Thales sent the golden Tripos, which the Fishermen found, & the oracle commanded to be given to the wisest, to Bias, Bias to Solon, &c. If such a thing were now found, we should all fight for it, as the three goddesses did for the golden apple, we are so wise:

we have women-politicians, children metaphysitians; every silly fellow can square a circle, make perpetual motions, finde the philosophers stone, interpret Apocalypsis, make new Theoricks, a new systeme of the world, new Logick, new Philosophie, &c.

Nostra utique regio, saith Petronius, our countrey is so full of deified spirits, divine souls, that you may sooner finde a God than a man amongst us, we think so well of our selves, and that is an ample testimony of much folly.

My second argument is grounded upon the like place of Scripture, which though before mention’d in effect, yet for some reasons is to be repeated (& by Plato’s good leave, I may do it, δὶς τὸ καλὸν ῥηθὲν οὐδὲν βλάπτει) Fools (saith David) by reason of their transgressions, &c. Psal. 107.17. Hence Musculus infers all transgressors must needs be fools.

So we reade Rom. 2. Tribulation and anguish on the soul of every man that doth evil; but all do evil. And Isay 65.14. My servants shall sing for joy, and ye shall cry for sorrow of heart, and vexation of minde. Tis ratified by the common consent of all philosophers. Dishonesty (saith Cardan) is nothing else but folly and madnesse. Probus quis nobiscum vivit? Shew me an honest man. Nemo malus qui non stultus, tis Fabius aphorism to the same end. If none honest, none wise, then all fools.

And well may they be so accounted: for who will account him otherwise, Qui iter adornat in occidentem, quum properaret in orientem? that goes backward all his life, westward, when he is bound to the east? or hold him a wise man (saith Musculus) that prefers momentany pleasures to eternity, that spends his masters goods in his absence, forthwith to be condemned for it? Nequicquam sapit qui sibi non sapit,

Who will say that a sick man is wise, that eats & drinks to overthrow the temperature of his body? Can you account him wise or discreet that would willingly have his health, and yet wil do nothing that should procure or continue it? Theodoret out of Plotinus the Platonist, holds it a ridiculous thing for a man to live after his own laws, to do that which is offensive to God, and yet to hope that he should save him: and when he voluntarily neglects his own safety, and contemns the means, to think to be delivered by another: who will say these men are wise?

A third argument may be derived from the precedent, all men are carried away with passion, discontent, lust, pleasures, &c. they generally hate those vertues they should love, and love such vices they should hate. Therefore more then melancholy, quite mad, bruit beasts, and void of reason, so Chrysostome contends; or rather dead and buried alive, as Philo Judæus concludes it for a certainty, of all such that are carried away with passions, or labour of any disease of the minde.

Where is fear and sorrow, there Lactantius stiffely maintains, wisdom cannot dwell. ——qui cupiet, metuet quoque porro, Qui metuens vivit, liber mihi non erit unquam. Seneca & the rest of the Stoicks are of opinion, that where is any the least perturbation, wisdom may not be found.

What more ridiculous, as Lactantius urgeth, then to hear how Xerxes whipped the Hellespont, threatened the Mountain Athos, and the like. To speak ad rem, who is free from passion? Mortalis nemo est quem non attingat dolor, morbusve, as Tully determins out of an old Poem, no mortal men can avoid sorrow & sicknes, and sorrow is an unseparable companion of melancholy.

Chrysostome pleads farther yet, that they are more then mad, very beasts, stupified and void of common sense: For how (saith he) shall I know thee to be a man, when thou kickest like an ass, neighest like an horse after women, ravest in lust like a bull, ravenest like a bear, stingest like a scorpion, rakest like a wolf, as subtile as a fox, as impudent as a dog? Shall I say thou art a man, that hast all the symptomes of a beast? How shall I know thee to be a man? by thy shape? That affrights me more, when I see a beast in likenesse of a man.

Seneca cals that of Epicurus, magnificam vocem, an heroical speech, A fool still begins to live, and accounts it a filthy lightnesse in men, every day to lay new foundations of their life, but who doth otherwise? One travels, another builds; one for this, another for that busines, and old folks are as far out as the rest; O dementem senectutem, Tully exclaims. Therefore yong, old, middle age, all are stupid, and dote.