The anatomy of melancholy : what it is, with all the kinds causes, symptomes, prognostickes, & seuerall cures of it in three partitions, with their severall sections, members & subsections, philosophically, medicinally, historically, opened & cut up / By Democritus Junior [pseud.] With a satyricall preface, conducing to the following discourse.

  • Burton Robert, 1576-1640.
Date:
1891
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The anatomy of melancholy : what it is, with all the kinds causes, symptomes, prognostickes, & seuerall cures of it in three partitions, with their severall sections, members & subsections, philosophically, medicinally, historically, opened & cut up / By Democritus Junior [pseud.] With a satyricall preface, conducing to the following discourse. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    735/810 (page 709)
    writers, Cardan excepted, a true disciple of hismaster Pomponatius; according to the doctrine of peripatetics, he refers all apparitions, prodigies, miracles, oracles, accidents, alterations of religions, kingdoms, &c. (for which he is soundly lashed by Marinus Mercennus, as well he deserves), to natural causes (forspirits he will not acknowledge), to that light, motion, influences of heavens and stars, and to the intelligences that move the orbs. Intelligentia quae movet orbem mediante ccdo, &c. Intelligences do all: and after a long discourse of miracles done of old, si hcec deernones possint, cur non et intelligentia: ccelorum motrices l And as these great conjunctions, aspects of planets, begm or end, vaiy, are vertical and predominant, so have religions, rites, ceremonies, and kingdoms their beginning, progress, periods, in urbibus, regibus, religi- onibus, ac in particidaribus hominibus, hcec vera ac nianifesta sunt, ut Arista- teles innuere videtur, et quotidiana docet experientia, ut historias perlegens videbit; quid olim in Gentili lege Jove sanctius et illuslrius? quidnunc vile magis et execrandum l Ita ccelestia corpora pro mortalium beneficio religiones cedificant, et cum cessat influxus, cessat lex,x efec. And because, according to their tenets, the world is eternal, intelligences eternal, influences of stars eternal, kingdoms, religions, alterations shall be likewise eternal, and run round after many ages; Atque iterum ad Troiam magnus mittetur Achilles; renascentur religiones, et cei-emonice, res humance in idem recident, nihil nunc est quod non olim fuit, et post sceculorum revolutiones alias, erit,y &c. idem specie, saith Vaninus, non individuo quod Plato significavit. These (saith mine z author), these are the decrees of peripatetics, which though I recite, in obsequium Chris- tianeefidei detestor, as I am a Christian I detest and hate. Thus peripatetics and astrologers held in former times, and to this effect of old in Eome, saith Dionysius Halicarnassus, lib. 7, when those meteors and prodigies appeared in the ah’, after the banishment of Coriolanus, “ a Mon were diversely affected : some said they were God’s just judgments for the execution of that good man, some referred all to natural causes, some to stars, some thought they came by chance, some by necessity,” decreed ah initio, and could not be altered. The two last opinions of necessity and chance were, it seems, of greater note than the rest. “ b Sunt qui in Fortune jam casibus omnia ponunt, Et mumlum credunt nullo rectore moveri, Nature volvente vices, &c. For the. first of chance, as c Sallust likewise informeth us, those old Eomaii3 generally received; “ They supposed fortune alone gave kingdoms and empires, wealth, honours, offices: and that lor two causes; first, because every wicked base unworthy wretch was preferred, rich, potent, &c.; secondly, because of their uncertainty, though never so good, scarce any one enjoyed them long: but after, they began upon better advice to think otherwise, that every man made his own fortune. The last of Necessity was Seneca’s tenet, that God wat alligatus causis secundis, so tied to second causes, to that inexorable Necessity, that he could alter nothing of that which was once decreed; sic erat in fatis, it cannot be altered, semel jussit, semper paret JJeus, nulla vis rumpit, nulla, pieces, nec ipsuni J’ulmen, God hath once said it, and it must for ever stand good, no prayem, no threats, nor power, nor thunder itself can alter it. Zend, In cities, kings, religions, find in individual men, these things are true and obvious, as Aristotle appears > a, experience teaches to the reader of history: for what was more sacred and illustrious. 0) Oentile law, than Jupiter! what now more vile and execrable? in this way celestial objects suggest for worldly motives, and when the influx ceases, so does the law,” Ac. * “ And again a great AchUlea shall be sent against Troy: religions and their ceremonies shall be born ngaln; however ailairs rclnpso into the same tract, there is nothing now that was not formerly and will not bo again,” &c. 1 Vaninus °racu‘ls- „ * Varl.c Homines affecti, alii del judicium ad tarn pH exilium, alii ad naturnm reterebant, nec ab mdignatione dci, sed humanis causis, &c. 12. Natural, quatst. 33. 39. b Juv Sat 13. e.ver>;tl!i,,« 10 glance, and believe Unit the world is made without a director, et imnorlaliTro rfh<i jicissitut,oai i'.pist. ad C. Coisar. Ilomnni olim putabant fortunam regnn rrim^,n?,:,i' a,,tJ!.a fortunam solam opes et bourn es largirl, idque duabusde causis: I* os tea'n r ud e n Hm., Vm/j1U T1T” ‘,ves- '‘onoratus, potens; uherum, vix quisqunm perpetuo bonis lis frui visas. * uuea pruuentioi cs uiuiecr* Curtunam suam quomque tiny ere*