The Anatomy of Melancholy

What is most of our philosophy but a labyrinth of opinions, idle questions, propositions and metaphysical terms? Socrates therefore considered all philosophers quibblers and madmen: “He regarded those who quibbled over subtleties as insane, openly reproving them,” says Eusebius, because they commonly pursued things “which we could neither perceive nor comprehend”; or, supposing they did understand them, they were still altogether useless.

For what does it matter to us to know how high the Pleiades are, how far Perseus and Cassiopeia lie from us, how deep the sea is, and so on? As he goes on to say, knowing these things makes us neither wiser, more temperate, better, richer nor stronger. “What is above us is no concern of ours.”

I may say the same of those studies of birth horoscopes. What is astrology but futile choices of auspicious times and predictions? All magic but a troubling error, a pernicious absurdity? Medicine but intricate rules and prescriptions? Philology but vain textual criticisms? Logic but needless sophisms? Metaphysics itself but intricate subtleties and fruitless abstractions? Alchemy but a bundle of errors?

What purpose do such enormous books serve? Why do we spend so many years studying them? Far better to know nothing at all, as those barbarous Indians are wholly ignorant, than to be, as some of us are, so grievously vexed over useless trifles: “Labour spent on trifles is foolish”—building a house without pegs, making a rope of sand. To what end? “What good does it do?”

He studies on; but, as the boy told Saint Augustine, “When I have emptied the sea, you shall understand the mystery of the Trinity.” He makes observations, attends to times and seasons; and, like the emperor Conrad, who would not touch his new bride until an astrologer had told him an hour favourable to conceiving a boy—but with what success?

He travels through Europe, Africa and Asia, explores every inlet, sea, city, mountain and gulf—to what end? See one headland, said Socrates long ago, one mountain, one sea, one river, and you have seen them all.

An alchemist spends his fortune to discover the philosopher’s stone, forsooth—to cure every disease, make men long-lived, victorious, fortunate and invisible—and reduces himself to beggary, misled by those beguiling impostors, in the hope of making gold, which he will never achieve.

An antiquary consumes his money and time scraping together a collection of old coins, statues, rolls, edicts, manuscripts and so on. He must know what happened long ago in Athens and Rome, what lodgings, food and houses they had; and he must have all the latest news, however distant, before anyone else—what schemes, counsels, deliberations, and so on; “what Juno whispers into Jupiter’s ear”; what is now decreed in France, what in Italy; who that man was, where he comes from, which way he is going, where he is bound, and so on.