“Democritus, and Plato attest the same, saying, that there were some melancholy men, that had such excellent wits, that they were thought, and seemed to be more divine then humane. So also there have been many melancholy men at first rude, ignorant, and untractable, as they say Hesiod, Ion, Tynnichus, Calcinenses, Homer, and Lucretius were, who on a sudden were taken with a madness, and became Poets, and prophesied wonderful, and divine things, which they themselves scarce understood. Whence divine Plato in Ion saith, many Prophets, after the violence of their madness was abated, do not well understand what they wrote, yet treated accurately of each Art in their madness, as all Artists by reading of them judge. So great also they say the power of melancholy is of, that by its force, Celestial spirits also are sometimes drawn into men bodies, by whose presence, and instinct, antiquity testifies men have been made drunk, and spoke most wonderful things. And that they think happens under a threefold difference, according to a threefold apprehension of the soul, viz. imaginative, rational, and mental. They say, therefore, when the mind is forced with a melancholy humor, nothing moderating the power of the body, and passing beyond the bonds of the members, is wholly carried into imagination, and doth suddenly become a seat for inferior spirits, by whom it oftentimes receives wonderful ways, and forms of manual Arts. So we see that any most ignorant man doth presently become an excellent painter, or contrivers of building, and to become a master in any such Art. But when these kinds of spirits portend to us future things, they shew those things which belong to the disturbing of the Elements, and changes of times, as rain, tempests, innundations, earthquakes, great mortality, famine, slaughter, and the like. But when the mind is turned wholly into reason, it becomes a receptacle for middle spirits and obtains the knowledge, and understanding of natural, and humane things. So we see that a man sometimes doth on a sudden become a Philosopher, physician, or an excellent Orator, and foretells mutations of Kingdoms, and restitutions of Ages, and such things as belong to them, as the Sybil did to the Romans; but when the mind is wholly elevated into the understanding, then it becomes a receptacle of sublime spirits, and learns of them the secrets of divine things, such as the Law of God, the orders of Angels, and such things as belong to the knowledge of things eternal, and salvation of souls.”