The Anatomy of Melancholy

All those of whom we read such extravagant praises: Aristotle, for example, said to be wisdom itself in the abstract, a miracle of nature; breathing libraries, as Eunapius calls Longinus; lights of nature, giants of intellect, the pure essence of wit, divine spirits, eagles in the clouds, fallen from heaven, gods, spirits, lamps of the world, dictators— May no future age bring forth such a man: monarchs, miracles, overseers of intellect and learning, an ocean, a phoenix, an Atlas, a marvel, a prodigy of a man, a treasury of the whole world, human nature’s ultimate achievement, nature’s husband— to whom the learned world rightly yields command, lowering its rods of office.

As Aelian wrote of Protagoras and Gorgias, we may say of them all: “They were as far from wise men as boys are from grown men.” By comparison they were children, infants; not eagles but kites; beginners, uneducated, “eunuchs of wisdom.” And although they were the wisest and most admired people of their times, I judge them as he judged Alexander: ten thousand men in his army could have been equally capable commanders, if placed in command, and just as brave. There were countless wiser men in those days, and yet all fell short of what they ought to have been.

In his book on wisdom, Lactantius proves them to be simpletons, fools, asses, and madmen, so full of absurd and ridiculous doctrines and deranged propositions that, in his view, no old woman or sick person ever wandered further in their thinking. Democritus learned everything from Leucippus and, he says, left the inheritance of his folly to Epicurus, “while straying into mad philosophy,” and so on. He thinks the same of Plato, Aristippus, and the rest, finding no difference between them and beasts, except that they could speak.