wise or discreet that would willingly have his health, and yet say A third argument may be derived from the precedent, * all men are carried away with passion, discontent, lust, pleasures, &c. they generally hate those vertues they should love, and love such vices they should hate. Therefore more than melancholy, quite mad, bruit beasts, and void of reason, so Chrysostome contends; or rather dead and buried alive," as 1 Philo Judeus concludes it for a certainty," of all such that are carried away with passions, or labour of any disease of the minde. Where is fear and sorrow," there" Lactantius stiffely maintains, "wisdom cannot dwell. 66 "qui cupiet, metuct quoque porrò, Qui metuens vivit, liber mihì non erit unquam." Seneca and the rest of the stoicks are of opinion, that where is any the least perturbation, wisdom may not be found. "What more ridiculous," as " Lactantius urgeth," then to hear how Xerxes whipped the Hellespont, threatned the Mountain Athos, and the like. To speak ad rem, who is free from passion? Mortalis nemo est quem non attingat dolor, morbusve, as P Tully determines out of an old Poem, no mortal men can avoid sorrow and sicknes, and sorrow is an unseparable companion from melancholy. Chrysostome pleads farther yet, that they are more then mad, very beasts, stupified and void of common sense: "For how (saith he) shall I know thee to be a man, when thou kickest like an ass, neighest like an horse after women, ravest in lust like a bull, ravenest like a bear, stingest like a scorpion, rakest like a wolf, * Sa i Perquam ridiculum est homines ex animi sententia vivere, & quæ Diis ingrata sunt exequi, & tamen à solis Diis vella salvos fieri, quum propriæ salutis curam abjecerint. Theod. c. 6. de provid. lib. de curat. græc. affect. piens sibi qui imperiosus, &c. Hor. 2. ser. 7. certum est animi morbis laborantes pro mortuis consendos. Ubi timor adest, sapientia adesse nequit. pontum verberante, &c. "Eccl. 21. 12. Conclus. lib. de vic. offer. m Lib. de sap. Quid insanius Xerxe Hellesunderstanding. Prov. 12. 16. An angry man is a fool. Where is bitternesse, there is no sapientem non cadit. Hom. 6. in 2. Epist. ad Cor. Hominem te agnoscere 3. Tusc. Injuria in nequeo, cum tanquam asinus recalcitres, lascivias ut taurus, hinnias ut equus post mulieres, ut ursus ventri indulgeas, quum rapias ut lupus, &c. at inquis formam hominis habeo, Id magis terret, quum feram humana specie videre me putem. as as subtile as a fox, as impudent as a dog? Shall I say thou art a man, that hast all the symptoms of a beast? How shall I know thee to be a man? by thy shape? That affrights me more, when I see a beast in likenesse of a man. Seneca cals that of Epicurus, magnificam vocem, an heroical speech, "A fool still begins to live," and accounts it a filthy lightnesse in men, every day to lay new foundations of their life, but who doth otherwise? One travels, another builds; one for this, another for that business, and old folks are as far out as the rest; O dementem senectutem, Tully exclaims. Therefore yong, old, middle age, all are stupid, and dote. * Eneas Sylvius, amongst many other, sets down three special wayes to finde a fool by. He is a fool that seeks that he cannot finde: He is a fool that seeks that, which being found will do him more harm then good: He is a fool, that having variety of wayes to bring him to his jorney's end, takes that which is worst. If so, me thinks most men are fools; examine their courses, and you shal soon perceive what dizards and mad men the major part are. Beroaldus will have drunkards, afternoon men, and such as more then ordinarily delight in drink, to be mad. The first pot quencheth thirst, so Panyasis the Poet determines in Athenæus, secunda gratiis, horis & Dyonisio: the second makes merry, the third for pleasure, quarta ad insaniam, the fourth makes them mad. If this position be true, what a catalogue of mad men shall we have? what shall they be that drink four times four? Nonne supra omnem furorem, supra omnem insaniam reddunt insanissimos? I am of his opinion, they are more than inąd, much worse than mad. The Abderites condemned Democritus for a mad man, because he was sometimes sad, and sometimes again profusely Hác Patria (saith Hyppocrates) ob risum furere & insanire dicunt, his countrey men hold him mad because he laughs; and, therefore he desires him to advise all his friends. at Rodes, that they do not laugh too much, or be over sad.” Had those Abderites been conversant with us, and but seen what fleering and grining there is in this age, they would certainly have concluded, we had been all out of our wits. Epist. lib. 2. 13. Stultus semper incipit vivere; foeda hominum levitas, nova quotidie fundamenta vitæ ponere, novas spes, &c. * De curial. miser. Stultus, qui quærit quod nequit invenire, stultus qui quærit quod nocet in-, ventum, stultus qui cum plures habet calles, deteriorem deligit. Mihi videntur omnes deliri, amentes, &c. Ep. Demagete. dicito, ne nimium rideant, aut nimium tristes sint. teris cognoscere stultum. Offic. 3. c. 9. Amicis nostris Rhodi 4 Per multura risum po Aristotle Aristotle in his Ethicks holds, fælix idemque sapiens, to be wise and happy are reciprocal terms, bonus idemq; sapiens honestus. Tis Tullie's paradox, "wise men are free, but fools are slaves," liberty is a power to live according to his own Laws, as we wil our selves: who hath this liberty? who is free? f" sapiens sibique imperiosus, Quem neque pauperies, neque mors, neque vincula terrent, Fortis, & in seipso totus teres atque rotundus. He is wise that can command his own will, Whom poverty nor death, nor bands can fright,. Checks his desires, scorns honours, just and right." But where shall such a man be found? If no where, then è diametro, we all are slaves, senselesse, or worse. Nemo malus fælix. But no man is happy in this life, none good, therefore no man wise. *Rari quippe boni” For one vertue you shall finde ten vices in the same party; pauci Promethei, multi Epimethei. We may peradventure usurp the name, or attribute it to others for favor, as Carolus Sapiens, Philippus Bonus, Lodovicus Pius, &c. and describe the properties of a wise man, as Tully doth an Orator, Xenophon Cyrus, Castilio a Courtier, Galen Temperament, An aristocrasie is described by Politicians. But where shall such a man be found? "Vir bonus & sapiens, qualem vix repperit unum A wise, a good man in a million, Apollo consulted could scarce finde one." A man is a miracle of himself, but Trismegistus adds, Maximum miraculum homo sapiens, a wise man is a wonder: multi Thirsigeri, pauci Bacchi. Alexander when he was presented with that rich and costly casket of King Darius, and every man advised him what to put in it, he reserved it to keep Homer's works, as the most precious Jewell of humane wit, and yet Scaliger upbraids Homer's Muse, Nutricem insane sapientiæ, a nurserie of madnesse, impudent as a Court Lady, that blushes at nothing. Jacobus Mycillus, Gilbertus Cognatus, Erasmus, and almost Sapientes liberi, stulti servi, libertas est potestas, &c. f Hor. 2. ser. 7. * Juven. Hypocrit. Ut mulier aulica nullius pudens. a all all posterity admire Lucian's luxuriant wit, yet Scaliger rejects him in his censure, and cals him the Cerberus of the Muses. Socrates, whom all the world so much magnified, is by Lactantius and Theodoret condemned for a fool. Plutarch extols Seneca's wit beyond all the Greeks, nulli secundus, yet Seneca saith of himself, "when I would solace myself with a fool, I reflect upon myself, and there. I have him.” Cardan in his 16 book of Subtilties, reckons up twelve supereminent, acute Philosophers, for worth, subtletie, and wisdom: Archimedes, Galen, Vitruvius, Architas Tarentinus, Euclide, Geber, that first inventer of Algebra, Alkindus the Mathematician, both Arabians, with others. But his triumviri terrarum far beyond the rest, are Ptolomæus, Plotinus, Hyppociates. Scaliger exercitat. 224. scoffs at this censure of his, cals some of them carpenters, and mechanitians, he makes Galen fimbriam Hyppocratis, a skirt of Hyppocrates: and the saidd Čardan himself elsewhere condemns both Galen and Hyppocrates for tediousnesse, obscurity, confusion. Paracelsus will have them both meer idiots, infants in physick and philosophie. Scaliger and Cardan admire Suisset the Calculator, qui pene modum excessit humani ingenii, and yet Lod. Vives cals them nugas Suisseticas: and Cardan, opposite to himself in another place, contemns those ancients in respect of times present, Majoresque nostros ad presentes collatos justè pueros appellari. In conclusion the said Cardan and Saint Bernard will admit none into this Catalogue of wise. men, but only Prophets and Apostles; how they esteem themselves, you have heard before. We are worldly-wise, admire ourselves, and seek for applause: but hear Saint Bernard, quantò magis foras es sapiens, tanto magis intus stultus efficeris, &c. in omnibus es prudens, circa teipsum insipiens: the more wise thou art to others, the more fool to thy self. I may not deny but that there is some folly approved, a divine furie, a holy madnesse, even a spiritual drunkennesse in the Saints of God themselves; Sanctum insaniam Bernard cals it (though not as blaspheming Vorstius, would infer it as a passion incident to God himself, but) familiar to good men, as that of Paul, 2 Cor. " he was a fool, &c." and Rom. 9. he wisheth himself "to be anathematized for them. Such is that drunkennesse which Ficinus speaks of, when the k e Epist. 33. Quando fatuo delectari volo, non est longe quærendus, me video. Primo contradicentium. Lib. de causis corrupt. artiu. f Actione ad subtil. in Scal. fol. 1226. g Lib. 1. de sap. h Vide miser homo, quia totum est vanitas, totum stultitia, totum dementia, quicquid facis in hoc mundo, præter hoc solum quod propter Deum facis. Ser. de miser. hom. In 2 Piatonis dial. 1. de justo. Dum iram & odium in Deo revera ponit. F VOL. I. soul soul is elevated and ravished with a divine tast of that heavenly Nectar, which poets deciphered by the sacrifice of Dionysius, and in this sense with the Poet, 1 insanire lubet, as Austin exhorts us, ad ebrietatem se quisque paret, let's all be mad and drunk. But we commonly mistake, and go beyond our commission, we reel to the opposite part," we are not capable of it, and as he said of the Greeks, Vos Græci semper pueri, vos Britanni, Galli, Germani, Itali, Sc. you are a company of fools. Proceed now à partibus ad totum, or from the whole to parts, and you shall finde 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, bellua multorum capitum, precipitate and rash without judgement, stultum animal, a roaring rout. 4 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. humor (vulgus) and thou thy self 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, meer idiots and asses. Begin then where you will, go backward or forward, choose out of the whole pack, wink and choose, you shall finde them all alike, "never a barrell 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 sadnesse, and that the Moon is inhabited if it be so that the Earth is a Moon, then are we also giddy, vertigenous and lunatick within this sublunary Maze. I could produce such arguments till dark night: If you should hear the rest, "Ante diem clauso componet vesper Olympo:" but according to my promise, I will descend to particulars. This melancholy extends it self 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, Kue, Cypresse, &c. and Hellebor Virg. 1. Eccl. 3. Austin. Ps. inebriabuntur ab ubertate domus. In Psal. 104. In Platonis Tim. sacerdos Egyp.ius. P Hor. vulgus insanum. Patet ea diviso probabilis, &c. ex. Arist. Top. lib. 1. c. 8. Rog. Bac. Epist. de secret. art. & nat. c. 8. non est judicium in vulgo. |