When Hippocrates heard this fluent, unpremeditated account of the world’s vanity and ridiculous contradictions, he replied that necessity forced people into many such actions, along with the various inclinations arising by divine permission, so that we might not be idle, since nothing is so hateful to them as sloth and negligence. Besides, amid the uncertainty of human affairs, people cannot foresee what will happen. They would not marry as they do if they could foresee the causes of their aversion and separation. Parents would not provide so tenderly for children if they knew the hour of their death; a farmer would not sow if he expected no crop; a merchant would not risk the sea if he foresaw shipwreck; nor would anyone become a magistrate if he were about to be deposed. Alas, worthy Democritus, everyone hopes for the best and acts with that in view; there is therefore no such cause or ridiculous occasion for laughter.

Hearing this poor excuse, Democritus laughed aloud again. He saw that Hippocrates had entirely misunderstood him and what he had said about disturbing passions and peace of mind. If people governed their actions with judgement and foresight, they would not show themselves to be fools as they now did, and he would have no cause to laugh. But, he said, they puff themselves up in this life as though they were immortal demigods, because they lack understanding. It would be enough to make them wise if they considered how changeable the world is and how it turns about, with nothing firm or certain. Whoever is on top today is underneath tomorrow; whoever sits on this side today is hurled to the other tomorrow. By ignoring this, they fall into many difficulties and troubles, coveting and thirsting for useless things, tumbling headlong into calamity.

If people attempted no more than they could bear, they would lead contented lives. Learning to know themselves, they would set limits to their ambition and see that nature has enough without pursuing excess and useless things that bring only grief and distress. Just as a fat body is more prone to disease, so the rich are prone to absurdities and follies, to many misfortunes and vexing troubles. Many ignore what happens to others through bad conduct and bring themselves down in the same way, through their own fault, failing to foresee obvious dangers.

These are the things, he said—O people more than mad—that give me matter for laughter: you suffer the penalties of your own wickedness, your greed, envy, malice, monstrous crimes, rebellions, insatiable desires, conspiracies, and other incurable vices. Add your deceit and hypocrisy: you bear one another deadly hatred, yet conceal it behind a friendly face, breaking out into filthy lusts and violating every law of nature and civil life. After giving things up—farming or seafaring, for example—they return to them, then abandon them again, fickle and changeable as they are. When young, they want to be old; when old, young. Princes praise private life; private people long for honours. A magistrate praises a quiet life; someone living quietly wants his office and the obedience he commands. What causes all this but their failure to know themselves?

Some delight in destruction, another in building, another in plundering one country to enrich a second and himself. In all this they resemble children without judgement or reason, and beasts—except that beasts are better, because they are content with what nature requires. When do you see a lion bury gold, or a bull struggle for a better pasture? A thirsty boar drinks only what he needs, and stops eating when his belly is full. People are immoderate in both. The same holds in lust: animals want sexual intercourse at fixed seasons, people always, thereby ruining their bodily health.

Does it not deserve laughter to see a lovesick fool torment himself over a girl, weeping and howling for a misshapen slattern, a dowdy woman—sometimes a man who could choose the finest beauties? Is there any medical remedy for this? I dissect and cut up these poor animals to investigate these disorders, vanities, and follies; yet the investigation would be better made on the human body, if my kindly nature could bear it. A human being is wretched, weak, and sickly from birth: while at the breast, directed by others; when grown, practising mischief and being headstrong; when old, a child again, regretting the life he has lived.

Here someone bringing books interrupted him. Then he resumed: everyone was mad, heedless, and senseless. To prove what I have said, look into courts or private houses. Judges decide cases for their own benefit, plainly wronging poor innocent people to please others. Notaries alter judgements and, for money, make their documents disappear. Some counterfeit coins; others falsify weights. Some mistreat their parents, even sexually corrupt their own sisters. Others write lengthy libels and lampoons, slandering people who live well and praising the depraved and vicious. Some rob one person, some another. Magistrates make laws against thieves and are themselves the greatest thieves. Some kill themselves; others despair because they cannot obtain what they want. Some dance, sing, laugh, feast, and banquet while others sigh, waste away, mourn, and lament, without food, drink, or clothing.

Some dress their bodies splendidly while their minds are full of abominable vices. Others run about giving false testimony, ready to say anything for money. Although judges know this, a bribe makes them turn a blind eye and allow fraudulent contracts to defeat justice. Women spend all day dressing to please other men outside the home, then go about untidily at home, taking no care to please their own husbands, as they should. Since people are so fickle, foolish, and unrestrained, why should I not laugh at those to whom folly seems wisdom, who refuse a cure and do not recognize their condition?

It grew late, and Hippocrates left him. As soon as he came away, the townspeople crowded around to ask what he thought of him. He told them briefly that, despite those small neglects of dress, body, and diet, there was no wiser, more learned, or more upright man in the world: they were greatly mistaken in calling him mad.

That was Democritus’s opinion of the world in his time, and that was why he laughed. And he had good reason. You laughed with justice then; laugh more now, Democritus. Why do you not laugh? Life now is more ridiculous. Democritus was right to laugh in former times; he had good reason then, but far more now. Our life is more ridiculous than life in his time, or long before.

Never has there been so much to laugh at as now, never so many fools and madmen. One Democritus will not be enough to laugh in these times: we need a Democritus to laugh at Democritus, one jester to mock another, one fool to sneer at another. A great, thunder-voiced Democritus, as huge as the Colossus of Rhodes.

For now, as John of Salisbury said in his own time, “the whole world plays the actor”—the whole world plays the fool. We have a new theatre, a new scene, a new comedy of errors, a new company of actors playing assumed parts. “The rites of Pleasure”, as Calcagnini wittily imagines them in his fables, are celebrated everywhere: all the actors were madmen and fools, changing costumes every hour or taking whatever came to hand. Today’s sailor is tomorrow’s apothecary; at one moment a smith, at another a philosopher, “in these games of Pleasure”; now a king with crown, robes, sceptre, and attendants, then driving a loaded donkey before him like a carter, and so on.