Cause

Use in the book

At 221c the proposed cause is tested by imagined removal: if badness were the cause of friendship, friendship should not remain after badness disappeared. Desires that are not bad would remain, so the argument seeks another cause.

The related neuter αἴτιον occurs in the same test, “the bad were the cause.” At 221d desire is proposed as the cause of friendship. This is an explicit proposal within an unfinished inquiry, not a final definition. The causal test assumes that removing the relevant cause would remove its effect; the reader should track that assumption rather than silently supply a modern theory of causation.

The related αἴτιον already appears at 209b–c, when Socrates asks the reason why Lysis is permitted some activities and prevented from others. Causal questioning thus begins in ordinary practical examples.

Places to read

1. 221dἡ ἐπιθυμία τῆς φιλίας αἰτία — Desire is the cause of friendship.
2. 221c–d
3. 209b–c

Use in the book

Chrysippus is reported as distinguishing a bodily cause from what it causes, which is neither a body nor an existent in the same statement. The account of that cause is called aitia. The difficult formulation is valuable precisely because it does not collapse causing and explaining into a single thing.

Places to read

1. I.13.1c.3Aition names the cause, while aitia names the explanatory account.
2. I.7.9aChance is described as a variable cause or a cause obscure to human calculation.
3. I.6.17a.3Intellect, nature, necessity, and chance are listed as causes in a report concerning Aristotle.
4. I.49.36.5A ship’s motion distinguishes principal causes from indispensable conditions.
5. I.6.17cChoice appears among different kinds of cause.
6. I.1.26Zeus is described as the cause of all in an etymological argument.

Translation in this edition

“Cause” is the broad rendering. Where the text explicitly distinguishes aitia from aition, “explanation” preserves the distinction.

Principal causes and conditions

The analogy of a moving ship distinguishes conditions without which motion cannot occur from the helmsman and wind as principal causes. It is then applied to soul’s use of body. The causal classification reported under Theophrastus also makes room for choice alongside nature, chance, and necessity. These examples show why an indispensable condition and a source of directed action should not be collapsed into the same explanatory role.

Being responsible as cause

Aitios can mean responsible for something or causative. At I.1.26, Zeus is aitios of everything, in wordplay relating Dia to dia, “through.” The term is causal here and does not imply blame. Moral responsibility is a possible contextual development of the adjective, not an unavoidable meaning in every divine or physical explanation.

Use in the book

To know why God fitted a faculty to an object is to perceive more than an isolated power. The inquiry into human nature therefore asks about the causes and fitness of wants, inclinations, and ends, then passes naturally into knowledge of divine goodness. Love too should act on clear causes, not blind propensity. Explanation and valuation are closely joined: discerning why a thing serves a worthy purpose makes it more fully enjoyable. At the broadest scale, eternity is called cause and end, author and perfection of all. That compressed formulation belongs to an account of the conditions within which finite duration is possible, not a list of ordinary events preceding other events.

Places to read

1. II.69Rational love proceeds on clear causes toward divine ends.
2. III.42Humanity investigates the causes and fitness of faculties and their objects.
3. V.7Eternity is described as cause and end in relation to finite duration.

In this edition

A printed “because” is not itself evidence for a separate philosophical doctrine of causation. The selected places contain substantive explanatory claims.

Use in the book

Pages 34–3623 begin with a catalogue of proposed materials. When challenged, their advocates offer hearsay, reports that Khunrath worked in something, or the claim that somebody showed him a manipulation. These do not establish why a candidate should or should not be Magnesia. Their assertions can be denied as easily as they were made. The remedy is not louder assurance but sufficient, true, incontrovertible reasons and abiding natural foundations, capable of affirmative demonstration or negative refutation.

Khunrath supports this standard with Aristotle, Plato, and a poetic formulation of the happiness of knowing causes. The margin makes the rule particularly strict: even accidentally pointing to the right thing is not enough if the speaker is only guessing. Knowledge must give a sufficient why. Page 37 then applies the requirement to judgement in the other direction: to condemn a material without recognizing through sufficient causes whether it is good or bad is equally frivolous. His test ostensibly binds detractors as well as advocates.

The later argument supplies examples of what reasons do. Distinguishing essential metallic parts from pri-material principles explains why separation does not establish the desired reduction. Showing that a seed cannot serve simultaneously as its own field explains why a metal's internal components do not constitute its regenerative medium. Page 137 describes examination of the principal propositions both for and against; page 138 adds the jurists' rule that a stronger reason can outweigh several weaker ones. Reasons are therefore weighed rather than counted, and a crowd of authorities or practitioners cannot by its size settle the matter.

This is Khunrath's declared standard of philosophical accountability. The reader may assess how consistently he applies it, especially where demonstrations remain withheld, without confusing the declaration of a method with proof that every premise has been established.

Places to read

1. 1599 p. 35Hearsay and reported manipulations fail to give a grounded account of the proposed matter.
2. 1599 p. 36Knowing through causes supports the paired requirements of affirmative demonstration and negative refutation.
3. 1599 p. 36 · margin2The claimant must supply a sufficient why; even guessing the right answer is not accepted as knowledge.
4. 1599 p. 37A negative judgement also requires sufficient causes, rather than mere scorn.
5. 1599 p. 137Khunrath claims that the head-points have undergone examination pro and contra.
6. 1599 p. 138The stronger-reason maxim restricts the force of merely numerous weaker objections.

Translation in this edition

The English generally preserves the distinction between causes, reasons, and foundations. They overlap in the argument but are not automatically synonymous. The modern note identifies Virgilian echoes on page 36; those identifications illuminate the rhetoric, while the cited page itself explicitly names Aristotle and Plato.

Use in the book

A cause explains a thing's being, determination, powers, or activity, not merely an event immediately preceding another event. The Proem directs inquiry toward the cause of causes. Book I distinguishes a local producer from the first cause adequate to an entire kind. A particular fire can generate another, yet it is itself generated and dependent. The first cause of a kind must account for that kind as a whole. Something can therefore be an effect in one relation and an agent or instrument in another. What generates must precede its product, and nothing can originate itself before it exists. This does not reduce causality to a chronological chain: an earlier local fire may already be extinguished while the present fire continues acting. A sufficient higher source explains the dependent agent's continuing efficacy and regularity.

The first cause gives being itself, while intermediate causes determine this being in particular ways. Higher causes reach farther into their effects; their contribution is presupposed by, and outlasts, more particular determinations. Sunlight passing through red and green glass illustrates one power differently manifested through intermediaries. Another comparison describes the most fundamental contribution as a trace impressed earlier and erased later than other traces. Its priority is explanatory rather than a literal inscription or a numerical measure of force. Subordinate agents have a narrower range of operation, but their distinctive contributions remain genuine. God produces an angel's work more fundamentally than the angel while the angel remains its proximate agent.

Calling God cause in the fullest sense means that he produces the whole effect, including its material and the powers of subordinate agents. He neither supplies an initial fragment that creatures finish independently nor gives a first impulse to a self-maintaining mechanism. A natural agent such as fire works upon conditions it has not arranged; God causes forms, materials, their order, and their degrees. An infinite regress of dependent causes would never supply this first source of their efficacy.

Ficino also reports Plato's emphasis on formal, efficient, and final causes. His round-earth illustration distinguishes the idea of roundness, the wisdom producing conformity to that idea, and the good for whose sake the order exists. Effects ordinarily follow the mode of their nearer causes even though the entire order depends on God. First causation therefore preserves intermediate causal levels rather than cancelling them. God's knowledge of causes likewise includes their effects, but does not require inspecting intermediate causes outside himself: both the causal order and its intelligibility depend on his unified productive and cognitive power.

Further passage references. Proem.3; I.3.3–I.3.1123456789, I.3.24, I.3.32; I.6.16; II.3.1–323; II.6.2; II.7.21–3223456789101112; II.9.14–152; II.11.1, 8–18, 25–27; II.12.20; II.13.2–12234567891011

Places to read

1. Proem.3Investigation of causes is directed toward the cause of causes.
2. I.3.5–11234567Origin, dependence and stable generation distinguish local producers from adequate higher causes.
3. II.6.2Universal cause is present to being as its universal effect.
4. II.12.20Effects retain the variable modes of proximate causes within universal order.

Translation in this edition

Keep first, superior, proximate and universal causes distinct. A particular fire can be both effect and producing instrument. The source’s causal priority is not reducible to the earlier extinguished fire in the same material series.

causa / effectus

causa / effectus. Printed forms: causa; causae; causam; causarum; causas; effectibus; effectu; effectui; effectum; effectus; effectuum.

Cause and what it produces, with first, universal, intermediate, and proximate levels. A higher cause’s contribution is presupposed by and outlasts narrower effects; knowledge of causes extends to their effects. References: II.3.2, II.6.2, II.7.32, II.9.14. See Cause.

Cause / effect. A cause contains the effect’s form; this establishes the chapter’s demand for intellectual containment before the distinction of will is developed. References: II.11.1. See Cause.

condicio / innatus

condicio / innatus. Printed forms: conditio; innata.

A condition and what belongs inherently to a thing. Dependency is said to be an innate condition of every effect; this is explanatory status, not a bodily trait inherited from parents. References: I.3.8. See Cause.

conferre / conducere

conferre / conducere. Printed forms: conducant; conferre; confert.

To contribute or assist toward an outcome. Accidental qualities can contribute without being sufficient producers; bodily readiness and celestial motion likewise contribute in their specified roles. References: IV.1.19, IV.2.19, IV.2.20. See Cause.

effectus / efficiens

effectus / efficiens. Printed forms: Effectui; effectus; efficiens.

An effect and an efficient cause or producer. The same fire is first an effect relative to its origin, then a producer relative to another fire; causal roles are relational. References: I.3.8. See Cause.

iacere / iactus

iacere / iactus. Printed forms: iaciat; iactus.

To cast or project, and the reach of projection. A higher cause is said to cast power farther into effects, giving a spatial image to wider causal scope. References: II.3.2. See Cause.

in infinitum vagari / circulo revolvi

in infinitum vagari / circulo revolvi. Printed forms: circulo revolvemur; in infinitum vagabimur.

Wander without end / revolve in a circle. Regress and causal circularity are rejected as ways to account for motion through another; this differs from the positive psychic circuit. References: III.1.25. See Cause.

longius operatur

longius operatur. Printed forms: longius operatur.

Acts farther or over a wider range. The compact maxim links greater causal power with wider scope; it is not a measurement in units of distance. References: I.6.15. See Cause.

medium

medium. Printed forms: media; medio; mediorum.

An intervening medium or means. Natural diversity can depend on media; God’s production of first matter and minds is said to require neither medium nor subject. References: II.11.9. See Cause.

passim

passim. Printed forms: passim.

In various places or here and there. Inferior agents differentiate universal divine action in particular ways; passim is an adverb, not a form of suffering or passion. References: II.7.30. See Cause.

praebere / conducere

praebere / conducere. Printed forms: conducunt; praebeant.

To furnish or contribute toward an effect. Other agents give being of this or that kind only through the first agent’s power. References: II.7.26, II.7.29. See Cause.

primo agere

primo agere. Printed forms: agit primo; primo agit.

To act primarily, as the principal agent. The composite rather than one of its parts is the primary bodily agent; God therefore cannot merely be matter's form. References: IV.1.26. See Cause.

produce / become

produce / become. Printed forms: producant; provenire; provenit.

To result, produce or become. The generation argument distinguishes effects’ coming about, causes’ producing them, and a quality’s altered degree; English result-language should preserve who acts and what changes. References: I.2.11, I.2.12, I.2.17. See Cause.

producere / facere / gignere

producere / facere / gignere. Printed forms: factum; gignit; producendis; producit.

To produce, make, or beget, with material and first causation differentiated. Subordinate makers produce determinate effects; God is the source enabling both their being and work. References: II.3.2, II.4.5, II.7.25, II.8.4. See Cause.

proximus / remotus

proximus / remotus. Printed forms: proximarum; remotarum.

Proximate / remote. Effects imitate the mode of nearer causes, allowing variable effects within a universally governed order. References: II.12.20. See Cause.

qua ratione ... eadem

qua ratione... eadem. Printed forms: qua ratione sunt, eadem agunt.

By the same principle by which they are, they act. The second eadem is ablative with ratione understood; the maxim assigns species-specific operation to form rather than common matter. References: I.2.9. See Cause.

rotunditas

rotunditas. Printed forms: rotunditatis.

Roundness. The earth’s roundness illustrates formal, efficient, and final explanation: idea, making wisdom, and the good judged better. References: II.11.27. See Cause.

sine medio

sine medio. Printed forms: sine medio.

Without an intermediary. Primary matter and spiritual essence require the cause capable of creation immediately, supporting that cause’s presence. References: II.6.2. See Cause.

Generated from one fire (Greek quotation)

εἰσὶ πάντα πυρὸς ἑνὸς ἐκγεγαῶτα

Ficino’s gloss says that all things are generated from a single fire; he attributes the statement to Zoroaster. It figures the unity of the source while the surrounding discussion distinguishes ways in which lower and higher bodies change. The fire image should not be substituted for the argument’s incorporeal first cause. The edition notes a Greek reading adopted in accordance with the Latin gloss.

Place. II.7.7. See Cause.

Aristotle and the Peripatetics (authorities and cited works)

Aristotle and the Peripatetics. Ficino invokes their arguments concerning forms, unmoved movers, ends, cosmic order, possibility, and celestial animation. He also distinguishes their accounts from Platonist positions. His titles, book numbers, and attributions are retained as part of his exposition. I.3.19, I.3.27; I.5.20–2223; II.9.21; II.12.17; II.13.8–122345; IV.1.88–9323456. See Cause; Angel; Order and harmony; Spheres and stars.

Peripatetics (authorities and cited works)

Peripatetics. See Aristotle and the Peripatetics above, especially I.3.19; II.12.17; IV.1.88–9323456.

Metaphysics; divine philosophy; books on divine things (authorities and cited works)

Metaphysics; divine philosophy; books on divine things. Ficino uses these designations in arguments about unmoved movers, the good of universal order, and the world's relation to its governor. His book numbers should not silently be treated as modern critical references. I.5.20–2223; II.9.21; II.13.8; IV.1.88. See Angel; Cause; Order and harmony.

Phaedo (authorities and cited works)

Phaedo. Listed among the dialogues supporting the priority of final, efficient, and formal explanations over chance or material necessity. II.11.26. See Cause.

Philebus (authorities and cited works)

Philebus. Appears in the causal discussion and in Ficino's explanation of limit and infinite through actuality and potency. II.11.26; III.1.11. See Cause; Infinity; Act and operation.

Use in the book

V.523456789 begins with four explanatory causes of a human being: universal nature together with a human parent is efficient cause, happiness the end, body the matter, and soul the form. The singular efficient-cause heading includes both natural and parental agency. God alone excludes all four dependencies; natural body includes all four. Soul remains dependent on an efficient source and an end even as the ascent removes material dependence. Quality provides the intermediate case: it is itself a form, yet is produced by an agent, directed toward an end and drawn from matter's pregnant womb, extended and divided with that matter.

The language of priority also has to be unpacked. A cause can be intrinsic to the explanation of a composite, as matter and form are, or productive and directive, as agent and end are. Consequently, saying that soul has fewer causes is not counting how many historical persons helped produce it. It is identifying fewer kinds of ontological requirement. Nor does “no form as cause” mean a lack of intelligibility. On the contrary, soul escapes a distinct formal constituent because it is itself form. Quality already shares that exemption, which is why Ficino explicitly refuses to make it the additional respect in which soul surpasses quality.

V.5.4 proceeds by elimination rather than only by a picturesque ladder. Could soul surpass quality by lacking an efficient source? No, that would be divine exemption. Could it lack an end? Again no. Could it lack a formal cause? Quality already does. Material dependence is therefore the remaining candidate. This is an argument whose force depends on the completeness of the fourfold classification and the ordered differentiation of levels. The reader can see what must be accepted for the conclusion to follow, rather than merely being asked to admire the number pattern.

The intermediate-level premise also receives a rationale. Whatever acts acts from its nature, and an immediate product should resemble its agent more than an extremely remote one. A wholly dependent body would be maximally unlike the wholly independent source; a middle is required to connect them. Ficino speaks of the work produced immediately and by the guiding intention, “so to speak,” so the resemblance account does not deny that God is also cause of body. It distinguishes ways in which effects stand to their source.

The final comparison with angel prevents a mechanically uniform sequence. Angel and soul both retain productive and final dependence. Their difference is that soul's lower-facing inclination makes animation part of its role, whereas angel is occupied immediately by God. The chapter's numerical ascent therefore reaches two dependencies without demanding a fictitious one-cause creature. The following four arguments secure that a lower-facing inclination does not smuggle bodily matter back into soul's constitution.

Places to read

1. V.5.1, V.5.2Four causes, human example, divine exemption and the need for intermediate degrees.
2. V.5.3, V.5.4, V.5.5Body, quality and soul are compared by four, three and two dependencies; angel adds a different distinction.
3. V.13.1, V.13.2Common being and determinate modes require differently scoped causal accounts.

Translation in this edition

The translation supplies “as a cause” where V.5.5 says soul has neither form nor matter: the governing discussion requires it. Felicitas is “happiness,” distinguished by this edition from beatitudo. Principali... proposito in V.5.2 means a guiding or primary intention and carries ut ita loquar, “so to speak.”

causa efficiens

causa efficiens. Printed forms: causa; causae; causam; causarum; causas; causis; effector; Efficiens; efficiens; efficiente; efficientem.

An efficient cause, the productive source of an effect. The human example names universal nature and human parent together; soul retains an efficient source even when independent of matter. References: V.4.2, V.5.1, V.5.4, V.5.5. See Four causes and graded dependence.

felicitas

felicitas. Printed forms: felicitas.

Happiness, the stated end of a human being in the four-cause example. The supplied edition distinguishes this word from beatitudo rather than treating all blessedness-language as one Latin term. References: V.5.1. See Four causes and graded dependence.

finis / causa finalis

finis / causa finalis. Printed forms: finalem; fine; finem; finis.

An end or final cause, that toward which an agent directs its work. Happiness is the human example; God is the end of all, so created soul does not lose final causality. References: V.5.1, V.5.3, V.5.4, V.5.5. See Four causes and graded dependence.

gradus

gradus. Printed forms: gradatim; gradibus; gradu; gradum; gradus.

A degree or rank; gradatim means by stages. The movement from four causes to three and two describes graded dependency, while angel's added distinction concerns inclination. References: V.3.1, V.5.3, V.5.4. See Four causes and graded dependence.

A degree, rank or step in an ordered ascent or perfection. The four cognitive grades and the imagined hierarchy above finite angels have distinct structures; a higher grade need not mean higher physical altitude. References: VIII.1.1, VIII.4.11, VIII.4.13, VIII.10.2, VIII.16.1, VIII.16.2, VIII.16.3. See Finite angels, infinite act, and infinite potency.

ordo / ordinare

ordo / ordinare. Printed forms: ordinat; ordinem; ordo.

Order or ordering, here the angel's contribution in the reported Platonist triad. The term concerns determinate arrangement, distinguished from God's giving unity and soul's giving life by movement. References: V.4.10. See Four causes and graded dependence.

principale propositum

principale propositum. Printed forms: principali; proposito; ut ita loquar.

A guiding or primary intention, qualified by 'so to speak.' The immediate divine work ought to resemble its agent; this phrase is not a technical substitute for First Cause. References: V.5.2. See Four causes and graded dependence.

qualitas

qualitas. Printed forms: qualitas; Qualitas; qualitate; qualitatem; qualitates; Qualitates; qualitati; qualitatibus; qualitatis; qualitatum.

Quality, a form or power inhering in a subject and, when bodily, extended and altered with it. Quality has three causes in V.523456789's analysis and serves as an instrument of natural action; it is not automatically a moral quality. References: V.3.1, V.4.10, V.5.3, V.5.4, V.5.9, V.14.9. See Four causes and graded dependence.

A determination qualifying an underlying body. The second theory replaces bodily bulk by a quality spread through it; the third localizes a point belonging to that quality. References: VI.1.3, VI.1.4. See Constitution, localized point and harmony.

A characterizing quality whose mode of inherence matters for the subject possessing it. A divisible body's quality is spatially distributed; indivisible virtue is therefore used to establish a nonbodily subject. References: VIII.3.1, VIII.3.8, VIII.10.2, VIII.14.1. See Virtue as an indivisible quality.

superare / praestare

superare / praestare. Printed forms: praestantior; praestantiores; praestantissimae; praestantius; Superat; superat; superet.

To surpass in rank or explanatory excellence. Soul's superiority to quality is material independence; superiority need not mean greater bodily bulk. References: V.5.3, V.5.4, V.11.2, V.15.3, V.15.4, V.15.27. See Four causes and graded dependence.

unitas / unire

unitas / unire. Printed forms: unitas; unitatem; unitque.

Unity and uniting, the divine contribution named at the close of the matter proof. The triad assigns producing/unifying to God, stabilizing/ordering to angel, moving/forming to soul. References: V.4.10. See Four causes and graded dependence.

vis naturalis

vis naturalis. Printed forms: vi naturali; vis ea efficiens; vis ipsa naturalis.

Natural effective power, the agent by which matter is moved or formed. V.4.10 orders productive power, rational soul and instrumental qualities; power here is not sheer bodily size. References: V.4.1, V.4.10. See Four causes and graded dependence.

Plato (authorities and interlocutors)

Plato. Plato is both an authority and an illustrative individual in this volume. His name in examples of particular human beings must be distinguished from claims attributed to his works. The cave, the mixing-bowl account and the hierarchy of intelligible forms have different local uses. References: V.5.9, VI.2.14, VI.2.17, VII.1.1, VIII.1.1. See Plato’s cave and gradual education; Four causes and graded dependence; Receiving images: wax, seals and mirrors; Common nature, participation, and the divine Idea.

Plato, Timaeus (explicitly named works)

Plato, Timaeus. The explicit mixing-bowl reference concerns souls and the causes on which they depend. Elsewhere “Timaeus the Pythagorean” names an argumentative authority and should not automatically be treated as an explicit title citation. References: V.5.9, V.4.1. See Four causes and graded dependence; Prime matter and enduring support.

Use in the book

Knowing a cause is itself part of Burton’s project. After the difficulty of defining melancholy, he appeals to Fernel for the necessity of causal knowledge in cure and prevention. He allows that empirical practitioners may ease and sometimes help, while denying that they can thoroughly root the disease out. The maxim sublatâ causâ tollitur effectus, when the cause is removed the effect is removed, states the stronger ambition. Yet the very next paragraph admits how difficult it is to discern the beginning amid so much variety: Burton will “adventure to guess as neer as I can.” The anatomical plan promises an ordered inquiry, not certainty about every origin.

Agent, means, material and end

The synopsis separates impelling sin and concupiscence from instrumental intemperance and secondary causes. The opening chapter makes Adam’s sin the impulsive cause of human misery and disease, then distinguishes the instruments: stars, heavens, elements and other creatures. Burton says these were good in themselves and have become harmful through humanity’s corruption and the Fall. The theological origin and the physical means answer different causal questions. They should neither be collapsed into a purely physical claim nor detached from the asserted theology.

The relations among agents are not fixed by a qualifier alone. God’s judgment can be a concomitant cause and also the “principal agent”: accompanying does not necessarily mean subordinate in importance. The synopsis distinguishes God acting immediately or through second causes, and the Devil acting immediately or through magicians and witches. In the witchcraft account those human instruments can themselves provoke the Devil to harm, according to Erastus; the stated relationship is reciprocal enough to resist a simple master-and-passive-tool diagram. These are Burton’s asserted or reported theological explanations.

The faculty account offers a different distinction. Movement requires what moves, the means of movement and what is moved. The cause of movement is then divided into efficient cause and end: the end is the object desired or avoided, as a hare is sought by a dog. Human efficient agency is reason, or imagination subordinate to it; in other animals it is imagination alone. Imagination moves appetite, appetite moves the moving faculty, and the spirit mediates the command to the bodily organ. The next paragraph identifies nerves, muscles and sinews in the mechanism. End here gives the aim, while efficient cause identifies what initiates movement through the sequence; it is not another name for the material of a disease.

Melancholy’s name comes from its material cause, black bile. Burton immediately leaves to Altomarus and Salvianus the dispute whether melancholy is cause or effect, disease or symptom. Later, diet is called a material cause because it supplies matter and nourishment. The mother-and-father metaphor makes diet the mother of diseases, whoever their father may be; bodily constitution and prepared humours must cooperate before other evident causes take effect. The account can give diet sufficient force by itself while also describing cooperating conditions. Its emphatic local language should remain visible alongside the book’s other causal accounts.

Nearness, preparation and competing schemes

Natural causes are classified as primary and universal, or secondary and particular. The first group includes celestial influence “as our Astrologers hold”; Burton explicitly declines here to decide whether stars cause events or signify them. Secondary particular efficient causes are then divided into inborn and acquired. Even this division is not a simple chronological rule: old age is included in the inborn natural branch, whereas inherited abnormal constitution is another inborn category.

Primary is relative to the argument, not an invariant synonym for celestial. Paracelsus is reported to make the stars the principal and primary cause, sometimes sufficient with all other causes set aside. Cnemander distinguishes universal stellar from particular parental and regimen causes; Porta is then reported to extend stellar causation to each individual. Conversely, inherited secondary causes can, with Wolphius’s support, alter the primary causes and decrees of heaven. Piso calls voluntary solitude a primary cause, and the cure discussion uses the same description for troubling imaginings. The order of explanation and the weight assigned to a cause therefore need to be read locally.

The acquired causes are next divided into evident and remote, or inward, antecedent and nearest; Burton says some call the latter Continent causes. The later heading collects continent, inward, antecedent and next, and the following hunter metaphor moves from the outer forest to inner chambers and dissection. The distinction between a preparing antecedent cause and a directly sustaining continent cause is useful, but Burton coordinates them loosely here. The synopsis even prints Contingent where the later heading prints Continent. The edition renders that synopsis word incidental, but its intended local force remains uncertain; this is a textual difference to preserve rather than silently correct.

Necessary causes are initially the unavoidable conditions of life, the six non-naturals, which alter us according to their use or misuse. Necessary does not mean that every encounter necessarily produces melancholy. Their remote, outward, ambient character distinguishes them from the subsequent internal account. The later transition defines non-necessary causes, through Fernel, as avoidable or usable without necessity, but Burton then says that many accidental causes cannot be avoided and prints “the rest are contingent and inevitable.” That inconsistency remains in this edition; an intended evitable is only a possible correction. His further admission that these contingencies cannot all be counted matters as much as the classification.

Nearness is relative to the explanation at hand. In the demonic discussion the quoted Latin makes black bile the proximate cause even if a demon changes the constitution; Burton’s following English instead calls burnt choler the immediate cause. The Latin’s black bile and the English’s altered choler are separate formulations. Elsewhere Saxonia makes immaterial animal spirits the next and immediate causes of melancholy; the following paragraph gives other authorities’ competing account through scorched humours. These theories are juxtaposed, not reconciled into one material scheme.

Montalto’s efficient cause is a hot and dry disorder, associated with the brain roasting blood and with heat in the liver and bowels. Burton develops the heat argument, then limits it: it may hold for unnatural melancholy producing madness, but not for the natural, colder kind producing a gentler derangement. The body’s chapter 10 and the margin’s book 1, chapter 13 references remain distinct. In the later account of love melancholy, Gordon makes the testicles an immediate seat or cause and the liver an antecedent. His marginal wording says they may be seats in respect of those respective causes. Anatomical seat, preparation and immediate agency are closely related in this report without becoming interchangeable definitions.

The same factor can accompany, assist or act alone. Retention and evacuation are called concomitant, assisting, or sole causes; the ensuing merchant’s case attributes his distress to constipation alone, displacing his friends’ suspicion of a philtre. Elsewhere custom alters the effect of food and mealtimes, and a bath that cures one person may cause illness in another. Burton even grants that isolated causes can do little while immediately allowing that each may often be sufficient. His species account says causes overlap and act on the weakest part, although some are more proper to one kind; the symptom account denies a single cause or humour for all cases of altered melancholy. These propositions preserve variation and combination without being harmonized into a modern causal model.

Cycles, motives and grounds

Cause need not imply a one-way sequence. Excessive solitude is both cause and symptom, either imposed or voluntary. Sorrow is melancholy’s mother and daughter: the two beget each other and tread in a circle. Burton’s ornate reciprocal explanation is more extensive than the Hippocratic proposition cited in its support. He nevertheless adopts the circle as his own account of the relation.

Other passages deliberately enlarge the explanation. Discontent, care and misery become a “general cause” and a continuate cause, a continuing condition of human insecurity. Self-love can arise from ourselves or others: we both act and are acted upon, and excessive self-estimation makes us “active causes.” The imagination account assigns almost the whole cause to imagination in Arnoldus’s Latin, while Burton’s following English gives it much greater weight than bodily disorder. The preceding account nevertheless makes passions disturb spirits, digestion, humours and organs; the later body-to-mind account locates principal causes in heart, humours and spirits. Such directional emphases are local arguments, not proof that Burton has eliminated either bodily or mental agency.

Causal language can also assign responsibility. Burton tells the solitary sufferer that he is the efficient cause of his own misery through yielding to thoughts, expanding a reproach associated with Mercurialis. That is a historical moral accusation, not a neutral diagnosis or the book’s only attitude to suffering. Later Burton challenges healthy people who think patients could resist if they wished: remove the internal cause before commanding them not to grieve or fear. The earlier blame and later resistance to blame are both present.

The appeal to causes can therefore support compassion and reassurance. Burton links less avoidable bodily infirmities with a stronger claim to pity. His explanation of natural internal causes explicitly addresses patients who fear devils, witchcraft or abandonment by God: understanding is meant to help them avoid effects, or at least endure them more patiently. In the accompanying Heinsius verse, fear that does not know its cause becomes itself a cause of fear. Inability to name a reason, as in reddere causam, does not make the suffering unreal or remove its internal sources. By contrast, “no cause” for prescribing medicine means no sufficient warrant: unnecessary treatment may itself stir up illness.

“Without a cause” in the definition distinguishes pathological fear and sorrow from ordinary passions, but the continuation qualifies the definition as applying to most, not all, melancholy. The later explanation explicitly distinguishes a just external object from an internal cause carried with the sufferer. Without a cause therefore cannot mean that the book finds no bodily or psychological causation. The discussion also rejects Fracastorius’s cold-only explanation because fear occurs in scorched-choler melancholy. Disagreement is part of the causal inquiry.

In the praise of love, love is both the beginner and end of actions, their efficient and instrumental cause; the attached verse calls love the single cause of things. This is an expansive philosophical and poetic celebration, not a medical classification. The charity discussion then applies cause efficient to vainglory and emulation as Cosimo’s alleged motive for benefaction, alongside fame as his supposed sole intent. Burton imputes those motives and immediately generalizes against contemporary patrons; the passage does not independently establish Cosimo’s intentions.

Love’s more particular causes are layered too. The stars are called the remotest, while opportunity, time, place and enticement are said to concur. The eye is a cause and instrument in both the person looking and the person seen: it acts and suffers, wounds and is wounded. Burton can distinguish an object from the manner of presenting it, blaming the latter in the Caracalla story, whose alleged marriage the supplied apparatus identifies as fabricated. Jealousy is for the most part both cause and symptom of melancholy, and harsh treatment born of groundless suspicion can, Burton says, produce the infidelity it fears. Other jealousy arises from circumstances even when both partners are innocent. None of these propositions licenses treating every jealous suspicion as evidence of an offending partner.

Reasons, purposes and cases

Ordinary constructions remain essential. “For that cause” can simply mean for that reason, as the imagined frogs lead Platter’s patient to medical study. Burton’s own writing likewise becomes an antidote made from what he calls the prime cause of his disease. To plead one’s own cause, by contrast, is to argue one’s legal case in his projected commonwealth. The Latin causam in the body belongs to that forensic sense.

Latin causa, causâ and caussa also express purpose or sake: writing for one’s own exercise, travelling for health, and the hostile allegation about Socrates’s interest in young men. Causa mea and tua causa, for my sake and for yours, occur in a quoted exchange offering reciprocal lies and perjury, not as Burton’s advice. Cujus causa asks for what reason; Burton’s following English about Cato’s son turns that question into what offence the son had committed. In the Cardano margin the printed fruendorum scelerum causa means for the enjoyment of crimes, whereas Burton’s body says punishment for preceding sins. The proposed substitution luendorum remains conjectural. Purpose constructions cannot simply be filed as productive medical causes.

Forensic causes are cases or lawsuits: lawyers prolong them, claim to support the poor’s causas, or consume noble fortunes through causæ forenses. The image extends into courtship, where a lover prosecutes his cause; the neglected lawyer’s wife promises an advocate to “plead my cause,” making a sexual pun on legal business. Indicta causa, without the case being heard, occurs in a reported argument attributed to Origen about divine judgment. A cause can instead be a shared interest or undertaking: animals battle in “Venus cause,” while sectarian devotees advance the “common cause.” That collective sense differs from a factor common to many illnesses.

Reasons can be slight, plausible, sufficient or alleged. Critics grow hot in a cold cause, an insignificant matter; Montanus’s patient becomes angry levibus de causis, over trifles, while anger itself is named a principal cause of illness. The miser fears giving visitors any causæ quidquam, any reason or excuse, to come in. Poverty supplies causamque jocandi, an occasion for mockery. A slight cause, causa pusilla, may rekindle love in a vulnerable person. Causlesse jealousy lacks adequate grounds, rather than every kind of causation. The ordinary verbs are equally broad: causeth means produces, whereas caused and causing may mean having someone perform an action or arranging for it to happen.

An adequate reason and an actual motive are not interchangeable. After the narrative dispute over Democritus’s laughter, Burton himself says he had “good cause.” His attack on war says battles lack a just cause while listing the very real motives of vanity, precedence, desire and revenge; the ironic “goodly causes” does not approve them. His own commonwealth nevertheless permits war for the people’s safety and urgent need, and makes an exception for a very just offensive cause. War can also be cause, effect, fruit and punishment of sin, extending reciprocal causation beyond the medical circles. In quieter ordinary usage a scholar’s cause is his unadvanced candidacy, and “such causes” are courtship matters in which Burton allows modest conduct.

Finding and removing causes

The cure repeatedly turns causal explanation into action. Pomponazzi’s account of charms makes imagination move humours, spirits and blood and remove morbificas causas, disease-producing causes, from affected parts. The regimen and counsel sections urge discovering and removing distressing objects, causes, company and occasions; where a patient conceals his distress, carers are to observe his behaviour. Alexander’s condition that imaginings have not become deeply rooted limits one reported success, even though the following paragraph uses the categorical language of a completed cure once reassurance is achieved. The tooth-extraction comparison makes removal of a cause vivid. These are historical causal claims and directions, with their local qualifications retained.

Causal inquiry also reaches well beyond medicine. The geographical digression asks what produces tides, differences of colour and climate, and apparent prodigies. Burton sometimes suspends explanation, admitting that philosophy cannot yet find the true cause; elsewhere he praises Galileo as proving the earth-motion account of tides. The alternatives are therefore not all held at an equal distance. His earlier storm discussion expressly favours Bodin’s aerial demons over meteorologists’ natural causes, while a later passage gives optical and imaginative second causes for apparent ghosts. Reported natural and supernatural accounts, and Burton’s own endorsements, must be distinguished rather than assimilated to one uniform position. The racial and geographical claims in the colour discussion remain historical claims, not verified findings.

The range includes both confidence and metaphysical conjecture. In promptu causa est, the cause is plain, introduces an explanation of the fertility around Damascus by abundant water. The later question why an infinite cause, God, should not produce infinite effects belongs to Nicholas Hill’s argument for infinite worlds. Burton follows it with Kepler’s partial agreement and disagreement. A universal originating power in that debate must not be confused with the locally first cause of an individual illness.

Religious causation and despair

In the religious partition Burton combines natural precursors with demonic opportunity. Excessive fasting, bad diet, sickness, melancholy and solitude are called precedent causes, forerunners or concomitants of visions and delusions; they give the Devil occasion. He nevertheless allows beneficial sobriety and contemplation before condemning their abuse. The Sibylline passage’s “sole cause, and the Divell together” is awkward: the modern version chooses sufficient cause, but that choice does not make the original an exclusively natural explanation. Burton also questions whether the alleged prophecies existed. His maxim that removing the cause ends the effect appears again in proposals for suppressing religious assemblies and books, alongside medical management of individuals; those coercive proposals remain his, not this lexicon’s advice.

Burton rejects the pretence that stars are the immediate, inevitable causes of every future event. His catalogue of explanations for Roman prodigies distinguishes divine judgment, nature, stars, chance and necessity; the body’s execution and the margin’s exile of Coriolanus remain different. The subsequent assertion that God is bound to causis secundis, secondary causes, is presented as Seneca’s doctrine within a hostile survey of necessity. Nemesis’s title “Queen of causes,” Latin Regina causarum, instead personifies retribution as a governing power. Neither is simply another medical subdivision.

The closing discussion carefully differentiates melancholy and despair. Many writers make melancholy a common cause and symptom of despair, but Burton says they do not always coincide. Melancholy fears without an adequate cause; despair, in this contrast, fears on grave grounds. Fear and grief cause melancholy, whereas despair produces fear and grief. Much melancholy has no affliction of conscience; nevertheless melancholy alone may sometimes be a sufficient cause of terror of conscience. Neither sufficiency nor concurrence is asserted without qualification. Consolation is subsequently to be fitted to the person and the cause, and the final discussion again allows terrifying perceptions to arise from natural causes.

Related entries

Consent and essence; Accident; Contingence; Adventitious; Artificial; Matter; Adust; Habit and disposition; Complexion and temperament; Imagination; Spirits; Witchcraft; Charms; Jealousy; Reason

Places to read

1. · paragraph 5–9: Purposes for writing, the marginal exercise-of-oneself construction, and Burton’s chief cause of illness turned into an antidote.
2. · paragraph 6–8: Sickness and the reported voyage for health: causa expresses purpose in Strabo’s margin.
3. · paragraph 20–22: The hostile Socrates catalogue and doubled-s caussa, for the sake of the alleged objects of desire.
4. · paragraph 16–17: Hippocrates’s denial of grounds for laughter and Democritus’s reply, in the embedded narrative.
5. · paragraph 21: Democritus’s defence of laughter and animal dissection to investigate madness’s cause.
6. · paragraph 1–2: Burton endorses Democritus’s good reason for laughter and intensifies it in the present-day comparison.
7. · paragraph 17–18: Actual motives for war contrasted with justifying grounds; goodly causes is ironic.
8. · paragraph 26: War as cause, effect, fruit and punishment of sin in Burton’s condemnation.
9. · paragraph 29–35: Lawyers’ professed advocacy, prolonged lawsuits and alternative arbitration; cause, causa and causas in forensic senses.
10. · paragraph 28–30: Pleading one’s own legal case in the projected commonwealth; Latin causam occurs in the body.
11. · paragraph 11–14: Public safety and urgent necessity, with a very-just-cause exception for offensive war.
12. · paragraph 24–27: Seyssel’s reported causes of noble bankruptcy, including costly legal cases and excessive spending.
13. · paragraph 7–8: Hot critics in a cold cause: disproportionate zeal over grammatical and antiquarian trifles.
14. · paragraph 11, unnumbered preliminary matter: Impelling sin and instrumental intemperance/secondary causes in the synopsis.
15. · paragraph 23–25, unnumbered preliminary matter: Direct and mediated divine/demonic causes in the synopsis’s supernatural branch.
16. · paragraph 29, unnumbered preliminary matter: Printed Contingent beside inward and nearest; incidental is the supplied interpretation, with intended local force unresolved.
17. · paragraph 12: Adam’s sin as the impulsive cause of human miseries.
18. · paragraph 16–18: God’s judgment as both a concomitant cause and the principal agent.
19. · paragraph 27–28: Creatures as instrumental means and the asserted harmful consequences of the Fall.
20. · paragraph 30–32: Movement’s efficient agent and desired end; reason/subordinate imagination and the appetite–faculty–spirit–organ mechanism.
21. · paragraph 3: Black bile as material cause and the deferred cause/effect, disease/symptom dispute.
22. · paragraph 10–12: Without a cause in the definition, qualified as applying to most rather than all melancholy.
23. · paragraph 54: The difficulty of distinguishing disease kinds, their causes and their mixtures.
24. · paragraph 60: Mixed causes and symptoms in patients versus separate species in physicians’ books.
25. · paragraph 1–5: Causal knowledge and the limits of empirical relief; removal of a cause, uncertainty about origins and divine permission.
26. · paragraph 2–4: Burton’s explicit preference for demonic storm causation over meteorologists’ natural accounts.
27. · paragraph 14–17: Possible demonic changes to constitution, with Latin black bile distinct from English burnt choler as immediate cause.
28. · paragraph 30–32: Witches as demonic instruments who may themselves incite the demon to harm.
29. · paragraph 2: Reported primary stellar causes and Burton’s suspended cause-versus-sign question.
30. · paragraph 6–8: Paracelsus’s strong stellar claim, allowing the constellation alone with other causes set apart.
31. · paragraph 13–15: Cnemander’s universal stellar and particular parental/regimen causes, followed by Porta’s individual application.
32. · paragraph 25–27: Secondary particular efficient causes: innate old age and inherited constitution versus acquired conditions.
33. · paragraph 44–46: Inherited secondary causes said to alter primary celestial causes and decrees.
34. · paragraph 27–32: Remote/external and internal/antecedent/continent grouping; necessary non-naturals; diet as material cause with bodily cooperation.
35. · paragraph 39: Custom alters the effects of foods and mealtimes, limiting rigid regimen rules.
36. · paragraph 4–8: Retention and evacuation as accompanying, assisting or sole causes; constipation replaces the friends’ philtre suspicion.
37. · paragraph 20–22: Baths may cure one patient and cause illness in another, depending on the humour.
38. · paragraph 37: The idle tenant’s house image at the close of idleness, leading into solitude.
39. · paragraph 1–2: Excessive solitude as an accompanying cause and symptom, imposed or voluntary.
40. · paragraph 5–8: Piso’s primary cause of voluntary solitude, at first delightful but increasingly obstructive.
41. · paragraph 20–22: Burton’s reproach of the sufferer as efficient cause through yielding to thoughts.
42. · paragraph 29: The rhetorical competition among causes: each greater than the next, with passion greatest.
43. · paragraph 2–6: Passions move spirits and humours; the Latin causent; Arnoldus’s almost-whole imaginative cause and Burton’s following comparison.
44. · paragraph 27–29: Imagination removing disease-producing causes in the charm account; body incredulity and marginal credulity remain different.
45. · paragraph 6–8, source 96 repeated: Sorrow and melancholy as reciprocal cause and symptom, mother and daughter.
46. · paragraph 33–35: Trivial provoking grounds distinguished from anger’s principal causal role in the reported Montanus case.
47. · paragraph 6–8: Discontent, care and misery as a general, continuing cause in human life.
48. · paragraph 14–16: Purpose causa with printed enjoyment of crimes in the margin versus punishment in the body.
49. · paragraph 18–20: The miser’s fear of giving visitors any reason or excuse to enter.
50. · paragraph 18–21: Self-love from ourselves or others: active causation, passive susceptibility and excessive self-estimation.
51. · paragraph 24–26, source 146 [sequence; printed 142]: Necessary and non-necessary causes, overlapping accidental categories and the unresolved contingent-and-inevitable wording.
52. · paragraph 26–28: Poverty, dirty clothing and the Latin occasion for mockery.
53. · paragraph 44–45: Cato’s son asks for what reason; Burton’s following English asks what offence he had committed.
54. · paragraph 37: Isolated causes said to do little, yet often each may be sufficient; both assertions are retained.
55. · paragraph 39–42: Internal sustaining/preparatory/proximate causes and the hunter’s move to bodily dissection.
56. · paragraph 47–49: Heart, humours and spirits as chief causes in the body-to-mind account of mutual suffering.
57. · paragraph 57–59: Illnesses developing into melancholy and less avoidable causes as grounds for greater compassion.
58. · paragraph 11–15: Montalto’s hot/dry efficient cause limited by Burton’s colder natural kind; body and marginal citations differ.
59. · paragraph 17–18: Overlapping causes act on the weakest part, although some are more proper to individual kinds.
60. · paragraph 47–48: Fear without a known cause becoming itself a cause of fear in the Heinsius margin.
61. · paragraph 1–2: Continual grief without an evident cause and inability to give a reason, reddere causam.
62. · paragraph 12–15, source 190 [second occurrence]; 190 [second occurrence]–191; 191: No single cause or humour for altered melancholy; Saxonia’s spirits and the competing burnt-humour explanation.
63. · paragraph 18–26: Natural internal causes as reassurance; the cold-only objection; inward fear and Burton’s challenge to blaming patients.
64. · paragraph 24–26: Optical and perceptual secondary causes, with fear and imagination, for apparent ghosts.
65. · paragraph 10–12: No sufficient indication for medicine and possible harm from unnecessary treatment.
66. · paragraph 26–29: Competing causes of sea movements, Burton’s praise of Galileo and further causal inquiry.
67. · paragraph 34–36: Questions about efficient causes of reported geographical/colour differences; alternatives are not verified findings.
68. · paragraph 7–9: Varied equatorial weather whose true cause philosophy is said not yet to explain.
69. · paragraph 15–17: Water as an evident cause of fertility around Damascus: in promptu causa est.
70. · paragraph 20–21: Reported showers/prodigies and competing natural, celestial, divine and demonic accounts; marginal caution retained.
71. · paragraph 28–30: Heaven/air and refraction; marginal causari is a passive causal verb.
72. · paragraph 22–25: God as an infinite cause in Hill’s cosmological argument, followed by Kepler’s partial disagreement and Tycho’s purposes.
73. · paragraph 25–27: Causative caused: the duke has followers act in the drunkard-in-a-palace story.
74. · paragraph 12–14: Imaginings as a primary causal occasion and targets of distraction or reasoning.
75. · paragraph 4–8: Finding concealed distress and removing objects/occasions; qualified and categorical cure claims coexist.
76. · paragraph 16–18: One’s known troubles versus others’ unknown troubles; in causa est rendered that is why.
77. · paragraph 35–37: Avoiding an effect or removing a cause, illustrated by extracting an aching tooth.
78. · paragraph 20–22: The scholar’s unadvanced candidacy: cause means the case or application needing support.
79. · paragraph 17–20: Love as beginning, end, efficient and instrumental cause in encomium; separate Latin and English verses.
80. · paragraph 24–26: Vainglory and emulation imputed as Cosimo’s motive, not independently established intentions.
81. · paragraph 31–33: For my sake and for yours in the quoted exchange offering lies and perjury.
82. · paragraph 57–59[sequence; printed 246]: Gordon’s immediate/antecedent causes and possible bodily seats; sequence is printed 246.
83. · paragraph 1–3: Stars as the remotest causes of erotic disturbance, with Ficino’s reported configurations.
84. · paragraph 1–3: Time, place, opportunity and enticements must concur for the listed erotic causes to take effect.
85. · paragraph 49–51: The eye as active and passive cause/instrument in both the observer and the person seen.
86. · paragraph 62–63: Object distinguished from its indecent presentation in the historically unreliable Caracalla anecdote.
87. · paragraph 36–38: Courtship matters, moderate social conduct and the distinction between use and abuse.
88. · paragraph 19–21: Causative causing in the reported false-love-notice stratagem attributed to Melissa.
89. · paragraph 1–2: Pursuing the beloved as prosecuting a cause or suit.
90. · paragraph 8–11: A slight cause rekindling love, with distinct Latin and English verses and a renewed-fire comparison.
91. · paragraph 40–42: Venus’s cause as the sexual interest or undertaking in animal-jealousy verse.
92. · paragraph 18–20: Jealousy and melancholy as reciprocal cause and symptom for the most part.
93. · paragraph 29–31: Groundless suspicion and harsh confinement said to produce the infidelity feared.
94. · paragraph 55–57: The lawyer’s wife’s legal/sexual pun on an advocate who will plead her cause.
95. · paragraph 60–62: Jealousy’s external circumstances can operate even when both partners are innocent.
96. · paragraph 3–5: Causlesse suspicion distinguished from justified jealousy.
97. · paragraph 15–17: Priestly profit as the alleged cause of religious abuse, with the supplied clause recast passively.
98. · paragraph 45–46: Common cause as a shared religious interest in Burton’s polemic against devotees.
99. · paragraph 6–15: Natural precursors and demonic opportunity; beneficial moderation, abuse and the sole-cause/other-agencies tension.
100. · paragraph 9–11: A faction’s common religious cause, with Burton’s polemical characterization retained.
101. · paragraph 23–25: Removing causes through public religious suppression, contrasted with medical and conversational management of individuals.
102. · paragraph 20–22: Burton rejects stars as direct and inevitable causes of all future events.
103. · paragraph 28–34: Competing interpretations of Roman signs and Seneca’s reported necessity; body execution differs from marginal exile.
104. · paragraph 8–12: Melancholy and despair distinguished by grounds, opposed causal directions and conditional sufficiency for conscience terror.
105. · paragraph 8–12: Nemesis as personified retribution, Queen of causes and Regina causarum.
106. · paragraph 13–15: Consolation to be fitted to the person and the particular causes of distress.
107. · paragraph 8–12: Reported arguments about salvation, including the forensic hearing idiom indicta causa.
108. : Terrifying perceptions may arise from natural causes; senses can be deceived.

In this edition

The technical qualifiers receive several context-sensitive renderings: “impulsive cause” → “impelling cause”; “instrumental causes” → “instrumental causes”; “Efficient cause” → “efficient cause”; “Continent causes” → “containing causes”; and “Continent, inward, antecedent, next causes” → “Immediate, internal, antecedent and proximate causes” within the heading. The containing and immediate renderings convey a cause’s sustaining proximity; next means nearest, not the next item in the writer’s list.

Efficient cause also becomes active cause in the self-reproach and heat theory, while cause efficient becomes motivating cause in the imputation against Cosimo. Those choices depend on the actor and construction, not a change in the source’s printed adjective. The synopsis’s Contingent is retained as a separate printed form whose intended local force remains uncertain, not entered as a silent variant of Continent. The printed “symptomes and Fear are Sorrow” is reordered in the modern column; the causal explanation does not require pretending the original is syntactically regular. Marginal Latin quotations and the supplied editorial translations after them remain separate evidence layers.

Latin case-forms and constructions need their own lookup routes. Causam, causas, causæ and causarum belong to causa, while causâ and caussa preserve the printed accent and spelling. The purpose or sake construction differs from a nominative producing cause. In causa est can be rendered “that is why” in the consolation margin; Postel’s allegation about priestly profit is instead recast as “is caused by,” with the surrounding clause needed to preserve which thing causes which. The causal verbal forms causent and causari are indexed as attested forms: the first actively causes, while the latter is passive, “to be caused,” in the refraction margin. They must not automatically receive the different classical deponent sense of alleging or pleading a reason. Antecedent gains the understood noun cause in the modern rendering; causa in the praise-of-love verse does not by itself contain the meanings single or alone, which come from neighbouring words.

accidental causes

Printed “accidental causes” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: accidental causes

Causes arising through chance incidents or circumstances.

Context: Burton says some might have belonged to the preceding necessary class because they cannot be avoided; chance occurrence does not here mean ineffective.

Source: original body

Locator qualification: Preserve sequence and printed-number distinction exactly.

active causes

Printed “active causes” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: active causes

Causes that act or produce an effect.

Context: Burton says self-love can arise from ourselves as active causes, through excessive self-estimation, as well as from others; he expressly calls humans active and passive.

Source: original body

ambient

Printed “ambient” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: ambient

Surrounding.

Context: The adjective qualifies the remote external necessary causes just discussed; it is not a separate claim about air alone.

Source: original body

Locator qualification: Preserve sequence and printed-number distinction exactly.

antecedent · Antecedent · local use 1

Printed “Antecedent” (English; lemma).

Citation key, Modern rendering: antecedent

Printed form, Original wording: Antecedent

Meaning: Preceding or preparatory.

Here: Preceding and preparing the condition, here grouped with internal and nearest causes.

Context: Burton’s compressed division of acquired causes.

Source: original body

Source wording, Wider original wording: inward, Antecedent, and the nearest

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Wider modern rendering: internal, antecedent and immediate

Wider word and construction: The indexed form is a component of the quoted construction; the modern unit renders that full construction, not the component alone.

Wider construction scope: Whole supplied phrase/construction aligned; no assertion that every modern word translates the indexed component.

antecedent · Antecedent · local use 2

Printed “Antecedent” (English; lemma).

Printed form, Original wording: Antecedent

Meaning: Preceding or preparatory.

Here: A preparatory cause preceding the immediate one; here the liver in Gordon’s account of love melancholy.

Context: Gordon reported; margin more cautiously describes possible seats in respect of causes.

Source: original body

Source wording, Wider original wording: the liver an Antecedent

Modern rendering: antecedent cause

Alignment convention

Alignment scope: Adjective rendered with its understood noun cause made explicit; preceding/preparatory is the meaning of Antecedent itself.

Supplied words, Wider supplied words: cause

Wider modern rendering: the liver an antecedent cause

Wider word and construction: The indexed form is a component of the quoted construction; the modern unit renders that full construction, not the component alone.

Wider construction scope: Whole supplied phrase/construction aligned; no assertion that every modern word translates the indexed component.

assist

Printed “assisting” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation key, Modern rendering: assist

Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: assisting

Helping or contributing.

Context: Retention and evacuation may assist other causal factors; many times qualifies the local enumeration.

Source: original body

Alignment convention

Alignment scope: Participle-to-finite-verb recasting within the causal enumeration.

causa · causam

Printed “causam” (Latin; lemma).

Printed form, Original wording: causam

Meaning: A case or claim.

Here: A case in legal proceedings; accusative object in a requirement to plead one’s own case.

Context: Latin statement supporting Burton’s projected legal arrangements.

Source: original body

Source wording, Wider original wording: suam quisque causam dicere tenetur

Modern rendering: case

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Wider modern rendering: each person is required to plead his own case

Wider word and construction: Causam contributes case; suam own, quisque each person, and dicere tenetur the requirement to plead.

Wider construction scope: Whole supplied phrase/construction aligned; no assertion that every modern word translates the indexed component.

causa · local use 1

Printed “causa” (Latin; lemma).

Citation key, Printed form, Original wording: causa

Meaning: A cause or producing factor.

Here: A cause or producing factor; single and alone are supplied by the surrounding unica and solus, not causa itself.

Context: The quoted verse makes love alone the single cause of things; the adjacent English verse is a separate rendering. This is an encomiastic poetic claim, not a medical taxonomy.

Source: original body

Source wording, Wider original wording: causa est unica solus amor

Modern rendering: cause

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Wider modern rendering: love alone is their one cause

Wider word and construction: Causa contributes cause; unica one and solus amor love alone. Their is supplied from rerum in the preceding line.

Wider supplied words: their

Wider construction scope: Whole supplied phrase/construction aligned; no assertion that every modern word translates the indexed component.

causa · causâ

Printed “causâ” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.

For the sake of; for the purpose of.

Context: The marginal Paul-of-Aegina formulation names exercise as a purpose, not a disease-producing agency. Propriæ supplies own, and the translation supplies my from the speaker.

Source: Burton note original

Source wording, Original wording: propriæ exercitationis causâ

Modern rendering: for my own exercise

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Supplied words: my

Edition note: checked in supplied translation of original marginal wording

Translation layer: Supplied modern translation inside Burton-labelled note; not original Burton English.

causa · local use 2

Printed “causa” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.

For the sake of; for the purpose of.

Context: The Strabo margin describes sailing for health. Sanitatis supplies health; their is made explicit by the translation.

Source: Burton note original

Source wording, Original wording: sanitatis causa

Modern rendering: for their health

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Supplied words: their

Edition note: checked in supplied translation of original marginal wording

Translation layer: Supplied modern translation inside Burton-labelled note; not original Burton English.

causa · causas

Printed “causas” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Printed form, Original wording: causas

Cases or claims to be advocated.

Context: The Latin body describes lawyers professing to support poor people’s cases; Burton then imputes self-interest.

Source: original body

Source wording: fovere causas humilium

Modern rendering: cases

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

causa · local use 3

Printed “causa” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation key, Printed form, Original wording: causa

A legal case.

Context: The margin complains that lawyers aim to enrich themselves whichever way a case proceeds. This is Burton’s quoted accusation.

Source: Burton note original

Source wording: quocunque modo causa procedat

Modern rendering: case

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Edition note: checked in supplied translation of original marginal wording

Translation layer: Supplied modern translation inside Burton-labelled note; not original Burton English.

causa · local use 4

Printed “causa” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.

For the purpose of.

Context: The printed marginal fruendorum yields enjoyment of crimes; the English body says punishment for prior sins. The apparatus proposes, but does not establish, luendorum.

Source: Burton note original

Source wording, Original wording: fruendorum scelerum causa

Modern rendering: for the enjoyment of crimes

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Edition note: checked in supplied translation of original marginal wording

Translation layer: Supplied modern translation inside Burton-labelled note; not original Burton English.

causa · causarum

Printed “causarum” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Printed form, Original wording: causarum

Of causes.

Context: The genitive plural belongs to Regina causarum, Nemesis’s title in the marginal quotation. Regina supplies queen, not causarum.

Source: Burton note original

Source wording: Regina causarum & arbitra rerum

Modern rendering: of causes

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Edition note: checked in supplied translation of original marginal wording

Translation layer: Supplied modern translation inside Burton-labelled note; not original Burton English.

causa · local use 5

Printed “causa” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation key, Printed form, Original wording: causa

Cause or producing factor.

Context: Arnoldus’s Latin assigns almost the whole cause to imagination; ferè supplies almost, uni alone, and the English following it gives a stronger-than comparison with bodily disorder.

Source: original body

Source wording: omnis melancholiæ causa est ascribenda

Modern rendering: cause

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

causa conjuncta

Printed “causam conjunctam” (Latin; phrase).

Printed form, Original wording: causam conjunctam

Meaning: An immediately operative or conjoined cause.

Here: An immediate or conjoined cause, distinguished from an antecedent cause in locating the condition.

Context: Gordon’s marginal quotation says the testicles may be a seat in respect of the immediate cause, the liver in respect of the antecedent cause. Possibility and anatomical seat remain distinct from the producing cause; the English body compresses these relations.

Source: Burton-labelled marginal original quotation

Source wording, Wider original wording: Testiculi quoad causam conjunctam, epar antecedentem, possunt esse subjectum

Modern rendering: immediate cause

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Edition note, Wider alignment source or qualification: Checked against editorial translation within the attached note, not the paired modern body

Wider modern rendering: The testicles may be the seat in respect of the immediate cause, the liver in respect of the antecedent cause

Wider word and construction: Causam conjunctam contributes immediate cause; the remaining Latin supplies the organs, their possible role as seat, and the antecedent contrast.

Wider construction scope: Whole supplied phrase/construction aligned; no assertion that every modern word translates the indexed component.

causa efficiens

Printed “causa efficiens” (Latin; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: causa efficiens

Efficient or producing cause.

Context: The Ortelius margin asks whether reported colour differences arise from sky, earth, soil, innate human constitution or all together. The alternatives and geographical assertions are not verified findings.

Source: Burton note original

Modern rendering: efficient cause

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Edition note: checked in supplied translation of original marginal wording

Translation layer: Supplied modern translation inside Burton-labelled note; not original Burton English.

causa ejus propinqua

Printed “causa ejus propinqua” (Latin; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Original wording: causa ejus propinqua

Meaning: Its proximate or immediate cause.

Here: Its proximate cause, specified as black bile within a conditional demonic explanation.

Context: Avicenna quoted; Burton’s ensuing English instead specifies burnt choler.

Source: original body

Source wording, Wider original wording: sit causa ejus propinqua cholera nigra

Modern rendering: its immediate cause

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Wider modern rendering: its immediate cause is black bile

Wider word and construction: Causa ejus propinqua contributes its immediate cause; cholera nigra supplies black bile, and sit the verbal construction.

Wider construction scope: Whole supplied phrase/construction aligned; no assertion that every modern word translates the indexed component.

causa forensis

Printed “causæ forenses” (Latin; phrase).

Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: causæ forenses

Legal cases.

Context: The Seyssel margin makes protracted, costly litigation one reported explanation of noble bankruptcy; it is not an independently verified historical finding.

Source: Burton note original

Modern rendering: legal cases

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Edition note: checked in supplied translation of original marginal wording

Translation layer: Supplied modern translation inside Burton-labelled note; not original Burton English.

causa jocandi

Printed “causamque jocandi” (Latin; phrase).

Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: causamque jocandi

And an occasion for mockery.

Context: The Juvenal margin makes dirty clothing an occasion for ridicule in Burton’s account of poverty. The suffix -que supplies and.

Source: Burton note original

Modern rendering: and occasion for mockery

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Edition note: checked in supplied translation of original marginal wording

Translation layer: Supplied modern translation inside Burton-labelled note; not original Burton English.

causa mea

Printed “causa mea” (Latin; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: causa mea

For my sake.

Context: The marginal imagined exchange offers reciprocal lying and perjury. The quoted speakers’ promises are not Burton’s advice.

Source: Burton note original

Modern rendering: for my sake

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Edition note: checked in supplied translation of original marginal wording

Translation layer: Supplied modern translation inside Burton-labelled note; not original Burton English.

causa morbifica

Printed “morbificas causas” (Latin; phrase).

Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: morbificas causas

Disease-producing causes.

Context: Pomponazzi’s margin explains imagined cures through movement of humours, spirits and blood removing the causes from affected parts; Burton then extends the account to magical and quack cures.

Source: Burton note original

Modern rendering: causes of illness

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Edition note: checked in supplied translation of original marginal wording

Translation layer: Supplied modern translation inside Burton-labelled note; not original Burton English.

causa primaria

Printed “primariâ causâ” (Latin; phrase).

Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: primariâ causâ

A primary cause.

Context: Piso’s margin treats the mental preoccupations as the originating occasion and urges contrary action or reasoning; primary is not restricted to astrology.

Source: Burton note original

Modern rendering: a primary cause

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Supplied words: a

Edition note: checked in supplied translation of original marginal wording

Translation layer: Supplied modern translation inside Burton-labelled note; not original Burton English.

causa pusilla

Printed “causa pusilla” (Latin; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: causa pusilla

A slight cause.

Context: The verse says a slight cause harms the weak and warns against renewed love. This edition retains causa; the subsequent English verse and apparatus must not be substituted for it.

Source: original body

Modern rendering: A slight cause

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Supplied words: A

causa secunda

Printed “causis secundis” (Latin; phrase).

Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: causis secundis

To secondary causes.

Context: Burton attributes to Seneca the doctrine that God is bound to secondary causes and inexorable necessity, then attacks such opinions in the continuation; it is not Burton’s own positive doctrine.

Source: original body

Modern rendering: to secondary causes

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

causa; caussa

Printed “caussa” (Latin; variant family). Attestation: word form.

For the sake of.

Context: The doubled-s spelling occurs in a hostile allegation about Socrates. Handsome young men belongs to Pulchrorum adolescentum; the allegation is not established biography.

Source: Burton note original

Source wording, Original wording: Pulchrorum adolescentum caussa

Modern rendering: for the sake of handsome young men

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Edition note: checked in supplied translation of original marginal wording

Translation layer: Supplied modern translation inside Burton-labelled note; not original Burton English.

cause · local use 1

Printed “cause” (English; lemma).

Citation key, Printed form, Original wording: cause

Meaning: A legal case or claim.

Here: A legal case to be presented to a judge.

Context: Burton’s proposed commonwealth, qualified if possible.

Source: original body

Source wording, Wider original wording: to plead his own cause

Modern rendering: case

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Wider modern rendering: plead his own case

Wider word and construction: The indexed form is a component of the quoted construction; the modern unit renders that full construction, not the component alone.

Wider construction scope: Whole supplied phrase/construction aligned; no assertion that every modern word translates the indexed component.

cause · Cause

Printed “Cause” (English; lemma).

Citation key, Modern rendering: cause

Printed form, Original wording: Cause

Meaning: A producing factor.

Here: A producing factor that is also an effect or manifestation in a reciprocal cycle.

Context: Burton’s mother/daughter account, accompanied by a Hippocratic reference.

Source: original body

Locator qualification: Do not remove bracketed or repeated-page qualifier.; This source group includes repeated printed 96–97 and supplied 98–99; see SUPPLIED_OPENING and SOURCE_DJR_040.

Source wording, Wider original wording: Sorrow is both Cause and Symptome of this disease

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Wider modern rendering: sorrow is both a cause and a symptom of this disease

Wider word and construction: The indexed form is a component of the quoted construction; the modern unit renders that full construction, not the component alone.

Wider construction scope: Whole supplied phrase/construction aligned; no assertion that every modern word translates the indexed component.

cause · causes · local use 1

Printed “causes” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Lawsuits or legal cases.

Context: Burton accuses lawyers of prolonging litigation and restarting cases after judgment.

Source: original body

Source wording: continue causes so long

cause · caused

Printed “caused” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Arranged or brought it about that someone acted.

Context: In the reported duke-and-drunkard story the duke orders his followers to carry the man away; had is causative here.

Source: original body

Source wording: he caused his followers to bring him to his Palace

cause · causing

Printed “causing” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Arranging or bringing about an action.

Context: Burton’s reported Melissa story describes having a notice fastened to a post. The supplied version makes the actor she explicit; source-history concerns remain in the accompanying apparatus.

Source: original body

Source wording: causing it to be stuck

cause · causes · local use 2

Printed “causes” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Origins or producing factors.

Context: Burton acknowledges the difficulty of distinguishing origins and undertakes to guess as closely as he can; the total plan is not a claim of certain knowledge.

Source: original body

Source wording: discern these causes whence they are

cause · local use 2

Printed “cause” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Bring about or produce.

Context: Burton says a treatment curing one patient may cause melancholy in another, depending on the humour; this is a historical caution about variation, not a uniform remedy.

Source: original body

Source wording: may cause it in a second

cause · causeth

Printed “causeth” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Causes or brings about.

Context: Diet is said to cause melancholy through faults of substance or quantity/quality; the subsequent Fernel account requires bodily cooperation for other evident causes.

Source: original body

Source wording: causeth melancholy

cause · local use 3

Printed “cause” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

A case, claim or application to be advanced.

Context: The overlooked scholar lacks friends to promote his candidacy for the post and makes no application; cause is not the origin of an illness here.

Source: original body

Source wording: any friends to solicite his cause

cause · causes · local use 3

Printed “causes” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Matters or affairs.

Context: Burton permits modest social courtship and identifies drunken or dissolute excess as the condemned abuse. Causes names such matters rather than their medical origin.

Source: original body

Source wording: more liberty in such causes

cause efficient

Printed “cause efficient” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Original wording: cause efficient

Meaning: An active prompting cause or motive.

Here: The active prompting motive alleged to produce benefaction.

Context: Burton imputes vainglory to Cosimo; this is judgement rather than independently established motive.

Source: original body

Source wording, Wider original wording: Vainglory and emulation (as to most men) was the cause efficient

Modern rendering: motivating cause

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Wider modern rendering: Vainglory and rivalry, as with most people, were the motivating cause

Wider word and construction: The indexed form is a component of the quoted construction; the modern unit renders that full construction, not the component alone.

Wider construction scope: Whole supplied phrase/construction aligned; no assertion that every modern word translates the indexed component.

causeless

Printed “causlesse” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Printed form, Source wording: causlesse

Groundless; lacking a sufficient reason.

Context: The jealousy discussion contrasts groundless suspicions with well-founded ones. This does not assert that jealousy has no psychological or bodily causes.

Source: original body

causent; causari · causent

Printed “causent” (Latin; attested causal-verb form family). Attestation: word form.

Printed form, Original wording: causent

Cause or bring about.

Context: The Montanus margin says the passions cause melancholy by hindering digestion and weakening principal organs. The subjunctive belongs to the embedded how-clause.

Source: Burton note original

Source wording: Hæ vero quomodo causent melancholiam

Modern rendering: cause

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Edition note: checked in supplied translation of original marginal wording

Translation layer: Supplied modern translation inside Burton-labelled note; not original Burton English.

causent; causari · causari

Printed “causari” (Latin; attested causal-verb form family). Attestation: word form.

Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: causari

To be caused.

Context: The marginal statement makes refraction arise from dense air. This passive causal use is distinct from the classical deponent sense of alleging or pleading a reason.

Source: Burton note original

Modern rendering: are caused

Alignment convention

Alignment scope: Passive infinitive rendered as finite plural are caused because the surrounding Latin indirect statement is recast; the plural subject is refractiones outside this component.

Edition note: checked in supplied translation of original marginal wording

Translation layer: Supplied modern translation inside Burton-labelled note; not original Burton English.

causes efficient

Printed “causes efficient” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Original wording: causes efficient

Meaning: Active producing causes.

Here: Particular active causes, divided into inborn and acquired.

Context: Burton’s classification relative to preceding primary causes; old age is then classed as inborn natural.

Source: original body

Source wording, Wider original wording: Secundary peculiar causes efficient

Modern rendering: efficient causes

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Wider modern rendering: Secondary, particular efficient causes

Wider word and construction: The indexed form is a component of the quoted construction; the modern unit renders that full construction, not the component alone.

Wider construction scope: Whole supplied phrase/construction aligned; no assertion that every modern word translates the indexed component.

causæ quidquam

Printed “causæ quidquam” (Latin; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: causæ quidquam

Any reason or occasion.

Context: In Plautus’s quoted speech Euclio wants to remove an excuse for visitors; the clause is not a medical causal diagnosis.

Source: Burton note original

Modern rendering: any reason

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Edition note: checked in supplied translation of original marginal wording

Translation layer: Supplied modern translation inside Burton-labelled note; not original Burton English.

cold cause

Printed “cold cause” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: cold cause

A matter represented as slight or unimportant.

Context: The hot/cold contrast mocks critics’ ardour over antiquarian and grammatical trifles; it is not a cold bodily cause.

Source: original body

common cause

Printed “common cause” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: common cause

A shared interest, undertaking or party’s cause.

Context: Burton’s polemic says devotees advance a collective religious cause through actions he condemns. The phrase does not mean a disease-producing factor common to all patients.

Source: original body

concomitant

Printed “concomitant” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: concomitant

Accompanying.

Context: The retention/evacuation account distinguishes accompanying, assisting and sole causal roles. The modern rendering changes the adjective into a verb within the whole construction.

Source: original body

Modern rendering: accompany

Alignment convention

Alignment scope: Contextual adjective-to-verb recasting; the causal subject and often are elsewhere in the sentence.

concomitant cause · local use 1

Printed “concomitant cause” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Original wording: concomitant cause

Meaning: An accompanying cause.

Here: A co-occurring cause accompanying another, here excessive solitude with idleness.

Context: Burton calls solitude both cause and symptom and distinguishes forced from voluntary.

Source: original body

Source wording, Wider original wording: a concomitant cause, which goes hand in hand with it

Modern rendering: accompanying cause

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Wider modern rendering: an accompanying cause that goes hand in hand with it

Wider word and construction: The indexed form is a component of the quoted construction; the modern unit renders that full construction, not the component alone.

Wider construction scope: Whole supplied phrase/construction aligned; no assertion that every modern word translates the indexed component.

concomitant cause · local use 2

Printed “concomitant cause” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: concomitant cause

A concurrent or accompanying cause.

Context: Burton calls God’s judgment both concomitant cause and principal agent; concomitant does not here imply a merely minor contribution.

Source: original body

continent

Printed “Continent” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Printed form, Source wording: Continent

Immediately sustaining or maintaining the condition.

Context: The heading coordinates this with inward, antecedent and next. The modern choice Immediate records its proximal force without erasing the loose category sequence.

Source: original body

continent causes

Printed “Continent causes” (English; phrase).

Printed form, Original wording: Continent causes

Meaning: Causes directly sustaining or maintaining the condition.

Here: Causes immediately maintaining disease, loosely coordinated with inward, antecedent and nearest causes.

Context: Burton reports a label used by some, not a unanimously fixed classification.

Source: original body

Source wording, Wider original wording: Continent causes some call them

Modern rendering: containing causes

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Wider modern rendering: some call the latter containing causes

Wider word and construction: The indexed form is a component of the quoted construction; the modern unit renders that full construction, not the component alone.

Wider construction scope: Whole supplied phrase/construction aligned; no assertion that every modern word translates the indexed component.

contingent

Printed “Contingent” (English; lemma).

Printed form, Original wording: Contingent

Meaning: Printed causal qualifier of uncertain local force; interpreted as incidental in the supplied modern version.

Here: The synopsis prints Contingent beside inward, antecedent and nearest. Its intended local force is uncertain in light of the later Continent heading; incidental is the supplied edition’s interpretation.

Context: Synopsis wording preserved without silent emendation or a claim that its local sense has been historically established.

Source: original body

Locator qualification: Source record identifies these leaves as unnumbered; plain numerical passage labels are scan numbers.

Source wording, Wider original wording: Contingent inward, antecedent, nearest

Modern rendering: incidental

Alignment convention

Alignment scope: Exact printed word and exact supplied modern interpretation; the alignment is not independent proof that incidental establishes the original’s intended historical sense.

Wider modern rendering: incidental internal causes, antecedent and most immediate

Wider word and construction: The indexed form is a component of the quoted construction; the modern unit renders that full construction, not the component alone.

Wider supplied words: causes

Wider construction scope: Whole supplied phrase/construction aligned; no assertion that every modern word translates the indexed component.

contingent causes

Printed “contingent causes” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: contingent causes

Causes arising from circumstances that happen to occur.

Context: The text calls their complete enumeration impossible, citing uncertainty and multitude. Its adjacent inevitable is retained rather than silently changed to evitable.

Source: original body

Locator qualification: Preserve sequence and printed-number distinction exactly.

continuate cause

Printed “continuate cause” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: continuate cause

A continuing cause.

Context: Burton calls discontent, care and misery a general and continuing cause, moving from particular illnesses to the insecurity of life.

Source: original body

cujus causa

Printed “Cujus causa” (Latin; phrase).

Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: Cujus causa

For what reason.

Context: Cato’s son’s question concerns his father’s remarriage. Burton’s following English changes the formulation to the son’s supposed offence.

Source: original body

Modern rendering: For what reason

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

efficient and instrumental cause

Printed “efficient and instrumental cause” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Original wording, Modern rendering: efficient and instrumental cause

Meaning: Producing agency and operative means.

Here: Both producing agency and operative means, here love in an expansive praise of its power.

Context: Burton’s philosophical-poetic encomium, followed by verse declaring love the sole cause.

Source: original body

Source wording, Wider original wording: the efficient and instrumental cause

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Wider modern rendering: their efficient and instrumental cause

Wider word and construction: The indexed form is a component of the quoted construction; the modern unit renders that full construction, not the component alone.

Wider supplied words: their (referring to actions)

Wider construction scope: Whole construction aligned; their makes the relation to actions explicit rather than translating a printed possessive.

efficient cause · Efficient cause

Printed “Efficient cause” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Modern rendering: efficient cause

Printed form, Original wording: Efficient cause

Meaning: An active producing cause.

Here: The active source of movement, here reason or imagination subordinate to it.

Context: Burton’s account of the moving faculty, contrasted with the end.

Source: original body

Source wording, Wider original wording: either the Efficient cause, or End

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Wider modern rendering: either its efficient cause or its end

Wider word and construction: The indexed form is a component of the quoted construction; the modern unit renders that full construction, not the component alone.

Wider supplied words: its (twice, referring to movement)

Wider construction scope: Whole construction aligned; the two possessives its make the relation to movement explicit rather than translating printed possessives.

efficient cause · local use 1

Printed “efficient cause” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Original wording: efficient cause

Meaning: An active producing agent.

Here: An agent said actively to bring about misery through yielding to thoughts.

Context: Burton’s moral accusation, to be read beside the later challenge to voluntary-control assumptions.

Source: original body

Source wording, Wider original wording: thou thy self art the efficient cause of thine own misery

Modern rendering: active cause

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Wider modern rendering: You yourself are the active cause of your own misery

Wider word and construction: The indexed form is a component of the quoted construction; the modern unit renders that full construction, not the component alone.

Wider construction scope: Whole supplied phrase/construction aligned; no assertion that every modern word translates the indexed component.

efficient cause · local use 2

Printed “efficient cause” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Original wording: efficient cause

Meaning: An active producing cause.

Here: The active producing cause, proposed as a hot and dry disorder.

Context: Montalto’s position; Burton qualifies its applicability.

Source: original body

Source wording, Wider original wording: the efficient cause of melancholy to be hot and dry

Modern rendering: active cause

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Wider modern rendering: its active cause is a hot and dry disorder

Wider word and construction: The indexed form is a component of the quoted construction; the modern unit renders that full construction, not the component alone.

Wider supplied words: disorder

Wider construction scope: Whole supplied phrase/construction aligned; no assertion that every modern word translates the indexed component.

end

Printed “End” (English; lemma).

Citation key, Modern rendering: end

Printed form, Original wording: End

Meaning: The aim or object toward which an action is directed.

Here: The aim for the sake of which movement occurs.

Context: Burton explains the final-causal side by a dog seeking a hare.

Source: original body

Source wording, Wider original wording: either the Efficient cause, or End

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Wider modern rendering: either its efficient cause or its end

Wider word and construction: The indexed form is a component of the quoted construction; the modern unit renders that full construction, not the component alone.

Wider supplied words: its (twice, referring to movement)

Wider construction scope: Whole construction aligned; the two possessives its make the relation to movement explicit rather than translating printed possessives.

evident

Printed “Evident” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Printed form, Source wording: Evident

Manifest or externally apparent.

Context: The adjective qualifies the external acquired causal class and stands beside Remote; the internal antecedent/nearest group follows.

Source: original body

evident causes

Printed “evident causes” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: evident causes

External or manifest causes.

Context: In the Fernel account these do not produce disease unless bodily preparation and humours cooperate; diet provides material and nourishment.

Source: original body

for that cause

Printed “for that cause” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Original wording: for that cause

Meaning: For that reason.

Here: For that reason, giving the motive for the reported patient’s study.

Context: Platter’s patient believes frogs inhabit his belly; the frogs are imagined.

Source: original body

Source wording, Wider original wording: and for that cause studied physick seven years

Modern rendering: for that reason

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Wider modern rendering: and for that reason studied medicine for seven years

Wider word and construction: The indexed form is a component of the quoted construction; the modern unit renders that full construction, not the component alone.

Wider construction scope: Whole supplied phrase/construction aligned; no assertion that every modern word translates the indexed component.

good cause

Printed “good cause” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: good cause

Good reason or justified ground.

Context: After the embedded Democritus narrative Burton endorses the reason for laughter himself; the accompanying verses intensify the comparison with the present.

Source: original body

immediate and inevitable causes

Printed “immediate, inevitable causes” (English; phrase).

Printed form, Source wording: immediate, inevitable causes

Direct and unavoidable causes.

Context: Burton rejects the astrologers’ presumption that stars determine every future event. The adjective pair belongs to the position he disputes.

Source: original body

immediate cause

Printed “immediate cause” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Original wording, Modern rendering: immediate cause

Meaning: A proximate producing cause.

Here: The nearest bodily cause in Burton’s English continuation, distinct in wording from the preceding Latin black bile.

Context: Reported agreement with Pomponazzi within the demonic-causation debate.

Source: original body

Source wording, Wider original wording: the immediate cause is choler adust

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Wider modern rendering: The immediate cause is burnt choler

Wider word and construction: The indexed form is a component of the quoted construction; the modern unit renders that full construction, not the component alone.

Wider construction scope: Whole supplied phrase/construction aligned; no assertion that every modern word translates the indexed component.

impulsive

Printed “Impulsive” (English; lemma).

Printed form, Original wording: Impulsive

Meaning: Impelling or prompting.

Here: Impelling or originating, qualifying the supplied category causes.

Context: Synopsis of theological causation.

Source: original body

Locator qualification: Source record identifies these leaves as unnumbered; plain numerical passage labels are scan numbers.

Source wording, Wider original wording: Impulsive; sinne, concupiscence

Modern rendering: Impelling

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Wider modern rendering: Impelling causes: sin, disordered desire

Wider word and construction: The indexed form is a component of the quoted construction; the modern unit renders that full construction, not the component alone.

Wider supplied words: causes

Wider construction scope: Whole supplied phrase/construction aligned; no assertion that every modern word translates the indexed component.

impulsive cause

Printed “impulsive cause” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Original wording: impulsive cause

Meaning: An impelling or prompting cause.

Here: The impelling or originating cause, identified as Adam’s sin in the full sentence.

Context: Burton’s asserted theological explanation.

Source: original body

Source wording, Wider original wording: The impulsive cause of these miseries in man

Modern rendering: impelling cause

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Wider modern rendering: The impelling cause of these human miseries

Wider word and construction: The indexed form is a component of the quoted construction; the modern unit renders that full construction, not the component alone.

Wider construction scope: Whole supplied phrase/construction aligned; no assertion that every modern word translates the indexed component.

in causa esse · in causa est · local use 1

Printed “in causa est” (Latin; phrase).

Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: in causa est

Is the reason; accounts for the result.

Context: The Cardano/Plutarch margin explains feeling uniquely miserable by knowing one’s own troubles but not others’. That refers back to the preceding proposition.

Source: Burton note original

Modern rendering: that is why

Alignment convention

Alignment scope: Idiomatic clause alignment; that explicitly resumes the preceding quod-clause, rather than translating a word inside in causa est.

Supplied words: that

Edition note: checked in supplied translation of original marginal wording

Translation layer: Supplied modern translation inside Burton-labelled note; not original Burton English.

in causa esse · in causa est · local use 2

Printed “in causa est” (Latin; phrase).

Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: in causa est

Is causally responsible; is the reason for the result.

Context: In Postel’s reported statement priestly profit is made responsible for religious abuse. The supplied English passivizes the whole construction, making abuse its subject; it is not the same component arrangement as the original.

Source: original body

Modern rendering: is caused by

Alignment convention

Alignment scope: Contextual predicate alignment in a recast clause: the original in causa est attaches causal responsibility to quæstus, while the modern passive takes the abuse as its subject. The whole source sentence is needed to preserve direction.

in cause

Printed “in cause” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: in cause

Responsible as the cause.

Context: Burton’s Caracalla narrative denies that the object itself was at fault and blames its indecent presentation. The apparatus identifies the alleged marriage as fabricated.

Source: original body

Modern rendering: the cause

Alignment convention

Alignment scope: Predicate idiom in a negative clause: was not in cause becomes was not the cause; no missing negative is attributed to the indexed component.

in promptu causa est

Printed “in promptu causa est” (Latin; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: in promptu causa est

The cause is plain or readily available to explanation.

Context: The phrase confidently explains the fertility around Damascus by water, contrasting with nearby unresolved geographical questions. The reported geography is not newly verified.

Source: original body

Modern rendering: the cause is plain

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

indicta causa

Printed “indicta causa” (Latin; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: indicta causa

Without the case having been stated or heard.

Context: Origen’s reported argument concerns condemnation without a hearing; the preceding and following discussion surveys disputed opinions, not a blanket unqualified statement of Burton’s own doctrine.

Source: original body

Modern rendering: without a hearing

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

inevitable cause

Printed “inevitable cause” (English; phrase).

A cause that cannot readily be avoided.

Context: Burton follows Du Laurens in linking bodily infirmities with greater compassion. More makes the comparison relative; the modern version softens absolute unavoidable into harder to avoid.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording: a more inevitable cause

Modern rendering: a cause harder to avoid

Alignment convention

Alignment scope: Whole comparative construction aligned; more and harder to avoid carry the relative degree.

infinite cause

Printed “infinite cause” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: infinite cause

An unlimited or infinite originating power.

Context: God is identified as this cause in Nicholas Hill’s reported argument for infinite effects and worlds. The following Kepler paragraph gives disagreement and partial agreement, not uniform assent.

Source: original body

instrument

Printed “instruments” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Printed form, Source wording: instruments

Agents or means through which another acts.

Context: Witches are called demonic instruments, yet the quoted Erastus claim also makes them provoke the demon; this passage is not a simply one-way agency chain.

Source: original body

instrumental causes

Printed “instrumental causes” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Original wording, Modern rendering: instrumental causes

Meaning: Means through which an effect is produced.

Here: Means through which the infirmities occur, including celestial and earthly creatures.

Context: Burton’s Fall-based distinction between originally good creatures and their present harmful effects.

Source: original body

Source wording, Wider original wording: the instrumental causes of these our infirmities

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Wider modern rendering: the instrumental causes of our infirmities

Wider word and construction: The indexed form is a component of the quoted construction; the modern unit renders that full construction, not the component alone.

Wider construction scope: Whole supplied phrase/construction aligned; no assertion that every modern word translates the indexed component.

instrumentall

Printed “Instrumentall” (English; lemma).

Printed form, Original wording: Instrumentall

Meaning: Serving as a means.

Here: Operating as means through which harm occurs.

Context: Synopsis contrasts instrumental with impelling causes.

Source: original body

Locator qualification: Source record identifies these leaves as unnumbered; plain numerical passage labels are scan numbers.

Source wording, Wider original wording: Instrumentall; intemperance, all second causes

Modern rendering: Instrumental

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Wider modern rendering: Instrumental causes: intemperance and all secondary causes

Wider word and construction: The indexed form is a component of the quoted construction; the modern unit renders that full construction, not the component alone.

Wider supplied words: causes

Wider construction scope: Whole supplied phrase/construction aligned; no assertion that every modern word translates the indexed component.

inward

Printed “inward” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: inward

Internal.

Context: The heading identifies bodily causes acting on the mind; internal location is not synonymous with the separate preparatory and proximal qualifiers.

Source: original body

inward cause

Printed “inward cause” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Original wording: inward cause

Meaning: An internal producing condition.

Here: An internal producing condition, offered as a ground for suffering even without an external object.

Context: Burton answers an objection and rejects commands to stop feeling before causes are removed.

Source: original body

Source wording, Wider original wording: so have melancholy men an inward cause

Modern rendering: internal cause

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Wider modern rendering: So too do melancholic people have an internal cause

Wider word and construction: The indexed form is a component of the quoted construction; the modern unit renders that full construction, not the component alone.

Wider construction scope: Whole supplied phrase/construction aligned; no assertion that every modern word translates the indexed component.

just cause

Printed “just cause” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: just cause

A legitimate or morally sufficient ground.

Context: Burton denies just grounds for the wars he condemns while listing their actual motives; absence of justification does not mean no producing motives. The later commonwealth allows urgent defensive wars and exceptionally just offensive causes.

Source: original body

levibus de causis

Printed “levibus de causis” (Latin; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: levibus de causis

For slight reasons or on trivial grounds.

Context: The quoted Montanus case describes anger over small occasions; Burton separately calls anger a principal cause of illness.

Source: original body

Modern rendering: over trifles

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

material cause · local use 1

Printed “material cause” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Original wording, Modern rendering: material cause

Meaning: A cause supplying the substance or material.

Here: The substance from which the disease arises, here black bile.

Context: Bruel-attributed naming account; Burton declines the adjoining cause/effect dispute.

Source: original body

Source wording, Wider original wording: Disease denominated from the material cause

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Wider modern rendering: the disease is named after its material cause

Wider word and construction: The indexed form is a component of the quoted construction; the modern unit renders that full construction, not the component alone.

Wider construction scope: Whole supplied phrase/construction aligned; no assertion that every modern word translates the indexed component.

material cause · local use 2

Printed “material cause” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Original wording, Modern rendering: material cause

Meaning: A cause supplying material or nourishment.

Here: A cause supplying the material and nourishment of disease, here diet.

Context: Fernel-based claim, with constitution/humour cooperation and mother/father metaphor.

Source: original body

Source wording, Wider original wording: well it may be called a material cause

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Wider modern rendering: It may well be called a material cause

Wider word and construction: The indexed form is a component of the quoted construction; the modern unit renders that full construction, not the component alone.

Wider construction scope: Whole supplied phrase/construction aligned; no assertion that every modern word translates the indexed component.

natural and inward causes

Printed “naturall and inward causes” (English; phrase).

Printed form, Source wording: naturall and inward causes

Natural, internal producing conditions.

Context: Burton offers these causes to reassure patients against fears of devils, witchcraft or divine abandonment, with knowledge intended to help avoidance or patient endurance.

Source: original body

natural causes

Printed “natural causes” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: natural causes

Causes attributed to natural processes.

Context: Meteorologists’ natural account of storms is contrasted with Burton’s own stated preference, with Bodin, for aerial demons more often causing them.

Source: original body

near

Printed “nearest” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Printed form, Source wording: nearest

Most immediate or proximate.

Context: The word is coordinated with inward and antecedent; the compressed grouping is preserved rather than made into sharply separate categories.

Source: original body

necessary

Printed “necessary” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: necessary

Unavoidable in the course of life.

Context: Burton explains necessary by the inability to avoid the six non-naturals; their use or misuse alters the person. The adjective does not by itself mean that each inevitably causes disease.

Source: original body

next and immediate causes

Printed “next and immediate causes” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Original wording: next and immediate causes

Meaning: Proximate or directly producing causes.

Here: Nearest causes in the explanatory chain, here the disordered bodily spirits.

Context: Saxonia’s exclusive spirits-based account, juxtaposed with altered-humour alternatives.

Source: original body

Source wording, Wider original wording: the next and immediate causes of Melancholy

Modern rendering: nearest and immediate causes

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Wider modern rendering: the nearest and immediate causes of melancholy

Wider word and construction: The indexed form is a component of the quoted construction; the modern unit renders that full construction, not the component alone.

Wider construction scope: Whole supplied phrase/construction aligned; no assertion that every modern word translates the indexed component.

next causes

Printed “next causes” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Original wording: next causes

Meaning: Proximate or nearest causes.

Here: Nearest or proximate causes, within a heading also gathering sustaining and preparatory categories.

Context: Burton’s heading, followed by outer-to-inner inquiry and reciprocal body/mind effects.

Source: original body

Source wording, Wider original wording: Continent, inward, antecedent, next causes

Modern rendering: proximate causes

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Wider modern rendering: Immediate, internal, antecedent and proximate causes

Wider word and construction: Full coordinated heading aligned: Continent gives Immediate, inward internal, antecedent antecedent, and next proximate. Causes is shared across the list.

Wider construction scope: Whole supplied phrase/construction aligned; no assertion that every modern word translates the indexed component.

no cause

Printed “no cause” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: no cause

No sufficient reason or warrant.

Context: Burton condemns fee-seeking medicine without need, saying treatment can disturb an illness that advice or regimen might settle.

Source: original body

non-necessary

Printed “Non-necessary” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Printed form, Source wording: Non-necessary

Not unavoidable or indispensable in use.

Context: Fernel’s definition allows avoidance, but Burton then places unavoidable accidents here and prints contingent and inevitable. The inconsistency remains visible.

Source: original body

Locator qualification: Preserve sequence and printed-number distinction exactly.

outward

Printed “outward” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation key, Printed form, Original wording: outward

Meaning: External.

Here: External in the classification of remote preceding causes.

Context: Burton subdivides these causes into necessary and non-necessary. Remote names causal remoteness and ambient means surrounding; those modifiers remain distinct.

Source: original body

Source wording: These outward, remote, precedent causes

Modern rendering: external

Alignment convention

Alignment scope: Exact component alignment in paired body.

Edition note: checked against the supplied source; editorial interpretation explicitly qualified where applicable

plead one’s cause

Printed “plead my cause” (English; phrase).

Printed form, Source wording: plead my cause

Argue or pursue my case.

Context: The lawyer’s wife threatens a sexual substitute using the language of advocacy; legal case and neglected conjugal business form a deliberate pun.

Source: original body

precedent causes

Printed “precedent causes” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: precedent causes

Preceding causes.

Context: Burton generalizes that fasting, diet, sickness, melancholy or solitude precede religious illusions and give the Devil opportunity; this combines natural precursors with demonic agency.

Source: original body

primary cause

Printed “primary cause” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: primary cause

A principal originating factor in the local account.

Context: Piso’s primary cause here is voluntary solitude, not a celestial category. The subsequent account moves from initial delight to captivity.

Source: original body

primary causes

Printed “Primary causes” (English; phrase).

Printed form, Original wording, Modern rendering: Primary causes

Meaning: Primary or first causes in a causal scheme.

Here: Universal causal influences, identified with celestial bodies in the reported astrological scheme.

Context: Burton attributes the production claim to astrologers and declines cause-versus-sign adjudication.

Source: original body

Source wording, Wider original wording: Primary causes are the Heavens, Planets, Stars

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Wider modern rendering: Primary causes are the heavens, planets, stars

Wider word and construction: The indexed form is a component of the quoted construction; the modern unit renders that full construction, not the component alone.

Wider construction scope: Whole supplied phrase/construction aligned; no assertion that every modern word translates the indexed component.

prime cause

Printed “prime cause” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Original wording: prime cause

Meaning: Chief originating cause.

Here: The chief originating factor in Burton’s self-description, paradoxically used to make a remedy.

Context: Burton’s autobiographical and medical metaphor.

Source: original body

Source wording, Wider original wording: the prime cause of my disease

Modern rendering: chief cause

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Wider modern rendering: the chief cause of my disease

Wider word and construction: The indexed form is a component of the quoted construction; the modern unit renders that full construction, not the component alone.

Wider construction scope: Whole supplied phrase/construction aligned; no assertion that every modern word translates the indexed component.

principal and primary cause

Printed “principal and primary cause” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: principal and primary cause

Chief and first cause in the explanation.

Context: Paracelsus gives stars greater force than humours and sometimes allows the constellation alone, with other causes set aside; this is a reported position.

Source: original body

prosecute one’s cause

Printed “prosecute his cause” (English; phrase).

Pursue his suit or claim.

Context: The legal metaphor denotes pursuit of a beloved. The modern phrase retains pursuit but absorbs the forensic image into her as the object.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording: to prosecute his cause

Modern rendering: in pursuing her

Alignment convention

Alignment scope: Whole contextual recasting: her identifies the beloved; no claim that cause alone means her.

queen of causes

Printed “Queen of causes” (English; phrase).

Printed form, Source wording: Queen of causes

Ruler of causes or causal powers.

Context: The title belongs to Nemesis in the preceding discussion of punishment, attributed to Ammianus. It is a personified governing power, not a new medical category.

Source: original body

reddere causam

Printed “reddere causam” (Latin; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: reddere causam

To give a reason or account.

Context: In the description of sorrow sufferers cannot explain why they grieve. Lack of an evident or articulable cause is not absence of internal causation.

Source: original body

Modern rendering: to give a reason

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

remote · Remote

Printed “Remote” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Printed form, Source wording: Remote

Removed from the immediate internal cause.

Context: The causal classification places remote beside evident in the external acquired group; remoteness is causal relation, not simply physical distance.

Source: original body

remote · remotest

Printed “remotest” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Printed form, Source wording: remotest

Most remote in the causal sequence.

Context: The love-melancholy section ranks stars as the most remote causes before reporting Ficino’s horoscope conditions.

Source: original body

second causes · local use 1

Printed “second causes” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: second causes

Secondary or mediated causes.

Context: The synopsis distinguishes divine action directly or through secondary causes, and demonic action directly or through magicians and witches.

Source: original body

Locator qualification: Source record identifies these leaves as unnumbered; plain numerical passage labels are scan numbers.

second causes · local use 2

Printed “second causes” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: second causes

Secondary contributing causes.

Context: Burton combines weak vision and belief with optical refraction, thick air or indistinct objects; the secondary causes here need not mean demons.

Source: original body

secondary causes

Printed “secundary causes” (English; phrase).

Printed form, Source wording: secundary causes

Secondary causes.

Context: The inherited bodily causes are reported, with Wolphius, to alter primary causes and celestial decrees. Secondary therefore does not invariably mean weaker.

Source: original body

sole cause

Printed “sole cause” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: sole cause

The only cause.

Context: The printed phrase is immediately joined with the Devil, fasting and solitude; the supplied version chooses sufficient. Burton also questions whether the Sibylline prophecies existed. The tension must not be resolved into an exclusively natural account.

Source: original body

Modern rendering: sufficient cause

Alignment convention

Alignment scope: The supplied sufficient cause is the edition’s contextual interpretation of the awkward original sole cause; it is not its literal definition. Preserve the immediately combined Devil, fasting and solitude and Burton’s doubt about the prophecies.

sole causes

Printed “sole causes” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: sole causes

Causes sufficient to act alone.

Context: The body allows retention/evacuation factors often to cause melancholy alone; the ensuing constipation narrative contrasts this finding with friends’ mistaken philtre suspicion.

Source: original body

Modern rendering: alone cause

Alignment convention

Alignment scope: Noun phrase recast as adverb plus verb in the supplied sentence; plurality is carried by its subject.

sublatâ causâ tollitur effectus

Printed “sublatâ causâ tollitur effectus” (Latin; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: sublatâ causâ tollitur effectus

When the cause is removed, the effect is removed.

Context: Burton invokes a causal-removal maxim in endorsing Fernel’s need to know causes. He still allows empirical practitioners to ease and sometimes help without rooting disease out.

Source: original body

Modern rendering: Remove the cause and the effect disappears

Alignment convention

Alignment scope: Whole maxim: the supplied version recasts the ablative absolute as an imperative followed by the consequence.

sufficient cause

Printed “sufficient cause” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: sufficient cause

A cause adequate to produce the effect.

Context: Burton says melancholy alone may sometimes suffice for terror of conscience, while insisting melancholy and despair do not always coincide. May and sometimes are essential restrictions.

Source: original body

tua causa

Printed “tua causa” (Latin; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: tua causa

For your sake.

Context: The second sake construction occurs in the reply promising to lie. The modern yours stands for your sake, using the preceding phrase.

Source: Burton note original

Modern rendering: for yours

Alignment convention

Alignment scope: The modern possessive yours elliptically retains sake from for my sake; it is not a separate meaning of causa.

Edition note: checked in supplied translation of original marginal wording

Translation layer: Supplied modern translation inside Burton-labelled note; not original Burton English.

universal cause

Printed “universal cause” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: universal cause

A general cause applying across particulars.

Context: Cnemander’s stars are universal causes, contrasted with parents and non-naturals as particular causes. Porta’s succeeding assertion extends stellar causation to each individual.

Source: original body

Venus’s cause

Printed “Venus cause” (English; phrase).

Printed form, Source wording: Venus cause

The interest or cause of Venus, here sexual love.

Context: The verse imagines bulls and deer fighting on behalf of sexual attachment; the shared-interest sense overlaps the erotic occasion.

Source: original body

without a cause

Printed “without a cause” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Original wording, Modern rendering: without a cause

Meaning: Without an ordinary occasion or adequate ground.

Here: Without an ordinary occasion or ground for fear and sorrow, rather than lacking internal causation.

Context: A definitional clause qualified by exceptions and later internal-cause explanation.

Source: original body

Source wording: [without a cause] is lastly inserted

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Wider original wording: [without a cause] is lastly inserted to specifie it from all other ordinary passions of [Fear and Sorrow.]

Wider modern rendering: Finally, “without a cause” distinguishes it from all the ordinary emotions of fear and sorrow.

Wider construction scope: Full sentence aligned. Lastly is redistributed as sentence-initial Finally; is inserted to specify is recast as distinguishes. The separate narrow without a cause equivalence remains unchanged.