The Anatomy of Melancholy: Philosophy Classic. Robert Burton
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round as in a ring. They are not so continual, as divers, felicius atomos denumerare possem, saith [1805]Bernard, quam motus cordis; nunc haec, nunc illa cogito, you may as well reckon up the motes in the sun as them. [1806]"It extends itself to everything," as Guianerius will have it, "that is superfluously sought after:"' or to any [1807]fervent desire, as Fernelius interprets it; be it in what kind soever, it tortures if immoderate, and is (according to [1808] Plater and others) an especial cause of melancholy. Multuosis concupiscentiis dilaniantur cogitationes meae, [1809]Austin confessed, that he was torn a pieces with his manifold desires: and so doth [1810] Bernard complain, "that he could not rest for them a minute of an hour: this I would have, and that, and then I desire to be such and such." 'Tis a hard matter therefore to confine them, being they are so various and many, impossible to apprehend all. I will only insist upon some few of the chief, and most noxious in their kind, as that exorbitant appetite and desire of honour, which we commonly call ambition; love of money, which is covetousness, and that greedy desire of gain: self-love, pride, and inordinate desire of vainglory or applause, love of study in excess; love of women (which will require a just volume of itself), of the other I will briefly speak, and in their order.
Ambition, a proud covetousness, or a dry thirst of honour, a great torture of the mind, composed of envy, pride, and covetousness, a gallant madness, one [1811]defines it a pleasant poison, Ambrose, "a canker of the soul, an hidden plague:" [1812]Bernard, "a secret poison, the father of livor, and mother of hypocrisy, the moth of holiness, and cause of madness, crucifying and disquieting all that it takes hold of." [1813]Seneca calls it, rem solicitam, timidam, vanam, ventosam, a windy thing, a vain, solicitous, and fearful thing. For commonly they that, like Sisyphus, roll this restless stone of ambition, are in a perpetual agony, still [1814] perplexed, semper taciti, tritesque recedunt (Lucretius), doubtful, timorous, suspicious, loath to offend in word or deed, still cogging and colloguing, embracing, capping, cringing, applauding, flattering, fleering, visiting, waiting at men's doors, with all affability, counterfeit honesty and humility. [1815]If that will not serve, if once this humour (as [1816]Cyprian describes it) possess his thirsty soul, ambitionis salsugo ubi bibulam animam possidet, by hook and by crook he will obtain it, "and from his hole he will climb to all honours and offices, if it be possible for him to get up, flattering one, bribing another, he will leave no means unessay'd to win all." [1817]It is a wonder to see how slavishly these kind of men subject themselves, when they are about a suit, to every inferior person; what pains they will take, run, ride, cast, plot, countermine, protest and swear, vow, promise, what labours undergo, early up, down late; how obsequious and affable they are, how popular and courteous, how they grin and fleer upon every man they meet; with what feasting and inviting, how they spend themselves and their fortunes, in seeking that many times, which they had much better be without; as [1818]Cyneas the orator told Pyrrhus: with what waking nights, painful hours, anxious thoughts, and bitterness of mind, inter spemque metumque, distracted and tired, they consume the interim of their time. There can be no greater plague for the present. If they do obtain their suit, which with such cost and solicitude they have sought, they are not so freed, their anxiety is anew to begin, for they are never satisfied, nihil aliud nisi imperium spirant, their thoughts, actions, endeavours are all for sovereignty and honour, like [1819]Lues Sforza that huffing Duke of Milan, "a man of singular wisdom, but profound ambition, born to his own, and to the destruction of Italy," though it be to their own ruin, and friends' undoing, they will contend, they may not cease, but as a dog in a wheel, a bird in a cage, or a squirrel in a chain, so [1820]Budaeus compares them; [1821]they climb and climb still, with much labour, but never make an end, never at the top. A knight would be a baronet, and then a lord, and then a viscount, and then an earl, &c.; a doctor, a dean, and then a bishop; from tribune to praetor; from bailiff to major; first this office, and then that; as Pyrrhus in [1822]Plutarch, they will first have Greece, then Africa, and then Asia, and swell with Aesop's frog so long, till in the end they burst, or come down with Sejanus, ad Gemonias scalas, and break their own necks; or as Evangelus the piper in Lucian, that blew his pipe so long, till he fell down dead. If he chance to miss, and have a canvass, he is in a hell on the other side; so dejected, that he is ready to hang himself, turn heretic, Turk, or traitor in an instant. Enraged against his enemies, he rails, swears, fights, slanders, detracts, envies, murders: and for his own part, si appetitum explere non potest, furore corripitur; if he cannot satisfy his desire (as [1823]Bodine writes) he runs mad. So that both ways, hit or miss, he is distracted so long as his ambition lasts, he can look for no other but anxiety and care, discontent and grief in the meantime, [1824]madness itself, or violent death in the end. The event of this is common to be seen in populous cities, or in princes' courts, for a courtier's life (as Budaeus describes it) "is a [1825]gallimaufry of ambition, lust, fraud, imposture, dissimulation, detraction, envy, pride; [1826]the court, a common conventicle of flatterers, time-servers, politicians," &c.; or as [1827] Anthony Perez will, "the suburbs of hell itself." If you will see such discontented persons, there you shall likely find them. [1828]And which he observed of the markets of old Rome,
"Qui perjurum convenire vult hominem, mitto in Comitium;
Qui mendacem et gloriosum, apud Cluasinae sacrum;
Dites, damnosos maritos, sub basilica quaerito," &c.
Perjured knaves, knights of the post, liars, crackers, bad husbands, &c. keep their several stations; they do still, and always did in every commonwealth.
SUBSECT. XII.—[Greek: philarguria], Covetousness, a Cause.
Plutarch, in his [1829]book whether the diseases of the body be more grievous than those of the soul, is of opinion, "if you will examine all the causes of our miseries in this life, you shall find them most part to have had their beginning from stubborn anger, that furious desire of contention, or some unjust or immoderate affection, as covetousness," &c. From whence "are wars and contentions amongst you?" [1830]St. James asks: I will add usury, fraud, rapine, simony, oppression, lying, swearing, bearing false witness, &c. are they not from this fountain of covetousness, that greediness in getting, tenacity in keeping, sordidity in spending; that they are so wicked, [1831]"unjust against God, their neighbour, themselves;" all comes hence. "The desire of money is the root of all evil, and they that lust after it, pierce themselves through with many sorrows," 1 Tim. vi. 10. Hippocrates therefore in his Epistle to Crateva, an herbalist, gives him this good counsel, that if it were possible, [1832] "amongst other herbs, he should cut up that weed of covetousness by the roots, that there be no remainder left, and then know this for a certainty, that together with their bodies, thou mayst quickly cure all the diseases of their minds." For it is indeed the pattern, image, epitome of all melancholy, the fountain of many miseries, much discontented care and woe; this "inordinate, or immoderate desire of gain, to get or keep money," as [1833]Bonaventure defines it: or, as Austin describes it, a madness of the soul, Gregory a torture; Chrysostom, an insatiable drunkenness; Cyprian, blindness, speciosum supplicium, a plague subverting kingdoms, families, an [1834]incurable disease; Budaeus, an ill habit, [1835]"yielding to no remedies:" neither Aesculapius nor Plutus can cure them: a continual plague, saith Solomon, and vexation of spirit, another hell. I know there be some of opinion, that covetous men are happy, and worldly, wise, that there is more pleasure in getting of wealth than in spending, and no delight in the world like unto it. 'Twas [1836]Bias' problem of old, "With what art thou not weary? with getting money. What is most delectable? to gain." What is it, trow you, that makes a poor man labour all his lifetime, carry such great burdens, fare so hardly, macerate himself, and endure so much misery, undergo such base offices with so great patience, to rise up early, and lie down late, if there were not an extraordinary delight in getting and keeping of money? What makes a merchant that hath no need, satis superque domi, to range all over the world, through all those intemperate [1837]Zones of heat and cold; voluntarily to venture his life, and be content with such miserable famine, nasty usage, in a stinking ship; if there were not a pleasure and hope to get money, which doth season the rest, and mitigate his indefatigable pains? What makes them go into the bowels of the earth, an hundred fathom deep, endangering their dearest lives, enduring damps and filthy smells, when they have enough already, if they could be content, and no such cause to labour, but an extraordinary delight they take in riches. This may seem plausible at first show, a popular and strong argument; but let him that so thinks, consider better of it, and he shall soon perceive, that it is far otherwise