As that gymnosophist in [1571]Plutarch made answer to Alexander (demanding which spake best), Every one of his fellows did speak better than the other: so may I say of these causes; to him that shall require which is the greatest, every one is more grievous than other, and this of passion the greatest of all. A most frequent and ordinary cause of melancholy, [1572] fulmen perturbationum (Picolomineus calls it) this thunder and lightning of perturbation, which causeth such violent and speedy alterations in this our microcosm, and many times subverts the good estate and temperature of it. For as the body works upon the mind by his bad humours, troubling the spirits, sending gross fumes into the brain, and so per consequens disturbing the soul, and all the faculties of it,
[1573]———Corpus onustum,
Hesternis vitiis animum quoque praegravat una,
How these passions produce this effect, [1595]Agrippa hath handled at large, Occult. Philos. l. 11. c. 63. Cardan, l. 14. subtil. Lemnius, l. 1. c. 12, de occult. nat. mir. et lib. 1. cap. 16. Suarez, Met. disput. 18. sect. 1. art. 25. T. Bright, cap. 12. of his Melancholy Treatise. Wright the Jesuit, in his Book of the Passions of the Mind, &c. Thus in brief, to our imagination cometh by the outward sense or memory, some object to be known (residing in the foremost part of the brain), which he misconceiving or amplifying presently communicates to the heart, the seat of all affections. The pure spirits forthwith flock from the brain to the heart, by certain secret channels, and signify what good or bad object was presented; [1596]which immediately bends itself to prosecute, or avoid it; and withal, draweth with it other humours to help it: so in pleasure, concur great store of purer spirits; in sadness, much melancholy blood; in ire, choler. If the imagination be very apprehensive, intent, and violent, it sends great store of spirits to, or from the heart, and makes a deeper impression, and greater tumult, as the humours in the body be likewise prepared, and the temperature itself ill or well disposed, the passions are longer and stronger; so that the first step and fountain of all our grievances in this kind, is [1597]laesa imaginatio, which misinforming the heart, causeth all these distemperatures, alteration and confusion of spirits and humours. By means of which, so disturbed, concoction is hindered, and the principal parts are much debilitated; as [1598]Dr. Navarra well declared, being consulted by Montanus about a melancholy Jew. The spirits so confounded, the nourishment must needs be abated, bad humours increased, crudities and thick spirits engendered with melancholy blood. The other parts cannot perform their functions, having the spirits drawn from them by vehement passion, but fail in sense and motion; so we look upon a thing, and see it not; hear, and observe not; which otherwise would much affect us, had we been free. I may therefore conclude with [1599]Arnoldus, Maxima vis est phantasiae, et huic uni fere, non autem corporis intemperiei, omnis melancholiae causa est ascribenda: “Great is the force of imagination, and much more ought the cause of melancholy to be ascribed to this alone, than to the distemperature of the body.” Of which imagination, because it hath so great a stroke in producing this malady, and is so powerful of itself, it will not be improper to my discourse, to make a brief digression, and speak of the force of it, and how it causeth this alteration. Which manner of digression, howsoever some dislike, as frivolous and impertinent, yet I am of [1600]Beroaldus's opinion, “Such digressions do mightily delight and refresh a weary reader, they are like sauce to a bad stomach, and I do therefore most willingly use them.”
SUBSECT. II.—Of the Force of Imagination.
What imagination is, I have sufficiently declared in my digression of the anatomy of the soul. I will only now point at the wonderful effects and power of it; which, as it is eminent in all, so most especially it rageth in melancholy persons, in keeping the species of objects so long, mistaking, amplifying them by continual and [1601]strong meditation, until at length it produceth in some parties real effects, causeth this, and many other maladies. And although this phantasy of ours be a subordinate faculty to reason, and should be ruled by it, yet in many men, through inward or outward distemperatures, defect of organs, which are unapt, or otherwise contaminated, it is likewise unapt, or hindered, and hurt. This we see verified in sleepers, which by reason of humours and concourse of vapours troubling the phantasy, imagine many times absurd and prodigious things, and in such as are troubled with incubus, or witch-ridden (as we call it), if they lie on their backs, they suppose an old woman rides, and sits so hard upon them, that they are almost stifled for want of breath; when there is nothing offends, but a concourse of bad humours, which trouble the phantasy. This is likewise evident in such as walk in the night in their sleep, and do strange feats: [1602]these vapours move the phantasy, the phantasy the appetite, which moving the animal spirits causeth the body to walk up and down as if they were awake. Fracast. l. 3. de intellect, refers all ecstasies to this force of imagination, such as lie whole days together in a trance: as that priest whom [1603]Celsus speaks of, that could separate himself from his senses when he list, and lie like a dead man, void of life and sense. Cardan brags of himself, that he could do as much, and that when he list. Many times such men when they come to themselves, tell strange things of heaven and hell, what visions they have seen; as that St. Owen, in Matthew Paris, that went into St. Patrick's purgatory, and the monk of Evesham in the same author. Those common apparitions in Bede and Gregory, Saint Bridget's revelations, Wier. l. 3. de lamiis, c. 11. Caesar Vanninus, in his Dialogues, &c. reduceth (as I have formerly said), with all those tales of witches' progresses, dancing, riding, transformations, operations, &c. to the force of [1604] imagination, and the [1605]devil's illusions. The like effects almost are to be seen in such as are awake: how many chimeras, antics, golden mountains and castles in the air do they build unto themselves? I appeal to painters, mechanicians, mathematicians. Some ascribe all vices to a false and corrupt imagination, anger, revenge, lust, ambition, covetousness, which prefers falsehood before that which is right and good, deluding the soul with false shows and suppositions. [1606]Bernardus Penottus will have heresy and superstition to proceed from this fountain; as he falsely imagineth, so he believeth; and as he conceiveth of it, so it must be, and it shall be, contra gentes, he will have it so. But most especially in passions and affections, it shows strange and evident effects: what will not a fearful man conceive in the dark? What strange forms of bugbears, devils, witches, goblins? Lavater imputes the greatest cause of spectrums, and the like apparitions, to fear, which above all other passions begets the strongest imagination (saith [1607]Wierus), and so likewise love, sorrow, joy, &c. Some die suddenly, as she that saw her son come from the battle at Cannae, &c. Jacob the patriarch, by force of imagination, made speckled lambs, laying speckled rods before his sheep. Persina, that Ethiopian queen in Heliodorus, by seeing the picture of Persius and Andromeda, instead of a blackamoor, was brought to bed of a fair white child. In imitation of whom belike, a hard-favoured fellow in Greece, because he and his wife were both deformed, to get a good brood of children, Elegantissimas imagines in thalamo collocavit, &c. hung the fairest pictures he could buy for money in his chamber, “That his wife by frequent sight of them, might conceive and bear such children.” And if we may believe Bale, one of Pope Nicholas the Third's concubines by seeing of [1608]a bear was brought to bed of a monster. “If a woman” (saith [1609] Lemnius), “at the time of her conception think of another man present or absent, the child will be like him.” Great-bellied women, when they long, yield us prodigious examples in this kind, as moles, warts, scars, harelips, monsters, especially caused in their children by force of a depraved phantasy in them: Ipsam speciem quam animo effigiat, faetui inducit: She imprints that stamp upon her child which she [1610]conceives unto herself. And therefore Lodovicus Vives, lib. 2. de Christ, faem., gives a special caution to great-bellied women, [1611]“that they do not admit such absurd conceits and cogitations, but by all means avoid those horrible objects, heard or seen, or filthy spectacles.” Some will laugh, weep, sigh, groan, blush, tremble, sweat, at such things as are suggested unto them by their imagination. Avicenna speaks of one that could cast himself into a palsy when he list; and some can imitate the tunes of birds and beasts that they can hardly be discerned: Dagebertus' and Saint Francis' scars and wounds, like those of Christ's (if at the least any such were), [1612]Agrippa supposeth to have happened by force of imagination: that some are turned to wolves, from men to women, and women again to men (which is constantly believed) to the same imagination; or from men to asses, dogs, or any other shapes. [1613]Wierus ascribes all those famous transformations to imagination; that in hydrophobia they seem to see the picture of a dog, still in their water, [1614]that melancholy men and sick men conceive so many fantastical visions, apparitions to themselves, and have such absurd apparitions, as that they are kings, lords, cocks, bears, apes, owls; that they are heavy, light, transparent, great and little, senseless and dead (as shall be showed more at large, in our [1615] sections of symptoms), can be imputed to nought else, but to a corrupt, false, and violent imagination. It works not in sick and melancholy men only, but even most forcibly sometimes in such as are sound: it makes them suddenly sick, and [1616]alters their temperature in an instant. And sometimes a strong conceit or apprehension, as [1617]Valesius proves, will take away diseases: in both kinds it will produce real effects. Men, if they see but another man tremble, giddy or sick of some fearful disease, their apprehension and fear is so strong in this kind, that they will have the same disease. Or if by some soothsayer, wiseman, fortune-teller, or physician, they be told they shall have such a disease, they will so seriously apprehend it, that they will instantly labour of it. A thing familiar in China (saith Riccius the Jesuit), [1618]“If it be told them they shall be sick on such a day, when that day comes they will surely be sick, and will be so terribly afflicted, that sometimes they die upon it.” Dr. Cotta in his discovery of ignorant practitioners of physic, cap. 8, hath two strange stories to this purpose, what fancy is able to do. The one of a parson's wife in Northamptonshire, An. 1607, that coming to a physician, and told by him that she was troubled with the sciatica, as he conjectured (a disease she was free from), the same night after her return, upon his words, fell into a grievous fit of a sciatica: and such another example he hath of another good wife, that was so troubled with the cramp, after the same manner she came by it, because her physician did but name it. Sometimes death itself is caused by force of phantasy. I have heard of one that coming by chance in company of him that was thought to be sick of the plague (which was not so) fell down suddenly dead. Another was sick of the plague with conceit. One seeing his fellow let blood falls down in a swoon. Another (saith [1619]Cardan out of Aristotle), fell down dead (which is familiar to women at any ghastly sight), seeing but a man hanged. A Jew in France (saith [1620]Lodovicus Vives), came by chance over a dangerous passage or plank, that lay over a brook in the dark, without harm, the next day perceiving what danger he was in, fell down dead. Many will not believe such stories to be true, but laugh commonly, and deride when they hear of them; but let these men consider with themselves, as [1621]Peter Byarus illustrates it, If they were set to walk upon a plank on high, they would be giddy, upon which they dare securely walk upon the ground. Many (saith Agrippa), [1622]“strong-hearted men otherwise, tremble at such sights, dazzle, and are sick, if they look but down from a high place, and what moves them but conceit?” As some are so molested by phantasy; so some again, by fancy alone, and a good conceit, are as easily recovered. We see commonly the toothache, gout, falling-sickness, biting of a mad dog, and many such maladies cured by spells, words, characters, and charms, and many green wounds by that now so much used Unguentum Armarium, magnetically cured, which Crollius and Goclenius in a book of late hath defended, Libavius in a just tract as stiffly contradicts, and most men controvert. All the world knows there is no virtue in such charms or cures, but a strong conceit and opinion alone, as [1623]Pomponatius holds, “which forceth a motion of the humours, spirits, and blood, which takes away the cause of the malady from the parts affected.” The like we may say of our magical effects, superstitious cures, and such as are done by mountebanks and wizards. “As by wicked incredulity many men are hurt” (so saith [1624]Wierus of charms, spells, &c.), “we find in our experience, by the same means many are relieved.” An empiric oftentimes, and a silly chirurgeon, doth more strange cures than a rational physician. Nymannus gives a reason, because the patient puts his confidence in him, [1625] which Avicenna “prefers before art, precepts, and all remedies whatsoever.” 'Tis opinion alone (saith [1626]Cardan), that makes or mars physicians, and he doth the best cures, according to Hippocrates, in whom most trust. So diversely doth this phantasy of ours affect, turn, and wind, so imperiously command our bodies, which as another [1627]“Proteus, or a chameleon, can take all shapes; and is of such force (as Ficinus adds), that it can work upon others, as well as ourselves.” How can otherwise blear eyes in one man cause the like affection in another? Why doth one man's yawning [1628]make another yawn? One man's pissing provoke a second many times to do the like? Why doth scraping of trenchers offend a third, or hacking of files? Why doth a carcass bleed when the murderer is brought before it, some weeks after the murder hath been done? Why do witches and old women fascinate and bewitch children: but as Wierus, Paracelsus, Cardan, Mizaldus, Valleriola, Caesar Vanninus, Campanella, and many philosophers think, the forcible imagination of the one party moves and alters the spirits of the other. Nay more, they can cause and cure not only diseases, maladies, and several infirmities, by this means, as Avicenna, de anim. l. 4. sect. 4, supposeth in parties remote, but move bodies from their places, cause thunder, lightning, tempests, which opinion Alkindus, Paracelsus, and some others, approve of. So that I may certainly conclude this strong conceit or imagination is astrum hominis, and the rudder of this our ship, which reason should steer, but, overborne by phantasy, cannot manage, and so suffers itself, and this whole vessel of ours to be overruled, and often overturned. Read more of this in Wierus, l. 3. de Lamiis, c. 8, 9, 10. Franciscus Valesius, med. controv. l. 5. cont. 6. Marcellus Donatus, l. 2. c. 1. de hist. med. mirabil. Levinus Lemnius, de occult. nat. mir. l. 1. c. 12. Cardan, l. 18. de rerum var. Corn. Agrippa, de occult. plilos. cap. 64, 65. Camerarius, 1 cent. cap. 54. horarum subcis. Nymannus, morat. de Imag. Laurentius, and him that is instar omnium, Fienus, a famous physician of Antwerp, that wrote three books de viribus imaginationis. I have thus far digressed, because this imagination is the medium deferens of passions, by whose means they work and produce many times prodigious effects: and as the phantasy is more or less intended or remitted, and their humours disposed, so do perturbations move, more or less, and take deeper impression.
SUBSECT. III.—Division of Perturbations.
Perturbations and passions, which trouble the phantasy, though they dwell between the confines of sense and reason, yet they rather follow sense than reason, because they are drowned in corporeal organs of sense. They are commonly [1629]reduced into two inclinations, irascible and concupiscible. The Thomists subdivide them into eleven, six in the coveting, and five in the invading. Aristotle reduceth all to pleasure and pain, Plato to love and hatred, [1630]Vives to good and bad. If good, it is present, and then we absolutely joy and love; or to come, and then we desire and hope for it. If evil, we absolute hate it; if present, it is by sorrow; if to come fear. These four passions [1631]Bernard compares “to the wheels of a chariot, by which we are carried in this world.” All other passions are subordinate unto these four, or six, as some will: love, joy, desire, hatred, sorrow, fear; the rest, as anger, envy, emulation, pride, jealousy, anxiety, mercy, shame, discontent, despair, ambition, avarice, &c., are reducible unto the first; and if they be immoderate, they [1632]consume the spirits, and melancholy is especially caused by them. Some few discreet men there are, that can govern themselves, and curb in these inordinate affections, by religion, philosophy, and such divine precepts, of meekness, patience, and the like; but most part for want of government, out of indiscretion, ignorance, they suffer themselves wholly to be led by sense, and are so far from repressing rebellious inclinations, that they give all encouragement unto them, leaving the reins, and using all provocations to further them: bad by nature, worse by art, discipline, [1633]custom, education, and a perverse will of their own, they follow on, wheresoever their unbridled affections will transport them, and do more out of custom, self-will, than out of reason. Contumax voluntas, as Melancthon calls it, malum facit: this stubborn will of ours perverts judgment, which sees and knows what should and ought to be done, and yet will not do it. Mancipia gulae, slaves to their several lusts and appetite, they precipitate and plunge [1634]themselves into a labyrinth of cares, blinded with lust, blinded with ambition; [1635]“They seek that at God's hands which they may give unto themselves, if they could but refrain from those cares and perturbations, wherewith they continually macerate their minds.” But giving way to these violent passions of fear, grief, shame, revenge, hatred, malice, &c., they are torn in pieces, as Actaeon was with his dogs, and [1636]crucify their own souls.
SUBSECT. IV.—Sorrow a Cause of Melancholy.
Sorrow. Insanus dolor.] In this catalogue of passions, which so much torment the soul of man, and cause this malady, (for I will briefly speak of them all, and in their order,) the first place in this irascible appetite, may justly be challenged by sorrow. An inseparable companion, [1637]“The mother and daughter of melancholy, her epitome, symptom, and chief cause:” as Hippocrates hath it, they beget one another, and tread in a ring, for sorrow is both cause and symptom of this disease. How it is a symptom shall be shown in its place. That it is a cause all the world acknowledgeth, Dolor nonnullis insaniae causa fuit, et aliorum morborum insanabilium, saith Plutarch to Apollonius; a cause of madness, a cause of many other diseases, a sole cause of this mischief, [1638]Lemnius calls it. So doth Rhasis, cont. l. 1. tract. 9. Guianerius, Tract. 15. c. 5, And if it take root once, it ends in despair, as [1639]Felix Plater observes, and as in [1640]Cebes' table, may well be coupled with it. [1641]Chrysostom, in his seventeenth epistle to Olympia, describes it to be “a cruel torture of the soul, a most inexplicable grief, poisoned worm, consuming body and soul, and gnawing the very heart, a perpetual executioner, continual night, profound darkness, a whirlwind, a tempest, an ague not appearing, heating worse than any fire, and a battle that hath no end. It crucifies worse than any tyrant; no torture, no strappado, no bodily punishment is like unto it.” 'Tis the eagle without question which the poets feigned to gnaw [1642]Prometheus' heart, and “no heaviness is like unto the heaviness of the heart,” Eccles. xxv. 15, 16. [1643]“Every perturbation is a misery, but grief a cruel torment,” a domineering passion: as in old Rome, when the Dictator was created, all inferior magistracies ceased; when grief appears, all other passions vanish. “It dries up the bones,” saith Solomon, cap. 17. Prov., makes them hollow-eyed, pale, and lean, furrow-faced, to have dead looks, wrinkled brows, shrivelled cheeks, dry bodies, and quite perverts their temperature that are misaffected with it. As Eleonara, that exiled mournful duchess (in our [1644]English Ovid), laments to her noble husband Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester,