[3401]"minds be quietly pacified,
vain conceits diverted, if it be possible, with terrors, cares," [3402]
"fixed studies, cogitations, and whatsoever it is that shall any way molest
or trouble the soul," because that otherwise there is no good to be done.
[3403]"The body's mischiefs," as Plato proves, "proceed from the soul: and
if the mind be not first satisfied, the body can never be cured."
Alcibiades raves (saith [3404]Maximus Tyrius) and is sick, his furious
desires carry him from Lyceus to the pleading place, thence to the sea, so
into Sicily, thence to Lacedaemon, thence to Persia, thence to Samos, then
again to Athens; Critias tyranniseth over all the city; Sardanapalus is
lovesick; these men are ill-affected all, and can never be cured, till
their minds be otherwise qualified. Crato, therefore, in that often-cited
Counsel of his for a nobleman his patient, when he had sufficiently
informed him in diet, air, exercise, Venus, sleep, concludes with these as
matters of greatest moment, _Quod reliquum est, animae accidentia
corrigantur_, from which alone proceeds melancholy; they are the fountain,
the subject, the hinges whereon it turns, and must necessarily be reformed.
[3405]"For anger stirs choler, heats the blood and vital spirits; sorrow on
the other side refrigerates the body, and extinguisheth natural heat,
overthrows appetite, hinders concoction, dries up the temperature, and
perverts the understanding:" fear dissolves the spirits, infects the heart,
attenuates the soul: and for these causes all passions and perturbations
must, to the uttermost of our power and most seriously, be removed.
Aelianus Montaltus attributes so much to them, [3406]"that he holds the
rectification of them alone to be sufficient to the cure of melancholy in
most patients." Many are fully cured when they have seen or heard, &c.,
enjoy their desires, or be secured and satisfied in their minds; Galen, the
common master of them all, from whose fountain they fetch water, brags,
_lib. 1. de san. tuend._, that he, for his part, hath cured divers of this
infirmity, _solum animis ad rectum institutis_, by right settling alone of
their minds.

Yea, but you will here infer, that this is excellent good indeed if it
could be done; but how shall it be effected, by whom, what art, what means?
_hic labor, hoc opus est._ 'Tis a natural infirmity, a most powerful
adversary, all men are subject to passions, and melancholy above all
others, as being dis