The Major Works (English Library)

by Sir Thomas Browne

  And this is also the law of reflexion in moved65 bodies and sounds, which though not made by decussation, observe the rule of equality between incidence and reflexion; whereby whispering places are framed by Ellipticall arches laid sidewise; where the voice being delivered at the focus of one extremity, observing an equality unto the angle of incidence, it will reflect upon the focus of the other end, and so escape the ears of the standers in the middle.

  A like rule is observed in the reflection of the vocall and sonorous line in Ecchoes, which cannot therefore be heard in all stations. But happening in woody plantations, by waters, and able to return some words; if reacht by a pleasant and well-dividing66 voice, there may be heard the loftest notes in nature.

  And this not only verified in the way of sence, but in animall67 and intellectuall receptions. Things entring upon the intellect by a Pyramid from without, and thence into the memory by another from within, the common decussation being in the understanding as is delivered by Bovillus.68 Whether the intellectual and phantastical69 lines be not thus rightly disposed, but magnified diminished, distorted, and ill placed in the Mathematicks of some brains, whereby they have irregular apprehensions of things, perverted notions, conceptions, and incurable hallucinations, were no unpleasant speculation.

  And if Ægyptian Philosophy may obtain, the scale of influences was thus disposed, and the genial spirits of both worlds, do trace their way in ascending and descending Pyramids, mystically apprehended in the Letter X, and the open Bill and stradling Legges of a Stork, which was imitated by that Character.

  Of this Figure Plato70 made choice to illustrate the motion of the soul, both of the world and man; while he delivereth that God divided the whole conjunction length-wise, according to the figure of a Greek X, and then turning it about reflected it into a circle; By the circle implying the uniform motion of the first Orb, and by the right lines, the planetical and various motions within it. And this also with application unto the soul of man, which hath a double aspect, one right, whereby it beholdeth the body, and objects without; another circular and reciprocal, whereby it beholdeth it self. The circle declaring the motion of the individisible soul, simple, according to the divinity of its nature, and returning into it self; the right lines respecting the motion pertaining unto sense, and vegetation, and the central decussation, the wondrous connexion of the severall faculties conjointly in one substance. And so conjoyned the unity and duality of the soul, and made out the three substances so much considered by him; That is, the indivisible or divine, the divisible or corporeal, and that third, which was the Systasis71 or harmony of those two, in the mystical decussation.

  And if that were clearly made out which Justin Martyr took for granted, this figure hath had the honour to characterize and notifie72 our blessed Saviour, as he delivereth in that borrowed expression from Plato; Decussavit eum in universo,73 the hint whereof he would have Plato derive from the figure of the brazen Serpent,74 and to have mistaken the Letter X for T, whereas it is not improbable, he learned these and other mystical expressions in his Learned Observations of Ægypt, where he might obviously behold the Mercurial characters,75 the handed crosses, and other mysteries not throughly understood in the sacred Letter X, which being derivative from the Stork, one of the ten sacred animals, might be originally Ægyptian, and brought into Greece by Cadmus of that Countrey.

  CHAPTER V

  To enlarge this contemplation unto all the mysteries and secrets, accomodable unto this number, were inexcusable Pythagorisme,1 yet cannot omit the ancient conceit of five surnamed the number of justice;2 as justly dividing between the digits, and hanging in the centre of Nine, described by square numeration, which angularly divided will make the decussated number;3 and so agreeable unto the Quincunciall Ordination, and rowes divided by Equality, and just decorum, in the whole com-plantation; And might be the Originall of that common game among us,4 wherein the fifth place is Soveraigne, and carrieth the chief intention. The Ancients wisely instructing youth, even in their recreations unto virtue, that is, early to drive at the middle point and Central Seat of justice.

  Nor can we omit how agreeable unto this number an handsome division is made in Trees and Plants, since Plutarch,5 and the Ancients have named it the Divisive Number, justly dividing the Entities of the world,6 many remarkable things in it, and also comprehending the generall division of Vegetables.7 And he that considers how most blossomes of Trees, and greatest number of Flowers, consist of five leaves; and therein doth rest the setled rule of nature; So that in those which exceed there is often found, or easily made a variety; may readily discover how nature rests in this number, which is indeed the first rest and pause of numeration in the fingers, the naturall Organs thereof. Nor in the division of the feet of perfect animals doth nature exceed this account. And even in the joints of feet, which in birds are most multiplied, surpasseth not this number; So progressionally making them out in many,8 that from five in the fore-claw she descendeth unto two in the hinde-most; And so in fower feet9 makes up the number of joynts, in the five fingers or toes of man.

  Not to omit the Quintuple section of a Cone,10 of handsome practise in Ornamentall Garden-plots, and in some way discoverable in so many works of Nature; In the leaves, fruits, and seeds of Vegetables, and scales of some Fishes, so much considerable in glasses,11 and the optick doctrine; wherein the learned may consider the Crystalline humour12 of the eye in the cuttle fish and Loligo.

  He that forgets not how Antiquity named this the Conjugall or wedding number,13 and made it the Embleme of the most remarkable conjunction, will conceive it duely appliable unto this handsome Oeconomy,14 and vegetable combination; May hence apprehend the allegoricall sence of that obscure expression of Hesiod,15 and afford no improbable reason why Plato admitted his Nuptiall guests by fives, in the kindred of the married couple.16

  And though a sharper mystery might be implied in the Number of the five wise and foolish Virgins, which were to meet the Bridegroom,17 yet was the same agreeable unto the Conjugall Number, which ancient Numerists18 made out by two and three, the first parity and imparity, the active and passive digits, the materiall and formall principles in generative Societies. And not discordant even from the customes of the Romans, who admitted but five Torches in their Nuptiall solemnities.19 Whether there were any mystery or not implied, the most generative animals were created on this day,20 and had accordingly the largest benediction: And under a Quintuple consideration, wanton Antiquity considered the Circumstances of generation, while by this number of five they naturally divided the Nectar of the fifth Planet.21

  The same number in the Hebrew mysteries and Cabalistical accounts was the character of Generation;22 declared by the Letter He, the fifth in their Alphabet; According to that Cabalisticall Dogma: If Abram had not had this Letter added unto his Name23 he had remained fruitlesse, and without the power of generation: Not onely because hereby the number of his Name attained two hundred fourty eight, the number of the affirmative precepts, but because as increated natures there is a male and female, so in divine and intelligent productions, the mother of Life and Fountain of souls in Cabalisticall Technology is called Binah; whose Seal and Character was He. So that being sterill before, he received the power of generation from that measure and mansion in the Archetype; and was made comformable unto Binab. And upon such involved considerations, the ten of Sarai was exchanged into five.24 If any shall look upon this as a stable number, and fitly appropriable unto Trees, as Bodies of Rest and Station, he hath herein a great Foundation in nature, who observing much variety in legges and motive Organs of Animals, as two, four, six, eight, twelve, fourteen, and more, hath passed over five and ten, and assigned them unto none.25 And for the stability of this Number, he shall not want the sphericity of its nature, which multiplied in it self, will return into its own denomination, and bring up the reare of the account. Which is also one of the Numbers that makes up the mysticall Name of God, which consisting of Letters denoting all the sphæricall Numbers, ten, five,
and six;26 Emphatically sets forth the Notion of Trismegistus, and that intelligible Sphere, which is the Nature of God.27

  Many Expressions by this Number occurre in Holy Scripture, perhaps unjustly laden with mysticall Expositions, and little concerning our order. That the Israelites were forbidden to eat the fruit of their new planted Trees, before the fifth yeare,28 was very agreeable unto the naturall Rules of Husbandry: Fruits being unwholsome and lash,29 before the fourth, or fifth Yeare. In the second day or Feminine part of five, there was added no approbation.30 For in the third or masculine day, the same is twice repeated;31 and a double benediction inclosed both Creations, whereof the one, in some part was but an accomplishment of the other. That the Trespasser was to pay a fifth part above the head or principall,32 makes no secret in this Number, and implied no more then one part above the principall; which being considered in four parts, the additionall forfeit must bear the Name of a fift. The five golden mice33 had plainly their determination from the number of the Princes; That five should put to flight an hundred34 might have nothing mystically implyed; considering a rank of Souldiers could scarce consist of a lesser number. Saint Paul had rather speak five words in a known then ten thousand in an unknowne tongue:35 That is as little as could well be spoken. A simple proposition consisting of three words and a complexed one not ordinarily short of five.36

  More considerable there are in this mysticall account, which we must not insist on. And therefore why the radicall Letters37 in the Pentateuch, should equall the number of the Souldiery of the Tribes;38 Why our Saviour in the Wildernesse fed five thousand persons with five Barley Loaves, and again, but four thousand with no lesse then seven of Wheat?39 Why Joseph designed five changes of Rayment unto Benjamin? and David took just five pibbles out of the Brook against the Pagan Champion?40 We leave it unto Arithmeticall Divinity, and Theologicall explanation.

  Yet if any delight in new Problemes, or think it worth the enquiry, whether the Criticall Physician hath rightly hit the nominall notation of Quinque;41 Why the Ancients mixed five or three but not four parts of water unto their Wine: And Hippocrates observed42 a fifth proportion in the mixture of water with milk, as in Dysenteries and bloudy fluxes. Under what abstruse foundation Astrologers do Figure the good or bad Fate from our Children, in good Fortune, or the fifth house of their Celestriall Schemes.43 Whether the Ægyptians described a Starre by a Figure of five points, with reference unto the five Capitall aspects,44 whereby they transmit their Influences, or abstruser Considerations? Why the Cabalisticall Doctors, who conceive the whole Sephiroth, or divine emanations to have guided the ten-stringed Harp of David, whereby he pacified the evil spirit of Saul, in strict numeration doe begin with the Perihypate Meson, or si fa ut, and so place the Tiphereth answering C fol fa ut, upon the fifth string:45 Or whether this number be oftener applied unto bad things and ends, then good in holy Scripture, and why? He may meet with abstrusities of no ready resolution.

  If any shall question the rationality of that Magick, in the cure of the blind man by Serapis, commanded to place five fingers on his Altar, and then his hand on his Eyes?46 Why since the whole Comædy is primarily and naturally comprised in four parts,47 and Antiquity permitted not so many persons to speak in one Scene, yet would not comprehend the same in more or lesse then five acts?48 Why amongst Sea-starres nature chiefly delighteth in five points? And since there are found some of no fewer then twelve, and some of seven, and nine, there are few or none discovered of six or eight? If any shall enquire why the Flowers of Rue properly consist[ing] of four Leaves, The first and third Flower have five? Why since many Flowers have one leaf or none, as Scaliger will have it, diverse three, and the greatest number consist of five divided from their bottomes; there are yet so few of two: or why nature generally beginning or setting out with two opposite leaves at the Root, doth so seldome conclude with that order and number at the Flower? he shall not passe his hours in vulgar speculations.

  If any shall further quæry why magneticall Philosophy49 excludeth decussations, and needles transversly placed do naturally distract their verticities?50 Why Geomancers51 do imitate the Quintuple Figure, in their Mother Characters of Acquisition and Amission,52 &c. somewhat answering the Figures in the Lady or speckled Beetle? With what Equity, Chiromantical conjecturers53 decry these decussations in the Lines and Mounts of the hand? What that decussated Figure intendeth in the medall of Alexander the Great?54 Why the Goddesses sit commonly crosse-legged in ancient draughts,

  Since Juno is described in the same as a veneficial55 posture to hinder the birth of Hercules? If any shall doubt why at the Amphidromicall Feasts,56 on the fifth day after the Childe was born presents were sent from friends, of Polipusses, and Cuttlefishes? Why five must be only left in that Symbolicall mutiny among the men of Cadmus?57 Why Proteus in Homer the Symbole of the first matter, before he setled himself in the midst of his Sea-monsters, doth place them out by fives?58 Why the fifth years Oxe was acceptable Sacrifice unto Jupiter?59 Or why the Noble Antoninus in some sence doth call the soul it self a Rhombus?60 He shall not fall pn trite or triviall disquisitions. And these we invent and propose unto acuter enquirers, nauseating crambe verities61 and questions over-queried. Flat and flexible truths are beat out by every hammer; but Vulcan and his whole forge sweat to work out Achilles his armour.62 A large field is yet left unto sharper discerners to enlarge upon this order, to search out the quaternio’s63 and figured draughts of this nature, and moderating the study of names, and meer nomenclature of plants, to erect generalities, disclose unobserved proprieties, not only in the vegetable shop, but the whole volume of nature; affording delightful Truths, confirmable by sense and ocular Observation,64 which seems to me the surest path, to trace the Labyrinth of Truth. For though discursive enquiry and rationall conjecture, may leave handsome gashes and flesh-wounds; yet without conjunction of this expect no mortal or dispatching blows unto errour.

  But the Quincunx of Heaven65 runs low, and ’tis time to close the five ports of knowledge;66 We are unwilling to spin out our awaking thoughts into the phantasmes of sleep, which often continueth præcogitations;67 making Cables of Cob-webbes and Wildernesses of handsome Groves. Beside Hippocrates68 hath spoke so little and the Oneirocriticall Masters,69 have left such frigid Interpretations from plants, that there is little encouragement to dream of Paradise it self. Nor will the sweetest delight of Gardens afford much comfort in sleep; wherein the dulnesse of that sense shakes hands with delectable odours; and though in the Bed of Cleopatra,70 can hardly with any delight raise up the ghost of a Rose.

  Night which Pagan Theology could make the daughter of Chaos,71 affords no advantage to the description of order: Although no lower then that Masse can we derive its Genealogy. All things began in order, so shall they end, and so shall they begin again; according to the ordainer of order and mystical Mathematicks of the City of Heaven.

  Though Somnus in Homer be sent to rowse up Agamemnon,72 I finde no such effects in these drowsy approaches of sleep. To keep our eyes open longer were but to act our Antipodes.73 The Huntsmen are up in America, and they are already past their first sleep in Persia.74 But who can be drowsie at that howr which freed us from everlasting sleep? or have slumbring thoughts at that time, when sleep it self must end, and as some conjecture all shall awake again?

  A Letter to a Friend

  [A Letter to a Friend, upon occasion of the Death of his Intimate Friend was first published posthumously in 1690. Originally thought to have been written in the early 1670s (e.g. § 190), the work is now generally accepted as having been composed not long after December 1656. At that time, it has been established, Browne addressed the Letter to Sir John Pettus on the occasion of Robert Loveday’s death of consumption at the age of thirty-five (see §§ 314–15).]

  Give me leave to wonder that News of this nature should have such heavy Wings, that you should hear so little concerning your dearest Friend, and that I must make that unwilling Repetition to tell you, Ad portam rigidos calces extendit,1 that he
is Dead and Buried, and by this time no Puny among the mighty Nations of the Dead; for tho he left this World not very many days past, yet every hour you know largely addeth unto that dark Society; and considering the incessant Mortality of Mankind, you cannot conceive there dieth in the whole Earth so few as a thousand an hour.

  Altho at this distance you had no early Account or Particular of his Death; yet your Affection may cease to wonder that you had not some secret Sense or Intimation thereof by Dreams, thoughtful Whisperings, Mercurisms, Airy Nuncio’s, or sym-pathetical Insinuations, which many seem to have had at the Death of their dearest Friends: for since we find in that famous Story, that Spirits themselves were fain to tell their Fellows at a distance, that the great Antonio was dead;2 we have a sufficient Excuse for our Ignorance in such Particulars, and must rest content with the common Road, and Appian way of Knowledge by Information. Tho the uncertainty of the End of this World hath confounded all Humane Predictions; yet they who shall live to see the Sun and Moon darkned, and the Stars to fall from Heaven, will hardly be deceived in the Advent of the last Day; and therefore strange it is, that the common Fallacy of consumptive Persons, who feel not themselves dying, and therefore still hope to live, should also reach their Friends in perfect Health and Judgment. That you should be so little acquainted with Plautus’s sick Complexion,3 or that almost an Hippocratical4 Face should not alarum you to higher fears, or rather despair of his Continuation in such an emaciated State, wherein medical Predictions fail not, as sometimes in acute Diseases, and wherein ’tis as dangerous to be sentenced by a Physician as a Judge.