Besides, consider, D/EMEA\: This very society, by which we
surmount those wild beasts, our natural enemies; what new enemies
does it not raise to us? What woe and misery does it not
occasion? Man is the greatest enemy of man. Oppression,
injustice, contempt, contumely, violence, sedition, war, calumny,
treachery, fraud; by these they mutually torment each other; and
they would soon dissolve that society which they had formed, were
it not for the dread of still greater ills, which must attend
their separation.
But though these external insults, said D/EMEA\, from
animals, from men, from all the elements, which assault us, form
a frightful catalogue of woes, they are nothing in comparison of
those which arise within ourselves, from the distempered
condition of our mind and body. How many lie under the lingering
torment of diseases? Hear the pathetic enumeration of the great
poet.
Intestine stone and ulcer, colic-pangs,
Demoniac frenzy, moping melancholy,
And moon-struck madness, pining atrophy,
Marasmus, and wide-wasting pestilence.
Dire was the tossing, deep the groans: despair
Tended the sick, busiest from couch to couch.
And over them triumphant death his dart
Shook: but delay'd to strike, though oft invok'd
With vows, as their chief good and final hope.25
The disorders of the mind, continued D/EMEA\, though more
secret, are not perhaps less dismal and vexatious.
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