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← ExitThe Anatomy of Melancholy

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Subsection 15 Love of Learning or Excessive Study With a Digression on The…

SUBSECT. 15. Love of Learning, or overmuch study. With a Digression of the misery of Scholars, and why the Muses are Melancholy.

Leonartus Fuchsius Instit. lib. 3 sect. 1. cap. 1. Fælix Plater. lib. 3. de mentis alienat. Herc. de Saxonia Tract. post. de melanch. cap. 3. speak of a peculiar Fury, which comes by overmuch study. Fernelius lib. 1. cap. 18. puts Study, contemplation, and continual meditation, as an especial cause of madness: and in his 86. consul. cites the same words. Io. Arculanus in lib. 9. Rhasis ad Almansorem cap. 16. amongst other causes reckons up studium vehemens:

so doth Levinus Lemnius, lib. de occult. nat. mirac. lib. 1. cap. 16. Many men (saith he) come to this malady by continual Study, and night-waking, and of all other men, Scholars are most subject to it: and such Rhasis adds, that have commonly the finest wits. Cont. lib. 1. tract. 9. Marsilius Ficinus de sanit. tuenda. lib. 1. cap. 7. puts Melancholy amongst one of those five principal plagues of Students, ’tis a common Maul unto them all, and almost in some measure an inseparable companion.

Varro belike for that cause calls Tristes Philosophos & severos, severe, sad, dry, tetrick are common Epithites to Scholars: And Patritius therefore in the institution of Princes, would not have them to be great Students. For (as Machiavel holds) Study weakens their bodies, dulls the spirits, abates their strength and courage; and good Scholars are never good Souldiers, which a certain Goth well perceived, for when his Country-men came into Greece, and would have burned all their books, he cried out against it, by all means they should do it, leave them that plague, which in time will consume all their vigor, and martiall spirits.

The Turks abdicated Cornutus the next heir, from the Empire, because he was so much given to his book: and ’tis the common Tenent of the world, that Learning duls and diminisheth the spirits, and so per consequens produceth melancholy.

Two main reasons may be given of it, why Students should be more subject to this malady than others. The one is, they live a sedentary, solitary life, sibi & musis, free from bodily exercise, and those ordinary disports which other men use: and many times if discontent and idleness concur with it, which is too frequent, they are precipitated into this gulf on a sudden: but the common cause is overmuch study: too much learning (as Festus told Paul) hath made thee mad; ’tis that other extreme which effects it.

So did Trincavelius, lib. 1. consil. 12. & 13. finde by his experience, in two of his Patients, a young Baron, and another that contracted this malady by too vehement study. So Forestus observat. l. 10. observ. 13. in a young Divine in Lovain, that was mad, and said he had a Bible in his head: Marsilius Ficinus de sanit. tuend. lib. 1. cap. 1. 3. 4. & lib. 2. cap. 16. gives many reasons, why Students dote more often then others:

The first is their negligence: other men look to their Tools, a Painter will wash his Pensils, a Smith will look to his Hammer, Anvil, Forge: an Husbandman will mend his Plough-Irons, and grinde his Hatchet if it be dull; a Faulkner or Huntsman will have an especial care of his Hawks, Hounds, Horses, Dogs, &c.: A Musitian will string, and unstring his Lute, &c. onely Scholars neglect that Instrument, their brain and spirits (I mean) which they daily use, and by which they range over all the world, which by much study is consumed.

Vide (saith Lucian) ne funiculum nimis intendendo, aliquando abrumpas: See thou twist not the rope so hard, till at length it break. Ficinus in his fourth Chap. gives some other reasons; Saturn and Mercury, the Patrons of Learning, are both dry Planets: and Origanus assigns the same cause, why Mercurialists are so poor, and most part beggers; for that their President Mercury had no better fortune himself. The Destinies of old, put poverty upon him as a punishment; since when, Poetry and Beggery, are Gemelli, twin-born Brats, inseparable companions:

* And to this day is every Scholar poor, Gross gold from them runs headlong to the Boor:

Mercury, can help them to knowledg but not to money. The second is contemplation, which dries the brain and extinguisheth natural heat; for whilst the spirits are intent to meditation above in the head, the stomack and liver are left destitute, and thence come black blood and crudities by defect of concoction, and for want of exercise, the superfluous vapours cannot exhale, &c.

The same reasons are repeated by Gomesius, lib. 4. cap. 1. de sale Nymannus orat. de Imag. Io. Voschius lib. 2. cap. 5. de peste: and something more they add, that hard Students are commonly troubled with Gouts, Catarrhes, Rhumes, Cacexia, Bradiopepsia, bad Eyes, Stone, and Collick, Crudities, Oppilations, Vertigo, Windes, Consumptions, and all such diseases as come by overmuch sitting; they are most part lean, dry, ill coloured, spend their fortunes, lose their wits, and many times their lives, and all through immoderate pains, and extraordinary studies.

If you will not believe the truth of this, look upon great Tostatus and Thomas Aquinas Works, and tell me whether those men took pains? peruse Austin, Hierom, &c. and many thousands besides.

Qui cupit optatam cursu contingere metam, Multa tulit, fecitque puer, sudavit & alsit.

He that desires this wished goal to gain, Must sweat and freeze before he can attain,

3362.BurtonMargin c, page 127: “Peculiaris furor, qui ex literis fit.” “A particular frenzy that arises from learning.”

3363.BurtonMargin d, page 127: “Nihil magis auget, ac assidua studia, & profundæ cogitationes.” “Nothing increases it more than persistent studies and profound thoughts.” Fernel, as cited in the body; “ac” is retained as printed.

3365.BurtonMargin e, page 127: “Non desunt, qui ex jugi studio, & intempestiva lucubratione, huc deveneunt, hi præ cæteris enim plerunque melancholia solent infestari.” “There are many who arrive at this through constant study and untimely work by lamplight; for they, more than others, are generally afflicted by melancholy.” Lemnius, as cited in the body.

3366.BurtonStar margin, page 127: “Study is a continuall and earnest meditation, applied to some thing with great desire. Tully.” Cicero is cited without a work or section; the definition is retained.

3367.BurtonMargin f, page 127: “Et illi qui sunt subtilis ingenii, & multæ præmeditationis, de facili incidunt in melancholiam.” “Those of subtle intelligence and much prolonged thought readily fall into melancholy.” Rhazes, as cited in the body.

3369.BurtonMargin g, page 127: “Ob studiorum solicitudinem lib. 5. Tit. 5.” “Because of the anxiety of studies, book 5, title 5.” Patritius, as cited; precise edition and passage pending.

3370.BurtonMargin h, page 127: “Gaspar Ens Thesaur. Polit. Apoteles. 31. Græcis hanc pestem relinquite, quæ dubium non est, quin brevi omnem iis vigorem ereptura sit; Ut ad arma tractanda plane inhabiles futuri sint.” “Caspar Ens, Political Treasury, conclusion 31. Leave the Greeks this plague, which will undoubtedly soon take all their vigour away, so that they will become wholly unfit to bear arms.” This Latin supports the negative sense supplied in the modern column.

3372.BurtonMargin i, page 127: “Knoles Turk. Hist.” Richard Knolles, The General History of the Turks. The name and succession anecdote require collation with Knolles.

3374.BurtonMargin k, page 127: “Act. 26.24.” Acts 26:24: Festus’s accusation against Paul.

3376.BurtonMargin l, page 127: “Nimiis studiis melancholicus evasit, dicens se Biblium in capite habere.” “Through excessive studies he became melancholic, saying that he had a Bible in his head.” Forestus, as cited; “Biblium” is the printed form.

3377.BurtonMargin m, page 127: “Cur melancholia assidua, crebrisque deliramentis vexentur eorum animi ut desipere cogantur.” “Why their minds are troubled by persistent melancholy and frequent derangements, so that they are driven out of their senses.” Ficino, as cited.

3379.BurtonBody n and star margin, page 128: “Solers quilibet artifex instrumenta sua diligentissimè curat, penicellos pictor; malleos incudesque faber ferrarius, miles equos, arma venator, auceps aves, & canes, Cytharam Cytharædus, &c. soli musarum mystæ tam negligentes sunt, ut instrumentum illud quo mundum universum metiri solent, spiritum scilicet, penitus negligere videantur.” “Every skilled craftsman cares most diligently for his tools: the painter for brushes, the ironworker for hammers and anvils, the soldier for horses, the hunter for weapons, the fowler for birds and dogs, the musician for his lyre, and so on. Only the initiates of the Muses are so negligent that they seem utterly to neglect the instrument by which they measure the whole world—namely, the spirit.” Ficino is the authority carried forward from the preceding paragraph.

3381.BurtonMargin o, page 128: “Arcus & arma tibi non sunt imitanda Dianæ. Si nunquam cesses tendere mollis erit. Ovid.” “Diana’s bow and weapons are not to be imitated by you. If you never cease to stretch it, it will grow slack.” As printed; Ovid, Heroides 4.91–92, instead begins “Arcus (et arma tuæ tibi sunt imitanda Dianæ).” Burton’s added “non” reverses the parenthetical assertion, while both versions warn against constant strain.

3382.BurtonMargin p, page 128: “Ephemer.” Origanus’s ephemerides, astronomical tables; no precise edition or location specified.

3385.BurtonMargin q, page 128: “Contemplatio cerebrum exsiccat & extinguit calorem naturalem, unde cerebrum frigidum & siccum evadit quod est melancholicum. Accedit ad hoc, quod natura in contemplatione, cerebro prorsus cordique intenta, stomachum heparque destituit, unde ex alimentis male coctis, sanguis crassus & niger efficitur, dum nimio otio membrorum superflui vapores non exhalant.” “Contemplation dries the brain and extinguishes natural heat, so that the brain becomes cold and dry, which is melancholic. Moreover, in contemplation nature, wholly intent upon the brain and heart, abandons the stomach and liver; from poorly digested food thick, black blood results, while excessive inactivity of the limbs prevents surplus vapours from escaping.”

3387.BurtonMargin r, page 128: “Cerebrum exsiccatur, corpora sensim gracilescunt.” “The brain dries up; bodies gradually grow thin.” Nymannus, as cited in the body.

3388.BurtonMargin s, page 128: “Studiosi sunt Cacectici & nunquam bene colorati, propter debilitatem digestivæ facultatis, multiplicantur in iis superfluitates. Io. Voschius parte 2. cap. 5. de peste.” “Scholars are cachectic and never of good colour because their digestive faculty is weak; superfluous matter multiplies in them.” Johannes Vossius, On Plague, part 2, chapter 5, as cited.