Read The Major Works (English Library) Online
Authors: Sir Thomas Browne
The Major Works (English Library) (6 page)
VI
Browne’s reputation has never suffered any serious setbacks. While Donne was ostracised by the end of his century as Milton was at the outset of ours, and Herbert was annihilated by piety as Marvell was by nescience, Browne has remained a constant and vital presence. We have had occasion to quote the favourable judgements of Dr Johnson and Coleridge among others. But equally suggestive of the range of responses Browne elicits, is the reaction of Melville.
Melville’s enthusiasm on first reading Browne was immense. For a time, indeed, his imitation of Browne’s style bordered on ventriloquism; but in the end it was Browne’s thought that proved of vital importance, for he found in it elements which reflected predilections innate to himself. He admired
Pseudo
doxia Epidemica
, for instance, because it merged the scientific and the transcendental by exploding ‘vulgar errors’ even as it ‘heartily hugged all the mysteries in the Pentateuch’ – i.e. the first five books of the Bible.
56
Even more tellingly, Melville is said to have regarded Browne as a kind of ‘crack’d Archangel!’
57
The remark argues an imaginatively eclectic reading of Browne, encompassing in particular an adaptation of the concept of the Eternal Present (‘The Divine Eye looks upon high and low differently from that of Man’ [above,
p. 28
]) to the demands of
Moby Dick
. This adaptation centres mainly on Melville’s interpretation of the chapter on the spermaceti whale which Browne added to the third edition of
Pseudodoxia Epidemica
(below,
pp. 216–20
). For us, I expect, the chapter testifies to Browne’s vast curiosity and his insistence of the primacy of experimental knowledge, ‘ocular Observation’. But for Melville the crucial factor was less the obvious difference in the sizes of diminutive man and the immense whale (‘this
Leviathan
’) than the striking contrast between the whale’s massive head and its limited vision: ‘that strange composure of the head, and hillock of flesh about it’, on the one hand; ‘the eyes but small’, on the other. The irony is of course writ large in
Moby Dick
,
58
yet it may not have been intended by Browne who rather delighted constantly to shift our perspective for the reasons he suggests in
Christian Morals
:
Faces look uniformly unto our Eyes: How they appear unto some Animals of a more piercing or differing sight, who are able to discover
the inequalities, rubbs, and hairiness of the Skin, is not without good doubt… If things were seen as they truly are, the beauty of bodies would be much abridged. (
below
,
p. 443
)
Here, of course, we are no longer in the world of
Moby Dick
: we are with Gulliver his travels. It need not surprise that so many diverse minds have responded to Browne; but it should, that many more have not.
Browne’s catholic appeal may be attributed largely to his invisibility, an attitude he adopted as if by anticipation of the counsel of Joyce’s Stephen Dedalus that the artist should remain ‘within or behind or beyond or above his handiwork, invisible, refined out of existence, indifferent, paring his fingernails’.
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This is not to say that we are not conscious of a definite personality in each of Browne’s works. Indeed we are; but that personality is by no means identical with Dr Browne of Norwich, witness his express reminder that he was ever ‘above
Atlas
his shoulders’ (as before, p. 22). The implied principle must have proved an awesome burden, for it meant the subordination of his personal tragedies to his artistic integrity, even such harrowing tragedies as the deaths of eight of his twelve children. It may well be that to be vexed by contraries, as Donne was, defines the human condition; but to experience those contraries and yet transcend them, is no less an accurate definition of that condition. Browne had seen the devil at high noon and averted his gaze because as an artist he trusted that the worst might return to laughter.
We protest because such a vision appears to negate reality. But where we might be obsessed with the problem of evil, and pain, Sir Thomas Browne explored with eager thought the equally complex problem of the existence of goodness, and joy. The diverse masks he assumes in his various works while playing ‘in one person many people’, confirm through their common protagonist the central role he allotted to ‘recreation’. So far, certainly, it could be said of Browne’s prose what Robert Frost claimed of the figure a poem makes: ‘it begins in delight and ends in wisdom’. The figure, Frost added, is the same as for love.
Facsimile of the title page of the 1643 edition of
Religio Medici
[Composed in the mid-1630s,
Religio Medici
– ‘The Religion of a Physician’ – was first published in an unauthorised edition in 1642 (hereinafter abbreviated as
UA
) and in an authorised one in 1643. See also the discussion above,
pp. 23
ff.; and for further bibliographical details: below,
p. 551
.
The editions of 1642 and 1643 have the same engraved title page, save that the authorised edition carries the additional statement ‘A true and full coppy…’ etc. The engraving shows a man falling headlong from a rock into the sea; but his fall is arrested by a hand issuing from the clouds, confirming the man’s exclamation
à cælo salus
(‘from heaven, salvation’). The engraver was William Marshall, who had already ventured the portraits for Donne’s
Devotions
(1643), Shakespeare’s
Poems
(1640), and Bacon’s
Advancement of Learning
(1640), even as he later did the portraits of Milton for the Minor Poems (1645) and Charles I for the frontispiece of
Eikon Basilike
attributed to the executed monarch (1649).]
TO THE READER
Certainly that man were greedy of life, who should desire to live when all the world were at an end; and he must needs be very impatient, who would repine at death in the societie of all things that suffer under it. Had not almost every man suffered by the presse; or were not the tyranny thereof become universall; I had not wanted reason for complaint: but in times wherein I have lived to behold the highest perversion of that excellent invention;
1
the name of his Majesty defamed, the honour of Parliament depraved, the writings of both depravedly, anticipatively, counterfeitly imprinted; complaints may seeme ridiculous in private persons, and men of my condition may be as incapable of affronts, as hopelesse of their reparations. And truly had not the duty I owe unto the importunitie of friends, and the allegeance I must ever acknowledge unto truth prevayled with me; the inactivities of my disposition might have made these sufferings continuall, and time that brings other things to light, should have satisfied me in the remedy of its oblivion. But because things evidently false are not onely printed, but many things of truth most falsly set forth; in this latter I could not but thinke my selfe engaged: for though we have no power to redresse the former, yet in the other the reparation being within our selves, I have at present represented unto the world a full and intended copy of that Peece which was most imperfectly and surreptitiously published before.
2
This I confesse about seven yeares past, with some others of affinitie thereto,
3
for my private exercise and satisfaction, I had at leisurable boures composed; which being communicated unto one, it became common unto many, and was by transcription successively corrupted untill it arrived in a most depraved copy at the presse. He that shall peruse that worke, and shall take notice of sundry particularities and personal/ expressions therein, will easily discerne the intention was not publik: and being a private exercise directed to my selfe, what is delivered
therein was rather a memoriall unto me then an example or rule unto any other: and therefore if there bee any singularitie therein correspondent unto the private conceptions of any man, it doth not advantage them; or if dissentaneous
4
thereunto, it no way overthrowes them. It was penned in such a place
5
and with such disadvantage, that (I protest) from the first setting of pen unto paper, I had not the assistance of any good booke, whereby to promote my invention or relieve my memory; and therefore there might be many reall lapses therein, which others might take notice of, and more that I suspected my selfe. It was set downe many yeares past, and was the sense of my conceptions at that time, not an immutable law unto my advancing judgement at all times, and therefore there might be many things therein plausible unto my passed apprehension, which are not agreeable unto my present selfe. There are many things delivered Rhetorically, many expressions therein meerely Tropicall,
6
and as they best illustrate my intention; and therefore also there are many things to be taken in a soft and flexible sense, and not to be called unto the rigid test of reason. Lastly all that is contained therein is in submission unto maturer discernments, and as I have declared
7
shall no further father them then the best and learned judgements shall authorize them; under favour of which considerations I have made its secrecie publike and committed the truth thereof to every ingenuous Reader.
T
HOMAS
B
ROWNE
RELIGIO MEDICI
THE FIRST PART
1. For my Religion, though there be severall circumstances that might perswade the world I have none at all, as the generall scandall of my profession,
8
the naturall
9
course of my studies, the indifferency
10
of my behaviour, and discourse in matters of Religion, neither violently defending one, nor with that common ardour and contention opposing another; yet in despight hereof I dare, without usurpation, assume the honorable stile of a Christian: not that I meerely owe this title to the Font, my education, or Clime wherein I was borne, as being bred up either to confirme those principles my Parents instilled into my unwary understanding; or by a generall consent proceed in the Religion of my Countrey: But having, in my riper yeares, and confirmed judgement, seene and examined all, I finde my selfe obliged by the principles of Grace, and the law of mine owne reason, to embrace no other name but this; neither doth herein my zeale so farre make me forget the generall charitie I owe unto humanity, as rather to hate then pity Turkes, Infidels, and (what is worse) Jewes, rather contenting my selfe to enjoy that happy stile, then maligning those who refuse so glorious a title.
2. But because the name of a Christian is become too generall to expresse our faith, there being a Geography of Religions as well as Lands, and every Clime distinguished not onely by their lawes 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,
11
of the same
belief our Saviour taught, the Apostles disseminated, the Fathers
12
authorised, and the Martyrs confirmed; but by the sinister ends of Princes, the ambition & avarice of Prelates, and the fatall corruption of times, so decaied, impaired, and fallen from its native beauty, that it required the carefull and charitable hand of these times to restore it to its primitive integrity: Now the accidentall occasion whereon, the slender meanes whereby, the low and abject condition of the person by whom so good a worke was set on foot,
13
which in our adversaries beget contempt and scorn, fills me with wonder, and is the very same objection the insolent Pagans first cast at Christ and his Disciples.
14
3. Yet have I not so shaken hands with those desperate Resolutions,
15
who had rather venture at large their decaied bottome, then bring her in to be new trim’d in the dock; who had rather promiscuously retaine all, then abridge any, and obstinately be what they are, then what they have beene, as to stand in diameter and swords point with them: we have reformed from them, not against them; for omitting those improperations
16
and termes of scurrility betwixt us, which onely difference our 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 converse 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 rationall consequence from those many texts which prohibite 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 prophane our prayers, or the place wherein we make them; or that a resolved
conscience may not adore her Creator any where, especially in places devoted to his service; where if their devotions offend him, mine may please him, if theirs prophane it, mine may hallow it; Holy water and Crucifix (dangerous to the common people) deceive not my judgement, nor abuse my devotion at all: I am, I confesse, naturally inclined to that, which misguided zeale termes superstition; my common conversation I do acknowledge austere, my behaviour full of rigour, sometimes not without morosity; yet at my devotion I love to use the civility of my knee, my hat, and hand, with all those outward and sensible motions, which may expresse, or promote my invisible devotion. I should violate my owne arme rather then a Church, nor willingly deface
17
the memory
18
of Saint or Martyr. At the sight of a Crosse or Crucifix I can dispence with my hat, but scarce with the thought or memory of my Saviour; I cannot laugh at but rather pity the fruitlesse journeys of Pilgrims, or contemne the miserable condition of Friers; for though misplaced in circumstance, there is something in it of devotion: I could never heare the
Ave Marie
Bell
19
without an elevation, or thinke it a sufficient warrant, because they erred in
one circumstance, for me to erre in all, that is in silence and dumbe contempt; whilst therefore they directed their devotions to her, I offered mine to God, and rectified the errours of their prayers by rightly ordering mine owne; At a solemne Procession I have wept abundantly, while my consorts, blinde with opposition and prejudice, have fallen into an accesse of scorne and laughter: There are questionlesse both in Greek, Roman, and African Churches, solemnities, and ceremonies, whereof the wiser zeales doe make a Christian use, and stand condemned by us; not as evill in themselves, but as allurements and baits of superstition to those vulgar heads that looke asquint on the face of truth, and those unstable judgements that cannot
consist in the narrow point and centre of vertue without a reele or stagger to the circumference.
4. As there were many Reformers, so likewise many reformations; every Countrey proceeding in a particular way and Method, according as their nationall interest together with their constitution and clime inclined them, some angrily and with extremitie, others calmely, and with mediocrity, not rending, but easily dividing the community, and leaving an honest possibility of a reconciliation, which though peaceable Spirits doe desire, and may conceive that revolution of time, and the mercies of God may effect; yet that judgement that shall consider the present antipathies between the two extreames, their contrarieties in condition, affection and opinion, may with the same hopes expect an union in the poles of Heaven.
5. But to difference my self neerer, & draw into a lesser circle: There is no Church whose every part so squares unto my conscience, whose articles, constitutions, and customes seeme so consonant unto reason, and as it were framed to my particular devotion, as this whereof I hold my belief, the Church of
England
, to whose faith I am a sworne subject, and therefore in a double obligation, subscribe unto her Articles, and endeavour to observe her Constitutions: whatsoever is beyond, as points indifferent, I observe according to the rules of my private reason, or the humor and fashion of my devotion, neither believing this, because
Luther
affirmed it, or disproving
20
that, because
Calvin
hath disavouched it. I condemne not all things in the Councell of
Trent
, nor approve all in the Synod of
Dort
.
21
In briefe, where the Scipture is silent, the Church is my Text; where that speakes, ’tis but my Comment: where there is a joynt silence of both, I borrow not the rules of my Religion from
Rome
or
Geneva
, but the dictates of my owne reason. It is an unjust scandall of our adversaries, and a grosse error in our selves, to compute the Nativity of our Religion from
Henry
the eight, who though he rejected the Pope, refus’d not the faith of
Rome
, and effected no more then what his owne Predecessors desired and assayed in ages past, and was conceived the State of
Venice
would have attempted in our dayes.
22
It is as uncharitable a point in us to fall upon those popular scurrilities and opprobrious scoffes of the Bishop of
Rome
, whom as a temporall Prince, we owe the duty of good language: I confesse there is cause of passion betweene us; by his sentence I stand excommunicated, Heretick is the best language he affords me; yet can no eare witnesse I ever returned to him the name of Antichrist, Man of sin, or whore of
Babylon
; It is the method of charity to suffer without reaction: those usuall Satyrs,
23
and invectives of the Pulpit may perchance produce a good effect on the vulgar, whose eares are opener to Rhetorick
24
then Logick, yet doe they in no wise confirme the faith of wiser beleevers, who know that a good cause needs not to be patron’d by a passion, but can sustaine it selfe upon a temperate dispute.
6. I could never divide my selfe from any man upon the difference of an opinion, or be angry with his judgement for not agreeing with mee in that, from which perhaps within a few dayes I should dissent my selfe: I have no Genius to disputes in Religion,
25
and have often thought it wisedome to decline them, especially upon a disadvantage, or when the cause of truth might suffer in the weaknesse of my patronage: where wee desire to be informed, ’tis good to contest with men above our selves; but to confirme and establish our opinions, ’tis best to argue with judgements below our own, that the frequent spoyles and victories over their reasons may settle in our selves an esteeme, and confirmed opinion of our owne. Every man is not a proper Champion for Truth, nor fit to take up the Gantlet in the cause of Veritie: Many from the ignorance of these Maximes, and an inconsiderate zeale unto Truth, have too rashly charged the troopes of error, and remaine as Trophees
unto the enemies of Truth: A man may be in as just possession of Truth as of a City, and yet bee forced to surrender; tis therefore farre better to enjoy her with peace, then to hazzard her on a battell. If therefore there rise any doubts in my way, I doe forget them, or at least defer them, till my better setled judgement, and more manly reason be able to resolve them; for I perceive every mans owne reason is his best
Oedipus
,
26
and will upon a reasonable truce, find a way to loose those bonds wherewith the subtilties of errour have enchained our more flexible and tender judgements. In Philosophy where truth seemes double-faced, there is no man more paradoxicall then my self; but in Divinity I love to keepe the road, and though not in an implicite, yet an humble faith, follow the great wheele of the Church, by which I move, not reserving any proper poles or motion from the epicycle of my own braine; by this meanes I leave no gap for Heresies, Schismes, or Errors, of which at present, I hope I shall not injure Truth, to say, I have no taint or tincture; I must confesse my greener studies have beene 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 heads as mine; for indeed Heresies perish not with their Authors, but like the River
Arethusa
,
27
though they lose their currents in one place, they rise up againe in another: one generall Councell is not able to extirpate one single Heresie, it may be canceld for the present, but revolution of time and the like aspects from Heaven, will restore it, when it will flourish till it be condemned againe; for as though there were a
Metempsuchosis
,
28
and the soule of one man passed into another ‘opinions doe finde after certaine revolutions, men and mindes like those that first begat them. To see our selves againe wee neede not looke for
Platoes
yeare;
29
every man is not onely himselfe; there have beene many
Diogenes
, and as many
Timons
,
30
though but few of that name; men are lived over againe, the world is now as it was in ages past, there was none then, but there hath been some one since that parallels him, and is as it were his revived selfe.
7. Now the first of mine was that of the Arabians, that the soules of men perished with their bodies, but should yet bee raised againe at the last day; not that I did absolutely conceive a mortality of the soule; but if that were, which faith, not Philosophy hath yet throughly disproved, and that both entred the grave together, yet I held the same conceit thereof that wee all doe of the body, that it should rise againe. Surely it is but the merits of our unworthy natures, if wee sleepe in darkenesse, untill the last alarum: A serious reflex upon my owne unworthinesse did make me backward from challenging this prerogative of my soule; so I might enjoy my Saviour at the last, I could with patience be nothing almost unto eternity.
31
The second was that of
Origen
, that God would not persist in his vengeance for ever, but after a definite time of his wrath hee would release the damned soules from torture; Which error I fell into upon a serious contemplation of the great attribute of God his mercy, and did a little cherish it in my selfe, because I found therein no malice, and a ready weight to sway me from the other extream of despaire, wherunto melancholy and contemplative natures are too easily disposed.
32
A third there is which I did never positively maintaine or practice, but have often wished it had been consonant to Truth, and not offensive to my Religion, and that is the prayer for the dead;
33
whereunto
I was inclined from some charitable inducements, whereby I could scarce containe my prayers for a friend at the ringing of a Bell, or behold his corpse without an oraison for his soule: ’Twas a good way me thought to be remembered by Posterity, and farre more noble then an History. These opinions I never maintained with pertinacity, or endeavoured to enveagle any mans beliefe unto mine, nor so much as ever revealed or disputed them with my dearest friends; by which meanes I neither propagated them in others, nor confirmed them in my selfe, but suffering them to flame upon their owne substance, without addition of new fuell, they went out insensibly of themselves; therefore these opinions, though condemned by lawfull Councels, were not Heresies in me, but bare Errors, and single Lapses of my understanding, without a joynt depravity of my will: Those have not only depraved understandings but diseased affections, which cannot enjoy a singularity without a Heresie, or be the author of an opinion, without they be of a Sect also; this was the villany of the first Schisme of
Lucifer
, who was not content to erre alone, but drew into his faction many Legions of Spirits; and upon this experience hee tempted only
Eve
, as well understanding the communicable nature of sin, and that to deceive but one, was tacitely and upon consequence to delude them both.
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