Dejection subjects a man to causeless fears,which is a madness commonly called melancholy apparent also in diverse manners:as in haunting of solitudes and graves;in superstitious behaviour;and in fearing some one,some another,particular thing.In sum,all passions that produce strange and unusual behaviour are called by the general name of madness.But of the several kinds of madness,he that would take the pains might enrol a legion.And if the excesses be madness,there is no doubt but the passions themselves,when they tend to evil,are degrees of the same.
For example,though the effect of folly,in them that are possessed of an opinion of being inspired,be not visible always in one man by any very extravagant action that proceedeth from such passion,yet when many of them conspire together,the rage of the whole multitude is visible enough.For what argument of madness can there be greater than to clamour,strike,and throw stones at our best friends?Yet this is somewhat less than such a multitude will do.
For they will clamour,fight against,and destroy those by whom all their lifetime before they have been protected and secured from injury.And if this be madness in the multitude,it is the same in every particular man.For as in the midst of the sea,though a man perceive no sound of that part of the water next him,yet he is well assured that part contributes as much to the roaring of the sea as any other part of the same quantity:so also,though we perceive no great unquietness in one or two men,yet we may be well assured that their singular passions are parts of the seditious roaring of a troubled nation.And if there were nothing else that bewrayed their madness,yet that very arrogating such inspiration to themselves is argument enough.If some man in Bedlam should entertain you with sober discourse,and you desire in taking leave to know what he were that you might another time requite his civility,and he should tell you he were God the Father;I think you need expect no extravagant action for argument of his madness.
This opinion of inspiration,called commonly,private spirit,begins very often from some lucky finding of an error generally held by others;and not knowing,or not remembering,by what conduct of reason they came to so singular a truth,as they think it,though it be many times an untruth they light on,they presently admire themselves as being in the special grace of God Almighty,who hath revealed the same to them supernaturally by his Spirit.
Again,that madness is nothing else but too much appearing passion may be gathered out of the effects of wine,which are the same with those of the evil disposition of the organs.For the variety of behaviour in men that have drunk too much is the same with that of madmen:some of them raging,others loving,others laughing,all extravagantly,but according to their several domineering passions:
for the effect of the wine does but remove dissimulation,and take from them the sight of the deformity of their passions.For,Ibelieve,the most sober men,when they walk alone without care and employment of the mind,would be unwilling the vanity and extravagance of their thoughts at that time should be publicly seen,which is a confession that passions unguided are for the most part mere madness.
The opinions of the world,both in ancient and later ages,concerning the cause of madness have been two.Some,deriving them from the passions;some,from demons or spirits,either good or bad,which they thought might enter into a man,possess him,and move his organs in such strange and uncouth manner as madmen use to do.The former sort,therefore,called such men,madmen:but the latter called them sometimes demoniacs (that is,possessed with spirits);sometimes energumeni (that is,agitated or moved with spirits);and now in Italy they are called not only pazzi,madmen;but also spiritati,men possessed.
There was once a great conflux of people in Abdera,a city of the Greeks,at the acting of the tragedy of Andromeda,upon an extreme hot day:whereupon a great many of the spectators,falling into fevers,had this accident from the heat and from the tragedy together,that they did nothing but pronounce iambics,with the names of Perseus and Andromeda;which,together with the fever,was cured by the coming on of winter:and this madness was thought to proceed from the passion imprinted by the tragedy.Likewise there reigned a fit of madness in another Grecian city which seized only the young maidens,and caused many of them to hang themselves.This was by most then thought an act of the devil.But one that suspected that contempt of life in them might proceed from some passion of the mind,and supposing they did not contemn also their honour,gave counsel to the magistrates to strip such as so hanged themselves,and let them hang out naked.This,the story says,cured that madness.