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The Anatomy of Melancholy
Robert Burton · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordThe “six non-natural things” are the conditions of living whose management can preserve or disturb health: diet; retention and evacuation; air; exercise, including its opposition to rest; sleep and waking; and the passions or “perturbations of the minde.”
- In the Anatomy of MelancholyThe classification gives the Anatomy one of its principal organizing structures.
- In this edition“six non-natural things” remains “six non-natural things”; “six non-naturall things” receives the same spelling.
- A place to readExternal causes, necessary conditions and the unfolding sixfold arrangement.
Meaning
The “six non-natural things” are the conditions of living whose management can preserve or disturb health: diet; retention and evacuation; air; exercise, including its opposition to rest; sleep and waking; and the passions or “perturbations of the minde.” “Non-natural” is a technical classification, not a description of something unnatural or supernatural. Burton’s spelling varies between “non-natural,” “non-naturall,” and “non naturall.” His Latin phrase “res sex non naturales” names the same six things.
They are “necessary” because no one can avoid being affected by them; harmful use is not itself inevitable. The phrase must also be distinguished from “non-naturall Melancholy,” where the adjective describes an altered, morbid humour rather than this sixfold regimen.
Use in the book
The classification gives the Anatomy one of its principal organizing structures. The First Partition’s synopsis places the six among necessary causes, then unfolds food and drink, retention and evacuation, air, exercise, sleep and waking, and the passions. The Second Partition’s synopsis returns to them as things to be reformed, again unfolding the six headings. The same conditions therefore organize both the account of how illness arises and the historical discussion of its management.
Burton locates them among external, remote, preceding causes. In the medical consultations he reports, mismanagement of the six produces internal obstructions: an external condition and the bodily effect arising from it are not interchangeable causes. His two examples are a melancholic Jew and a soldier in consultations attributed to Montanus, with Frisemelica also cited for the former case. Their descriptions illustrate the causal scheme; the patient’s religion is not assigned causal force.
The six are not all “material” in the same way. Diet supplies new matter; retention and evacuation concern keeping or expelling it. Air, exercise, sleep and waking, and the passions are said instead to alter matter. Burton’s compressed enumeration counts retention and evacuation together and sleep and waking together. “Exercise” occupies one heading; the surrounding synopsis includes both excessive and insufficient activity. His numerical six does not mean that each noun separated by a comma is a separate category.
Their reach extends beyond the immediate causes chapter. Good or bad management is said to matter greatly to preserving natural heat, which requires innate moisture. The passage’s wording does not make harmful management beneficial. The astrological discussion reports P. Cnemander distinguishing universal stellar causation from particular causes arising through parents and regimen. Burton later gathers diet, worry and other external causes under the six when discussing head, hypochondriacal and whole-body melancholy. These are inherited medical and astrological explanations, not established present-day mechanisms.
The prison passage makes the classification concrete and social. Prisoners are said to “want all those six non-naturall things at once,” meaning that they lack good conditions: clean air, food, movement, company, sleep and ease. They do not literally lack air or every bodily process. The illustrative list expands beyond six headings and describes deprivation rather than a fresh technical enumeration. Its account of chains, stench and interrupted sleep draws on Lucian as quoted by Burton.
In the treatment section “Diet,” “Victus or Living,” can embrace the entire sixfold regimen. It is wider than “Diet, properly so called,” meaning food and drink. Burton criticizes fee-seeking physicians who give unnecessary medicines when advice or regulation of these conditions might suffice; he later marks a transition from their “rectifications” to pharmacy. The category thus helps distinguish management of living from drug treatment without making every disease curable by regimen alone.
Assertions of sufficiency have differing speakers and qualifications. Arculanus is said to consider regulation a sufficient cure; the accompanying Latin says “plerumque,” generally. Aretaeus’s claim is conditional upon illness not being too advanced; the attached Latin states the condition as the illness being recent. Burton addresses “most melancholy men” when he says that the six caused the illness and must cure it, illustrating the thought with the animal unable to leave a granary until lean again. A later statement attributed to Roger Bacon is conditional: it would be a perfect remedy against all bodily decay if people moderated these conditions. The marginal Latin says a remedy against one’s own decay; perfect and all belong to Burton’s stronger English formulation. These historical claims should retain their limits and attribution.
Related entries
Air; Diet and regimen; Exercise; Waking; Perturbation; Rectification; Retention and evacuation; Necessary and contingent causes; Natural and non-natural melancholy; Radical moisture
Places to read
- Unnumbered First Partition synopsisExternal causes, necessary conditions and the unfolding sixfold arrangement.
- · paragraph 41–DJR-21-43The early promise to discuss the six, linked to the use and misuse of bodily and mental gifts.
- · paragraph 34–DJR-24-35Regimen’s alleged bearing on preserving vital heat, which requires innate moisture.
- · paragraph 24–DJR-27-25Mismanagement of the six among the reported predispositions; the continuation completes the list.
- · paragraph 13–DJR-32-15Cnemander’s particular causes distinguished from universal stellar influence, within an attributed astrological argument.
- · paragraph 28–DJR-33-33Necessary causes; medical accusations, external causation and subsequent internal obstructions; the sixfold enumeration and material/alterative distinction.
- · paragraph 25The category in the Latin title of a cited work on sleep and illness, margin note 2716.
- · paragraph 10–DJR-52-12Confinement, prison deprivation and the illustrative list rather than a new numerical taxonomy.
- · paragraph 11–DJR-57-16The different sense of non-naturall in morbid melancholy, and the qualified hot-and-dry explanation.
- · paragraph 24–DJR-57-26The six as a summary of causes of head melancholy, with the cited patient and historical discharge theory.
- · paragraph 38–DJR-57-40External factors and internal organs in hypochondriacal melancholy; the next reported medicinal injury remains a separate case.
- · paragraph 45–DJR-57-47Whole-body melancholy and the alleged aggravating factors, closing the causal account.
- Unnumbered Second Partition synopsisDietetic treatment distinguished from pharmacy and surgery, then organized through reforming all six headings.
- · paragraph 11–DJR-69-12Unnecessary medicines contrasted with counsel and regimen.
- · paragraph 9–DJR-70-18Broad regimen, diverse claims and qualifications concerning cure, and the narrower food-and-drink sense; plerumque means generally, not invariably.
- · paragraph 19–DJR-83-20The conditional appeal to reform habits and Bacon’s claim about bodily decay; body and margin have differing breadth.
- · paragraph 39–DJR-98-41The transition from regimen to pharmacy, followed by reported objections to medicinal treatment.
- · paragraph 12–DJR-103-15All six retained within the historical treatment of head melancholy.
- The framework repeated for hypochondriacal melancholy; the next historical treatment is expressly conditional.
In this edition
“six non-natural things” remains “six non-natural things”; “six non-naturall things” receives the same spelling. The technical label is retained and explained rather than treated as ordinary “unnatural.” By contrast, “non-naturall Melancholy” becomes “unnatural melancholy”, where a corrupted humour is at issue. The similarity of wording must not erase that distinction.
“Diet Διαιτητικὴ, Victus or Living” is rendered “Diet—the regulation of daily life, or manner of living”; later “Diet, properly so called” becomes “diet in the strict sense.” The broad “Diet” becomes “regimen.” These are contextual scopes of the word, not rival lists of the six. The modern enumeration makes the paired categories easier to follow without inventing additional members.
The Latin marginal quotation and the English translation attached to it remain distinct layers. No new collation of the cited physicians or early editions is claimed.
diet / Διαιτητικὴ / victus
Printed “Victus or Living” (English / Greek / Latin; phrase).
The full way of living or regimen encompassing the six conditions.
Context: Burton attributes this broad scope to Fuchsius and others. The printed Greek is a feminine singular regimen term, and Latin Victus is the nominative singular noun for way of life or regimen; this multilingual phrase key is not a single dictionary lemma.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: Diet Διαιτητικὴ, Victus or Living
Modern rendering: Diet—the regulation of daily life, or manner of living
Word and construction, Supplied words note: The regulation of daily life makes the Greek regimen term explicit; manner of living expresses Latin Victus together with Burton’s English Living. The article the is supplied. The multilingual phrase is aligned as a whole, not treated as three independent word-for-word equivalents.
diet properly so called
Printed “Diet, properly so called” (English; phrase).
Food and drink, distinguished from the broader sixfold regimen.
Context: Burton explicitly narrows diet when beginning the first component of the six.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: Diet, properly so called, which consists in meat and drink
Modern rendering: diet in the strict sense: food and drink
Word and construction, Supplied words note: In the strict sense renders properly so called; food renders meat, and the explanatory colon replaces which consists in. This food-and-drink scope is narrower than the earlier broad regimen.
if not too far gone
Printed “if the party be not too farre gone in sicknesse” (English; phrase).
Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: if the party be not too farre gone in sicknesse
Provided the patient’s illness has not advanced too far; the condition limiting the reported sufficiency of regimen.
Context: Burton attributes the conditional sufficiency claim to Aretaeus. The accompanying Latin margin states the condition as Si recens malum sit, if the illness is recent; it is a separate formulation, not identical wording.
Source: original body
Modern rendering: if the patient's illness has not advanced too far
Word and construction, Supplied words note: The patient’s illness recasts the party... in sicknesse, moving the illness into the grammatical subject; has not advanced too far renders be not too farre gone. If and not remain explicit.
material
Printed “more material” (English; lemma). Attestation: phrase.
More immediately concerned with supplying, retaining or expelling bodily matter.
Context: Burton distinguishes diet and retention/evacuation from the other four, which alter matter.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: which are more material then the other, because they make new matter, or else are conversant in keeping or expelling of it
Modern rendering: are more directly material than the others, because they create new matter or concern its retention or expulsion
Word and construction, Supplied words note: Directly is an explanatory addition to material; it interprets bodily matter, not greater importance. Others makes the comparison plural. Create, retention and expulsion render the separately expressed operations on matter.
necessary
Printed “Necessary” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Unavoidable as influences upon life, though capable of good or bad use.
Context: Burton explicitly grounds necessity in unavoidability, not inevitability of illness.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: Necessary (because we cannot avoyd them, but they will alter us, as they are used, or abused)
Modern rendering: The necessary ones—because we cannot avoid them, and they will change us according to their use or misuse
Word and construction, Supplied words note: The and ones supply an English substantive for Necessary; ones refers to the preceding causes. According to their use or misuse recasts as they are used, or abused.
non-natural melancholy
Printed “non-naturall Melancholy” (English; phrase).
Morbid, altered melancholy, a distinct use of the adjective from the six conditions of regimen.
Context: Burton qualifies the heat-based explanation: it may apply to this morbid humour, not natural colder melancholy.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: this may be true in non-naturall Melancholy
Modern rendering: it may be true of unnatural melancholy
Word and construction, Supplied words note: Unnatural renders non-naturall in the morbid-humour sense. It resumes this; the hot-and-dry causal account is its preceding referent, not additional lexical content of melancholy. May remains explicit.
plerumque
Printed “plerumque” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Generally, usually or for the most part; an adverb qualifying the claim that regimen suffices.
Context: The marginal Latin limits the sufficiency claim; the body reports Arculanus more compactly.
Source: original marginal quotation
Source wording, Original wording: Sufficit plerumque regimen rerum sex non-naturalium.
Modern rendering: Regulation of the six non-natural things is generally sufficient.
Word and construction, Supplied words note: Generally renders the adverb plerumque; is sufficient renders sufficit, while regulation of the six non-natural things renders the separate subject regimen rerum sex non-naturalium. The initial capital and English of/the are syntactic normalization, not added certainty.
Edition note: checked against supplied editorial translation within Burton-labelled note; translation is not original Burton wording
rectification
Printed “rectifications” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Adjustments of the six conditions to the historical standard of appropriate regimen.
Context: Burton sums up the completed regimen discussion before turning to medicinal preparations.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: these six non-naturall things, and their severall rectifications, all which are comprehended in Diet
Modern rendering: these six non-natural things and their several adjustments, all of which come under regimen
Word and construction, Supplied words note: Adjustments renders rectifications, several remains explicit, and regimen renders broad Diet. Come under recasts are comprehended in; no additional kind of treatment is supplied.
res sex non naturales · local use 1
Printed “res sex non naturales” (Latin; phrase).
The six conditions of regimen, here accusative plural after circa; their misuse is named as an external cause of subsequent internal obstructions.
Context: The cited soldier is accused of every possible fault concerning the six. The Latin explicitly makes these external causes from which obstructions subsequently arose; the relation is causal as well as temporal.
Source: original marginal quotation
Source wording, Original wording: Fecit omnia delicta quæ fieri possunt circa res sex non naturales, & eæ fuerunt causæ extrinsecæ, ex quibus postea ortæ sunt obstructiones.
Modern rendering: He committed every fault that can be committed concerning the six non-natural things; these were the external causes from which obstructions subsequently arose.
Word and construction, Supplied words note: He is supplied from the third-person finite verb Fecit and the soldier in the body. Every fault renders omnia delicta; concerning renders circa with accusative plural res sex non naturales. External causes and subsequently arose belong to the following clause, not to the noun phrase alone.
Edition note: checked against supplied editorial translation within Burton-labelled note; translation is not original Burton wording
res sex non naturales · local use 2
Printed “res sex non naturales” (Latin; phrase).
The six conditions of regimen: accusative plural after circa, concerning, within the physicians’ reported charge of mismanagement.
Context: Burton reports this accusation in almost every consultation and usually against the patient, then gives Montanus and Frisemelica’s cases. His following English adds still and one of those six, which are not separate words in the Latin.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: Peccavit circa res sex non naturales
Modern rendering: He has offended in the six non-natural things
Word and construction, Supplied words note: He is supplied from third-person singular perfect Peccavit and the patient context. In renders circa with accusative plural res sex non naturales. The Latin does not contain the separate English still or one of those six that follows it in Burton’s body.
six non-natural things · six non-naturall things
Printed “six non-naturall things” (English; phrase).
Six conditions of living arranged as necessary causes in the synopsis.
Context: Burton’s synopsis names a structural category, not six unavoidable diseases.
Source: original body
Locator qualification: Source record identifies these leaves as unnumbered; plain numerical passage labels are scan numbers.
Source wording, Original wording: Necessary causes, as those six non-naturall things
Modern rendering: Necessary causes: the six non-natural things
Word and construction, Supplied words note: The replaces as those while the heading is compressed; the six conditions are explicit in the original, and no six diseases are supplied.
six non-natural things
Printed “six non-natural things” (English; phrase).
Conditions of living whose good or bad use is said to bear substantially on the preservation of natural heat, sustained by innate moisture.
Context: Burton says good or bad use matters greatly to preservation within his historical physiology. The alternatives should not be collapsed into a claim that both help equally.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: the good or bad use of those six non-natural things availe much
Modern rendering: good or bad management of the six non-natural things contribute greatly to its preservation
Word and construction, Supplied words note: Management renders use. To its preservation makes explicit the preceding to which preservation; its refers back to sustaining natural heat with radical moisture. The good or bad alternatives are retained, so the compact does not claim that bad management is beneficial.
six non-natural things · six non naturall things
Printed “six non naturall things” (English; phrase).
Conditions to be regulated in the dietetic division of historical treatment.
Context: The Second Partition synopsis reverses the causal arrangement into a framework of treatment.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: Dietetical, which consists in reforming those six non naturall things
Modern rendering: Dietetic treatment, consisting in regulating the six non-natural things
Word and construction, Supplied words note: Treatment is supplied to make the substantive Dietetical explicit; regulating renders reforming, and the six non-natural conditions are expressed in both columns.
want the six non-natural things
Printed “want all those six non-naturall things” (English; phrase).
Lack health-supporting circumstances belonging to the six categories.
Context: Prisoners are the deprived subjects; Burton supplies an illustrative list, not a revised numerical taxonomy.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: They want all those six non-naturall things at once
Modern rendering: They lack all those six non-natural things at once
Word and construction, Supplied words note: Lack renders want; all and at once remain explicit. They refers to the prisoners named in the preceding question. Health-supporting is an explanation from the following good air, good diet and other deprivations, not an extra word in this aligned sentence.