6 The physician is afraid

I observe the physician with the same diligence as he the disease.

I see he fears and I fear with him. I overtake him, I overrun him in his fear and I go the faster because he makes his pace slow.

I fear the more because he disguises his fear and I see it with the more sharpness because he would not have me see it.

He knows that his fears will not interfere with the practice and exercise of his art, but he knows that my fear may affect the working of his practice.

As the ill affections of the spleen complicate and mingle themselves with every infirmity of the body so does fear insinuate itself in every action or passion of the mind.

A wind in the body will counterfeit any disease and seem the stone, and seem the gout. Fear will counterfeit any disease of the mind.

It shall seem love, a love of having, and it is but a fear, a fear of losing. It shall seem valour in despising danger, and it is but fear in an overvaluing of respect and esteem and a fear of losing that.

A man that is not afraid of a lion is afraid of a cat. Not afraid of starving but afraid of some joint of meat at the table presented to feed him.

Not afraid of the sound of drums and trumpets and shot and the last cries of men, but afraid of some particular harmonious instrument. So much afraid that with any of these the enemy might drive this man, otherwise valiant enough, out of the field of battle.

I know not what fear is. I know not what it is that I fear now. I fear not the hastening of my death, and yet I do fear the increase of the disease.

I should contradict nature if I should deny that I feared this and if I should say that I feared death I should belie God.

My weakness is from Nature, my strength is from God who possesses and distributes infinitely.

As then every cold air is not a damp, every shivering is not a stupefaction, so every fear is not a fearfulness, every refusal is not a running away, every debating is not a resolving, every wish that it were not thus is not a dejection.

But as my physicians fear does not stop him doing his job, neither does mine put me from receiving, from God and man and myself, spiritual and civil and moral assistances and consolations.