Physiognomy, let him consult with old Adamantus and Polemus, that comment, or rather paraphrase upon Aristotle's Physiognomy, Baptista Porta's four pleasant books, Michael Scot de secretis naturæ, John de Indagine, Montaltus, Antony Zara. anat. ingeniorum. sect. 1. memb. 13. & lib. 4. Chiromancy hath these Aphorismes to foretel melancholy. Tasneir. lib. 5. cap. 2. who hath comprehended the sum of John de Indagine: Tricassus, Corvinus, and others in his book, thus hath it; "The Saturnine line going from the Rascetta through the hand, to Saturne's mount, and there intersected by certain little lines, argues melancholy; so if the vital and natural make an acute angle, Aphorisme 100. The Saturnine, Epatick and natural lines, making a grosse triangle in the hand, argue as much;" which Goclenius cap. 5. Chiros. repeats verbatim out of him. In general they conclude all, that if Saturne's mount be full of many small lines and intersections “such men are most part melancholy, miserable and full of disquietnesse, care and trouble, continually vexed with anxious and bitter thoughts, always sorrowful, fearful, suspitious; they delight in husbandry, buildings, pooles, marshes, springs, woods, walkes, &c." Thaddaeus Haggesius, in his Metoposcopia, hath certain Aphorisms derived from Saturne's lines in the fore-head, by which he collects a melancholy disposition; and Baptista Porta makes observations from those other parts of the body, as if a spot be over the spleen; " or in the nailes; if it appear black, it signifieth much care, grief, contention, and Melancholy" The reason he refers to the humors, and gives instance in himself, that for seven years space he had such black spots in his nailes, and all that while was in perpetual Law-sutes, controversies for his inheritance, fear, loss of honor, banishment, grief, care, &c. and when his miseries ended, the black spots vanished. Cardan in his book de libris propriis, tels such a story of his own person, that a little before his son's death, he had a black spot, which appeared in one of his nailes; and dilated it self as he came nearer to his end. But I am overtedious in these toyes, which howsoever, in some men's too severe censures, they may be held absurd and ridiculous, I am the bolder to insert, as not borrowed from circumforancan Rogues and Gipsies, but out of the writings of h 66 f Saturnina à Rascetta per mediam manum decurrens, usq; adradicem montis Saturni, à parvis lineis intersecta, arguit melancholicos. Aphoris. 78. & Agitantur miseriis, continuis inquietudinibus, neq; unquam à solitudine liberi sunt, anxie offiguntur amarissimis intra cogitationibus, semper tristes, suspitiosi, meticulosi cogitationes sunt, velle agrum colere, stagna amant & paludes, &c. Jo. de Indagine lib. 1. Celestis Physiognom. lib. 10. Cap. 14. lib. 5. Idem maculæ in ungulis nigræ, lites, rixas, melancholiam significant, ab humore in corde tali. worthy worthy Philosophers, and Physitians, yet living some of them, and religious Professors in famous Universities, who are able to patronize that which they have said, and vindicate themselves from all cavillers and ignorant persons. b SUBSEC. V. Old age a cause. C ECUNDARY peculiar causes efficient, so called in respect of the other precedent, are either congenitae, interne, innate as they terme them, inward, innate, inbred; or else outward and adventitious, which happen to us after we are borne: congenite or borne with us, are either natural, as old age, or præter naturam (as Fernelius cals it) that distemperature, which we have from our Parent's seed, it being an hereditary disease. The first of these, which is natural to all, and which no man living can avoid, is old age, which being cold and drie, and of the same qualitie as Melancholy is, must needs cause it, by diminution of spirits and substance, and increasing of adust humors; Therefore Melancthon avers out of Aristotle, as an undoubted truth, Senes plerunque delirasse in senecta, that old men familiarly dote, ob atram bilem, for black choler, which is then superabundant in them: and Rhasis that Arabian Physitian in his Cont. lib. 1. cap. 9. cals it "e canecessary and inseparable accident," to all old and decrepit persons. After 70 years (as the Psalmist saith) "*all is trouble and sorrow;" and common experience confirmes the truth of it in weak and old persons, especially in such as have lived in action all their lives, had great imployment, much business, much command, and many servants to over-see, and leave off ex abrupto; as Charls the fift did to King Philip, resigne up all on a sudden; they are overcome with melancholy in an instant: or if they do continue in such courses, they dote at last, (senex bis puer) and are not able to manage their estates through common infirmities incident in their age; full of ache, sorrow and grief, Children again, dizards, they Carle many times as they sit, and talk to themselves, they are angry, waspish, displeased with every thing, "suspitious of all, wayward, covetous, hard, (saith Tully) selfe-willed, superstitious, selfe-conceited, braggers and admirers of themselves," as b Lib. 1. Path. cap. 11. d Cap. Venit enim properata malis inopina senectus: et dolor ætatem jussit inesse meam Boethius met. 1. de consol. Philos. de humoribus, lib. de Anima. Necessarium accidens decrepitis, et insepa rabile. * Psa. 90. 10. f Meteran. Belg. hist, lib. 1. & Balthasar Balthasar Castalio hath truly noted of them". This natural infirmity is most eminent in old women, and such as are poor, solitary, live in most base esteem and beggery, or such as are Witches; Insomuch that Wierus, Baptista Porta, Ulricus Molitor, Edwicus, do refer all that witches are said to do, to Imagination alone, and this humor of melancholy. And whereas it is controverted, whether they can bewitch cattle to death, ride in the ayre upon a Coulstaffe out of a Chimney-top, transforme themselves into Cats, Dogs, &c. translate bodies from place to place, meet in companies, and dance, as they do, or have carnal copulation with the Devil, they ascribe all to this redundant melancholy, which domineers in them, to somniferous potions, and naturall causes, the Devil's policy. Non lædunt omninò (saith Wierus) aut quid mirum faciunt (de Lamiis lib. 3. cap. 36.) ut putatur, solam vitiatam habent phantasiam; they do no such wonders at all, only their 1 Braines are crazed. "They think they are Witches, and can do hurt, but do not." But this opinion Bodine, Erastus, Danæus, Scribanius, Sebastian Michaelis, Campanella de Sensu rerum lib. 4. cap. 9. * Dandinus the Jesuite, lib. 2. de Animá explode; "Cicogna confutes at large. That Witches are melancholy, they deny not, but not out of corrupt phantasie alone, so to delude themselves and others, or to produce such effects. SUBSEC. VI. Parents a cause by propagation. HAT other inward inbred cause of Melancholy, is our THA temperature, in whole or part, which we receive from our Parents, which + Fernelius cals Præter naturam, or unnatural, it being an hereditary disease; for as he justifies, • Quale parentum maximè patris semen obtigerit, tales evadunt similares spermaticæq; partes, quocuncq; etiam morbo Pater quum generat tenetur, cum semine transfert in Prolem; such as the temperature of the father is, such is the son's, and look what disease the father had when he begot him, his * Sunt morosi anxii, et iracundi et difficiles senes, si quærimus, etiam avari, Tull. de senectute. h Lib. 2. de Aulico. Senes avari, morosi, jactabundi, philauti, deliri, superstitiosi, suspitiosi, &c. Lib. 3. de Lamiis, cap. 17. et 18. k Solanum, opiu lupi adeps, lacr. asini, &c. sanguis infantum, &c. rupta est iis ab humore Melancholico phantasia. Nymanus. dere quando non lædunt. J Cor Putant se læ * Qui hæc in Imaginationis vim referre conati sunt, atræ bilis, inanem prorsus laborem susceperunt. VOL. I. n Lib. 3. cap. 4. Ut arthritici Evilep. &c. Р son son will have after him, "Pand is as well inheritour of his infirmities, as of his lands. And where the complexion and constitution of the father is corrupt, there ( saith Roger Bacon) the complexion and constitution of the son must needs be corrupt, and so the corruption is derived from the father to the Now this doth not so much appear in the composition of the Body, according to that of Hippocrates, "in habit, proportion, scarres, and other lineaments; but in manners and conditions of the Minde, "Et patrum in natos abeunt cum semine mores." t Seleucus had an anchor on his thigh, so had his posterity, as Trogus records 1. 15. Lepidus in Pliny 1. 7. c. 17. was purblinde, so was his son. That famous family of Enobarbi, were known of old, and so surnamed from their red beards, the Austrian lip, and those Indians flat noses are propagated, the Bavarian chin, and goggle eyes amongst the Jews, as Buxtorfius observes; their voyce, pace, gesture, lookes, are likewise derived with all the rest of their conditions and infirmities; such a mother, such a daughter; their very "affections Lemnius contends" to follow their seed, and the malice and bad conditions of children are many times wholly to be imputed to their parents;" I need not therefore make any doubt of Melancholy, but that it is an hereditary disease. Paracelsus in express words affirmes it lib. de morb. amentium To. 4. 7r. 1. so doth Crato in an Epistle of his to Monavius. So doth Bruno Seidelius in his book de morbo incurab. Montaltus proves, cap. 11. out of Hippocrates and Plutarch, that such hereditary dispositions are frequent, & hanc (inquit) fieri reor ob participatam melancholicam intemperantiam (speaking of a patient) I think he became so by participation of Melancholy. Daniel Sennertus lib. 1. part. 2. cap. 9. will have his melancholy constitution derived not only from the father to the son, but to the whole family sometimes; Quandoque totis familiis hereditativam. Forestus, in his Medicinal observations, illustrates this point, with an example of a merchant his Pati Epist. P Ut filii non tam possessionum quam morborum hæredes sint. de secretis artis et naturæ c. 7. nam in hoc quod patres corrupti sunt, generant filios corruptæ complexionis, et compositionis, et filii eorum eadem de causa se corrumpunt, et sic derivatu corruptio à patribus ad filios. • Non tam (inquit Hippocrates) gibbos et cicatrices oris et corporis habitum agnoscis ex iis, sed verum incessum gestus, mores, morbos, &c. Synagog. Jud. "Affectus parentum in fœtus transeunt, et puerorum malicia parentibus imputanda, lib. 4. cap. 3. de occult. nat. m rac. Ex pituitosis pituitosi, ex biliosis biliosi, ex lienosis et melancholicis melancholici. y Epist. 174. in Scoltz. naseitur nobiscum illa aliturq; & unà cum parentibus habemus malum hunc assem. Jo. Pelesius lib. 2. de cura humanorum affectuum. * Lib. 10. observat. 15. ent, C ent, that had this infirmity by inheritance; so doth Rodericus à Fonseca. Tom. 1. consul. 69. by an instance of a young man that was so affected ex matre melancholica, had a Melancholy mother, & victu melancholico, and bad diet together. Lodovicus Mercatus, a Spanish Physitian, in that excellent Tract, which he hath lately written of hereditary diseases Tom. 2. oper. lib. 5. reckons up Leprosie, as those Galbots in Gascony, hereditary Lepers, Pox, Stone, Gout, Epilepsie, &c. Amongst the rest, this and Madnesse after a set time comes to many, which he cals a miraculous thing in nature, and sticks for ever And that which is more to be to them as an incurable habit. wondered at, it skips in some families the father, and goes to the son, or takes every other, and sometimes every third in a lineall descent, and doth not always produce the same, but some like, and a symbolizing disease." These secundary causes hence derived, are commonly so powerful, that (as Wolphius holds) sæpe mutant decreta syderum, they do often alter the primary causes, and decrees of the heavens. For these reasons belike the Church and common-wealth, humane and divine laws, have conspired to avoid hereditary diseases, forbidding such marriages as are any whit allyed; and as Mercatus adviseth all families, to take such, si fieri possit quæ maximè distant natura, and to make choice of those that are most differing in complexion from them; if they love their own, and respect the common good. And sure, I think, it hath been ordered by God's especial providence, that in all ages there should be (as usually there is) once in 600. years, a transmi gration of Nations, to amend and purifie their blood, as we alter seed upon our land, and that there should be as it were an inundation of those Northern Goths and Vandales, and many such like people which came out of that Continent of Scandia, and Sarmatia (as some suppose) and over-ran as a deluge most part of Europe and Africk, to alter for our good, our complexions, which were much defaced with hereditary infirmities, which by our lust and intemperance we had contracted. A sound generation of strong and able men were sent amongst us, as those Northern men usually are, innocuous, free from riot, and free from diseases; to qualifie and make us as those poor naked Indians are generally at this day; and those about Brasile (as a late Writer observes) in the Isle of Maragnan, free from • Maginus Geog. Sæpe non eundem, sed similem producit effectum, Dial. præfix. genituris Leovitii. & illæso parente transit. in nepotem. Claudius Abaville Capuchion in his Bodin. de rep. cap. de periodis reip. voyage to Maragnan. 1614. cap. 45. Nemo fere ægrotus, sano omnes & robusto corpore, vivunt annos. 120, 140. sine Medicina. Idem Hector Boethius de insulis Orchad. & Damianus à Goes de Scandia. P 2 all |