The Anatomy of Melancholy

General symptoms: love of their own sect; hatred of all other religions; obstinacy and ill temper; readiness to undergo any danger or adversity for it; martyrs; blind zeal and blind obedience; fasts and vows; belief in incredible and impossible things. Particular symptoms among pagans, Muslims, Jews and Christians; and among Christians, heretics old and new, schismatics, scholastic theologians, prophets, enthusiasts and so on.

“Should Heraclitus weep, or Democritus laugh?” In attempting to speak of these symptoms, shall I laugh with Democritus or weep with Heraclitus? They are so ridiculous and absurd on the one hand, so lamentable and tragic on the other. A mixed scene presents itself, so full of errors and such a confused variety of objects that I do not know in what manner to portray it.

When I think of that Turkish paradise, those Jewish fables and priestly rites, those pagan superstitions, their sacrifices and ceremonies—making images out of every sort of material and worshipping them when they are finished—or see people kiss the pyx, creep to the cross and so on, I cannot help laughing with Democritus. But when I see them whip and torture themselves, torment their souls over toys and trifles, despairing and now ready to die, I cannot help weeping with Heraclitus.

When I see a priest say Mass with all those ape-like gestures and mutterings, or read of the customs of Jewish synagogues or Muslim mosques, I must laugh at their folly: “Could you keep from laughing, friends?” But when I see them make matters of conscience of such toys and trifles, worship the Devil, endanger their souls and offer their children to their idols, I must pity their misery.

When I see two superstitious orders contend “for altars and hearths,” with such fierce persistence, “about goat’s wool”; when some write such great volumes to no purpose, take so much trouble to so little effect with their satires, invectives, defences and dull, crude fictions; when I see grave, learned men rail and scold like women selling butter, I think it is fine sport, fit for Calphurnius and Democritus to laugh at. But when I see so much blood shed, so many murders and massacres, so many cruel battles fought, it is a fitter subject for Heraclitus to lament.

As Merlin, when sitting beside the lake with Vortigern, after seeing the white and red dragons fight, “burst into tears” before he began to interpret or speak—fell to weeping, and then went on to tell the king what it meant—so I should first pity and mourn this misery of humankind in some passionate preface, wishing my eyes a fountain of tears, as Jeremiah did, and then turn to my task.

For this is that great torment, that infernal plague of mortals, “superstition, the most pestilent of all plagues,” capable by itself of matching all other plagues, miseries and calamities whatsoever: far more cruel, more destructive, more grievous, more widespread, more violent and more far-reaching.