SIR THOMAS BROWNE (1605-1682) Browne is described by Mr. Saintsbury as the greatest prose-writer perhaps, when all things are taken together, in the whole range of English,' and all critics are agreed that he is one of the greatest. He was educated at Winchester and Oxford, studied medicine abroad, and took his doctor's degree at Leyden. He was only thirty when he wrote the work by which he is best known, Religio Medici, or A Physician's Religion. Circulated at first in manuscript, it was twice printed surreptitiously in 1642, and an authorized edition was published in 1643. It at once attracted attention and was translated into Latin, Dutch, French, and German. In 1637 Browne settled at Norwich, and there he spent the rest of his life in the enjoyment of a wide fame, both as a scholar and as a physician. He was knighted when Charles II visited the city in 1671. He wrote a great deal, and left many tracts, which were published after his death. His most considerable work is an exposure of popular superstitions entitled Pseudodoxia Epidemica or Vulgar and Common Errors (1648). Ten years later appeared Hydriotaphia Urn Burial, or a Discourse of the Sepulchral Urns lately found in Norfolk and The Garden of Cyrus, or the Quincuncial Lozenge, net-work plantations of the Ancients, artificially, naturally, mystically considered. Of the latter Coleridge says that Browne finds 'quincunxes in heaven above, quincunxes in earth below, quincunxes in the mind of man, quincunxes in tones, in optic nerves, in roots of trees, in leaves, in everything.' Browne has, however, much rarer virtues than curious learning and quaintness of phrase: he expresses the deep thoughts of an unusually well-balanced mind in a style not merely clear and dignified, but rich with a sustained and subtle harmony as of solemn music. RELIGIO MEDICI For my religion though there be be several circumstances that might persuade the world I have none at all, as 5 the general scandal of my profession, the natural course of my studies, the indifferency of my behavior and discourse in matters of religion, neither violently defending one, nor with that common to ardor and contention opposing another; yet in despite hereof, I dare, without usurpation, assume the honorable style of a christian. Not that I merely owe this title to the font, my education, or 15 clime wherein I was born, as being bred up either to confirm those principles my parents instilled into my understanding, or by a general consent proceed in the religion of my country: but having in 20 my riper years and confirmed judgment, seen and examined all, I find myself obliged by the principles of grace, and the law of mine own reason, to embrace no other name but this: neither doth herein my zeal so far make me forget the 25 general charity I owe unto humanity, as rather to hate than pity Turks, Infidels, and (what is worse) Jews; rather con But because the name of a christian is become too general to express our faith, there being a geography of religion as well as lands, and every clime distinguished not only by their laws and limits, but circumscribed by their doctrines and rules of faith; to be particular, I am of that reformed new-cast religion, wherein I dislike nothing but the name; of the same belief our Savior taught, the apostles disseminated, the fathers authorized, and the martyrs confirmed, but by the sinister ends of princes, the ambition and avarice of prelates, and the fatal corruption of times, so decayed, impaired, and fallen from its native beauty, that it required the careful and charitable hands of these times to restore it to its primitive integrity. Now the accidental occasion whereupon, the slender means whereby, the low and abject condition of the person by whom so good a work was set on foot, which in our adversaries beget contempt and scorn, fills me with wonder, and is the very same objection the in solent pagans first cast at Christ and his disciples. 5 circumstances, there is something in it of devotion. I could never hear the Ave-Mary bell1 without an elevation, or think it a sufficient warrant, because they erred in one circumstance, for me to err in all, that is, in silence and dumb contempt. Whilst therefore they direct their devotions to her, I offer mine to God, and rectify the errors of their At a solemn procession I have wept abundantly, while my consorts, blind with opposition and prejudice, have fallen into an excess of scorn and laughter. There are questionless, both in Greek, Roman, and African churches, solemnities and ceremonies, whereof the wiser zeals do make a christian use, and stand condemned by us, not as evil in themselves, but as allurements and baits of superstition to those vulgar heads that look asquint on the face of truth, and those unstable judgments that cannot resist in the narrow point and center of virtue without a reel or stagger to the circumference. Yet have I not so shaken hands with those desperate resolutions, who had rather venture at large their decayed bottom, than bring her in to be new trimmed in the dock; who had rather promiscuously retain all, than abridge. any, and obstinately be what they are, than what they have been, as to stand to prayers, by rightly ordering mine own. in diameter and swords point with them. We have reformed from them, not against them; for omitting those improperations, and terms of scurrility betwixt us, which only difference our 15 affections, and not our cause, there is between us one common name and appellation, one faith and necessary body of principles common to us both. And therefore I am not scrupulous to con- 20 verse and live with them, to enter their churches in defect of ours, and either pray with them, or for them. I could never perceive any rational consequence from those many texts which prohibit 25 the Children of Israel to pollute themselves with the temples of the heathens; we being all christians, and not divided by such detested impieties as might profane our prayers, or the place wherein 30 we make them; or that a resolved conscience may not adore her Creator anywhere, especially in places devoted to his service; where if their devotions offend him, mine may please him; if theirs 35 profane it, mine may hallow it; holywater and crucifix (dangerous to the common people) deceive not my judgment, nor abuse my devotion at all. I am, I confess, naturally inclined to that 40 which misguided zeal terms superstition: my common conversation I do acknowledge austere, my behavior full of rigor, sometimes not without morosity; yet at my devotion I love to use the civility of 45 my knee, my hat, and hand, with all those outward and sensible motions which may express or promote my invisible devotion. I should violate my own arm rather than a church, nor 50 willingly deface the name of saint or martyr. At the sight of a cross or crucifix I can dispense with my hat, but scarce with the thought or memory of my Savior: I cannot laugh at, but 55 rather pity the fruitless journeys of pilgrims, or contemn the miserable condition of friars; for though misplaced in As there were many reformers, so likewise many reformations; every country proceeding in a particular way and method, according as their national interest, together with their constitution and clime inclined them; some angrily, and with extremity; others calmly, and with mediocrity, not rending but easily dividing the community, and leaving an honest possibility of a reconciliation; which though peaceable spirits do desire, and may conceive that revolution of time and the mercies of God may effect, yet that judgment that shall consider the present antipathies between the two extremes, their contrarieties in condition, affection and opinion, may with the same hopes expect a union in the poles of heaven. But to difference myself nearer, and draw into a lesser circle: there is no church, whose every part so squares unto my conscience; whose articles, constitutions, and customs, seem so consonant unto reason, and as it were framed to my particular devotion, as this whereof I hold my belief, the Church of England, 1 A church bell that tolls every day at six and twelve of the clock; at the hearing whereof, every one in what place soever, either of house street, betakes himself to his prayer, commonly directed to the Virgin. or which is to whose faith I am a sworn subject; disadvantage, or when the cause of truth might suffer in the weakness of my patronage. Where we desire to be informed, 't is good to contest with men 5 above ourselves; but to confirm and establish our opinions, 't is best to argue with judgments below our own, that the frequent spoils and victories over their reasons, may settle in ourselves an esteem and confirmed opinion of our own. Every man is not a proper champion for truth, nor fit to take up the gauntlet in the cause of verity. Many from the ignorance of these maxims, and an a is my text; where that speaks, 't is but 15 inconsiderate zeal unto truth, have too my comment: where there is a joint silence of both, I borrow not the rules of my religion from Rome or Geneva, but the dictates of my own reason. It is an unjust scandal of our adversaries, 20 and a gross error in ourselves, to compute the nativity of our religion from Henry the Eighth, who though he rejected the Pope, refused not the faith of Rome, and effected no more than what 25 his own predecessors desired and assayed in ages past, and was conceived the state of Venice would have attempted in our days. It is as uncharitable a point in us to fall upon those popular 30 scurrilities and opprobrious scoffs of the Bishop of Rome, to whom as temporal prince, we owe the duty of good language. I confess there is a cause of passion between us; by his sentence I 35 stand excommunicated, heretic is the best language he affords me; yet can no ear witness, I ever returned him the name of Antichrist, Man of sin, or Whore of Babylon. It is the method 40 of charity to suffer without reaction: those usual satires and invectives of the pulpit may perchance produce a good effect on the vulgar, whose ears are opener to rhetoric than logic; yet do 45 they in no wise confirm the faith of wiser believers, who know that a good cause needs not to be pardoned by passion, but can sustain itself upon a temperate dispute. rashly charged the troops of error, and remain as trophies unto the enemies of truth. A man may be in as just possession of truth as of a city, and yet be forced to surrender; 't is therefore far better to enjoy her with peace, than to hazard her on a battle. If therefore there rise any doubts in my way, I do forget them, or at least defer them, till my better settled judgment and more manly reason be able to resolve them, for I perceive every man's own reason is his best Edipus, and will upon reasonable truce find a way to loose those bonds wherewith the subtleties of error have enchained our more flexible and tender judgments. In philosophy, where truth seems double faced, there is no man more paradoxical than myself; but in divinity I love to keep the road; and though not in an implicit, yet an humble faith, follow the great wheel of the church, by which I move, not reserving any proper poles or motion from the epicycle of my own brain. By this means I have no gap for heresy, schisms, or errors, of which at present I hope I shall not injure truth to say I have no taint or tincture. I must confess my greener studies have been polluted with two or three, not any begotten in the latter centuries, but old and obsolete. such as could never have been revived but by such extravagant and irregular 50 heads as mine. For indeed heresies perish not with their authors, but like the river Arethusa, though they lose their currents in one place, they rise up again in another. One general council is not able to extirpate one single heresy; it may be canceled for the present, but revolution of time, and the like aspects from heaven, will restore I could never divide myself from any man upon the difference of an opinion, or be angry with his judgment for not agreeing with me in that, from which within a few days I should dissent my- 55 self. I have no genius to disputes in religion, and have often thought it wisdom to decline them, especially upon a it, when it will flourish till it be con- our eye and sense hath examined: I believe he was dead and buried, and rose again; and desire to see him in his glory, rather than to contemplate him in his 5 cenotaph or sepulcher. Nor is this much to believe; as we have reason, we owe this faith unto history: they only had the advantage of a bold and noble faith, who lived before his coming, who upon obscure prophecies and mystical types could raise a belief, and expect apparent impossibilities. As for those wingy mysteries in divinity, and airy subtleties in religion, which have unhinged the brains of 20 better heads, they never stretched the pia mater of mine; methinks there be not impossibilities enough in religion, for an active faith; the deepest mysteries ours contains, have not only been illus- 25 trated, but maintained by syllogism, and the rule of reason: I love to lose myself in a mystery, to pursue my reason to an O altitudo! 'Tis my solitary recreation to pose my apprehension with those in- 30 volved enigmas and riddles of the trinity, with incarnation and resurrection. I can answer all the objections of Satan and my rebellious reason, with that odd resolution I learned of Tertullian, Certum est 35 quia impossibile est [It is certain because it is impossible]. I desire to exercise my faith in the difficultest point; for to credit ordinary and visible objects, is not faith, but persuasion. Some be- 40 lieve the better for seeing Christ's sepulcher; and when they have seen the Red Sea, doubt not of the miracle. Now contrarily, I bless myself, and am thankful that I lived not in the days of mir-45 acles, that I never saw Christ nor his disciples. I would not have been one of those Israelites that passed the Red Sea, nor one of Christ's patients on whom he wrought his wonders; then had my 50 faith been thrust upon me; nor should I enjoy that greater blessing pronounced to all that believe and saw not. 'Tis an easy and necessary belief, to credit what 1 A revolution of certain thousand years, when all things should return unto their former estate, and he be teaching again in his school as when he delivered this opinion. Thus there are two books from whence I collect my divinity; besides that written one of God, another of his servant nature, that universal and public manuscript, that lies expansed unto the eyes of all; those that never saw him in the one, have discovered him in the other: this was the scripture and theology of the heathens; the natural motion of the sun made them more admire him, than its supernatural station did the Children of Israel; the ordinary effects of nature wrought more admiration in them, than in the other all his miracles; surely the heathens knew better how to join and read these mystical letters, than we christians, who cast a more careless eye on these common hieroglyphics, and disdain to suck divinity from the flowers of nature. Nor do I so forget God as to adore the name of nature; which I define not with the schools, to be the principle of motion and rest, but that straight and regular line, that settled and constant course the wisdom of God hath ordained the actions of his creatures, according to their several kinds. To make a revolution every day, is the nature of the sun, because of that necessary course which God hath ordained it, from which it cannot swerve but by a faculty from that voice which first did give it motion. Now this course of nature God seldom alters or perverts, but like an excellent artist hath so contrived his work, that with the selfsame instrument, without a new creation, he may effect his obscurest designs. Thus he sweeteneth the water with a word, preserveth the creatures in the ark, which the blast of his mouth might have as easily created. 55 For God is like a skilful geometrician, who when more easily, and with one stroke of his compass he might describe or divide a right line, had yet rather do this in a circle or longer way; according our nearest friends, wife and children to the constituted and fore-laid principles of his art. Yet this rule of his he doth sometimes pervert, to acquaint the world stand afraid and start at us. The birds and beasts of the field, that before in a natural fear obeyed us, forgetting all with his prerogative, lest the arrogancy 5 allegiance begin to prey upon us. This of our reason should question his power, very conceit hath in a tempest disposed and left me willing to be swallowed up in the abyss of waters; wherein I had perished unseen, unpitied, without wondering eyes, tears of pity, lectures of mortality, and none had said, Quantum mutatus ab illo [How much changed from what he was]! Not that I am ashamed of the anatomy of my parts, or can accuse nature for playing the bungler in any part of me, or my own vicious life for contracting any shameful disease upon me, whereby I might not call myself as wholesome a morsel for the worms as any. Some upon the courage of a fruitful issue, wherein, as in the truest chronicle, they seem to outlive themselves, can with greater patience away with death. This conceit and counterfeit subsisting in our progenies, seems to be a mere fallacy, unworthy the desires of a man, that can but conceive a thought of the next world; who, in a nobler ambition, should desire to live in his substance in heaven, rather than his name and shadow in the earth. And therefore at my death I mean to take a total adieu of the world, not caring for a monument, history, or epitaph, not so much as the memory of my name to be found anywhere, but in the universal register of God. I am not yet so cynical, as to approve the testament of Diogenes, nor do I altogether allow that rodomontado of Lucan: Caelo tegitur, qui non habet urnam. For unto him a tomb's the universe. But commend in my calmer judgment, those ingenuous intentions that desire to sleep by the urns of [their] fathers, and strive to go the neatest way unto corruption. I do not envy the temper of crows and daws, nor the numerous and weary days of our fathers before the flood. If there be any truth in astrology, I may outlive a jubilee; as yet I have 1 Who willed his friend not to bury him, but hang him up with a staff in his hand to fright away the crows. |