The Anatomy of Melancholy

The places. Bodily and spiritual care combine in a complete cure. (p. 16; DJR-006-21.) Even extraordinary advantages cannot make a life complete. (p. 108–109; DJR-042-28.)

In this edition. “absolute cure” → “complete cure” (DJR-006-21); “make thee absolute” → “make you complete” (DJR-042-28). “Complete” keeps the relation to wholeness visible. The adjective does not here promise unconditional certainty or name unrestricted political power.

See also. Just; Simple; Generous; Absolve.

Absolve

Source forms: absolved

The word. Absolve here means to finish or bring a work to completion. The headword is the dictionary form of the attested past tense absolved.

In Burton. In the report of attempts to cut a canal between Africa and Asia, earlier rulers abandon their undertaking. Ptolemy later renews it and absolves it in a more suitable place. The abandoned work and its resumption establish the sense: an engineering undertaking is completed.

The places. Ptolemy is said to complete a previously abandoned undertaking. (p. 57–58; DJR-015-12.)

In this edition. “absolved it” → “completed it” (DJR-015-12). The rendering prevents the more familiar sense of pardon from intruding into the account.

See also. Absolute; Fact.

Accident

Source forms: accident; accidental; accidents; accidentall

The word. Accident ranges from an accompanying condition or incidental circumstance to a property contrasted with substance. In medical classifications, accidents can be accompanying symptoms; opposed to innate, accidental can mean acquired.

In Burton. Discontent is called an inseparable accident of human life, while the survey of causes opens into a labyrinth of accidental causes. The treatment synopsis uses accidents for symptoms requiring relief. The astronomical digression asks whether light is substance or accident. Finally, bodily impairments are classified as innate or accidental. These contexts require distinct senses rather than a single substitution.

The places. An accompanying condition of human existence. (p. 106; DJR-042-07.) Incidental causes form a branching labyrinth. (p. 161; DJR-054-02.) The treatment synopsis lists remedies for accompanying symptoms. (unnumbered; scan p. 326; DJR-067-24.) Light is considered as substance or property. (p. 252; DJR-075-04.) Acquired impairments are distinguished from those present at birth. (p. 312; DJR-087-38.)

In this edition. “inseparable accident” → “inseparable condition” (DJR-042-07); “accidental causes” → “incidental causes” (DJR-054-02); “accidents” → “accompanying symptoms” (DJR-067-24); “an accident” → “an accidental property” (DJR-075-04); “accidentall” → “acquired” (DJR-087-38). The modern equivalents follow the argument in each place. Chance mishap is not the controlling sense of these examples.

See also. Cause; Equivocation.

Action

Source forms: action

The word. Action can name an orator’s delivery or performance. Here it stands beside speech and gesture, directing attention to the speaker’s manner of presenting words.

In Burton. Burton’s attack on declaimers judges their speech, action and gesture as signs of apparent madness. The passage then contrasts verbal display with wisdom shown in deeds. That contrast makes it particularly important to distinguish the first, rhetorical use of action from the ordinary acts invoked in the moral comparison.

The places. A satire on declaimers contrasts performance with conduct. (p. 71; DJR-018-02.)

In this edition. “speech, action, gesture” → “speech, performance, or gesture” (DJR-018-02). “Performance” gives the rhetorical sense without imposing it on every occurrence of action elsewhere in the book.

See also. Pathetical; Parrhesia; Confer and conference; Judgment; Fact.

Actuality

Source forms: ἐντελέχεια; first act

The word. Actuality renders the philosophical act by which a capacity is realized or possessed in a determinate form. First actuality must be distinguished from the active exercise of that capacity.