this alteration. Which manner of digression, howsoever some dislike, as
frivolous and impertinent, yet I am of [1600]Beroaldus's opinion, "Such
digressions do mightily delight and refresh a weary reader, they are like
sauce to a bad stomach, and I do therefore most willingly use them."


SUBSECT. II.--_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 [1601]strong meditation, until
at length it produceth in some parties real effects, causeth this, and many
other maladies. And although this phantasy 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 phantasy, 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
phantasy. This is likewise evident in such as walk in the night in their
sleep, and do strange feats: [1602]these vapours move the phantasy, the
phantasy the appetite, which moving the animal spirits causeth the body to
walk up and down as if they were awake. Fracast. _l. 3. de intellect_,
refers all ecstasies to this force of imagination, such as lie whole days
together in a trance: as that priest whom [1603]Celsus speaks of, that