Read The Major Works (English Library) Online
Authors: Sir Thomas Browne
The Major Works (English Library) (69 page)
115
. i.e. the dream of the ladder to Heaven (Genesis 28.12 ff.).
116
. ‘The name of an extract, wherewith wee use to provoke sleepe’ (
MSS. marg
., in
M
).
117
. In transactions, distributive justice provides for payments in arithmetical progression; in rewards, commutative justice provides for payments several times what may be deserved (‘Geometricall proportion’). Thus Aristotle,
Nicomachean Ethics
, V, 3 (
M
).
118
. Do more than is required.
119
. Luke 6.31.
120
. ‘I thinke’ was not in
UA
(cf. above,
p. 141, note 39
).
121
. Believed to cure the insane, and recommended (by Horace,
Satires
, II, iii, 82) for the avaricious.
122
. ‘Snow is blacke’: said to have been the opinion of Anaxagoras (so Cicero,
Academic Questions
, II, xxx, 10); ‘the earth moves’: apparently dismissive of the Copernican theory, but tolerated later as a hypothesis (see below,
p. 160, note 139
); ‘the soule is ayre, fire, water’: said to have been upheld by Diogenes, Democritus, and Hippon, respectively (so Aristotle,
On the Soul
, I, 2).
123
. Reflect upon.
124
. i.e. gold.
125
.
Nicomachean Ethics
, I, viii, 15; but cf. IV, i, 19.
126
. i.e. the poor widow who contributed ‘two mites, which make a farthing’ (Mark 12.42 ff.).
127
. The rest of the sentence reads (
MSS
.): ‘I can justly boast I am as charitable as some who have built hospitalls, or erected Cathedralls’.
128
. Inserted here (
MSS
.): ‘when I am reduc’d to the last tester [i.e. head-piece], I love to divide it to [
or
with] the poore;’
129
. i.e. its famous silver mines.
130
. i.e. God.
131
. Proverbs 19.17.
132
. Patched garments.
133
. Political theorists.
134
. i.e. not only not understanding.
135
. ‘The poore ye shall have alwayes with you’ (
MSS. marg
.: an unlikely adaptation of Luke 6.20). Coleridge protested vigorously: ‘O, for shame! for shame! – is there no object of charity but abject Poverty?’ etc.
137
. Offspring (cf.
above, p. 106, note 224
).
138
. i.e. mimes.
139
. ‘Who holds the Sunne is the center of the World’ (
MSS. marg
., in
M
). Browne was clearly not impressed by the Copernican theory, but unlike the majority of his contemporaries, he refused either to condemn it or treat it ‘with contempt and ridicule’ (as Dr Johnson claimed,
below, p. 491
): see further
Pseudodoxia Epidemica
,
below, p. 184
. The theory was not confirmed as an ‘ocular’ fact until Newton (
§282
).
140
. Distasteful repetition.
141
. Ecclesiastes 1.14, 2.11, etc.
142
. i.e. chiefest good (
Nicomachean Ethics
, I, 6 ff.).
143
. Corrected from ‘the love of my dearest friend’ (
MSS
.).
144
. Corrected from ‘justice’ (
MSS
.).
145
. Corrected from ‘in my owne damnation’ (
MSS
.). Cf. Matthew 26.42.
1
. Rooted, established.
2
. ‘Inspection of Urines’ (Browne marg.).
3
. ‘examine or consider diligently’ (Blount).
4
. ‘speaking by, or of Paradoxes’ (Blount, citing Browne).
5
. i.e. study under lamplight.
6
. ‘guiding by the hand’ (Blount).
7
. The treatise
On False Beliefs
(Browne marg., quoted in Greek).
8
. Accepted (but not proven) notions.
1
. Apt to be deceived.
2
. i.e. not born but created: Adam and Eve. Hence, in the next sentence, the ‘wounds of constitution’, i.e. the transmitted effects of the Fall of Man.
3
. Transmissions (cf.
above, p. 106, note 224
).
4
. See Genesis 2–3.
Paradise Lost
(1667) may usefully be read in the light of Browne’s remarks in this chapter.
5
. i.e. Eve.
6
. i.e. Eve’s creation after Adam’s.
7
. Genesis 2.16–17.
8
. i.e. the Vulgate.
9
. Targums (‘interpretations’) were Aramaic paraphrases of the Old Testament; they include the one by Jonathan, in official use by the third century
A
.
D
.
10
. The faculty of reason: understanding.
11
. i.e. servile and bestial: faculties of the lower order.
12
. Genesis 3.6.
13
. 1 John 2.16.
14
. Cf. Genesis 4.13–14.
16
. i.e. temptation.
17
. Lucifer (see below,
p. 449, note 8
).
19
. Sense is throughout understood to be ‘what is open to verification by our eyes and senses through observation and experiment’; and reason, ‘the faculty by which man is able to grasp the laws governing the divinely created universe’ (
§59
).
20
. ‘Fable’ (Browne marg.).
21
. A syllogism of which the major and minor premises, and the conclusion, are universal affirmatives: e.g. ‘all animals are mortal, all men are animals, therefore all men are mortal’ (
OED
).
22
. ‘figurative speakynge’ (Elyot; cf. above,
p. 60, note 6
).
23
. Physical or human.
25
. ‘Julian’ (Browne marg.).
26
. Indiscriminate.
27
. See above,
p. 134, note 5
.
28
. In Acts 14.11 ff.: Orestes is here cast in the role of a madman because haunted by the Erinyes.
30
. Cf. Exodus 12.35.
31
. Peter having a sword drew it, and smote the high priest’s servant, and cut off his right ear… Then said Jesus unto Peter, Put up thy sword into the sheath’ (John 18. 10–11).
32
. i.e. ‘The Voice of the people is the voice of God’.
33
. Adventitious, superadded.
34
. ‘foretelling, sooth-saying’ (Blount).
35
. Said to have possessed magical powers. See Exodus 28.15 ff.
36
. Apollo’s oracle: see
above, p. 74, note 74
.
37
. ‘Places in Venice and Paris, where mountebanks play their pranks’ (Browne marg.).
38
. Cabbala, the esoteric theosophy of medieval Judaism, was endorsed by numerous Renaissance thinkers including Browne. Its abuses were equally numerous.
39
. Practitioners of geomancy, ‘divination by points and circles made on the earth, or by opening of the earth’ (Blount).
40
. ‘Reason of State’.
41
. ‘Whose other name the hallowed mysteries of the sacred rites forbid us to mention’ (Pliny, III, v, 65).
42
. Roman household gods.
43
. ‘Deceptions’ (Browne marg.).
44
. John 21.21–23.
45
. The passage is adapted from Bellonius (see
§210
). Geber
et al
. are added as representatives of Mohammedanism.
46
. The Socratic ‘I only know that I know nothing’ (cf.
Apology
, 21–3).
47
. See also
above, p. 160, note 139
.
48
. i.e. Anticyra: ‘a place famous for the growth of Hellebore, a place supposed to cure madness’ (Coleridge).
49
. ‘The act of drawing up, as a bucket from a well’ (Coleridge).
50
. Genesis 3.19 (Vulgate): ‘in the sweat of thy face’ (
AV
).
51
. Cf. Milton,
Of Education
(1644): ‘The end then of learning is to repair the ruines of our first Parents’ etc. (
Selected Prose
, ed. C.A. Patrides, Penguin Books [1974], p. 182).
52
. Rather without vice than with virtue.
53
. The last of the good.
54
. ‘We are but ciphers’ (Horace,
Epistles
, I, ii, 27).
55
. As Diogenes did, searching with a lantern at daytime for an honest man.
56
. ‘Undeniable’ (Cockeram).
57
. i.e. ‘so they say’, ‘they assert’, ‘perhaps’.
58
. ‘Know thyself’, ‘Know the [right] time’, and ‘Nothing too much’; respectively.
59
. ‘No mortal man is worse all the time’, ‘Nothing is more excellent than virtue’, ‘Love conquers all’, and ‘Truth is a splendid thing’; respectively.
60
. ‘[It is pointless to argue with one who] denies first principles’, ‘He himself said so [i.e. made an unsupported assertion]’, and ‘The pupil must believe [what his master tells him]’; respectively.
61
. Diligent examinations (cf.
above, p. 166, note 3
).
62
. See above,
p. 157, note 122
.
63
. The omitted chapter is devoted to authors ‘not to be swallowed at large’. They include Aelian, Albertus Magnus, Athenaeus, Herodotus, Solinus,
et al
.
64
. The omitted chapter previews ‘common errors’ discussed more fully later, e.g. the griffin (pp. 208 f.), the phoenix (see
pp. 210
ff.), etc.
65
. As above,
p. 69, note 38
.
66
. i.e. when the transformation of Moses’s rod into a serpent was matched by the magicians’ similar acts (Exodus 7.10–12).
67
. Exodus 8.17.
68
. ‘Divination by the dead’ (Browne marg.).
70
. The rest of this paragraph previews the fuller discussion later, pp. 253 ff.
71
. Plutarch,
Brutus
, XXXVI.
72
. i.e. the lack of belief in witches. See also
above, pp. 27
and
98
.
2
. ‘Lying or sitting down’ (Blount).
3
. ‘walking’ (Cockeram).
4
. ‘The Indian who controlled the elephant, intending to dismount, in the usual way ordered it to go down on its knees, and all the others let their bodies down on the ground, because they had been trained to do so’.
5
. ‘It greeted the bishop with veneration, kneeling three times and keeping itself in a lowly position’.
6
. ‘
‘γόνο
[knee] from
γωνία
[angle]’ (Browne marg.).
7
. ‘Round, pillar-like’ (Browne marg.).
8
. Pertaining to the hocks of animals.
9
. ‘to infer an absolute truth from a qualified premise’ (
E
).
10
. ‘huntyng’ (Elyot).
11
. In the rear.
12
. ‘leaping or jumping upon’ (Blount, citing Browne).
13
. ‘imitating the beaver, who makes a eunuch of himself, hoping to escape by the sacrifice of his testicles; well does he know their medicinal properties’ (Juvenal, XII, 34–6).
14
. i.e. the Latin for beaver is
fiber
as well as
castor
; the latter derives from the Greek
κάστωρ
[
kastor
], itself related not to ‘castrated’ but to ‘pot bellied’ (
γαστρωδης
).
15
. ‘Diagonion, a line drawn from the crosse angles’ (Browne marg.).
16
. Leviticus 11.13 (Browne marg.).
17
. ‘sacrifices, wherein were kylled a hundred beastes’ (Elyot).
18
. ‘Horses will now mate with griffins’ (
Eclogues
, VIII, 27).
