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Robert Burton

The Anatomy of Melancholy

Name: The Anatomy of Melancholy
Author: Robert Burton

1651 English with a close modern English rendering

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The Anatomy of MelancholySubsection 5. the Soul and Its Faculties.

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Modern English Page · Branch 152 of 1495

Subsection 5. the Soul and Its Faculties.

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1651 English

19–20

SUBSEC. 2. Of the Soul and her Faculties.

According to Aristotle, the Soul is defined to be ἐντελέχεια, perfectio & actus primus corporis Organici, vitam habentis in potentia: the perfection or first act of an Organical body, having power of life, which most Philosophers approve. But many doubts arise about the Essence, Subject, Seat, Distinction, and subordinate faculties of it.

For the Essence and particular knowledge, of all other things it is most hard (be it of Man or Beast) to discerne, as Aristotle himself, Tully, Picus Mirandula, Tolet, and other Neoterick Philosophers confess. We can understand all things by her, but what she is we cannot apprehend. Some therefore make one Soul, divided into three principal faculties; others, three distinct Soules. Which question of late hath been much controverted by Piccolomineus, and Zabarel.

Paracelsus will have four Soules, adding to the three granted faculties, a Spiritual soul: which opinion of his, Campanella in his book de Sensu rerum, much labours to demonstrate and prove, because Carkasses bleed at the sight of the murderer; with many such arguments: And some again, one soul of all Creatures whatsoever, differing only in Organs; & that beasts have reason as well as men, though for some defect of Organs, not in such measure. Others make a doubt, whether it be all in all, and all in every part; which is amply discussed in Zabarel amongst the rest.

The common division of the Soul, is into three principall faculties, Vegetal, Sensitive, and Rational; which make three distinct kinde of living Creatures: Vegetal Plants, Sensible Beasts, Rational Men. How these three principal faculties are distinguished and connected, Humano ingenio inaccessum videtur, is beyond humane capacity, as Taurellus, Philip, Flavius & others suppose. The inferiour may be alone, but the superiour cannot subsist without the other; so Sensible includes Vegetal, Rational both; which are contained in it (saith Aristotle) ut trigonus in tetragono, as a Triangle in a Quadrangle.

Vegetal, the first of the three distinct faculties, is defined to be a substantial act of an organical body, by which it is nourished, augmented, and begets another like unto it self. In which definition, three several operations are specified, Altrix, Auctrix, Procreatrix; the first is Nutrition, whose object is nourishment, meat, drink, and the like; his Organ the Liver in sensible creatures; in Plants, the root or sap. His office it to turne the nutriment into the substance of the body nourished, which he performes by natural heat. This nutritive operation hath four other subordinate functions, or powers belonging to it, Attraction, Retention, Digestion, Expulsion.

1643.Burtony. “De anim. c. 1.” On the Soul, chapter 1. The definition is in Aristotle, book 2, chapter 1, 412a–b.

1644.Burtonz. “Scalig. exerc. 307. Tolet. in lib. de anima. cap. 1. &c.” Scaliger, Exercise 307; Toledo, commentary on On the Soul, chapter 1, and so on.

1646.Burtona. “1. De anima. cap. 1.” On the Soul, book 1, chapter 1.

1647.Burtonb. “Tuscul. quæst.” Tusculan Disputations. Cicero surveys disagreements about the soul in book 1, sections 18–23.

1648.Burtonc. “Lib. 6. Doct. Val. Gentil. c. 13, pag. 1216.” Book 6 of Gianfrancesco Pico’s Examination of the Vanity of Pagan Learning, chapter 13, page 1216. The full title and author are identifiable; the cited passage and pagination remain to be collated.

1649.Burtond. “Aristot.” Aristotle; a compressed reference attached to Toledo, presumably his Aristotelian commentary.

1650.Burtone. “Animâ quæq; intelligimus, et tamen quæ sit ipsa intelligere non valemus.” Through the soul we understand everything, yet we cannot understand what the soul itself is. The printed abbreviation quæq; is retained.

1652.Burtonf. “Spiritualem animam a reliquis distinctam tuetur, etiam in cadavere inhærentem post mortem per aliquot menses.” He maintains a spiritual soul distinct from the others, remaining even in the corpse for several months after death.

1653.BurtonAsterisked citation: “Lib. 3. cap. 31.” The printed reference is retained. In Campanella’s De sensu rerum (1620), the murdered body’s bleeding is discussed in book 4, chapter 9, page 296; book 3 has only fourteen chapters.

1654.Burtong. “Cælius lib. 2. c. 31. Plutarch. in Grillo Lips. Cen. 1 ep. 50, Jossius de Risu & Fletu, Averroes, Campanella, &c.” Caelius, book 2, chapter 31; Plutarch, Gryllus; Lipsius, first century of letters, letter 50; Jossius, On Laughter and Tears; Averroes; Campanella; and others. A century here is a collection of one hundred letters.

1656.Burtonh. “Philip. de anima. ca. 1. Cælius 20. antiq. cap. 3. Plutarch. de placit. philos.” Philip Melanchthon, On the Soul, chapter 1; Caelius, Antiquities, book 20, chapter 3; the work On the Opinions of the Philosophers transmitted under Plutarch’s name.

1657.Burtoni. “De vit. & mort. part. 2. c. 3. prop. 1. de vit et mort. 2. c. 22.” On Life and Death, part 2, chapter 3, proposition 1; On Life and Death, 2, chapter 22. The abbreviated references remain to be collated.

1659.BurtonUnlettered heading: “Vegetal soul. Subsect. 2.” The additional subsection designation is printed in the margin, not as a new body heading; it is preserved here.

1660.Burtonk. “Nutritio est alimenti transmutatio, viro naturalis. Scal. exerc. 101. sect. 17.” Nutrition is the transformation of nourishment; Scaliger, Exercise 101, section 17. The printed viro naturalis is problematic, perhaps a corruption of vi naturali, “by natural power”; that reading is conjectural and is not substituted into the Latin.

The Anatomy of Melancholy: Subsection 5. the Soul and Its Faculties.

p. 152

Subsection 5. The soul and its faculties.

Following Aristotle, the soul is defined as the fulfilment or first actuality of an organized body with the capacity for life, a definition most philosophers accept. But many questions arise about its essence, its underlying subject, its seat, its divisions and its subordinate faculties.

Of all things, the soul’s essence and precise nature, whether in humans or animals, are the hardest to discern, as Aristotle himself, Cicero, Pico della Mirandola, Toledo and other more recent philosophers admit. We understand everything through the soul, yet cannot grasp what the soul itself is. Some therefore posit one soul divided into three principal faculties; others posit three distinct souls. Piccolomini and Zabarella have recently debated this question at length.

Paracelsus maintains that there are four souls, adding a spiritual soul to the three accepted faculties. Campanella, in his book On the Sense of Things, works hard to demonstrate and prove this opinion, arguing that corpses bleed in the murderer’s presence, and offering many similar arguments. Others hold that all creatures have the same kind of soul and differ only in their organs; animals possess reason just as humans do, though in a smaller measure because of some deficiency in their organs. Others question whether the soul is wholly present in the whole body and wholly present in every part. Zabarella, among others, discusses this at length.

The usual division of the soul is into three principal faculties: vegetative, sensitive and rational, giving three distinct kinds of living creature—vegetative plants, sensitive animals and rational humans. How these three principal faculties are distinguished and connected seems beyond human understanding, as Taurellus, Philip, Flavius and others suppose. The lower faculty can exist alone, but the higher cannot exist without it. Thus the sensitive includes the vegetative, and the rational includes both, which are contained within it, as Aristotle says, like a triangle within a quadrilateral.

The vegetative faculty, the first of the three, is defined as a substantial actuality of an organized body by which it is nourished, grows and produces another like itself. This definition specifies three operations: nourishment, growth and reproduction. The first is nutrition. Its object is nourishment—food, drink and the like—and its organ is the liver in creatures with sensation, or the root or sap in plants. Its function is to turn nutriment into the substance of the body being nourished, which it does through natural heat. Four subordinate functions or powers belong to nutrition: attraction, retention, digestion and expulsion.

1642.The heading is printed “Subsec. 2.” It is Subsection 5 in the sequence, as the running heads on printed pages 19–20 also show. The original column preserves the error; the modern heading supplies 5.

1645.Aristotle, On the Soul 2.1, 412a–b. Entelecheia means actuality or fulfilment. “First actuality” is the possession of the capacity for living activity, even when that activity is not being exercised; Aristotle compares having knowledge with actively using it. “Subject” here means the underlying bearer of the soul, not the topic of discussion. Burton’s Greek and Latin restatements are combined with his English gloss in the modern column.

1651.Aristotle acknowledges the difficulty of knowing the soul at On the Soul 1.1, 402a; Cicero surveys rival accounts in Tusculan Disputations 1.18–23. “Neoteric” means comparatively recent. Piccolomini and Zabarella are cited for the debate over one soul with several powers or multiple souls; their precise passages, and those of Pico and Toledo, remain to be located.

1655.“At the sight of” is rendered as “in the presence of.” Campanella, De sensu rerum 4.9, reports murdered bodies bleeding before their killers and jurists using this as evidence. This locates the historical claim without verifying the phenomenon. “One soul” is read as one kind shared by creatures. Plutarch’s Gryllus argues for animal reason; the remaining authorities and the Paracelsian four-soul account still require collation.

1658.“Vegetative” denotes nutrition, growth and reproduction; “sensitive” denotes the capacity for sensation. The geometrical comparison is in Aristotle, On the Soul 2.3, 414b–415a: the earlier capacity is potentially included in the later, as a triangle is contained in a quadrilateral. Philip is Melanchthon; the identification intended by “Flavius” remains unresolved.

1661.“Substantial act” is a scholastic expression for an actuality that constitutes a living being. Altrix, auctrix and procreatrix mean nourishing, increasing and reproducing. The vegetative faculty belongs to animals and humans as well as plants; it is not a claim that plants alone possess these functions.

About This Reading Edition

Robert Burton’s Anatomy ranges across medicine, philosophy, poetry, religion, and everyday life in its inquiry into melancholy. This complete parallel edition pairs the 1651 English text with a close modern English rendering, preserving the three Partitions, Democritus Junior’s address to the reader, verse, and the historical index.

Historical Text and Translation

The historical text follows the sixth edition, printed at Oxford for Henry Cripps in 1651, using the McGill University Library copy. The supplied edition documents missing printed pages 98–99 supplied from another 1651 copy at the Bavarian State Library. Historical folio labels and their irregularities remain visible; web reader numbers identify reflowed passages and do not claim to reproduce PDF pagination.

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Diotimos Editions prepared the close modern English rendering and editorial matter. All 8,755 original and modern passage pairs remain aligned, with verse breaks, italics, continuations, and linked annotations preserved. Burton’s 6,781 historical notes retain their attribution; 6,895 editorial notes remain distinct. The introduction, Note on the Text, contextual lexicon, indexes, source documentation, and bibliography are included. The engraved frontispiece remains available in the original downloads.

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