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Writing under the pseudonym Democritus Junior, Robert Burton establishes sorrow not as a rare illness, but as the shared condition of mortal existence. Scholars, kings, and fools alike succumb to dark humors. Diagnosing the world requires stepping back from it, observing human folly with both satirical detachment and profound sympathy.
Black bile accumulates within the liver and brain, distorting perception and trapping the spirit in chronic despair. Passions of the mind—such as anger, fear, pride, and solitary rumination—physically alter bodily fluids, while bad air, poor diet, and lack of exercise aggravate the condition. Diagnosis demands untangling this interplay between physical organs and mental torment.
Remedying deep grief requires a systematic restoration of harmony across body and mind. Moderate exercise, pleasant company, cheerful conversation, and sweet music lighten the heavy vapors clouding the spirit. Gentle herbal purges like hellebore assist the physical organs, but altered habits and fresh air provide the truest relief from mental gloom.
Unrequited desire drives the lover into erratic fever, hallucinations, and self-destruction, transforming passion into a severe psychiatric pathology. Similarly, fanaticism and superstitious dread twist religious devotion into hopeless despair or arrogant delusion. Both extremes show how intense devotion, when unchecked by reason, destroys the soul.
A massive seventeenth-century inquiry into human sorrow, its physical and spiritual causes, and its possible cures.