The Anatomy of Melancholy

If it is longstanding, they are “without understanding,” mostly deluded or entirely mad, unaware of any wrongs done to them, ridiculous to others but, to themselves, perfectly happy and free from care. Many greatly extol and praise such a state of delusion, as they do simplicity and folly. As the poet said, “O gods above, may this madness be mine for ever.”

Some think fools and simpletons live the merriest lives, as Ajax says in Sophocles: “To know nothing is the pleasantest life”—ignorance makes life most pleasant. “Ignorance is an effortless remedy for troubles”: ignorance is a downright remedy for evils.

Some think these intricate arts and laborious sciences—our Galens, Ciceros, Aristotles and Justinians—merely trouble the world. We might live better, they say, with the unlettered simplicity and complete ignorance they attribute to the people of Virginia. Those wholly without understanding fare best: they are not worn away by cares or tormented with fears and anxiety, as other, wiser people are.

For, as someone said, if folly were painful, you would hear people howl, roar and cry out in every house as you passed along the street. Instead, they are entirely carefree, cheerful and merry; and in some countries, as among the Turks, they are honoured as saints and generously supported from the common fund.

They are no dissemblers, liars or hypocrites, for fools and mad people generally tell the truth. In a word, as they suffer distress, so they receive pity—which some think better than being envied: better to be sad than merry, better to be foolish and at peace “than to be wise and fret”—wise and perpetually vexed; better to be miserable than happy. Of the two extremes, this is the better.