_Delirium_ is a common name to all.
Alexander, Gordonius, Jason Pratensis, Savanarola, Guianerius, Montaltus,
confound them as differing _secundum magis et minus_; so doth David, Psal.
xxxvii. 5. "I said unto the fools, deal not so madly," and 'twas an old
Stoical paradox, _omnes stultos insanire_, [179]all fools are mad, though
some madder than others. And who is not a fool, who is free from
melancholy? Who is not touched more or less in habit or disposition? If in
disposition, "ill dispositions beget habits, if they persevere," saith
[180]Plutarch, habits either are, or turn to diseases. 'Tis the same which
Tully maintains in the second of his Tusculans, _omnium insipientum animi
in morbo sunt, et perturbatorum_, fools are sick, and all that are troubled
in mind: for what is sickness, but as [181]Gregory Tholosanus defines it,
"A dissolution or perturbation of the bodily league, which health
combines:" and who is not sick, or ill-disposed? in whom doth not passion,
anger, envy, discontent, fear and sorrow reign? Who labours not of this
disease? Give me but a little leave, and you shall see by what testimonies,
confessions, arguments, I will evince it, that most men are mad, that they
had as much need to go a pilgrimage to the Anticyrae (as in [182]Strabo's
time they did) as in our days they run to Compostella, our Lady of Sichem,
or Lauretta, to seek for help; that it is like to be as prosperous a voyage
as that of Guiana, and that there is much more need of hellebore than of
tobacco.
That men are so misaffected, melancholy, mad, giddy-headed, hear the
testimony of Solomon, Eccl. ii. 12. "And I turned to behold wisdom, madness
and folly," &c. And ver. 23: "All his days are sorrow, his travel grief,
and his heart taketh no rest in the night." So that take melancholy in what
sense you will, properly or improperly, in disposition or habit, for
pleasure or for pain, dotage, discontent, fear, sorrow, madness, for part,
or all, truly, or metaphorically, 'tis all one. Laughter itself is madness
according to Solomon, and as St. Paul hath it, "Worldly sorrow brings
death." "The hearts of the sons of men are evil, and madness is in their
hearts while they live," Eccl. ix. 3. "Wise men themselves are no better."
Eccl. i. 18. "In the multitude of wisdom is much grief, and he that
increaseth wisdom, increaseth sorrow," chap. ii. 17. He hated life itself,
nothing pleased him: he hated his labour, all, as [183]he concludes, is
"sorr
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