d
ebrietatem se quisque paret_, let's all be mad and [463]drunk. But we
commonly mistake, and go beyond our commission, we reel to the opposite
part, [464]we are not capable of it, [465]and as he said of the Greeks,
_Vos Graeci semper pueri, vos Britanni, Galli, Germani, Itali_, &c. you are
a company of fools.

Proceed now _a partibus ad totum_, or from the whole to parts, and you
shall find no other issue, the parts shall be sufficiently dilated in this
following Preface. The whole must needs follow by a sorites or induction.
Every multitude is mad, [466]_bellua multorum capitum_, (a many-headed
beast), precipitate and rash without judgment, _stultum animal_, a roaring
rout. [467]Roger Bacon proves it out of Aristotle, _Vulgus dividi in
oppositum contra sapientes, quod vulgo videtur verum, falsum est_; that
which the commonalty accounts true, is most part false, they are still
opposite to wise men, but all the world is of this humour (_vulgus_), and
thou thyself art _de vulgo_, one of the commonalty; and he, and he, and so
are all the rest; and therefore, as Phocion concludes, to be approved in
nought you say or do, mere idiots and asses. Begin then where you will, go
backward or forward, choose out of the whole pack, wink and choose, you
shall find them all alike, "never a barrel better herring."

Copernicus, Atlas his successor, is of opinion, the earth is a planet,
moves and shines to others, as the moon doth to us. Digges, Gilbert,
Keplerus, Origanus, and others, defend this hypothesis of his in sober
sadness, and that the moon is inhabited: if it be so that the earth is a
moon, then are we also giddy, vertiginous and lunatic within this sublunary
maze.

I could produce such arguments till dark night: if you should hear the
rest,

"Ante diem clauso component vesper Olimpo:"

"Through such a train of words if I should run,
The day would sooner than the tale be done:"

but according to my promise, I will descend to particulars. This melancholy
extends itself not to men only, but even to vegetals and sensibles. I speak
not of those creatures which are saturnine, melancholy by nature, as lead,
and such like minerals, or those plants, rue, cypress, &c. and hellebore
itself, of which [468]Agrippa treats, fishes, birds, and beasts, hares,
conies, dormice, &c., owls, bats, nightbirds, but that artificial, which is
perceived in them all. Remove a plant, it will pine away, which is
especially per