The Works of Sir Thomas Browne Volume I Part 12

[16] _Urbem Roman in principio Reges habuere._

[17] _Pro Archia Poeta._

[18] _In qua me non inficior mediocriter esse._

SECT. 10

For my Conversation, it is like the Sun's with all men, and with a friendly aspect to good and bad. Methinks there is no man bad, and the worst, best; that is, while they are kept within the circle of those qualities, wherein they are good; there is no man's mind of such discordant and jarring a temper, to which a tunable disposition may not strike a harmony. _Magnae virtutes, nee minora vitia_; it is the posie of the best natures, and may be inverted on the worst; there are in the most depraved and venemous dispositions, certain pieces that remain untoucht, which by an _Antiperistasis_ become more excellent, or by the excellency of their antipathies are able to preserve themselves from the contagion of their enemy vices, and persist intire beyond the general corruption. For it is also thus in nature. The greatest Balsomes do lie enveloped in the bodies of most powerful Corrosives; I say moreover, and I ground upon experience, that poisons contain within themselves their own Antidote, and that which preserves them from the venome of themselves, without which they were not deleterious to others onely, but to themselves also. But it is the corruption that I fear within me, not the contagion of commerce without me. 'Tis that unruly regiment within me, that will destroy me; 'tis I that do infect my self; the man without a Navel yet lives in me; I feel that original canker corrode and devour me; and therefore _Defenda me_ Dios _de me_, Lord deliver me from my self, is a part of my Letany, and the first voice of my retired imaginations. There is no man alone, because every man is a _Microcosm_, and carries the whole World about him; _Nunquam minus solus quam c.u.m solus_, though it be the Apothegme of a wise man, is yet true in the mouth of a fool; indeed, though in a Wilderness, a man is never alone, not only because he is with himself and his own thoughts, but because he is with the Devil, who ever consorts with our solitude, and is that unruly rebel that musters up those disordered motions which accompany our sequestred imaginations. And to speak more narrowly, there is no such thing as solitude, nor any thing that can be said to be alone and by itself, but G.o.d, who is his own circle, and can subsist by himself; all others, besides their dissimilary and Heterogeneous parts, which in a manner multiply their natures, cannot subsist without the concourse of G.o.d, and the society of that hand which doth uphold their natures. In brief, there can be nothing truly alone and by it self, which is not truly one; and such is only G.o.d: All others do transcend an unity, and so by consequence are many.

SECT. 11

Now for my life, it is a miracle of thirty years, which to relate, were not a History, but a piece of Poetry, and would sound to common ears like a Fable; for the World, I count it not an Inn, but an Hospital; and a place not to live, but to dye in. The world that I regard is my self; it is the Microcosm of my own frame that I cast mine eye on; for the other, I use it but like my Globe, and turn it round sometimes for my recreation. Men that look upon my outside, perusing only my condition and Fortunes, do err in my Alt.i.tude, for I am above _Atlas_ his shoulders. The earth is a point not only in respect of the Heavens above us, but of that heavenly and celestial part within us: that ma.s.s of Flesh that circ.u.mscribes me, limits not my mind: that surface that tells the Heavens it hath an end, cannot persuade me I have any: I take my circle to be above three hundred and sixty; though the number of the Ark do measure my body, it comprehendeth not my mind: whilst I study to find how I am a Microcosm, or little World, I find my self something more than the great. There is surely a piece of Divinity in us, something that was before the Elements, and owes no homage unto the Sun.

Nature tells me I am the Image of G.o.d, as well as Scripture: he that understands not thus much, hath not his introduction or first lesson, and is yet to begin the Alphabet of man. Let me not injure the felicity of others, if I say I am as happy as any: _Ruat clum, Fiat voluntas tua_, salveth all; so that whatsoever happens, it is but what our daily prayers desire. In brief, I am content, and what should providence add more? Surely this is it we call Happiness, and this do I enjoy; with this I am happy in a dream, and as content to enjoy a happiness in a fancy, as others in a more apparent truth and realty. There is surely a neerer apprehension of any thing that delights us in our dreams, than in our waked senses; without this I were unhappy: for my awaked judgment discontents me, ever whispering unto me, that I am from my friend; but my friendly dreams in night requite me, and make me think I am within his arms. I thank G.o.d for my happy dreams, as I do for my good rest, for there is a satisfaction in them unto reasonable desires, and such as can be content with a fit of happiness. And surely it is not a melancholy conceit to think we are all asleep in this World, and that the conceits of this life are as meer dreams to those of the next, as the Phantasms of the night, to the conceits of the day. There is an equal delusion in both, and the one doth but seem to be the embleme or picture of the other; we are somewhat more than our selves in our sleeps, and the slumber of the body seems to be but the waking of the soul. It is the ligation of sense, but the liberty of reason, and our waking conceptions do not match the Fancies of our sleeps. At my Nativity, my Ascendant was the watery sign of _Scorpius_; I was born in the Planetary hour of _Saturn_, and I think I have a piece of that Leaden Planet in me. I am no way facetious, nor disposed for the mirth and galliardize of company; yet in one dream I can compose a whole Comedy, behold the action, apprehend the jests, and laugh my self awake at the conceits thereof: were my memory as faithful as my reason is then fruitful, I would never study but in my dreams; and this time also would I chuse for my devotions: but our grosser memories have then so little hold of our abstracted understandings, that they forget the story, and can only relate to our awaked souls, a confused and broken tale of that that hath pa.s.sed. _Aristotle_, who hath written a singular Tract of Sleep, hath not methinks throughly defined it; nor yet _Galen_, though he seem to have corrected it; for those _Noctambuloes_ and night-walkers, though in their sleep, do yet injoy the action of their senses: we must therefore say that there is something in us that is not in the jurisdiction of _Morpheus_; and that those abstracted and ecstatick souls do walk about in their own corps, as spirits with the bodies they a.s.sume; wherein they seem to hear, and feel, though indeed the Organs are dest.i.tute of sense, and their natures of those faculties that should inform them. Thus it is observed, that men sometimes upon the hour of their departure, do speak and reason above themselves; for then the soul beginning to be freed from the ligaments of the body, begins to reason like her self, and to discourse in a strain above mortality.

SECT. 12

We term sleep a death, and yet it is waking that kills us, and destroys those spirits that are the house of life. 'Tis indeed a part of life that best expresseth death; for every man truely lives, so long as he acts his nature, or some way makes good the faculties of himself: _Themistocles_ therefore that slew his Soldier in his sleep, was a merciful Executioner: 'tis a kind of punishment the mildness of no laws hath invented; I wonder the fancy of _Lucan_ and _Seneca_ did not discover it. It is that death by which we may be literally said to dye daily; a death which _Adam_ dyed before his mortality; a death whereby we live a middle and moderating point between life and death; in fine, so like death, I dare not trust it without my prayers, and an half adieu unto the World, and take my farewell in a Colloquy with G.o.d.

_The night is come, like to the day; Depart not thou great G.o.d away.

Let not my sins, black as the night, Eclipse the l.u.s.tre of thy light.

Keep still in my Horizon; for to me The Sun makes not the day, but thee.

Thou whose nature cannot sleep, On my temples centry keep; Guard me 'gainst those watchful foes, Whose eyes are open while mine close.

Let no dreams my head infest, But such as_ Jacob's _temples blest.

While I do rest, my Soul advance; Make my sleep a holy trance.

That I may, my rest being wrought, Awake into some holy thought; And with as active vigour run My course, as doth the nimble Sun.

Sleep is a death; O make me try, By sleeping, what it is to die; And as gently lay my head On my grave, as now my bed.

Howere I rest, great G.o.d, let me Awake again at last with thee.

And this a.s.sur'd, behold I lie Securely, or to awake or die.

These are my drowsie days; in vain I do now wake to sleep again: O come that hour, when I shall never Sleep again, but wake for ever._

This is the Dormative I take to bedward; I need no other _Laudanum_ than this to make me sleep; after which, I close mine eyes in security, content to take my leave of the Sun, and sleep unto the resurrection.

SECT. 13

The method I should use in distributive Justice, I often observe in commutative; and keep a Geometrical proportion in both; whereby becoming equable to others, I become unjust to my self, and supererogate in that common principle, _Do unto others as thou wouldst be done unto thy self_. I was not born unto riches, neither is it I think my Star to be wealthy; or if it were, the freedom of my mind, and frankness of my disposition, were able to contradict and cross my fates. For to me avarice seems not so much a vice, as a deplorable piece of madness; to conceive ourselves Urinals, or be perswaded that we are dead, is not so ridiculous, nor so many degrees beyond the power of h.e.l.lebore, as this.

The opinion of Theory, and positions of men, are not so void of reason as their practised conclusions: some have held that Snow is black, that the earth moves, that the Soul is air, fire, water; but all this is Philosophy, and there is no _delirium_, if we do but speculate the folly and indisputable dotage of avarice, to that subterraneous Idol, and G.o.d of the Earth. I do confess I am an Atheist; I cannot perswade myself to honour that the World adores; whatsoever virtue its prepared substance may have within my body, it hath no influence nor operation without: I would not entertain a base design, or an action that should call me villain, for the Indies; and for this only do I love and honour my own soul, and have methinks two arms too few to embrace myself. _Aristotle_ is too severe, that will not allow us to be truely liberal without wealth, and the bountiful hand of Fortune; if this be true, I must confess I am charitable only in my liberal intentions, and bountiful well-wishes. But if the example of the Mite be not only an act of wonder, but an example of the n.o.blest Charity, surely poor men may also build Hospitals, and the rich alone have not erected Cathedrals. I have a private method which others observe not; I take the opportunity of my self to do good; I borrow occasion of Charity from mine own necessities, and supply the wants of others, when I am in most need my self; for it is an honest stratagem to make advantage of our selves, and so to husband the acts of vertue, that where they were defective in one circ.u.mstance, they may repay their want, and multiply their goodness in another. I have not _Peru_ in my desires, but a competence, and ability to perform those good works to which he hath inclined my nature. He is rich, who hath enough to be charitable; and it is hard to be so poor, that a n.o.ble mind may not find a way to this piece of goodness. _He that giveth to the poor, lendeth to the Lord_; there is more Rhetorick in that one sentence, than in a Library of Sermons; and indeed if those Sentences were understood by the Reader, with the same Emphasis as they are delivered by the Author, we needed not those Volumes of instructions, but might be honest by an Epitome. Upon this motive only I cannot behold a Beggar without relieving his Necessities with my Purse, or his Soul with my Prayers; these scenical and accidental differences between us, cannot make me forget that common and untoucht part of us both; there is under these _Cantoes_ and miserable outsides, these mutilate and semi-bodies, a soul of the same alloy with our own, whose Genealogy is G.o.d as well as ours, and in as fair a way to Salvation as our selves. Statists that labour to contrive a Common-wealth without our poverty, take away the object of charity, not understanding only the Common-wealth of a Christian, but forgetting the prophecie of Christ.

SECT. 14

Now there is another part of charity, which is the Basis and Pillar of this, and that is the love of G.o.d, for whom we love our neighbour; for this I think charity, to love G.o.d for himself, and our neighbour for G.o.d. All that is truly amiable is G.o.d, or as it were a divided piece of him, that retains a reflex or shadow of himself. Nor is it strange that we should place affection on that which is invisible; all that we truly love is thus; what we adore under affection of our senses, deserves not the honour of so pure a t.i.tle. Thus we adore virtue, though to the eyes of sense she be invisible: thus that part of our n.o.ble friends that we love, is not that part that we imbrace, but that insensible part that our arms cannot embrace. G.o.d being all goodness, can love nothing but himself, and the traduction of his holy Spirit. Let us call to a.s.size the loves of our parents, the affection of our wives and children, and they are all dumb shows and dreams, without reality, truth or constancy: for first, there is a strong bond of affection between us and our Parents; yet how easily dissolved? We betake our selves to a woman, forget our mother in a wife, and the womb that bare us, in that that shall bear our Image: this woman blessing us with children, our affection leaves the level it held before, and sinks from our bed unto our issue and picture of Posterity, where affection holds no steady mansion. They, growing up in years, desire our ends; or applying themselves to a woman, take a lawful way to love another better than our selves. Thus I perceive a man may be buried alive, and behold his grave in his own issue.

SECT. 15

I conclude therefore and say, there is no happiness under (or as _Copernicus_ will have it, above) the Sun, nor any Crambe in that repeated verity and burthen of all the wisdom of _Solomon, All is vanity and vexation of Spirit_. There is no felicity in that the World adores: _Aristotle_ whilst he labours to refute the Idea's of _Plato_, falls upon one himself: for his _summum bonum_ is a _Chimaera_, and there is no such thing as his Felicity. That wherein G.o.d himself is happy, the holy Angels are happy, in whose defect the Devils are unhappy; that dare I call happiness: whatsoever conduceth unto this, may with an easy Metaphor deserve that name: whatsoever else the World terms Happiness, is to me a story out of _Pliny_, a tale of _Boccace_ or _Malizspini_; an apparition or neat delusion, wherein there is no more of Happiness, than the name. Bless me in this life with but peace of my Conscience, command of my affections, the love of thy self and my dearest friends, and I shall be happy enough to pity _Caesar_. These are, O Lord, the humble desires of my most reasonable ambition, and all I dare call happiness on earth; wherein I set no rule or limit to thy Hand or Providence; dispose of me according to the wisdom of thy pleasure. Thy will be done, though in my own undoing.

FINIS

PSEUDODOXIA EPIDEMICA

OR ENQUIRIES

INTO VERY MANY RECEIVED

TENENTS AND COMMONLY

PRESUMED TRUTHS

TO THE READER

_Would Truth dispense, we could be content, with_ Plato, _that knowledge were but remembrance; that intellectual acquisition were but reminiscential evocation, and new Impressions but the colouring of old stamps which stood pale in the soul before. For what is worse, knowledge is made by oblivion, and to purchase a clear and warrantable body of Truth, we must forget and part with much we know. Our tender Enquiries taking up Learning at large, and together with true and a.s.sured notions, receiving many, wherein our reviewing judgments do find no satisfaction.

And therefore in this_ Encyclopaedie _and round of Knowledge, like the great and exemplary Wheels of Heaven, we must observe two Circles: that while we are daily carried about, and whirled on by the swing and rapt of the one, we may maintain a natural and proper course, in the slow and sober wheel of the other. And this we shall more readily perform, if we timely survey our knowledge; impartially singling out those encroachments, which junior compliance and popular credulity hath admitted. Whereof at present we have endeavoured a long and serious_ Adviso; _proposing not only a large and copious List, but from experience and reason attempting their decisions._

_And first we crave exceeding pardon in the audacity of the Attempt, humbly acknowledging a work of such concernment unto truth, and difficulty in it self, did well deserve the conjunction of many heads.

And surely more advantageous had it been unto Truth, to have fallen into the endeavors of some co-operating advancers, that might have performed it to the life, and added authority thereto; which the privacy of our condition, and unequal abilities cannot expect. Whereby notwithstanding we have not been diverted; nor have our solitary attempts been so discouraged, as to dispair the favourable look of Learning upon our single and unsupported endeavours_.

_Nor have we let fall our Pen, upon discouragement of Contradiction, Unbelief and Difficulty of disswasion from radicated beliefs, and points of high prescription, although we are very sensible, how hardly teaching years do learn, what roots old age contracteth unto errors, and how such as are but acorns in our younger brows, grow Oaks in our elder heads, and become inflexible unto the powerfullest arm of reason. Although we have also beheld, what cold requitals others have found in their several redemptions of Truth; and how their ingenuous Enquiries have been dismissed with censure, and obloquie of singularities_.

[Sidenote: _Inspection of Urines._]

_Some consideration we hope from the course of our Profession, which though it leadeth us into many truths that pa.s.s undiscerned by others, yet doth it disturb their Communications, and much interrupt the office of our Pens in their well intended Transmissions. And therefore surely in this work attempts will exceed performances; it being composed by s.n.a.t.c.hes of time, as medical vacations, and the fruitless importunity of_ Uroscopy _would permit us. And therefore also, perhaps it hath not found that regular and constant stile, those infallible experiments and those a.s.sured determinations, which the subject sometime requireth, and might be expected from others, whose quiet doors and unmolested hours afford no such distractions. Although whoever shall indifferently perpend the exceeding difficulty, which either the obscurity of the subject, or unavoidable paradoxology must often put upon the Attemptor, he will easily discern, a work of this nature is not to be performed upon one legg; and should smel of oyl, if duly and deservedly handled_.

_Our first intentions considering the common interest of Truth, resolved to propose it unto the Latine republique and equal Judges of_ Europe, _but owing in the first place this service unto our Country, and therein especially unto its ingenuous Gentry, we have declared our self in a language best conceived. Although I confess the quality of the Subject will sometimes carry us into expressions beyond meer English apprehensions. And indeed, if elegancy still proceedeth, and English Pens maintain that stream, we have of late observed to flow from many; we shall within few years be fain to learn Latine to understand English, and a work will prove of equal facility in either. Nor have we addressed our Pen or Stile unto the people (whom Books do not redress, and are this way incapable of reduction), but unto the knowing and leading part of Learning. As well understanding (at least probably hoping) except they be watered from higher regions, and fructifying meteors of Knowledge, these weeds must lose their alimental sap, and wither of themselves. Whose conserving influence, could our endeavours prevent; we should trust the rest unto the sythe of_ Time, _and hopefull dominion of Truth_.

[Sidenote: pe?? t?? ?e?d?? pep?ste?????, _Athenaei_, lib. 7.]

_We hope it will not be unconsidered, that we find no open tract, or constant manuduction in this Labyrinth; but are oft-times fain to wander in the_ America _and untravelled parts of Truth. For though not many years past, Dr._ Primrose _hath made a learned Discourse of vulgar Errors in Physick, yet have we discussed but two or three thereof._ Scipio Mercurii _hath also left an excellent tract in_ Italian, _concerning popular Errors; but confining himself only unto those in Physick, he hath little conduced unto the generality of our doctrine._ Laurentius Ioubertus, _by the same t.i.tle led our expectation into thoughts of great relief; whereby notwithstanding we reaped no advantage; it answering scarce at all the promise of the inscription.

Nor perhaps (if it were yet extant) should we find any farther a.s.sistance from that ancient piece of_ Andreas, _pretending the same t.i.tle. And therefore we are often constrained to stand alone against the strength of opinion, and to meet the_ Goliah _and Giant of Authority, with contemptible pibbles, and feeble arguments, drawn from the scrip and slender stock of our selves. Nor have we indeed scarce named any Author whose name we do not honour; and if detraction could invite us, discretion surely would contain us from any derogatory intention, where highest Pens and friendliest eloquence must fail in commendation_.

_And therefore also we cannot but hope the equitable considerations, and candour of reasonable minds. We cannot expect the frown of_ Theology _herein; nor can they which behold the present state of things, and controversie of points so long received in Divinity, condemn our sober Enquiries in the doubtfull appertinancies of Arts, and Receptaries of Philosophy. Surely Philologers and Critical Discoursers, who look beyond the sh.e.l.l and obvious exteriours of things, will not be angry with our narrower explorations. And we cannot doubt, our Brothers in Physick (whose knowledge in Naturals will lead them into a nearer apprehension of many things delivered) will friendly accept, if not countenance our endeavours. Nor can we conceive it may be unwelcome unto those honoured Worthies, who endeavour the advancement of Learning: as being likely to find a clearer progression, when so many rubs are levelled, and many untruths taken off, which pa.s.sing as principles with common beliefs, disturb the tranquility of Axioms, which otherwise might be raised. And wise men cannot but know, that arts and learning want this expurgation: and if the course of truth be permitted unto its self, like that of time and uncorrected computations, it cannot escape many errors, which duration still enlargeth_.

_Lastly, we are not Magisterial in opinions, nor have we Dictator-like obtruded our conceptions; but in the humility of Enquiries or disquisitions, have only proposed them unto more ocular discerners. And therefore opinions are free, and open it is for any to think or declare the contrary. And we shall so far encourage contradiction, as to promise no disturbance, or re-oppose any Pen, that shall fallaciously or captiously refute us_; _that shall only lay hold of our lapses, single out Digressions, Corollaries, or Ornamental conceptions, to evidence his own in as indifferent truths. And shall only take notice of such, whose experimental and judicious knowledge shall solemnly look upon it; not only to destroy of ours, but to establish of his own; not to traduce or extenuate, but to explain and dilucidate, to add and ampliate, according to the laudable custom of the Ancients in their sober promotions of Learning. Unto whom notwithstanding, we shall not contentiously rejoin, or only to justifie our own, but to applaud or confirm his maturer a.s.sertions; and shall confer what is in us unto his name and honour; Ready to be swallowed in any worthy enlarger: as having acquired our end, if any way, or under any name we may obtain a work, so much desired, and yet desiderated of Truth._

_THOMAS BROWN._