LXXI. I do not however deny, that the ardour of passion may excite a fever; for this without doubt, may have a great share in producing such an effect, and we may reasonably suppose that it has, and especially in such people as are of a choleric disposition; but when this is not the case, we should rather suppose, that the passion tended to augment the indisposition which followed the sudden fit of anger, and which would have made its appearance without the intervention of that anger, although it might have been attended with milder symptoms. And the same we say of anger, is applicable to sadness and fear also, for they conformable to the language of the philosophers, are passions appertaining to the irascible. LXXII. We may reason in the same general way, upon the effects of the amorous passion. All vehement desires for ordinary objects, which frequently present themselves to a man’s view, and which are totally unusual to him, and for which we cannot assign any special external circumstance that should excite those desires, we should conclude, that they proceed from some preternatural internal disposition. The indulgences or gratifications of these extraordinary desires, are always attended with actions of excess, to which are generally attributed the indisposition that follows them; but in truth, the indisposition which laid concealed, irritated the appetite, and was the cause of the excess, and not the excess of the indisposition. LXXIII. The following mistake also, is very frequently fallen into. A person who has always been indifferent about this or that particular food, we will say lettuces for example, all of a sudden takes a great fancy for them, and will eat two or three large ones. If he is afterwards attacked with a pain of the head, and defluxion upon the breast, or a diarrhœa, the fault is sure to be laid upon the lettuces, which are accused as the cause of all the mischief; but in reality, the mischief had before crept into the constitution, and had induced the extraordinary desire to eat the lettuces. LXXIV. I would not however, be understood to insinuate, that eating of any thing to excess, does not frequently occasion or bring on various diseases; for I only mean that my position should be understood to allude to a desire that is vehement, and unusual to the person, and for which, you can assign no visible external cause that should excite it; for under such circumstances, there is a necessity for concluding it was owing to some internal cause, that was sufficiently powerful to merit the name of a morbific disposition; which is an appellation it could not have deserved, if the appetite although extraordinary, had not been excessive.