Of the necessity of what I have said, if any man doubt of it, I shall desire him to make a brief survey of the world, as Cyprian adviseth Donate; supposing himself to be transported to the top of some high mountain, and thence to behold the tumults and chances of this wavering world, he cannot choose but either laugh at, or pity it. St. Hierom, out of a strong imagination, being in the wilderness, conceived that he saw them dancing in Rome; and if thou shalt climb to see, thou shalt soon perceive that all the world is mad, that it is melancholy, dotes; that it is a common prison of gulls, cheats, flatterers, etc., and needs to be reformed. Kingdoms and provinces are melancholy; cities and families, all creatures vegetal, sensible and rational, all sorts, sects, ages, conditions, are out of tune; from the highest to the lowest have need of physic. Who is not brain-sick? Oh, giddy-headed age! Mad endeavours! Mad actions! If Democritus were alive now, and should but see the superstition of our age, our religious madness, so many professed Christians, yet so few imitators of Christ, so much talk and so little conscience, so many preachers and such little practice, such variety of sects--how dost thou think he might have been affected? What would he have said to see, hear, and read so many bloody battles, such streams of blood able to turn mills, to make sport for princes, without any just cause? Men well proportioned, carefully brought up, able in body and mind, led like so many beasts to the slaughter in the flower of their years, without remorse and pity, killed for devils' food, 40,000 at once! At once? That were tolerable; but these wars last always; and for many ages, nothing so familiar as this hacking and hewing, massacres, murders, desolations! Who made creatures, so peaceable, born to love, mercy, meekness, so to rave like beasts and run to their own destruction? How would our Democritus have been affected to see so many lawyers, advocates, so many tribunals, so little justice; so many laws, yet never more disorders; the tribunal a labyrinth; to see a lamb executed, a wolf pronounce sentence? What's the market but a place wherein they cozen one another, a trap? Nay, what's the world itself but a vast chaos, a theatre of hypocrisy, a shop of knavery, a scene of babbling, the academy of vice? A warfare, in which you must kill or be killed, wherein every man is for himself; no charity, love, friendship, fear of God, alliance, affinity, consanguinity, can contain them. Our goddess is Queen Money, to whom we daily offer sacrifice. It's not worth, virtue, wisdom, valour, learning, honesty, religion, for which we are respected, but money, greatness, office, honour. All these things are easy to be discerned, but how would Democritus have been moved had he seen the secrets of our hearts! All the world is mad, and every member of it, and I can but wish myself and them a good physician, and all of us a better mind.