ever ignorant): [2709]I have in brief touched, only this I will here add,
that Arculanus, _Bodin. lib. 3, cap. 6, daemon._ and some others, [2710]
hold as a manifest token that such persons are possessed with the devil; so
doth [2711]Hercules de Saxonia, and Apponensis, and fit only to be cured by
a priest. But [2712]Guianerius, [2713]Montaltus, Pomporiatius of Padua, and
Lemnius _lib. 2. cap. 2_, refer it wholly to the ill-disposition of the
[2714]humour, and that out of the authority of Aristotle _prob. 30. 1_,
because such symptoms are cured by purging; and as by the striking of a
flint fire is enforced, so by the vehement motion of spirits, they do
_elicere voces inauditas_, compel strange speeches to be spoken: another
argument he hath from Plato's _reminiscentia_, which all out as likely as
that which [2715]Marsilius Ficinus speaks of his friend Pierleonus; by a
divine kind of infusion he understood the secrets of nature, and tenets of
Grecian and barbarian philosophers, before ever he heard of, saw, or read
their works: but in this I should rather hold with Avicenna and his
associates, that such symptoms proceed from evil spirits, which take all
opportunities of humours decayed, or otherwise to pervert the soul of man:
and besides, the humour itself is _balneum diaboli_, the devil's bath; and
as Agrippa proves, doth entice him to seize upon them.

SECT. IV. MEMB. I.
_Prognostics of Melancholy_.

Prognostics, or signs of things to come, are either good or bad. If this
malady be not hereditary, and taken at the beginning, there is good hope of
cure, _recens curationem non habet difficilem_, saith Avicenna, _l. 3, Fen.
1, Tract. 4, c. 18._ That which is with laughter, of all others is most
secure, gentle, and remiss, Hercules de Saxonia. [2716]"If that evacuation
of haemorrhoids, or _varices_, which they call the water between the skin,
shall happen to a melancholy man, his misery is ended," Hippocrates _Aphor.
6, 11._ Galen _l. 6, de morbis vulgar. com. 8_, confirms the same; and to
this aphorism of Hippocrates, all the Arabians, new and old Latins
subscribe; Montaltus _c. 25_, Hercules de Saxonia, Mercurialis, Vittorius
Faventinus, &c. Skenkius, _l. 1, observat. med. c. de Mania_, illustrates
this aphorism, with an example of one Daniel Federer a coppersmith that was
long melancholy, and in the end mad about the 27th year of his age, these
_varices_ or water began to arise in his thighs, and he was freed from hi