The Anatomy of Melancholy

Thales sent the golden tripod that the fishermen found, and that the oracle ordered to be “given to the wisest,” to Bias; Bias sent it to Solon, and so on. If such a thing were found now, we would all fight over it, as the three goddesses did over the golden apple: we are so wise!

We have women practising statecraft and children practising metaphysics. Every simpleton can square the circle, invent perpetual motion, find the philosopher’s stone, interpret Revelation, devise new theories, a new system of the universe, a new logic, a new philosophy, and so on.

“Our country, indeed,” says Petronius, “is so full of deified spirits, divine souls, that you may sooner find a god than a man among us.” We think so well of ourselves, and that is abundant evidence of great folly.

My second argument rests on a similar passage of Scripture. Although I have already mentioned its substance, there are reasons to repeat it—and, with Plato’s permission, I may: “There is no harm in saying a good thing twice.” “Fools,” says David, “because of their transgressions,” and so on, Psalm 107:17. From this Musculus infers that all transgressors must necessarily be fools.

So we read in Romans 2: “Tribulation and anguish upon the soul of everyone who does evil”; but everyone does evil. And Isaiah 65:14: “My servants shall sing for joy, and you shall cry out in sorrow of heart and distress of mind.” The common agreement of all philosophers confirms it. “Wickedness,” says Cardan, “is nothing but folly and madness.” What upright man lives among us? Show me an honest man. “No one is wicked without being foolish”: that is Fabius’s maxim to the same effect. If none is honest, none is wise; then all are fools.

And they may well be considered fools. Who could judge otherwise of someone who prepares to travel west when he should be hurrying east—who goes backwards all his life, westward when he is bound east? Or who could think a man wise, asks Musculus, if he prefers momentary pleasures to eternity, or spends his master’s property in his absence, only to be condemned for it at once? Wisdom is useless in someone who cannot be wise for himself.

Who will call a sick man wise when he eats and drinks in ways that upset his body’s balance? Can you call someone wise or sensible who wants his health but will do nothing to obtain or preserve it? Theodoret, drawing on the Platonist Plotinus, thinks it ridiculous for a man to live by his own rules, do what offends God, and yet hope that God will save him; or, when he wilfully neglects his own safety and despises the means of securing it, expect someone else to deliver him. Who will call such people wise?