Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times - Volume 1

Section 2.

...seriously what deserved only to be laughed at and was, after all, best cured by that innocent remedy (ridicule). There are certain temperaments original: "Humours" — in 18th-century medicine, these were bodily fluids believed to control health and mood. in mankind which must necessarily find an outlet. Both the human mind and body are naturally subject to disturbances. Just as there are strange chemical agitations original: "Ferments" in the blood which, in many bodies, cause an unusual discharge, so too in our reason there are mismatched original: "heterogeneous" ideas that must be expelled through a kind of mental fermentation.

If doctors were to try to completely suppress these bodily agitations and push back the fluids original: "Humours" that appear in such skin breakouts, they might—instead of providing a cure—likely cause a plague. They might turn a mild seasonal fever original: "Spring-Ague" or an autumn overindulgence into a deadly, infectious fever.

Those who would meddle with these mental outbursts in the state original: "Body-Politick" are surely just as bad as those doctors. Under the false pretense of healing this "itch" of superstition and saving souls from the infection of religious fanaticism original: "Enthusiasm", they would throw all of nature into chaos. They would turn a few harmless boils original: "Carbuncles" into a deadly inflammation and gangrene.

Polyænus, Stratagems of War, Book 1, Chapter 2 original: "Polyæni Strateg. lib. 1. c. 2."

We read in history that Pan, when he accompanied Bacchus on an expedition to India, found a way to strike a...