ignominy, or that they are guilty
unto themselves of some foul fact committed, but as [2685]Fracastorius
well determines, ob defectum proprium, et timorem, from fear, and a
conceit of our defects; the face labours and is troubled at his presence
that sees our defects, and nature willing to help, sends thither heat, heat
draws the subtlest blood, and so we blush. They that are bold, arrogant,
and careless, seldom or never blush, but such as are fearful. Anthonius
Lodovicus, in his book de pudore, will have this subtle blood to arise
in the face, not so much for the reverence of our betters in presence,
[2686]but for joy and pleasure, or if anything at unawares shall pass
from us, a sudden accident, occurse, or meeting: (which Disarius in [2687]
Macrobius confirms) any object heard or seen, for blind men never blush, as
Dandinus observes, the night and darkness make men impudent. Or that we be
staid before our betters, or in company we like not, or if anything molest
and offend us, erubescentia turns to rubor, blushing to a continuate
redness. [2688]Sometimes the extremity of the ears tingle, and are red,
sometimes the whole face, Etsi nihil vitiosum commiseris, as Lodovicus
holds: though Aristotle is of opinion, omnis pudor ex vitio commisso, all
shame for some offence. But we find otherwise, it may as well proceed
[2689]from fear, from force and inexperience, (so [2690]Dandinus holds)
as vice; a hot liver, saith Duretus (notis in Hollerium:) from a hot
brain, from wind, the lungs heated, or after drinking of wine, strong
drink, perturbations, &c.
Laughter what it is, saith [2691]Tully, how caused, where, and so
suddenly breaks out, that desirous to stay it, we cannot, how it comes to
possess and stir our face, veins, eyes, countenance, mouth, sides, let
Democritus determine. The cause that it often affects melancholy men so
much, is given by Gomesius, lib. 3. de sale genial. cap. 18.
abundance of pleasant vapours, which, in sanguine melancholy especially,
break from the heart, [2692]and tickle the midriff, because it is
transverse and full of nerves: by which titillation the sense being moved,
and arteries distended, or pulled, the spirits from thence move and possess
the sides, veins, countenance, eyes. See more in Jossius de risu et fletu,
Vives 3 de Anima. Tears, as Scaliger defines, proceed from grief and
pity, [2693]or from the heating of a moist brain, for a dry cannot weep.
That they see and hear so many phantasms, chimeras, noises, visions, &c. as
Fienus hath discoursed at large in his book of imagination, and [2694]
Lavater de spectris, part. 1. cap. 2. 3. 4. their corrupt phantasy
makes them see and hear that which indeed is neither heard nor seen, Qui
multum jejunant, aut noctes ducunt insomnes, they that much fast, or want
sleep, as melancholy or sick men commonly do, see visions, or such as are
weak-sighted, very timorous by nature, mad, distracted, or earnestly seek.
Sabini quod volunt somniant, as the saying is, they dream of that they
desire. Like Sarmiento the Spaniard, who when he was sent to discover the
straits of Magellan, and confine places, by the Prorex of Peru, standing on
the top of a hill, Amaenissimam planitiem despicere sibi visus fuit,
aedificia magnifica, quamplurimos Pagos, alias Turres, splendida Templa,
and brave cities, built like ours in Europe, not, saith mine [2695]author,
that there was any such thing, but that he was vanissimus et nimis
credulus, and would fain have had it so. Or as [2696]Lod. Mercatus
proves, by reason of inward vapours, and humours from blood, choler, &c.
diversely mixed, they apprehend and see outwardly, as they suppose, divers
images, which indeed are not. As they that drink wine think all runs round,
when it is in their own brain; so is it with these men, the fault and cause
is inward, as Galen affirms, [2697]mad men and such as are near death,
quas extra se videre putant Imagines, intra oculos habent, 'tis in their
brain, which seems to be before them; the brain as a concave glass reflects
solid bodies. Senes etiam decrepiti cerebrum habent concavum et aridum, ut
imaginentur se videre (saith [2698]Boissardus) quae non sunt, old men
are too frequently mistaken and dote in like case: or as he that looketh
through a piece of red glass, judgeth everything he sees to be red; corrupt
vapours mounting from the body to the head, and distilling again from
thence to the eyes, when they have mingled themselves with the watery
crystal which receiveth the shadows of things to be seen, make all things
appear of the same colour, which remains in the humour that overspreads our
sight, as to melancholy men all is black, to phlegmatic all white, &c. Or
else as before the organs corrupt by a corrupt phantasy, as Lemnius, lib.
1. cap. 16. well quotes, [2699]cause a great agitation of spirits, and
humours, which wander to and fro in all the creeks of the brain, and cause
such apparitions before their eyes. One thinks he reads something written
in the moon, as Pythagoras is said to have done of old, another smells
brimstone, hears Cerberus bark: Orestes now mad supposed he saw the furies
tormenting him, and his mother still ready to run upon him,
[2700]O mater obsecro noli me persequi
His furiis, aspectu anguineis, horribilibus,
Ecce ecce me invadunt, in me jam ruunt;
but Electra told him thus raving in his mad fit, he saw no such sights at
all, it was but his crazed imagination.
[2701]Quiesce, quiesce miser in linteis tuis,
Non cernis etenim quae videre te putas.
So Pentheus (in Bacchis Euripidis) saw two suns, two Thebes, his brain
alone was troubled. Sickness is an ordinary cause of such sights. Cardan,
subtil. 8. Mens aegra laboribus et jejuniis fracta, facit eos videre,
audire, &c. And, Osiander beheld strange visions, and Alexander ab
Alexandro both, in their sickness, which he relates de rerum varietat.
lib. 8. cap. 44. Albategnius that noble Arabian, on his death-bed, saw a
ship ascending and descending, which Fracastorius records of his friend
Baptista Tirrianus. Weak sight and a vain persuasion withal, may effect as
much, and second causes concurring, as an oar in water makes a refraction,
and seems bigger, bended double, &c. The thickness of the air may cause
such effects, or any object not well-discerned in the dark, fear and
phantasy will suspect to be a ghost, a devil, &c. [2702]Quod nimis miseri
timent, hoc facile credunt, we are apt to believe, and mistake in such
cases. Marcellus Donatus, lib. 2. cap. 1. brings in a story out of
Aristotle, of one Antepharon which likely saw, wheresoever he was, his own
image in the air, as in a glass. Vitellio, lib. 10. perspect. hath such
another instance of a familiar acquaintance of his, that after the want of
three or four nights sleep, as he was riding by a river side, saw another
riding with him, and using all such gestures as he did, but when more light
appeared, it vanished. Eremites and anchorites have frequently such absurd
visions, revelations by reason of much fasting, and bad diet, many are
deceived by legerdemain, as Scot hath well showed in his book of the
discovery of witchcraft, and Cardan, subtil. 18. suffites, perfumes,
suffumigations, mixed candles, perspective glasses, and such natural
causes, make men look as if they were dead, or with horse-heads,
bull's-horns, and such like brutish shapes, the room full of snakes,
adders, dark, light, green, red, of all colours, as you may perceive in
Baptista Porta, Alexis, Albertus, and others, glow-worms, fire-drakes,
meteors, Ignis fatuus, which Plinius, lib. 2. cap. 37. calls Castor
and Pollux, with many such that appear in moorish grounds, about
churchyards, moist valleys, or where battles have been fought, the causes
of which read in Goclenius, Velouris, Fickius, &c. such fears are often
done, to frighten children with squibs, rotten wood, &c. to make folks look
as if they were dead, [2703]solito majores, bigger, lesser, fairer,
fouler, ut astantes sine capitibus videantur; aut toti igniti, aut
forma daemonum, accipe pilos canis nigri, &c. saith Albertus; and so 'tis
ordinary to see strange uncouth sights by catoptrics: who knows not that if
in a dark room, the light be admitted at one only little hole, and a paper
or glass put upon it, the sun shining, will represent on the opposite wall
all such objects as are illuminated by his rays? with concave and cylinder
glasses, we may reflect any shape of men, devils, antics, (as magicians
most part do, to gull a silly spectator in a dark room), we will ourselves,
and that hanging in the air, when 'tis nothing but such an horrible image
as [2704]Agrippa demonstrates, placed in another room. Roger Bacon of old
is said to have represented his own image walking in the air by this art,
though no such thing appear in his perspectives. But most part it is in the
brain that deceives them, although I may not deny, but that oftentimes the
devil deludes them, takes his opportunity to suggest, and represent vain
objects to melancholy men, and such as are ill affected. To these you may
add the knavish impostures of jugglers, exorcists, mass-priests, and
mountebanks, of whom Roger Bacon speaks, &c. de miraculis naturae et
artis. cap. 1. [2705]they can counterfeit the voices of all birds and
brute beasts almost, all tones and tunes of men, and speak within their
throats, as if they spoke afar off, that they make their auditors believe
they hear spirits, and are thence much astonished and affrighted with it.
Besides, those artificial devices to overhear their confessions, like that
whispering place of Gloucester [2706]with us, or like the duke's place at
Mantua in Italy, where the sound is reverberated by a concave wall; a
reason of which Blancanus in his Echometria gives, and mathematically
demonstrates.
So that the hearing is as frequently deluded as the sight, from the same
causes almost, as he that hears bells, will make them sound what he list.
As the fool thinketh, so the bell clinketh. Theophilus in Galen thought
he heard music, from vapours which made his ears sound, &c. Some are
deceived by echoes, some by roaring of waters, or concaves and
reverberation of air in the ground, hollow places and walls. [2707]At
Cadurcum, in Aquitaine, words and sentences are repeated by a strange echo
to the full, or whatsoever you shall play upon a musical instrument, more
distinctly and louder, than they are spoken at first. Some echoes repeat a
thing spoken seven times, as at Olympus, in Macedonia, as Pliny relates,
lib. 36. cap. 15. Some twelve times, as at Charenton, a village near
Paris, in France. At Delphos, in Greece, heretofore was a miraculous echo,
and so in many other places. Cardan, subtil. l. 18, hath wonderful
stories of such as have been deluded by these echoes. Blancanus the Jesuit,
in his Echometria, hath variety of examples, and gives his reader full
satisfaction of all such sounds by way of demonstration. [2708]At Barrey,
an isle in the Severn mouth, they seem to hear a smith's forge; so at
Lipari, and those sulphureous isles, and many such like, which Olaus speaks
of in the continent of Scandia, and those northern countries. Cardan de
rerum var. l. 15, c. 84, mentioneth a woman, that still supposed she
heard the devil call her, and speaking to her, she was a painter's wife in
Milan: and many such illusions and voices, which proceed most part from a
corrupt imagination.
Whence it comes to pass, that they prophesy, speak several languages, talk
of astronomy, and other unknown sciences to them (of which they have been
ever ignorant): [2709]I have in brief touched, only this I will here add,
that Arculanus, Bodin. lib. 3, cap. 6, daemon. and some others, [2710]
hold as a manifest token that such persons are possessed with the devil; so
doth [2711]Hercules de Saxonia, and Apponensis, and fit only to be cured
by a priest. But [2712]Guianerius, [2713]Montaltus, Pomporiatius of
Padua, and Lemnius lib. 2. cap. 2, refer it wholly to the
ill-disposition of the [2714]humour, and that out of the authority of
Aristotle prob. 30. 1, because such symptoms are cured by purging; and as
by the striking of a flint fire is enforced, so by the vehement motion of
spirits, they do elicere voces inauditas, compel strange speeches to be
spoken: another argument he hath from Plato's reminiscentia, which all
out as likely as that which [2715]Marsilius Ficinus speaks of his friend
Pierleonus; by a divine kind of infusion he understood the secrets of
nature, and tenets of Grecian and barbarian philosophers, before ever he
heard of, saw, or read their works: but in this I should rather hold with
Avicenna and his associates, that such symptoms proceed from evil spirits,
which take all opportunities of humours decayed, or otherwise to pervert
the soul of man: and besides, the humour itself is balneum diaboli, the
devil's bath; and as Agrippa proves, doth entice him to seize upon them.
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