The Anatomy of Melancholy

Monks by profession, renouncing the world and its vanities, yet a Machiavellian gang entangled in every kind of state affair; holy men, peacemakers, yet made up of envy, lust, ambition, hatred, and malice; incendiaries, “a full-grown plague upon their country,” traitors, assassins. “This is the way to the stars!” And this is to perform works beyond duty, earning heaven for themselves and others.

Suppose he had seen, on the opposing side, some of our over-scrupulous schismatics at the other extreme, abhorring every ceremony and willing to lose their lives and livelihoods rather than perform or accept anything Catholics had previously used, even in matters neither required nor forbidden by religion. They alone are the true Church, “the salt of the earth, though they are the most tasteless of all.” Conformists turn like weathercocks out of fear and servile flattery: a gang of opportunists, ready to embrace and defend whatever is or will be proposed, hoping for advancement. Another pleasure-seeking company lies in wait like vultures, looking to seize Church property and profit from anyone’s downfall. As Lucian said in a similar case, what do you think Democritus would have done if he had witnessed all this?

Or suppose he had simply watched ordinary people following like sheep after one of their flock pulled by the horns over a gap: some from zeal, some from fear, “wherever the storm carries them,” believing everything, examining nothing, yet ready to die before renouncing any ceremony they are used to. Others hypocritically attend sermons, beat their breasts, turn their eyes heavenwards, profess zeal, and call for reform, yet openly practise usury and extortion—monstrous people, harpies, devils—whose lives express anything but what they profess.

What would he have said on seeing, hearing, and reading of so many bloody battles, so many thousands killed at once, streams of blood enough to turn mills, “because of one man’s wrongdoing and fury,” or for princes’ amusement, without any just cause: for empty titles, as Augustine says, precedence, some girl or similar trifle, or from a desire to dominate, vainglory, malice, revenge, folly, or madness? Fine reasons, all of them, “for throwing the whole world into warfare and slaughter!” Meanwhile the statesmen themselves remain safe at home, pampered with every delight and pleasure, taking their ease and indulging their appetites. They give no thought to the unbearable misery of poor soldiers, their repeated wounds, hunger, thirst, and so on. They neither feel nor notice the pitiful anxieties, torments, disasters, and oppression that accompany such proceedings.

So wars begin at the urging of a few debauched, reckless, impoverished, dissolute, hungry captains, parasitic flatterers, turbulent hotheads, restless agitators, and inexperienced youths, to satisfy one man’s private spite, lust, ambition, greed, and so on. “Such causes sweep people into criminal battles.” “The flower of humankind”—fine, well-proportioned men, carefully raised, capable in body and mind, healthy—are led like animals to slaughter in the bloom of youth, their prime and full strength, without the least compassion or pity. They are sacrificed to Pluto, killed like sheep, food for devils: forty thousand at once. At once, did I say? That would be tolerable; but these wars go on continually, for generations. Nothing is more familiar than this hacking and hewing, massacres, murders, and devastation.