The Anatomy of Melancholy

Fracastorius considers it worth investigating why they entertain such false notions as having horns or great noses, or being birds or beasts, and why they think themselves kings, lords or cardinals. For the first, Fracastorius gives two reasons: the disposition of the body and the occasion that prompts the imagination, as when their eyesight is dim or their ears ring because of some cold or rheum. To the second, Laurentius answers that imagination, stirred from within or without, presents the understanding with more than inducements to favour the passion or to dislike: intense pleasure follows the passion, or displeasure does, and will and reason are taken captive by delighting in it.

The philosopher of Coimbra gives this reason why students and lovers are so often melancholy and mad: by intense and continual meditation on whatever affects them, they draw the spirits up into the brain; and with the heat these bring, they inflame it beyond measure. The chambers of the internal senses lose their balanced constitution, and once that is lost, they cannot perform their functions as they should.

Why melancholy people are intellectually gifted, as Aristotle long ago maintained in his Problems, and why learned men, famous philosophers and lawgivers have always been melancholy—“almost all, to a man, melancholic”—is a much-disputed question. Jason Pratensis takes this to mean natural melancholy, an opinion to which Melanchthon inclines in his book On the Soul, as does Marsilio Ficino in On Preserving Health, book 1, chapter 5. But not the unmixed humour: being cold and dry, that makes people stupefied, heavy, dull, fearful, foolish and solitary. It must be mixed with the other humours, except phlegm, and these must not be scorched; rather, blood should make up half the mixture, with little or no scorching, so that they are neither too hot nor too cold.

Aponensis, cited by Melanchthon, thinks it proceeds from scorched melancholy, excluding all natural melancholy as too cold. Laurentius rejects this doctrine because scorching the humours makes people mad, just as lime burns when water is thrown on it. It must be mixed with blood and somewhat scorched; and so that old aphorism of Aristotle may be confirmed: “No great intellect without an admixture of madness”—no excellent mind without a mixture of madness.

Let Fracastorius decide the controversy. Phlegmatic people are dull; sanguine people lively, pleasant, agreeable and merry, but not intellectually gifted. Choleric people are too quick in their movements and furious, unable to endure contemplation, with deceptive minds. Melancholy people have the finest minds, but not all of them: this humour may be hot or cold, thick or thin. If too hot, they are furious and mad; if too cold, dull, stupefied, timid and sad; if temperate, excellent, tending towards the extreme of heat rather than cold.