Et passim toto volitantes aethere curas.
Blind hopes and wishes, their thoughts and affairs,
Whispers and rumours, and those flying cares.
That which is more to be lamented, they are mad like Seneca's blind woman, and will not acknowledge, or [392]seek for any cure of it, for pauci vident morbum suum, omnes amant. If our leg or arm offend us, we covet by all means possible to redress it; [393]and if we labour of a bodily disease, we send for a physician; but for the diseases of the mind we take no notice of them: [394]Lust harrows us on the one side; envy, anger, ambition on the other. We are torn in pieces by our passions, as so many wild horses, one in disposition, another in habit; one is melancholy, another mad; [395]and which of us all seeks for help, doth acknowledge his error, or knows he is sick? As that stupid fellow put out the candle because the biting fleas should not find him; he shrouds himself in an unknown habit, borrowed titles, because nobody should discern him. Every man thinks with himself, Egomet videor mihi sanus, I am well, I am wise, and laughs at others. And 'tis a general fault amongst them all, that [396] which our forefathers have approved, diet, apparel, opinions, humours, customs, manners, we deride and reject in our time as absurd. Old men account juniors all fools, when they are mere dizzards; and as to sailors, ———terraeque urbesque recedunt——— they move, the land stands still, the world hath much more wit, they dote themselves. Turks deride us, we them; Italians Frenchmen, accounting them light headed fellows, the French scoff again at Italians, and at their several customs; Greeks have condemned all the world but themselves of barbarism, the world as much vilifies them now; we account Germans heavy, dull fellows, explode many of their fashions; they as contemptibly think of us; Spaniards laugh at all, and all again at them. So are we fools and ridiculous, absurd in our actions, carriages, diet, apparel, customs, and consultations; we [397] scoff and point one at another, when as in conclusion all are fools, [398] “and they the veriest asses that hide their ears most.” A private man if he be resolved with himself, or set on an opinion, accounts all idiots and asses that are not affected as he is, [399]———nil rectum, nisi quod placuit sibi, ducit, that are not so minded, [400](quodque volunt homines se bene velle putant,) all fools that think not as he doth: he will not say with Atticus, Suam quisque sponsam, mihi meam, let every man enjoy his own spouse; but his alone is fair, suus amor, &c. and scorns all in respect of himself [401]will imitate none, hear none [402]but himself, as Pliny said, a law and example to himself. And that which Hippocrates, in his epistle to Dionysius, reprehended of old, is verified in our times, Quisque in alio superfluum esse censet, ipse quod non habet nec curat, that which he hath not himself or doth not esteem, he accounts superfluity, an idle quality, a mere foppery in another: like Aesop's fox, when he had lost his tail, would have all his fellow foxes cut off theirs. The Chinese say, that we Europeans have one eye, they themselves two, all the world else is blind: (though [403]Scaliger accounts them brutes too, merum pecus,) so thou and thy sectaries are only wise, others indifferent, the rest beside themselves, mere idiots and asses. Thus not acknowledging our own errors and imperfections, we securely deride others, as if we alone were free, and spectators of the rest, accounting it an excellent thing, as indeed it is, Aliena optimum frui insania, to make ourselves merry with other men's obliquities, when as he himself is more faulty than the rest, mutato nomine, de te fabula narratur, he may take himself by the nose for a fool; and which one calls maximum stultitiae specimen, to be ridiculous to others, and not to perceive or take notice of it, as Marsyas was when he contended with Apollo, non intelligens se deridiculo haberi, saith [404] Apuleius; 'tis his own cause, he is a convicted madman, as [405]Austin well infers “in the eyes of wise men and angels he seems like one, that to our thinking walks with his heels upwards.” So thou laughest at me, and I at thee, both at a third; and he returns that of the poet upon us again, [406]Hei mihi, insanire me aiunt, quum ipsi ultro insaniant. We accuse others of madness, of folly, and are the veriest dizzards ourselves. For it is a great sign and property of a fool (which Eccl. x. 3, points at) out of pride and self-conceit to insult, vilify, condemn, censure, and call other men fools (Non videmus manticae quod a tergo est) to tax that in others of which we are most faulty; teach that which we follow not ourselves: For an inconstant man to write of constancy, a profane liver prescribe rules of sanctity and piety, a dizzard himself make a treatise of wisdom, or with Sallust to rail downright at spoilers of countries, and yet in [407]office to be a most grievous poller himself. This argues weakness, and is an evident sign of such parties' indiscretion. [408]Peccat uter nostrum cruce dignius? “Who is the fool now?” Or else peradventure in some places we are all mad for company, and so 'tis not seen, Satietas erroris et dementiae, pariter absurditatem et admirationem tollit. 'Tis with us, as it was of old (in [409]Tully's censure at least) with C. Pimbria in Rome, a bold, hair-brain, mad fellow, and so esteemed of all, such only excepted, that were as mad as himself: now in such a case there is [410]no notice taken of it.
Nimirum insanus paucis videatur; eo quod
Maxima pars hominum morbo jactatur eodem.
When all are mad, where all are like opprest
Who can discern one mad man from the rest?
Clames licet et mare coelo
———Confundas, surdo narras,[416]