The Anatomy of Melancholy: Philosophy Classic. Robert Burton

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СКАЧАТЬ himself in like sort, 2 Cor. ix. 21. "I would you would suffer a little my foolishness, I speak foolishly." "The whole head is sick," saith Esay, "and the heart is heavy," cap. i. 5. And makes lighter of them than of oxen and asses, "the ox knows his owner," &c.: read Deut. xxxii. 6; Jer. iv.; Amos, iii. 1; Ephes. v. 6. "Be not mad, be not deceived, foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you?" How often are they branded with this epithet of madness and folly? No word so frequent amongst the fathers of the Church and divines; you may see what an opinion they had of the world, and how they valued men's actions.

      I know that we think far otherwise, and hold them most part wise men that are in authority, princes, magistrates, [184]rich men, they are wise men born, all politicians and statesmen must needs be so, for who dare speak against them? And on the other, so corrupt is our judgment, we esteem wise and honest men fools. Which Democritus well signified in an epistle of his to Hippocrates: [185]the "Abderites account virtue madness," and so do most men living. Shall I tell you the reason of it? [186]Fortune and Virtue, Wisdom and Folly, their seconds, upon a time contended in the Olympics; every man thought that Fortune and Folly would have the worst, and pitied their cases; but it fell out otherwise. Fortune was blind and cared not where she stroke, nor whom, without laws, Audabatarum instar, &c. Folly, rash and inconsiderate, esteemed as little what she said or did. Virtue and Wisdom gave [187]place, were hissed out, and exploded by the common people; Folly and Fortune admired, and so are all their followers ever since: knaves and fools commonly fare and deserve best in worldlings' eyes and opinions. Many good men have no better fate in their ages: Achish, 1 Sam. xxi. 14, held David for a madman. [188]Elisha and the rest were no otherwise esteemed. David was derided of the common people, Ps. ix. 7, "I am become a monster to many." And generally we are accounted fools for Christ, 1 Cor. xiv. "We fools thought his life madness, and his end without honour," Wisd. v. 4. Christ and his Apostles were censured in like sort, John x.; Mark iii.; Acts xxvi. And so were all Christians in [189]Pliny's time, fuerunt et alii, similis dementiae, &c. And called not long after, [190]Vesaniae sectatores, eversores hominum, polluti novatores, fanatici, canes, malefici, venefici, Galilaei homunciones, &c. 'Tis an ordinary thing with us, to account honest, devout, orthodox, divine, religious, plain-dealing men, idiots, asses, that cannot, or will not lie and dissemble, shift, flatter, accommodare se ad eum locum ubi nati sunt, make good bargains, supplant, thrive, patronis inservire; solennes ascendendi modos apprehendere, leges, mores, consuetudines recte observare, candide laudare, fortiter defendere, sententias amplecti, dubitare de nullus, credere omnia, accipere omnia, nihil reprehendere, caeteraque quae promotionem ferunt et securitatem, quae sine ambage felicem, reddunt hominem, et vere sapientem apud nos; that cannot temporise as other men do, [191]hand and take bribes, &c. but fear God, and make a conscience of their doings. But the Holy Ghost that knows better how to judge, he calls them fools. "The fool hath said in his heart," Psal. liii. 1. "And their ways utter their folly," Psal. xlix. 14. [192]"For what can be more mad, than for a little worldly pleasure to procure unto themselves eternal punishment?" As Gregory and others inculcate unto us.

      Yea even all those great philosophers the world hath ever had in admiration, whose works we do so much esteem, that gave precepts of wisdom to others, inventors of Arts and Sciences, Socrates the wisest man of his time by the Oracle of Apollo, whom his two scholars, [193]Plato and [194] Xenophon, so much extol and magnify with those honourable titles, "best and wisest of all mortal men, the happiest, and most just;" and as [195] Alcibiades incomparably commends him; Achilles was a worthy man, but Bracides and others were as worthy as himself; Antenor and Nestor were as good as Pericles, and so of the rest; but none present, before, or after Socrates, nemo veterum neque eorum qui nunc sunt, were ever such, will match, or come near him. Those seven wise men of Greece, those Britain Druids, Indian Brachmanni, Ethiopian Gymnosophist, Magi of the Persians, Apollonius, of whom Philostratus, Non doctus, sed natus sapiens, wise from his cradle, Epicurus so much admired by his scholar Lucretius:

      "Qui genus humanum ingenio superavit, et omnes

       Perstrinxit stellas exortus ut aetherius sol."

      "Whose wit excell'd the wits of men as far,

       As the sun rising doth obscure a star,"

      Or that so much renowned Empedocles,

      [196] "Ut vix humana videatur stirpe creatus."

      All those of whom we read such [197]hyperbolical eulogiums, as of Aristotle, that he was wisdom itself in the abstract, [198]a miracle of nature, breathing libraries, as Eunapius of Longinus, lights of nature, giants for wit, quintessence of wit, divine spirits, eagles in the clouds, fallen from heaven, gods, spirits, lamps of the world, dictators, Nulla ferant talem saecla futura virum: monarchs, miracles, superintendents of wit and learning, oceanus, phoenix, atlas, monstrum, portentum hominis, orbis universi musaeum, ultimus humana naturae donatus, naturae maritus,

      ———"merito cui doctior orbis Submissis defert fascibus imperium."

      As Aelian writ of Protagoras and Gorgias, we may say of them all, tantum a sapientibus abfuerunt, quantum a viris pueri, they were children in respect, infants, not eagles, but kites; novices, illiterate, Eunuchi sapientiae. And although they were the wisest, and most admired in their age, as he censured Alexander, I do them, there were 10,000 in his army as worthy captains (had they been in place of command) as valiant as himself; there were myriads of men wiser in those days, and yet all short of what they ought to be. [199]Lactantius, in his book of wisdom, proves them to be dizzards, fools, asses, madmen, so full of absurd and ridiculous tenets, and brain-sick positions, that to his thinking never any old woman or sick person doted worse. [200]Democritus took all from Leucippus, and left, saith he, "the inheritance of his folly to Epicurus," [201]insanienti dum sapientiae, &c. The like he holds of Plato, Aristippus, and the rest, making no difference [202]"betwixt them and beasts, saving that they could speak." [203]Theodoret in his tract, De cur. grec. affect. manifestly evinces as much of Socrates, whom though that Oracle of Apollo confirmed to be the wisest man then living, and saved him from plague, whom 2000 years have admired, of whom some will as soon speak evil as of Christ, yet re vera, he was an illiterate idiot, as [204]Aristophanes calls him, irriscor et ambitiosus, as his master Aristotle terms him, scurra Atticus, as Zeno, an [205]enemy to all arts and sciences, as Athaeneus, to philosophers and travellers, an opiniative ass, a caviller, a kind of pedant; for his manners, as Theod. Cyrensis describes him, a [206] sodomite, an atheist, (so convict by Anytus) iracundus et ebrius, dicax, &c. a pot-companion, by [207]Plato's own confession, a sturdy drinker; and that of all others he was most sottish, a very madman in his actions and opinions. Pythagoras was part philosopher, part magician, or part witch. If you desire to hear more of Apollonius, a great wise man, sometime paralleled by Julian the apostate to Christ, I refer you to that learned tract of Eusebius against Hierocles, and for them all to Lucian's Piscator, Icaromenippus, Necyomantia: their actions, opinions in general were so prodigious, absurd, ridiculous, which they broached and maintained, their books and elaborate treatises were full of dotage, which Tully ad Atticum long since observed, delirant plerumque scriptores in libris suis, their lives being opposite to their words, they commended poverty to others, and were most covetous themselves, extolled love and peace, and yet persecuted one another with virulent hate and malice. They could give precepts for verse and prose, but not a man of them (as [208]Seneca tells them home) could moderate his affections. Their music did show us flebiles modos, &c. how to rise and fall, but they could not so contain themselves as in adversity not to make a lamentable tone. They will measure ground by geometry, set down limits, divide and subdivide, but cannot yet prescribe quantum homini satis, or keep within compass of reason and discretion. They can square circles, but understand not the state of their own souls, describe right lines and crooked, &c. but know not what is right in this life, quid in vita rectum sit, ignorant; so that as he said, Nescio an Anticyram ratio illis destinet omnem. I think all the Anticyrae will not restore them to their wits, [209]if these men now, that held [210] Xenodotus' heart, Crates' liver, Epictetus' lantern, were so sottish, and had no more brains than so many beetles, what shall СКАЧАТЬ