Thomas Browne

“ In vain we seek to satisfy our souls in narrow theories close apprehensions of the divine essence even from the revealed world, since we have an happy sufficency in our own natures to apprehend the will & pleasure of God delivered in holy scripture: it being neither our concern nor capacity to comprehend or reach his nature. the divine revelation in such points being not framed unto intellectuals of earth. Even the best of creatures have enough to admire in their higher created natures. Admiration being the act of the creature & not of God, who doth not admire himself. ”

“ Whether Noah might not be the first man that compassed the globe, since if the flood covered the whole earth & no lands appeared to hinder the current he must be carried with the wind & current according to the sun & so in the space of the deluge might near make the tour of the globe. And since if there were no continent of America and all that tract a sea, a ship setting out from Africa without other help would at last fall upon some part of India or China. ”

“ Petrus of Abano and Alexander of Aphrodisias have annotated the Problems of Aristotle industriously; better still Petrus Septalius, a physician of great fame.But while, in a less liberal spirit and not tainted with the new philosophy, he expounds almost everything to the philosopher's mind, often and often he hardly gets to the point and does not satisfy a spirit eager for truth. ”

“ Concerning the too nice curiosity of censuring the Present, or judging into Future Dispensations We have enough to do rightly to apprehend and consider things as they are, or have been, without amusing ourselves how they might have been otherwise, or what variations, consequences, and differences might have otherwise arisen upon a different face of things, if they had otherwise fallen out in the state or actions of the world. ”

“ Fear of discovery not single ingenuity makes quotations rather than transcriptions, of which not withstanding the plagarism of many, holds little consideration, whereof though great authors may complain small ones cannot but take notice. ”

“ If things were seen as they are the beauty of bodies would be much abridged & therefore the wisedom of God hath drawn the pictures outsides of things softly & amiably unto the natural edge of our eyes, not able to discover those lovely asperities which make oystershells in good faces & hedgehogs even in Venus moles. ”

“ In ancient time we read of many possessed & probably there are many still, but the common cry & general opinion of witches hath confounded that of possession, men salving such strange effects from veneficial agents & out of the party suffering. Many strange things have been done beyond the salvo of human reason which might proceed as well from possession as venefication. ”

“ If in the Terraqueous globe all that now is land were sea & all that is sea were land to discover what diferences there would be in all things as to the constitution of climes, tides, navigation, & many other considerables. ”

“ Many things are casually or favourably superadded unto the best Authors and sometimes conceits and expressions common unto them with others, and that not by imitation but coincidence, and concurrence of imagination upon harmony of production. ”

“ Who will not commend the wit of Astrology? Venus born out of the sea hath her exaltation in Pisces. ”

“ Could we intimately apprehend the ideated man and as it primitively stood in the intellect of God upon the first exertion by creation, we might more narrowly apprehend our degeneration;& how widely we are fallen from the pure exemplar Idea of ourselves. ”

“ When God commanded Abraham to look up to heaven & number the stars thereof, that he extraordinarily enlarged his sight to behold the host of heaven & the innumerable heap of stars which Telescopes how show unto us, some men might be persuaded to believe. Who can think that when tis said that the blood of Abel cried from heaven , Abel fell a-bleeding at the sight of Cain according to the observation of men slain to bled at the presence of the murder. ”

“ Aristotle who seems to have borrowed many things from Hippocrates; in the most favourable acception makes mention but once of him, & that by the by & without reference unto his doctrine. Virgil so much beholding unto Homer hath not his name in his works, & Pliny that seems to borrow many authors out of Dioscorides hath taken no notice of him. Men are still content to plume themselves with others feathers. ”

“ If the man in the gospel had now lived who would not have said he had been bewitched which few or none might then suspect; Or who now sayeth that Saul was bewitched. Many examples may occur of the like nature amongst us wherein whether possession be not sometimes mistaken for venefication may well be considered. ”

“ We are no way doubtful that there are witches, but have not always been satisfied in the applications of their witchcrafts or whether the parties accused or suffering have been guilty of that abomination, or persons under such affliction suffered from such hands. ”

“ A note on Hippocrates from reading Plutarch's Life of Julius Caesar
50. There fell a pestilent disease among them which came by ill meats which hunger drove them to eat. But after he had taken the city of Gomphes in Thessaly he met not only with plenty of victuals, but strangely did rid them of that disease; for the soldiers meeting with plenty of wine drank hard & making merry drove away the infection of the pestilence, in so much that drinking drunk they overcame their disease & made their bodies new again. ”

“ Whether the Ancients were better Architects than their successors many discourses have passed. That they were not only good builders, but expedient & skilful demolishers, appears by the famous palace of Publicola which they pulled down & razed to the ground by his order in one day. ”

“ We consider not sufficiently the good of evils nor fairly compute the mercy of providence in things that are afflictive at first hand. The famous Andreas D'Oria invited to a feast by Aloisio Fieschi with intent to dispatch him fell opportunely into a fit of the gout & so escaped that mischief. ”

“ Truth & falsehood hang almost equilibrously in some assertions and a few grains of truth which bear down the balance.
13. To begin our discourses like Trismegistus of old with verum certe atque verissimum est. would sound arrogantly unto new ears, in this strict enquiry of things, wherein for the most part, probably and perhaps will hardly serve the turn or mollify the spirits of positive contradictors.
14. If Cardan says that a parrot is a beautiful bird, Scaliger will set his wits on work to prove it a deformed animal. The compage of things is not to close as not to admit of object. ”

“ Thus it is not strange that Homer should Hebraise and that many sentences in human Authors seem to have their original in Scripture. In a piece of mine published long ago the learned Commentator hath paralled many passages with other of Montaignes essays, whereas to deal clearly, when I penned that piece I had never read three leaves of that Author, and scarce any more ever since.
9. One life suffereth too long for the iniquities thereof; one life is sufficient for the anguish therof if we live no better the life &c. ”

“ When Cato intended to kill himself, with a blow which he gave his servant that would not bring him his sword, his hands so swelled that he had much ado to effect it whereby any but a resolved stoic might have taken a hint of consideration & that some merciful genius would have contrived his preservation. ”