3625. This is the cause of depressions with many, of mental retardations and deviations, and of insanities and hallucinations. For when people are thus held fast in thought about spiritual matters, about the hereafter, about unhappy subjects, then spirits pour in many things of the people's personal concerns that are in their memory, and hold them fast in them to the point of insanity and fantasy. Those, therefore, who live in solitude easily fall into such states, which are normally dispelled by diversions and social activities. And the more there is of the love of self and hence the more solitude, and reflection on the future, added also to hard luck, the more they slip into fantasies, and ultimately into insanities.
3625. Hence arises the melancholy of many persons, hence debilitated minds, hence the deliriums of many men, hence too insanities and phantasies; for those who are engrossed in thought concerning spiritual things, concerning the life after death, concerning misfortunes, into such persons spirits, from their own proprium, infuse many things which are of memory, and hold them a long time presented, even till they occasion insanities and phantasies. Wherefore those who affect a solitary kind of life are especially prone to fall into such things, for they are dispelled by varieties, and thus by [mingling with] societies. Still more does this arise from the solicitude of self-love, and more yet from the love of gain, and a pondering upon the future, and especially if any signal misfortune comes into the account, so much the more are they driven into phantasies, and at length into insanities.
3625. Inde melancholiae multorum, inde debilitates mentis, inde deliria plurium, tum insaniae et phantasiae, nam qui tenentur ita in cogitatione de spiritualibus, de vita post mortem, de infaustis, tunc spiritus ex ejus propriis, quae sunt memoriae infundunt plura, et tenent eum diu, usque ad insanias et phantasias: quare ii qui in solitudine vitae, in talia facile labuntur, nam per varietates et sic per societates discutiuntur: et quantum magis amoris sui, et magis hinc solitudo, et reflexio futuri, accedente quoque infortunio, eo magis in phantasias, ut tandem in insanias.