From the book
The Anatomy of Melancholy
Robert Burton · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordAdventitious means acquired, added from outside, or arising from an additional cause, in contrast with what belongs to a thing by birth or nature.
- In the Anatomy of MelancholyThe preliminary synopsis opposes inborn internal causes to outward or adventitious causes.
- In this editionAt the passage, “outward adventious causes” becomes “external, adventitious causes”: the shorter printed form is preserved as a lookup route, while external helps explain the retained technical word.
- A place to read: Acquired melancholy extended to plants and animals, with transplantation, confinement and loss contrasted with qualities attributed by nature.
Meaning
Adventitious means acquired, added from outside, or arising from an additional cause, in contrast with what belongs to a thing by birth or nature. Burton also prints adventious, and pairs adventitious with acquisite, acquired. The local opposition matters: an acquired humour, an external occasion and a disease acquired after birth do not name exactly the same thing. The term does not in itself mean fictitious or feigned.
Use in the book
What comes to the body, and what forms within it
The preliminary synopsis opposes inborn internal causes to outward or adventitious causes. In the fuller classification, Burton calls the second class what happens to us after birth. The former class includes old age, because ageing is treated as a natural capacity, even though its effects appear later. Thus “after birth” describes the contrast as Burton states it, but simple chronological lateness will not by itself distinguish every example.
The account of bodily fluids makes a further distinction. A humour may be innate or “adventitious and acquisite.” Here acquired humour belongs to a compressed account of nourishment and the sustaining of the primary humours. The following paragraph uses adventitious in a list with faulty and diseased humours, set against the four juices indispensable to life. Acquired is therefore not a free-standing synonym for harmful: one occurrence concerns replenishment and another morbid alteration. The supplied note warns that the nutritional syntax and the order assigned to digestion are difficult; this article does not regularize them into a new physiological scheme.
The related adjective acquire is also printed without a final d. In the early classification of dotage it denotes an acquired accompanying condition or symptom of another disease, opposed to an inborn defect. Such a symptom may come and go; persistence is said to indicate melancholy. Acquisite has a non-medical use as well: Burton’s discussion of understanding opposes five acquired intellectual habits to three innate ones, after naming instruction, learning and practice as ways of obtaining them. Acquisition therefore does not itself denote damage or a diseased humour. The numerical reconciliation remains Burton’s compressed account.
In the survey of susceptibility, “this adventitious” has an understood noun, the acquired malady. Joubert is reported to exclude neither young nor old from it, whereas natural melancholy is associated especially with old age and the artificial malady is said to occur more frequently in middle age. The age qualification is one authority’s reported distinction, not an exceptionless diagnostic rule endorsed by every writer Burton names.
A classification that does not remain uniform
Burton places adventitious among the labels for the “immateriall” kind of melancholy, alongside acquisite, redundant, unnatural and artificial. In the particular explanation attributed to Hercules de Saxonia, it resides in the spirits alone and alters the brain through disturbed qualities without gross humoral matter. The next paragraph nevertheless allows unnatural scorched humours within material melancholy. Adventitious should not therefore be made a universal test for immateriality across the book. Burton is reporting several intersecting schemes, including Paracelsus’s rejection of the Galenists’ division.
The later causes passage proposes heat and dryness as the cause of acquired melancholy. Burton immediately limits that proposal to unnatural melancholy producing madness; excess natural melancholy, he says, is colder and produces a gentler derangement. The discussion of head melancholy then calls an acquired condition the effect of an “innate burning untemperatenesse.” The modern column retains both acquired and inborn. One could distinguish the acquired result from the internal disposition producing it, but Burton does not fully reconcile the wording; the apparent tension must remain visible.
Related marginal expressions make the contrast concrete. A hot imbalance may be innata, vel à febre contracta, inborn or acquired from a fever. In the whole-body symptom account, acquisiti refers to people with an acquired condition, who are said to be often ruddy. The English body permits red, yellow, pale or dark appearance after cares, distress, diet or exercise, so the marginal often must not become a necessary outward sign. Neither passage equates acquired with an ailment whose cause must remain outside the body.
From the forest’s edge to the body’s interior
The transition to inward causes gives the term a spatial image. Burton has been a hunter moving around the outskirts of the forest of the human microcosm, pursuing “outward adventious causes.” He now moves into inner rooms and lays open antecedent, immediate causes. The movement joins hunting, buildings and dissection. External here describes a route into the inquiry, not a claim that external events have no bodily consequences. The following paragraph explicitly makes mental disturbance alter bodily temperament, while bodily disorder disturbs the soul.
The earlier transition to diet already says that acquired causes include evident or remote causes and inward antecedent or nearest ones. The later heading for non-necessary causes likewise puts outward, adventitious and accidental together. Its continuation admits that the classes overlap and even prints “contingent and inevitable,” despite an earlier explanation in terms of avoidability. These qualifications prevent the tidy but unsupported equation of acquired with avoidable or superficial.
Artificial, when used for this acquired condition, is broader than pretence. In the preface Burton contrasts creatures said to be melancholy by nature with melancholy brought about by circumstances, extending the latter to transplanted plants, confined animals and animals deprived of companions. The cold-climate discussion again distinguishes natural melancholy from “this artificial” kind. Its original parenthesis says “not this artificial”; the supplied modern column incorporates it into the preceding comparison as “than to this artificial kind.” These are attributed historical comparisons and classifications, not independent findings about plants, animals or northern peoples.
Symptoms and innocent partners
The symptom catalogue opposes innate and adventitious humours among several variables: hot or cold, natural or unnatural, stronger or weaker, simple or mixed. The following sentence adds combinations and mixtures to explain the variety of symptoms. Adventitious specifies acquisition within this list; it does not supply the meanings of its neighbouring alternatives.
In the causes of jealousy, adventitious modifies accidents and circumstances. Burton concedes that partners may themselves give grounds for suspicion, but says that most of the chief causes proceed from external circumstances even when both partners are innocent and well disposed. The examples include a transferred gift and a rejected suitor’s legacy. These are causes of suspicion without necessarily being evidence of wrongdoing. This ordinary circumstantial use extends beyond the technical classification of humours.
Related entries
Cause; Accident; Adust; Complexion and temperament; Melancholy; Artificial (future article); Habit and disposition; Humour; Jealousy
Places to read
- · paragraph 37–39: Acquired melancholy extended to plants and animals, with transplantation, confinement and loss contrasted with qualities attributed by nature.
- · paragraph 26–28, unnumbered preliminary matter: Unnumbered causal synopsis: inborn causes opposed to external or acquired ones, followed by non-necessary examples.
- · paragraph 17–19: Acquire as the acquired alternative within the historical dotage classification: a passing symptom or, if persistent, a sign of melancholy.
- · paragraph 27–30: Innate and acquired humours in the compressed nutrition account; sustaining juices distinguished from acquired, faulty or diseased humours.
- · paragraph 30–32: Intellectual habits acquired through instruction, learning and practice, opposed to innate notions in the compressed numerical reconciliation.
- · paragraph 25–29: Age and susceptibility: acquired disease, Joubert’s inclusion of young and old, and competing reported qualifications.
- · paragraph 31–39: Disputed material and immaterial classifications; adventitious and acquisite in Saxonia’s spirit account, followed by altered humoral matter.
- · paragraph 26–27: Acquired after birth versus congenital causes, with old age nevertheless placed in the natural branch.
- · paragraph 28–29: Acquired causes divided into remote and internal classes; unavoidable conditions of life and their use or misuse.
- · paragraph 38: The immediately preceding historical heat-exposure case, contrasting with the next unit’s cold-climate discussion.
- · paragraph 1–2: Cold climates associated with natural melancholy rather than the artificial kind; original parenthesis and modern comparative rendering remain distinct.
- · paragraph 24–26[sequence; printed 142]: External, adventitious and accidental causes in a heading, followed by overlapping categories and the retained contingent-and-inevitable anomaly.
- · paragraph 39–41: The hunter’s outward circuit and the printed adventious form, followed by reciprocal mind–body effects.
- · paragraph 54–56: Preceding disease and internal disorder; the margin opposes an inborn hot imbalance to one acquired from fever.
- · paragraph 13–21: Proposed hot/dry causes of acquired melancholy, Burton’s limitation to unnatural disease, and an inborn burning imbalance producing acquired material.
- · paragraph 9–12[second occurrence]: Innate or acquired humours among several independent symptom variables; combinations and mixtures complicate classification.
- · paragraph 23–25: Whole-body melancholy, acquired cases said to be often ruddy in the margin, and a wider range of colours and causes in the body.
- · paragraph 9–11: Borrowed, external cosmetic deceptions in hostile marital polemic; the additional deception sense belongs to its noun and context.
- : External circumstances producing suspicion despite innocent partners; transferred gift and refused suitor’s legacy examples.
In this edition
At the passage, “outward adventious causes” becomes “external, adventitious causes”: the shorter printed form is preserved as a lookup route, while external helps explain the retained technical word. At the passage, “innate or adventitious” becomes “innate or acquired.” These are whole-phrase alignments: acquired supplies adventitious, whereas innate has its own unchanged contribution.
At the passage, “adventitious and acquisite” is compressed to “acquired”; two near-synonymous original adjectives are rendered by one. In the passage, “this adventitious” becomes “this acquired condition,” with condition supplied to express the understood noun. At the passage, “adventitious accidents and circumstances” becomes “external accidents and circumstances.” The family thus receives acquired, retained adventitious and external according to context; no claim of one invariant rendering is warranted.
The second acquisite is rendered “Acquired humour,” with humour supplied as the subject of a newly separated sentence. acquisiti in note becomes “those with acquired melancholy”: the persons and their condition are made explicit, while the following à toto corpore supplies the whole-body origin. The related cosmetic phrase alienis & adscititiis imposturis, “with borrowed, external deceptions,” belongs to a different argument; its judgment of deception comes from imposturis and the polemical context, rather than from the meaning externally added alone. Fuller artificial/artful and acquisition vocabularies belong with their separate families.
acquire
Printed “acquire” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: acquire
Acquired rather than inborn.
Context: The alternative is an accompanying condition or symptom of another disease, coming and going; persistence is said to signal melancholy. This is an adjective, not the modern English verb acquire.
Source: original body
acquisite · local use 1
Printed “acquisite” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Acquired.
Context: The second occurrence names the acquired humour sustaining the four primary humours in Burton’s compressed nutrition account; the supplied modern explicitly supplies humour.
Source: original body
Source wording: or acquisite, to maintain these four first primary Humors
Original wording: or acquisite
Modern rendering: Acquired humour
Alignment scope: The elliptical original or acquisite is recast as a new subject, Acquired humour; humour is supplied and the connective is absorbed into sentence division.
Supplied words: humour
acquisite · local use 2
Printed “acquisite” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: acquisite
Meaning: Acquired.
Here: Acquired through learning or practice, rather than innate.
Context: Five acquired intellectual habits are opposed to three innate ones in Burton’s compressed reconciliation of classifications; the previous paragraph names instruction, learning and use as the means of acquisition.
Source: original body
acquisite · local use 3
Printed “acquisite” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: acquisite
Acquired.
Context: One member of the reported immaterial/adventitious classification; it does not establish a universal identity of acquired with immaterial across other passages.
Source: original body
acquisitus
Printed “acquisiti” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: acquisiti
Acquired; applied here to persons with an acquired condition.
Context: The margin calls people with whole-body acquired melancholy often ruddy, contrasting them with the natural kind; the body allows several colours and does not make ruddiness necessary.
Source: Burton note original
Modern rendering: those with acquired melancholy
Alignment scope: The substantivized masculine plural is expanded to identify the persons and their understood condition; those with and melancholy are supplied. Whole-body origin belongs to the following à toto corpore, not acquisiti alone.
Supplied words: those with; melancholy
Edition note: checked in supplied translation of original marginal wording
Translation layer: Supplied editorial translation inside Burton-labelled note; not original Burton English.
Also find under: à toto corpore (exact attested component; Latin contextual phrase; from the whole body, separately from acquired); from the whole body (English component meaning; Latin contextual phrase; from the whole body, separately from acquired)
adventitious · local use 1
Printed “adventitious” (English; word).
Meaning: Acquired or externally arising.
Here: Acquired or external: the synopsis’s alternative to inborn internal causes.
Context: Burton’s compressed causal synopsis; the next line lists non-necessary examples.
Source: original body
Locator qualification: Source record identifies these leaves as unnumbered; plain numerical passage labels are scan numbers.
Source wording, Original wording: or Outward, or adventitious
Modern rendering: Or external or acquired causes
Supplied words: causes
adventitious · local use 2
Printed “adventitious” (English; word).
Meaning: Acquired.
Here: Acquired humours here described alongside faulty or diseased ones.
Context: Burton reports Melanchthon’s vocabulary; the useful primary juices are contrasted with these humours.
Source: original body
Source wording: those adventitious, peccant, or diseased humors
adventitious · local use 3
Printed “adventitious” (English; word).
Meaning: Acquired.
Here: Acquired: one label in a local series describing the immaterial kind, not a universal equation between acquisition and immateriality.
Context: Burton reports Montanus/Arculanus’s division and Saxonia’s spirit-based explanation; the material classification resumes next.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: The immateriall or adventitious, acquisite, redundant, unnatural, artificial
Modern rendering: Immaterial melancholy is adventitious, acquired, excessive, unnatural or artificially produced
Supplied words: melancholy; is
adventitious · local use 4
Printed “adventitious” (English; word).
Meaning: Acquired after birth.
Here: Acquired after birth, contrasted with the causes called congenital or inborn.
Context: Burton’s classification includes old age in the natural/inborn branch; timing alone does not resolve every instance.
Source: original body
Source wording: or else outward and adventitious, which happen to us, after we are borne
adventitious · local use 5
Printed “adventitious” (English; word).
Meaning: Acquired after birth.
Here: Acquired causes whose further classification includes both remote and internal antecedent or immediate causes.
Context: Burton announces a transition in method rather than a new unrelated disease.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: the outward and adventitious, which happen unto us after we are born
Modern rendering: the external and acquired causes that affect us after birth
Supplied words: causes
adventitious · local use 6
Printed “adventitious” (English; word).
Meaning: Acquired or externally arising.
Here: Acquired or externally arising in a heading that groups remote and incidental causes.
Context: Burton’s heading; the following paragraph complicates the class by admitting unavoidable events and prints an unresolved inconsistency.
Source: original body
Locator qualification: Preserve sequence and printed-number distinction exactly.
Source wording: Non-necessary, remote, outward, adventitious, or accidental causes
adventitious · local use 7
Printed “adventitious” (English; word).
Meaning: Acquired rather than innate.
Here: Acquired rather than innate, one variable among several assigned to the humours producing symptoms.
Context: Burton’s symptom classification; the continuation emphasizes combinations rather than exclusive single causes.
Source: original body
Locator qualification: Do not remove bracketed or repeated-page qualifier.
Source wording: innate or adventitious
adventitious · local use 8
Printed “adventitious” (English; word).
Meaning: Externally arising.
Here: External circumstances capable of producing jealousy even when the partners are innocent.
Context: Burton qualifies the preceding accusations with an explicit innocence condition and subsequent examples of unjust suspicion.
Source: original body
Source wording: other adventitious accidents and circumstances
adventitious and acquisite
Printed “adventitious and acquisite” (English; phrase).
Meaning: Acquired; a pair of near-synonymous adjectives.
Here: Acquired rather than present from birth; two near-synonymous adjectives are compressed into one in the modern account of humours.
Context: Burton’s physiological exposition, with difficult nutritional syntax acknowledged by the supplied editor.
Source: original body
Source wording: or adventitious and acquisite
adventitious melancholy
Printed “adventitious melancholy” (English; phrase_or_family).
Meaning: Acquired melancholy.
Here: Acquired melancholy, locally distinguished from the colder natural humour.
Context: Burton reports Damascenus and others, then Altomarus/Piso’s inborn burning imbalance; the tension is retained.
Source: original body
Source wording: this adventitious melancholy which is here meant
adventitious; adventious
Printed “adventious” (English; family).
Meaning: Externally arising; a printed variant of adventitious.
Here: Arising from outside: the shorter printed form in Burton’s forest-outskirts metaphor for the preceding causal survey.
Context: Burton describes his own method; the next step investigates inner causes.
Source: original body
Source wording: those outward adventious causes
alienis & adscititiis imposturis
Printed “alienis & adscititiis imposturis” (Latin; phrase).
Citation key, Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: alienis & adscititiis imposturis
With borrowed, external deceptions.
Context: The phrase describes cosmetic adornment as an externally added deception within hostile anti-marriage rhetoric. Deception belongs to imposturis; externally added does not by itself mean fraudulent. The adjacent historical accusation remains unverified.
Source: original body
Modern rendering: with borrowed, external deceptions
artificial · local use 1
Printed “artificial” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: artificial
Brought about by circumstances rather than belonging by nature.
Context: Burton extends this acquired melancholy to plants and animals, illustrating it by transplantation, confinement and loss in the following paragraph; these are his reported comparisons, not freshly verified botanical or animal-disease findings.
Source: original body
artificial · local use 2
Printed “artificial” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Acquired or altered, contrasted with natural melancholy.
Context: The northern-climate comparison distinguishes the natural cold/dry kind from this acquired kind. The original parenthetical not becomes a comparative than in the supplied rendering, while kind makes the understood noun explicit.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: not this artificial
Modern rendering: than to this artificial kind
Alignment scope: Whole parenthetical construction aligned; the modern version recasts not within the preceding more-subject comparison as than to. This is not a component-only translation of artificial.
Supplied words: kind
artificial malady
Printed “artificial Malady” (English; phrase).
Printed form, Source wording: artificial Malady
Acquired disease.
Context: Burton contrasts natural melancholy associated with old age with an acquired disease more frequent in middle age, then reports Joubert’s inclusion of young and old. Artificial does not mean feigned here.
Source: original body
contractus
Printed “contracta” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Printed form, Original wording: contracta
Acquired or contracted.
Context: The marginal adjective qualifies a hot disordered temperament acquired from a fever, opposed to inborn; it does not require a cause located outside the body.
Source: Burton note original
Source wording: Calida intemperies innata, vel à febre contracta
Modern rendering: acquired
Edition note: checked in supplied translation of original marginal wording
Translation layer: Supplied editorial translation inside Burton-labelled note; not original Burton English.
this adventitious
Printed “this adventitious” (English; phrase_or_family).
Meaning: This acquired condition, with the noun understood.
Here: An acquired malady, with the noun left understood after the adjective.
Context: Joubert’s broad age inclusion, reported amid competing age preferences.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: Iubertus excepts neither young nor old from this adventitious
Modern rendering: Joubert exempts neither young nor old from this acquired condition
Supplied words: condition