melancholy, [1587]as Austin hath it, and who is not? Good discipline,
education, philosophy, divinity (I cannot deny), may mitigate and restrain
these passions in some few men at some times, but most part they domineer,
and are so violent, [1588]that as a torrent (_torrens velut aggere rupto_)
bears down all before, and overflows his banks, _sternit agros, sternit
sata_, (lays waste the fields, prostrates the crops,) they overwhelm
reason, judgment, and pervert the temperature of the body; _Fertur [1589]
equis auriga, nec audit currus habenas_. Now such a man (saith
[1590]Austin) "that is so led, in a wise man's eye, is no better than he
that stands upon his head." It is doubted by some, _Gravioresne morbi a
perturbationibus, an ab humoribus_, whether humours or perturbations cause
the more grievous maladies. But we find that of our Saviour, Mat. xxvi. 41,
most true, "The spirit is willing, the flesh is weak," we cannot resist;
and this of [1591]Philo Judeus, "Perturbations often offend the body, and
are most frequent causes of melancholy, turning it out of the hinges of his
health." Vives compares them to [1592]"Winds upon the sea, some only move
as those great gales, but others turbulent quite overturn the ship." Those
which are light, easy, and more seldom, to our thinking, do us little harm,
and are therefore contemned of us: yet if they be reiterated, [1593]"as the
rain" (saith Austin) "doth a stone, so do these perturbations penetrate the
mind:" [1594]and (as one observes) "produce a habit of melancholy at the
last," which having gotten the mastery in our souls, may well be called
diseases.

How these passions produce this effect, [1595]Agrippa hath handled at
large, _Occult. Philos. l. 11. c. 63._ Cardan, _l. 14. subtil._ Lemnius,
_l. 1. c. 12, de occult. nat. mir. et lib. 1. cap. 16._ Suarez, _Met.
disput. 18. sect. 1. art. 25._ T. Bright, _cap. 12._ of his Melancholy
Treatise. Wright the Jesuit, in his Book of the Passions of the Mind, &c.
Thus in brief, to our imagination cometh by the outward sense or memory,