The fox in Aesop, disputing with the panther for the superiority in beautiful variety,—when this latter had shown his body, and its superficies curiously stained and spotted, whereas the fox’s tawny skin was ill-favored and unpleasant to the sight,—said thus: But if you, sir judge, will look within me, you will find me much fuller of variety than this leopard; manifesting the nimble subtlety of his natural disposition, frequently changing as occasions require. Let us then say also to ourselves: Thy body, O man, naturally of itself breeds many diseases and passions, and many it receives befalling it from without; but if thou shalt open thy interior, thou wilt find a certain various and abundantly furnished storehouse and (as Democritus says) treasury of evils, not flowing into it from abroad, but having as it were their inbred and original springs, which vice, exceedingly affluent and rich in passions, causes to break forth. Now, whereas the diseases in the flesh are discerned by the pulses, and the flushings in the color of the skin, and discovered by unusual heats and sudden pains, and these maladies of the soul lie hid from many who are affected with them; these are therefore worse, as removing from them the sense of the patient. For if the reason is sound, it is sensible of the body’s diseases; but being itself diseased with those of the soul, it has no judgment in what it suffers; for it suffers by what it judges. We ought therefore to account, that the first and greatest of the soul’s diseases is folly, by which vice being rendered incurable cohabits, lives, and dies together with most men. For the beginning of the cure is the sense of the disease, leading the patient to the use of what is helpful; but he who, through his not believing himself sick, is ignorant of his own necessities, though a remedy is presented him, refuses it. For also amongst the diseases of the body, those are indeed the worst which are accompanied with a stupefaction of the senses,—as lethargies, headaches, epilepsies, apoplexies, and those burning fevers which, carrying on the inflammation even to the loss of the wits, and disturbing the senses, as it were in a musical instrument, move the heart-strings till then untouched.