The World's Greatest Books [Volumes 1-15, 17-20]

II.—The Causes of Melancholy

The impulsive cause of these miseries in man was the sin of our first parent, Adam; and this, belike, is that which our poets have shadowed unto us in the tale of Pandora's Box, which, being opened through her curiosity, filled the world full of all manner of diseases. But as our sins are the principal cause, so the instrumental causes of our infirmities are as diverse as the infirmities themselves. Stars, heavens, elements, and all those creatures which God hath made, are armed against sinners. But the greatest enemy to man is man, his own executioner, a wolf, a devil to himself and others. Again, no man amongst us so sound that hath not some impediment of body or mind. There are diseases acute and chronic, first and secondary, lethal, salutary, errant, fixed, simple, compound, etc. Melancholy is the most eminent of the diseases of the phantasy or imagination; and dotage, phrensy, madness, hydrophobia, lycanthropy, St. Vitus' dance, and ecstasy are forms of it.

Melancholy is either in disposition or habit. In disposition it is that transitory melancholy which comes and goes upon every small occasion of sorrow; we call him melancholy that is dull, sad, sour, lumpish, ill-disposed, and solitary; and from these dispositions no man living is free; none so wise, patient, happy, generous, or godly, that can vindicate himself.

Melancholy is a cold and dry, thick, black, and sour humour, purged from the spleen; it is a bridle to the other two hot humours, blood and choler, preserving them in the blood and nourishing the bones. Such as have the Moon, Saturn, Mercury, misaffected in their genitures; such as live in over-cold or over-hot climates; such as are solitary by nature; great students, given to much contemplation; such as lead a life out of action; all are most subject to melancholy.

Six things are much spoken of amongst physicians as principal causes of this disease; if a man be melancholy, he hath offended in one of the six. They are diet, air, exercise, sleeping, and walking, and perturbations of the mind.

Idleness, the badge of gentry, or want of exercise, the bane of body and mind, the nurse of naughtiness, the chief author of all mischief, one of the seven deadly sins, and a sole cause of this and many other maladies, the devil's cushion and chief reposal, begets melancholy sooner than anything else. Such as live at ease, and have no ordinary employment to busy themselves about, cannot compose themselves to do aught; they cannot abide work, though it be necessary, easy, as to dress themselves, write a letter, or the like. He or she that is idle, be they never so rich, fortunate, happy, let them have all that heart can desire, they shall never be pleased, never well in body and mind, but weary still, sickly still, vexed still, loathing still, weeping, sighing, grieving, suspecting, offended with the world, with every object, wishing themselves gone or dead, or else carried away with some foolish phantasy or other.

Others, giving way to the passions and perturbations of fear, grief, shame, revenge, hatred, malice, etc., are torn in pieces, as Actæon was with his dogs, and crucify their own souls. Every society and private family is full of envy; it takes hold of all sorts of men, from prince to ploughman; scarce three in a company, but there is siding, faction, emulation, between two of them, some jar, private grudge, heart-burning in the midst. Scarce two great scholars in an age, but with bitter invectives they fall foul one on the other. Being that we are so peevish and perverse, insolent and proud, so factious and seditious, malicious and envious, we do maul and vex one another, torture, disquiet, and precipitate ourselves into that gulf of woes and cares, aggravate our misery and melancholy, and heap upon us hell and eternal damnation.

III.—The Cure of Melancholy

"It matters not," saith Paracelsus, "whether it be God or the devil, angels or unclean spirits, cure him, so that he be eased." Some have recourse to witches; but much better were it for patients that are troubled with melancholy to endure a little misery in this life than to hazard their souls' health for ever. All unlawful cures are to be refused, and it remains to treat of those that are admitted.

These are such as God hath appointed, by virtue of stones, herbs, plants, meats, and the like, which are prepared and applied to our use by the art and industry of physicians, God's intermediate ministers. We must begin with prayer and then use physic; not one without the other, but both together.