380 NATURAL HISTORY. 



erubuit :&quot; and likewise when we come before great 

 or reverend persons. 



719. Pity causeth sometimes tears ; and a flexion 

 or cast of the eye aside. Tears come from the same 

 cause that they do in grief: for pity is but grief in 

 another s behalf. The cast of the eye is a gesture of 

 aversion , or lothness to behold the object of pity. 



720. Wonder causeth astonishment, or an im- 

 moveable posture of the body ; casting up of the eyes 

 to heaven, and lifting up of the hands. For asto 

 nishment, it is caused by the fixing of the mind upon 

 one object of cogitation, whereby it doth not spatiate 

 and transcur, as it useth ; for in wonder the spirits 

 fly not, as in fear ; but only settle, and are made less 

 apt to move. As for the casting up of the eyes, and 

 lifting up of the hands, it is a kind of appeal to the 

 Deity, which is the author, by power and providence, 

 of strange wonders. 



721. Laughing causeth a dilatation of the mouth 

 and lips ; a continual expulsion of the breath, with 

 the loud noise, which maketh the interjection of 

 laughing ; shaking of the breast and sides ; running 

 of the eyes with water, if it be violent and continued. 

 Wherein first it is to be understood, that laughing is 

 scarce, properly, a passion, but hath its source from 

 the intellect ; for in laughing there ever precedeth 

 a conceit of somewhat ridiculous, and therefore it 

 is proper to man. Secondly, that the cause of laugh 

 ing is but a light touch of the spirits. And not so 

 deep an impression as in other passions. And there 

 fore, that which hath not affinity with the passions of 



