10. For my conversation,91 it is like the Sunne’s with all men, and with a friendly aspect to good and bad. Me thinkes 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 mans minde of such discordant and jarring a temper to which a tuneable disposition may not strike a harmony. Magna virtutes nec minora vitia,92 it is the posie of the best natures, and may bee inverted on the worst; there are in the most depraved and venemous dispositions, certaine pieces that remaine untoucht; which by an Antiperistasis93 become more excellent, or by the excellency of their antipathies are able to preserve themselves from the contagion of their enemy vices, and persist entire beyond the generall corruption. For it is also thus in natures. The greatest Balsames doe lie enveloped in the bodies of most powerfull Corrosives; I say moreover, and I ground upon experience, that poysons containe within themselves their owne Antidote, and that which preserves them from the venom of themselves; without which they were not deletorious to others onely, but to themselves also. But it is the corruption that I feare within me, not the contagion of commerce without me. ’Tis that unruly regiment within me that will destroy me, ’tis I that doe infect my selfe, the man without a Navell94 yet lives in me; I feele that originall canker corrode and devoure me, and therefore Defenda me Dios de me, Lord deliver me from my selfe,95 is a part of my Letany, and the first voyce of my retired imaginations. There is no man alone, because every man is a Microcosme, and carries the whole world about him; Nunquam minus solus quam cum solus,96 though it bee the Apoph-thegme of a wise man, is yet true in the mouth of a foole; for indeed, though in a Wildernesse, a man is never alone, not onely because hee is with himselfe, and his owne thoughts, but because he is with the devill, who ever consorts with our solitude, and is that unruly rebell that musters up those disordered motions, which accompany our sequestred imaginations: And to speake more narrowly, there is no such thing as solitude, nor any thing that can be said to be alone, and by it selfe, but God, who is his owne circle, and can subsist by himselfe, all others besides their dissimilary and Heterogeneous parts, which in a manner multiply their natures, cannot subsist without the concourse97 of God, and the society of that hand which doth uphold their natures. In briefe, there can be nothing truely alone, and by its self, which is not truely one, and such is onely God: All others doe transcend an unity, and so by consequence are many.
11. Now for my life, it is a miracle of thirty yeares, which to relate, were not a History, but a peece of Poetry, and would sound to common eares like a fable; for the world, I count it not an Inne, but an Hospitall, and a place, not to live, but to die in. The world that I regard is my selfe, it is the Microcosme of mine owne frame,98 that I cast mine eye on; for the other, I use it but like my Globe, and turne it round sometimes for my recreation. Men that look upon my outside, perusing onely my condition, and fortunes, do erre in my altitude; for I am above Atlas his shoulders.99 The earth is a point not onely in respect of the heavens above us, but of that heavenly and celestiall part within us: that masse of flesh that circumscribes me, limits not my mind: that surface that tells the heavens it hath an end,100 cannot perswade me I have any; I take my circle to be above three hundred and sixty,101 though the number of the Arke do measure my body, it comprehendeth not my minde: whilst I study to finde how I am a Microcosme or little world, I finde my selfe something more than the great. There is surely a peece of Divinity in us, something that was before the Elements, and owes no homage unto the Sun. Nature tels me I am the Image of God as well as Scripture;102 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 cælum Fiat voluntas tua,103 salveth all; so that whatsoever happens, it is but what our daily prayers desire. In briefe, I am content, and what should providence adde more? Surely this is it wee call Happinesse, and this doe I enjoy, with this I am happy in a dreame, and as content to enjoy a happinesse in a fancie as others in a more apparent truth and reality. There is surely a neerer apprehension of any thing that delights us in our dreames, than in our waked senses;104 without this I were unhappy, for my awaked judgement discontents me, ever whispering unto me, that I am from my friend, but my friendly dreames in the night requite me, and make me thinke I am within his armes. I thanke God for my happy dreames, as I doe for my good rest, so there is a satisfaction in them unto reasonable desires, and such as can be content with a fit of happinesse; and surely it is not a melancholy conceite to thinke we are all asleepe in this world, and that the conceits of this life are as meare dreames to those of the next, as the Phantasmes of the night, to the conceit of the day. There is an equall delusion in both, and the one doth but seeme to bee the embleme or picture of the other; we are somewhat more than our selves in our sleepes, and the slumber of the body seemes to bee but the waking of the soule. It is the ligation105 of sense, but the liberty of reason, and our awaking conceptions doe not match the fancies of our sleepes. At my Nativity, my ascendant was the earthly signe of Scorpius.106 I was borne in the Planetary houre of Saturne, and I think I have a peece of that Leaden Planet in me.107 I am no way facetious, nor disposed for the mirth and galliardize108 of company, yet in one dreame I can compose a whole Comedy, behold the action, apprehend the jests, and laugh my selfe awake at the conceits thereof; were my memory as faithfull as my reason is then fruitfull, I would never study but in my dreames, 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 soules, a confused & broken tale of that that hath passed. Aristotle, who hath written a singular tract of sleepe, hath not me thinkes throughly defined it, nor yet Galen, though hee seeme to have corrected it;109 for those Noctambuloes and night-walkers, though in their sleepe, doe yet enjoy the action of their senses: wee must therefore say that there is something in us that is not in the jurisdiction of Morpheus; and that those abstracted and ecstaticke soules doe walke about in their owne corps, as spirits with the bodies they assume, wherein they seeme to heare, see, and feele, though indeed the organs are destitute of sense, and their natures of those faculties that should informe them. Thus it is observed that men sometimes upon the houre of their departure, doe speake and reason above themselves. For then the soule begins to bee freed from the ligaments of the body, begins to reason like her selfe, and to discourse in a straine above mortality.110
12. We tearme sleepe a death, and yet it is waking that kils us, and destroyes 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 hee acts his nature, or someway makes good the faculties of himselfe: Themistocles therefore that slew his Souldier in his sleepe111 was a mercifull executioner, ’tis a kinde of punishment the mildnesse of no lawes hath invented; I wonder the fancy of Lucan and Seneca112 did not discover it. It is that death by which we may be literally said to die daily, a death which Adam died before his mortality; a death whereby we live a middle and moderating point betweene life and death; in fine, so like death, I dare not trust it without my prayers, and an halfe adiew unto the world,113 and take my farewell in a Colloquy with God.
The night is come like to the day,
Depart not thou great God away.
Let not my sinnes, blacke as the night,
Eclipse the lustre of thy light.
Keepe still in my Horizon, for to me,
The Sunne makes not the day, but thee.114
Thou whose nature cannot sleepe,
On my temples centry keepe;
Guard me ’gainst those watchfull foes,
Whose eyes are open while mine close.
Let no dreames my head infest,
But such as Jacobs temples blest.115
While I doe rest, my soule advance,
Make my sleepe a holy trance:
That I may, my rest being wrought,
Awake into some holy thought.
And with as active vigour runne
My course, as doth the nimble Sunne.
Sleepe 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.
How ere I rest, great God let me
Awake againe at last with thee.
And thus assur’d, behold I lie
Securely, or to wake or die.
These are my drowsie dayes, in vaine
I doe now wake to sleepe againe.
O come that houre, when I shall never
Sleepe againe, but wake for ever!
This is the dormitive116 I take to bedward, I need no other Laudanum than this to make me sleepe; after which I close mine eyes in security, content to take my leave of the Sunne, and sleepe unto the resurrection.
13. The method I should use in distributive justice, I often observe in commutative, and keepe a Geometricall proportion in both,117 whereby becomming equable to others, I become unjust to my selfe, and supererogate118 in that common principle, Doe unto others as thou wouldest be done unto thy selfe.119 I was not borne unto riches, neither is it I thinke120 my Starre to be wealthy; or if it were, the freedome of my minde, and franknesse of my disposition, were able to contradict and crosse my fates: for to me avarice seemes not so much a vice, as a deplorable piece of madnesse; to conceive our selves Urinals, or bee perswaded that wee are dead, is not so ridiculous, nor so many degrees beyond the power of Hellebore,121 as this. The opinions of theory and positions of men are not so voyd of reason as their practised conclusion: some have held that Snow is blacke, that the earth moves, that the soule is ayre, fire, water,122 but all this is Philosophy, and there is no delirium, if we doe but speculate123 the folly and indisputable dotage of avarice to that subterraneous Idoll,124 and God of the earth. I doe confesse I am an Atheist, I cannot perswade my selfe to honour that the world adores; whatsoever vertue its prepared substance may have within my body, it hath no influence nor operation without; I would not entertaine a base designe, or an action that should call mee villaine, for the Indies, and for this onely doe I love and honour my owne soule, and have mee thinkes, two armes too few to embrace my selfe. Aristotle is too severe, that will not allow us to bee truely liberall without wealth, and the bountifull hand of fortune;125 if this be true, I must confesse I am charitable onely in my liberall intentions, and bountifull well-wishes. But if the example of the Mite126 bee not onely an act of wonder, but an example of the noblest charity,127 surely poore men may also build Hospitals, and the rich alone have not erected Cathedralls. I have a private method which others observe not, I take the opportunity of my selfe to do good, I borrow occasion of charity from mine owne necessities, and supply the wants of others, when I am in most neede my selfe;128 for it is an honest stratagem to take advantage of our selves, and so to husband the act of vertue, that where they are defective in one circumstance, they may repay their want, and multiply their goodnesse in another. I have not Peru129 in my desires, but a competence, and abilitie to performe those good workes to which hee130 hath inclined my nature. Hee is rich, who hath enough to bee charitable, and it is hard to bee so poore, that a noble minde may not finde a way to this peece of goodnesse. Hee that giveth to the poore lendeth to the Lord;131 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, wee needed not those Volumes of instructions, but might bee honest by an Epitome. Upon this motive onely I cannot behold a Begger without relieving his necessities with my purse, or his soule with my prayers; these scenicall and accidentall differences betweene us cannot make mee forget that common and untoucht part of us both; there is under these Centoes132 and miserable outsides, these mutilate and semi-bodies, a soule of the same alloy with our owne, whose Genealogy is God as well as ours, and in as faire a way to salvation, as our selves. Statists133 that labour to contrive a Common-wealth without poverty, take away the object of charity, not understanding only134 the Common-wealth of a Christian, but forgetting the prophecy of Christ.135
14. Now there is another part of charity, which is the Basis and Pillar of this, and that is the love of God, for whom wee love our neighbour: for this I thinke charity, to love God for himselfe, and our neighbour for God. All that is truely amiable is God, or as it were a divided piece of him, that retaines a reflex or shadow of himselfe. Nor is it strange that wee should place affection on that which is invisible, all that wee truely love is thus, what wee adore under affection of our senses, deserves not the honour of so pure a title. Thus wee adore vertue, though to the eyes of sense shee bee invisible. Thus that part of our noble friends that wee love, is not that part that we embrace, but that insensible part that our armes cannot embrace.136 God being all goodnesse, can love nothing but himselfe, hee loves us but for that part which is as it were himselfe, and the traduction137 of his holy Spirit. Let us call to assize the lives of our parents, the affection of our wives and children, and they are all dumbe showes,138 and dreames, without reality, truth, or constancy; for first there is a strong bond of affection betweene us and our parents, yet how easily dissolved? We betake our selves to a woman, forgetting our mothers in a wife, and the wombe that bare us in that that shall beare our image. This woman blessing us with children, our affections leaves the levell it held before, and sinkes from our bed unto our issue and picture of posterity, where affection holds no steady mansion. They growing up in yeares desire our ends, or applying themselves to a woman, take a lawfull way to love another better than our selves. Thus I perceive a man may bee buried alive, and behold his grave in his owne issue.
15. I conclude therefore and say, there is no happinesse under (or as Copernicus139 will have it, above) the Sunne, nor any Crambe140 in that repeated veritie and burthen of all the wisedom of Solomon, All is vanitie and vexation of spirit;141 there is no felicity in that the world adores. Aristotle whilst hee labours to refute the Idea’s of Plato, fals upon one himselfe: for his summum bonum,142 is a Chimera, and there is no such thing as his Felicity. That wherein God himselfe is happy, the holy Angels are happy, in whose defect the Devils are unhappy; that dare I call happinesse: whatsoever conduceth unto this, may with an easie Metaphor deserve that name; whatsoever else the world termes happines, is to me a story out of Pliny, an apparition, or neat delusion, wherein there is no more of happinesse than the name. Blesse mee in this life with but the peace of my conscience, command of my affections, the love of thy selfe and my dearest friends,143 and I shall be happy enough to pity Cæsar. These are O Lord the humble desires of my most reasonable ambition and all I dare call happinesse on earth: wherein I set no rule or limit to thy hand or providence, dispose of me according to the wisedome144 of thy pleasure. Thy will bee done, though in my owne undoing.145
Pseudodoxia Epidemica
[Pseudodoxia Epidemica: or, Enquiries into Very many Received Tenents, and commonly Presumed Truths was first published in 1646; five other editions followed, each carefully revised and/or augmented, to 1672. The title page carries a quotation, in Latin, from Julius Scaliger: ‘To cull from books what authors have reported is exceedingly dangerous; true knowledge of things themselves is out of the things themselves’ [§ 190]. See also the discussion above, pp. 32 ff.; and for further biographical details: below, p. 553.
The selections here reprinted are from the second edition of 1650 (‘Corrected and much Enlarged by the Author’), except for one chapter borrowed from the third edition of 1658 (see pp. 216–20). The titles of all omitted chapters are given as part of the text in order to preserve its continuity. I have also reproduced Browne’s marginal notes – but not those by ‘some strange hand’ which, as we are told in the prefatory remarks by ‘N.N.’, merely ‘invite or fix the Readers eye upon some things (among as many other omitted) which he thought observable’. As ‘N.N.’ sagely adds, the Re
ader would be well advised ‘never [to] judge of the Authours Sense solely by the Note in the Margin, but (and that principally,) by reflexion, and consideration of the Text it self’.]
SELECTIONS
TO THE READER
BOOK 1 (General)
Of the Causes of Common Errors
Of the second cause of Popular Errors
Of the nearer and more Immediate Causes of popular errours
Of Credulity and Supinity
Of Adherence unto Antiquity
Of Authority
Of the last and common promoter of false Opinions
A further Illustration
The Major Works (English Library) Page 14