The Essential Anatomy of Melancholy

Robert Burton

• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Year: 2012
• Topic: Literature
• eBook ISBN:
  9780486148588
• Subtopic: European Literary Collections
• Index: Literature

English churchman and scholar Robert Burton (1577-1640) was a passionate student of medicine, history, literature, and science — the whole of human knowledge. This witty and eloquent genius devoted most of this life to writing The Anatomy of Melancholy, one of the richest, most inexhaustible books in the English language.
Ostensibly an elaborately systematized medical treatise dealing with various morbid mental states — their causes, symptoms, and cures — the Anatomy is much more: a compendium of memorable utterances on the human condition in general, compiled from classical, scholastic, and contemporary sources. For this edition, the editors carefully selected passages of the most psychological and general interest, eliminating the nonessential material but retaining the incomparable humor, eccentric charm, imagination, and thought-provoking appeal of the original.
In short, readers will find here the essence of Burton's vast book — the passages that, according to noted scholar W. H. D. Rouse, reveal the author's "eternal freshness, his own ingenuous interest, [and] his boyish delight in a good story."

THE FIRST PARTITION

MELANCHOLY, ITS CAUSES AND SYMPTOMS

I. MELANCHOLY, WHAT IT IS

MELANCHOLY, the subject of our present discourse, is either in disposition or habit. In disposition, is that transitory melancholy which goes and comes upon every small occasion of sorrow, need, sickness, trouble, fear, grief, passion, or perturbation of the mind, any manner of care, discontent, or thought, which causeth anguish, dulness, heaviness, and vexation of spirit, any ways opposite to pleasure, mirth, joy, delight, causing frowardness in us, or a dislike. In which equivocal and improper sense, we call him melancholy that is dull, sad, sour, lumpish, ill-disposed, solitary, any way moved, or displeased. And from these melancholy dispositions, no man living is free, no stoic, none so wise, none so happy, none so patient, so generous, so godly, so divine, that can vindicate himself; so well composed, but more or less, some time or other he feels the smart of it. Melancholy in this sense is the character of mortality. “Man that is born of a woman, is of short continuance, and full of trouble.” Zeno, Cato, Socrates himself, whom Ælian so highly commends for a moderate temper, that “ nothing could disturb him, but going out, and coming in, still Socrates kept the same serenity of countenance, what misery soever befel him,” (if we may believe Plato his disciple) was much tormented with it. Q. Metellus, in whom Valerius gives instance of all happiness, “the most fortunate man then living, born in that most flourishing city of Rome, of noble parentage, a proper man of person, well qualified, healthful, rich, honourable, a senator, a consul, happy in his wife, happy in his children,” etc., yet this man was not void of melancholy, he had his share of sorrow. Polycrates Samius, that flung his ring into the sea, because he would participate of discontent with others, and had it miraculously restored to him again shortly after, by a fish taken as he angled, was not free from melancholy dispositions. No man can cure himself; the very gods had bitter pangs, and frequent passions, as their own poets put upon them. In general, “as the heaven, so is our life, sometimes fair, sometimes overcast, tempestuous, and serene; as in a rose, flowers and prickles; in the year itself, a temperate summer sometimes, a hard winter, a drought, and then again pleasant showers : so is our life intermixed with joys, hopes, fears, sorrows, calumnies: ” there is a succession of pleasure and pain. “Even in the midst of laughing there is sorrow” (as Solomon holds): even as in the midst of all our feasting and jollity, as Austin infers in his Com. on the 41st Psalm, there is grief and discontent. For a pint of honey thou shalt here likely find a gallon of gall, for a dram of pleasure a pound of pain, for an inch of mirth an ell of moan; as ivy doth an oak, these miseries encompass our life. And it is most absurd and ridiculous for any mortal man to look for a perpetual tenure of happiness in this life. Nothing so prosperous and pleasant, but it hath some bitterness in it, some complaining, some grudging; it is all a mixed passion, and like a chequer table, black and white men, families, cities, have their falls and wanes; now trines, sextiles, then quartiles and oppositions. We are not here as those angels, celestial powers and bodies, sun and moon, to finish our course without all offence, with such constancy, to continue for so many ages: but subject to infirmities, miseries, interrupted, tossed and tumbled up and down, carried about with every small blast, often molested and disquieted upon each slender occasion, uncertain brittle, and so is all that we trust unto. “And he that knows not this is not armed to endure it, is not fit to live in this world (as one condoles our time), he knows not the condition of it, where with a reciprocalty, pleasure and pain are still united, and succeed one another in a ring.” Get thee gone hence if thou canst not brook it; there is no way to avoid it, but to arm thyself with patience, with magnanimity, to oppose thyself unto it, to suffer affliction as a good soldier of Christ; as Paul adviseth constantly to bear it. But forasmuch as so few can embrace this good counsel of his, or use it aright, but rather as so many brute beasts give a way to their passion, voluntary subject and precipitate themselves into a labyrinth of cares, woes, miseries, and suffer their souls to be overcome by them, cannot arm themselves with that patience as they ought to do, it falleth out oftentimes that these dispositions become habits, and “ many affects contemned (as Seneca notes) make a disease. Even as one distillation, not yet grown to custom, makes a cough; but continual and inveterate causeth a consumption of the lungs”; so do these our melancholy provocations : and according as the humour itself is intended, or remitted in men, as their temperature of body, or rational soul is better able to make resistance; so are they more or less affected. For that which is but a flea-biting to one, causeth insufferable torment to another; and which one by his singular moderation, and well-composed carriage can happily overcome, a second is no whit able to sustain, but upon every small occasion of misconceived abuse, injury, grief, disgrace, loss, cross, humour, etc. (if solitary, or idle), yields so far to passion, that his complexion is altered, his digestion hindered, his sleep gone, his spirits obscured, and his heart heavy, his hypochrondries misaffected; wind, crudity, on a sudden overtake him, and he himself overcome with melancholy. As it is with a man imprisoned for debt, if once in the gaol, every creditor will bring his action against him, and there likely hold him. If any discontent seize upon a patient, in an instant all other perturbations will set upon him, and then like a lame dog or broken-winged goose he droops and pines away, and is brought at last to that ill habit or malady of melancholy itself. So that as the philosophers make eight degrees of heat and cold, we may make eighty-eight of melancholy, as the parts affected are diversely seized with it, or have been plunged more or less into this infernal gulph, or waded deeper into it. But all these melancholy fits, howsoever pleasing at first, or displeasing, violent and tyrannizing over those whom they seize on for the time; yet these fits I say, or men affected, are but improperly so called, because they continue not, but come and go, as by some objects they are moved. This melancholy of which we are to treat, is a habit, a chronic or continuate disease, a settled humour, as Aurelianus and others call it, not errant, but fixed; and as it was long increasing, so now being (pleasant, or painful) grown to an habit, it will hardly be removed.

2. CAUSES NECESSARY

Immoderate Exercise a Cause, and How. Solitariness, Idleness

Nothing so good but it may be abused: nothing better than exercise (if opportunely used) for the preservation of the body: nothing so bad if it be unseasonable, violent, or overmuch. Fernelius out of Galen saith, “That much exercise and weariness consumes the spirits and substance, refrigerates the body: and such humours which Nature would have otherwise concocted and expelled, it stirs up and makes them rage: which being so enraged, diversely affect and trouble the body and mind.” So doth it, if it be unseasonably used, upon a full stomach, or when the body is full of crudities, which Fuchsius so much inveighs against, giving that for a cause why school-boys in Germany are so often scabbed, because they use exercise presently after meats. Bayerus puts in a caveat against such exercise, because “it corrupts the meat in the stomach, and carries the same juice raw, and as yet undigested, into the veins which there putrefies and confounds the animal spirits.” Crato protests against all such exercise after meat, as being the greatest enemy to concoction that may be, and cause of corruption of humours, which produce this, and many other diseases.

Opposite to exercise is idleness (the badge of gentry) or want of exercise, the bane of body and mind, the nurse of naughtiness, stepmother of discipline, the chief author of all mischief, one of the seven deadly sins, and a sole cause of this and many other maladies, the devil’s cushion, his pillow and chief reposal. For the mind can never rest, but still meditates on one thing or other; except it be occupied about some honest business, of his own accord it rusheth into melancholy. As too much and violent exercise offends on the one side, so doth an idle life on the other, it fills the body full of phlegm, gross humours, and all manner of obstructions, rheums, catarrhs. They that are idle are far more subject to melancholy than such as are conversant or employed about any office or business. Plutarch reckons up idleness for a sole cause of the sickness of the soul: “There are they (saith he) troubled in mind, that have no other cause but this.” A disease familiar to all idle persons, an inseparable companion to such as live at ease, a life out of action, and have no calling or ordinary employment to busy themselves about, that have small occasions; and though they have such is their laziness, dulness, they will not compose themselves to do aught; they cannot abide work, though it be necessary; easy as to dress themselves, write a letter or the like; yet as he that is benumbed with cold sits still shaking, that might relieve himself with a little exercise or stirring do they complain, but will not use the facile and ready means to do themselves good ; and so are still tormented with melancholy. Especially if they have been formerly brought up to business, or to keep much company, and upon a sudden come to lead a sedentary life ; it crucifies their souls, and seizeth on them in an instant; for whilst they are any ways employed, in action, discourse, about any business, sport or recreation, or in company to their liking ; they are very well ; but if alone or idle, tormented instantly again ; one day’s solitariness, one hour’s sometimes, doth them more harm, than a week’s physic, labour, and company can do good. Melancholy seizeth on them forthwith being alone, and is such a torture, that I had rather be sick than idle. This idleness is either of body or mind. As fern grows in untilled grounds, and all manner of weeds, so do gross humours in an idle body. A horse in a stable that never travels, a hawk in a mew that seldom flies, are both subject to diseases ; which left unto themselves, are most free from any such incumbrances. An idle dog will be mangy, and how shall an idle person think to escape ? Idleness of the mind is much worse than this of the body; wit without employment is a disease, the rust of the soul, a plague, a hell itself. “As in a standing pool, worms and filthy creepers increase (the water itself putrefies, and air likewise, if it be not continually stirred by the wind), so do evil and corrupt thoughts in an idle person,” the soul is contaminated. In a commonwealth, where is no public enemy, there is likely civil wars, and they rage upon themselves : this body of ours, when it is idle, and knows not how to bestow itself, macerates and vexeth itself with cares, griefs, false fears, discontents, and suspicions; it tortures and preys upon his own bowels, and is never at rest. Thus much I dare boldly say, “He or she that is idle, be they of what condition they will, never so rich, so well allied, fortunate, happy, let them have all things in abundance and felicity that heart can wish and desire, all contentment, so long as he or she or they are idle, they shall never be pleased, never well in body and mind, but weary still, sickly still, vexed still, loathing still, weeping, sighing, grieving, suspecting, offended with the world, with every object, wishing themselves gone or dead, or else carried away with some foolish phantasy or other. And this is the true cause that so many great men, ladies, and gentlewomen, labour of this disease in country and city; for idleness is an appendix to nobility ; they count it a disgrace to work, and spend all their days in sports, recreations, and pastimes, and will therefore take no pains ; be of no vocation ; they feed liberally, fare well, want exercise, action, employment (for to work, I say, they may not abide), and company to their desires and thence their bodies become full of gross humours, wind, crudities ; their minds disquieted, dull, heavy, etc., care, jealousy, fear of some diseases, sullen fits, weeping fits seize too familiarly on them. For what will not fear and phantasy work in an idle body ? what distempers will they not cause ? when the children of Israel murmured against Pharaoh in Egypt, he commanded his officers to double their task, and let them get straw themselves, and yet make their full number of bricks; for the sole cause why they mutiny, and are evil at ease, is, “they are idle.” When you shall hear and see so many discontented persons in all places where you come, so many several grievances, unnecessary complaints, fear, suspicions, the best means to redress it is to set them awork, so to busy their minds : for the truth is, they are idle. Well they may build castles in the air for a time, and soothe up themselves with phantastical and pleasant humours, but in the end they will prove as bitter as gall, they shall be still I say discontent, suspicious, fearful, jealous, sad, fretting and vexing of themselves : so long as they be idle, it is impossible to please them. He that knows not how to spend his time, hath more business, care, grief, anguish of mind, than he that is most busy in the midst of all his business. An idle person knows not when he is well, what he would have, or whither he would go, he is tired out with everything, displeased with all, weary of his life. A young man is like a fair new house, the carpenter leaves it well built, in good repair of solid stuff ; but a bad tenant lets it rain in, and for want of reparation, fall to decay, etc. Our parents, tutors, friends, spare no cost to bring us up in our youth, in all manner of virtuous education ; but when we are left to ourselves, idleness as a tempest drives all virtuous motions out of our minds, on a sudden, by sloth and such bad ways, we come to nought.

Cousin german to idleness, and a concomitant cause, which goes hand in hand with it, is too much solitariness, by the testimony of all physicians, cause and symptom both ; but as it is here put for a cause it is either coact, enforced, or else voluntarily. Enforced solitariness is commonly seen in students, monks, friars, anchorites, that by their order and course of life must abandon all company, society of other men, and betake themselves to a private cell : such as are the Carthusians of our time, that eat no flesh (by their order), keep perpetual silence, never go abroad. Such as live in prison, or some desert place, and cannot have company, as many of our country gentlemen do in solitary houses, they must either be alone without companions, or live beyond their means, and entertain all comers as so many hosts, or else converse with their servants and hinds, such as are unequal, inferior to them, and of a contrary disposition : or else as some do, to avoid solitariness, spend their time with lewd fellows in taverns, and in alehouses, and thence addict themselves to some unlawful disports, or dissolute courses. Divers again are cast upon this rock of solitariness for want of means, or out of a strong apprehension of some infirmity, disgrace, or through bashfulness, rudeness, simplicity, they cannot apply themselves to others’ company. This enforced solitariness takes place, and produceth his effect soonest in such as have spent their time jovially, peradventure in all honest recreations, in good company, in some great family or populous city, and are upon a sudden confined to a desert country cottage far off, restrained of their liberty, and barred from their ordinary associates ; solitariness is very irksome to such, most tedious, and a sudden cause of great inconvenience.

Voluntary solitariness is that which is familiar with melancholy, and gently brings on like a syren, a shoeing-horn, or some sphinx to this irrevocable gulf, a primary cause, Piso calls it ; most pleasant it is at first, to such as are melancholy given, to lie in bed whole days, and keep their chambers, to walk alone in some solitary grove, betwixt wood and water, by a brook side, to meditate upon some delightsome and pleasant subject, which shall affect them most ; amabilis insania, et mentis gratissimus error; a most incomparable delight it is so to melancholize, and build castles in the air, to go smiling to themselves, acting an infinite variety of parts, which they suppose and strongly imagine they represent, or that they see acted or done. So delightsome these toys are at first, they could spend whole days and nights without sleep, even whole years alone in such contemplations, and fantastical meditations, which are like unto dreams, and they will hardly be drawn from them, or willingly interrupt, so pleasant their vain conceits are, that they hinder their ordinary tasks and necessary business, they cannot address themselves to them, or almost to any study or employment, these fantastical and bewitching thoughts so covertly, so feelingly, so urgently, so continually set upon, creep in, insinuate, possess, overcome, distract, and detain them, they cannot, I say, go about their more necessary business, stave off or extricate themselves, but are ever musing, melancholizing, and carried along, as he (they say) that is led round about a heath with a Puck in the night, they run earnestly on in this labyrinth of anxious and solicitous melancholy meditations, and cannot well or willingly refrain, or easily leave off, winding and unwinding themselves, as so many clocks, and still pleasing their humours, until at last the scene is turned upon a sudden, by some bad object, and they being now habituated to such vain meditations and solitary places, can endure no company, can ruminate of nothing but harsh and distasteful subjects. Fear, sorrow, suspicion, discontent, cares, and weariness of life surprise them in a moment, and they can think of nothing else, continually suspecting no sooner are their eyes open, but this infernal plague of melancholy seizeth on them, and terrifies their souls, representing some dismal object to their minds, which now by no means, no labour, no persuasions they can avoid, the arrow of death still remains in the side, they may not be rid of it, they cannot resist. I may not deny but that there is some profitable meditation, contemplation, and kind of solitariness to be embraced, which the fathers so highly commended, Hierom, Chrysostom, Cyprian, Austin, in whole tracts, which Petrarch, Erasmus, Stella, and others, so much magnify in their books ; a paradise, a heaven on earth, if it be used aright, good for the body, and better for the soul. Methinks, therefore, our too zealous innovators were not so well advised in that general subversion of abbeys and religious houses, promiscuously to fling down all; they might have taken away those gross abuses crept in amongst them, rectified such inconveniences, and not so far to have raved and raged against those fair buildings, and everlasting monuments of our forefathers’ devotion, consecrated to pious uses ; some monasteries and collegiate cells might have been well spared, and their revenues otherwise employed, here and there one, in good towns or cities at least, for men and women of all sorts and conditions to live in, to sequester themselves from the cares and tumults of the world, that were not desirous, or fit to marry; or otherwise willing to be troubled with common affairs, and know not well where to bestow themselves, to live apart in, for more conveniency, good education, better company sake, to follow their studies (I say), to the perfection of arts and sciences, common good, and as some truly devoted monks of old had done, freely and truly to serve God. It is reported by Plato in his dialogue de Amore, in that prodigious commendation of Socrates, how a deep meditation coming into Socrates’ mind by chance, he stood still musing, from morning to noon, and when as then he had not yet finished his meditation, he so continued till the evening, the soldiers (for he then followed the camp) observed him with admiration, and on set purpose watched all night, but he persevered immoveable, till the sun rose in the morning, and then saluting the sun, went his ways. In what humour constant Socrates did thus, I know not, or how he might be affected, but this would be pernicious to another man ; what intricate business might so really possess him, I cannot easily guess ; but this solitude undoeth us, ’tis a destructive solitariness. A man alone, is either a saint or a devil, and woe be to him that is so alone. These wretches do frequently degenerate from men, and of sociable creatures become beasts, monsters, inhumane, ugly to behold, Misanthropi; they do even loathe themselves, and hate the company of men, as so many Timons, Nebuchadnezzars, by too much indulging to these pleasing humours, and through their own default. Perditio tua ex te; thou hast lost thyself wilfully, cast away thyself, thou thyself art the efficient cause of thine own misery, by not resisting such vain cogitations, but giving way unto them.

Of the Force of Imagination

What imagination is, I have sufficiently declared in my digression of the anatomy of the soul. I will only now point at the wonderful effects and power of it ; which, as it is eminent in all, so most especially it rageth in melancholy persons, in keeping the species of objects so long, mistaking, amplifying them by continual and strong meditation, until at length it produceth in some parties real effects, causeth this and many other maladies. And although this fantasy of ours be a subordinate faculty to reason, and should be ruled by it, yet in many men, through inward or outward distemperatures, defect of organs, which are unapt, or otherwise contaminated, it is likewise unapt, or hindered, and hurt. This we see verified in sleepers, which by reason of humours and concourse of vapours troubling the fantasy, imagine many times absurd and prodigious things, and in such as are troubled with incubus, or witch-ridden (as we call it), if they lie on their backs, they suppose an old woman rides, and sits so hard upon them, that they are almost stifled for want of breath; when there is nothing offends, but a concourse of bad humours, which trouble the fantasy. This is likewise evident in such as walk in the night in their sleep, and do strange feats : these vapours move the fantasy, the fantasy the appetite, which moving the animal spirits causeth the body to walk up and down as if they were awake. ...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• PREFACE
• Table of Contents
• INTRODUCTION
• EDITORS’ NOTE
• THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY - A SATIRICAL PREFACE CONDUCING TO THE FOLLOWING DISCOURSE
• THE FIRST PARTITION
• SECOND PARTITION
• THIRD PARTITION
• SOME NOTABLE PARAGRAPHS