Seneca and the rest of the stoics are of opinion, that where is any the least perturbation, wisdom may not be found. What more ridiculous, as [440]Lactantius urges, than to hear how Xerxes whipped the Hellespont, threatened the Mountain Athos, and the like. To speak ad rem, who is free from passion? [441]Mortalis nemo est quem non attingat dolor, morbusve, as [442]Tully determines out of an old poem, no mortal men can avoid sorrow and sickness, and sorrow is an inseparable companion from melancholy. [443]Chrysostom pleads farther yet, that they are more than mad, very beasts, stupefied and void of common sense: For how (saith he) shall I know thee to be a man, when thou kickest like an ass, neighest like a horse after women, ravest in lust like a bull, ravenest like a bear, stingest like a scorpion, rakest like a wolf, as subtle as a fox, as impudent as a dog? Shall I say thou art a man, that hast all the symptoms of a beast? How shall I know thee to be a man? by thy shape? That affrights me more, when I see a beast in likeness of a man. [444]Seneca calls that of Epicurus, magnificam vocem, an heroical speech, A fool still begins to live, and accounts it a filthy lightness in men, every day to lay new foundations of their life, but who doth otherwise? One travels, another builds; one for this, another for that business, and old folks are as far out as the rest; O dementem senectutem, Tully exclaims. Therefore young, old, middle age, are all stupid, and dote. [445]Aeneas Sylvius, amongst many other, sets down three special ways to find a fool by. He is a fool that seeks that he cannot find: he is a fool that seeks that, which being found will do him more harm than good: he is a fool, that having variety of ways to bring him to his journey's end, takes that which is worst. If so, methinks most men are fools; examine their courses, and you shall soon perceive what dizzards and mad men the major part are. Beroaldus will have drunkards, afternoon men, and such as more than ordinarily delight in drink, to be mad. The first pot quencheth thirst, so Panyasis the poet determines in Athenaeus, secunda gratiis, horis et Dyonisio: the second makes merry, the third for pleasure, quarta, ad insaniam, the fourth makes them mad. If this position be true, what a catalogue of mad men shall we have? what shall they be that drink four times four? Nonne supra omnem furorem, supra omnem insanian reddunt insanissimos? I am of his opinion, they are more than mad, much worse than mad. The [446]Abderites condemned Democritus for a mad man, because he was sometimes sad, and sometimes again profusely merry. Hac Patria (saith Hippocrates) ob risum furere et insanire dicunt, his countrymen hold him mad because he laughs; [447]and therefore he desires him to advise all his friends at Rhodes, that they do not laugh too much, or be over sad. Had those Abderites been conversant with us, and but seen what [448] fleering and grinning there is in this age, they would certainly have concluded, we had been all out of our wits. Aristotle in his Ethics holds felix idemque sapiens, to be wise and happy, are reciprocal terms, bonus idemque sapiens honestus. 'Tis [449] Tully's paradox, wise men are free, but fools are slaves, liberty is a power to live according to his own laws, as we will ourselves: who hath this liberty? who is free? [450]———sapiens sibique imperiosus, Quem neque pauperis, neque mors, neque vincula terrent, Responsare cupidinibus, contemnere honores Fortis, et in seipso totus teres atque rotundus.