Pseudodoxia epidemica, or, Enquiries into very many received tenents, and commonly presumed truths / By Thomas Brown Dr. of Physick.

  • Thomas Browne
Date:
1658
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Pseudodoxia epidemica, or, Enquiries into very many received tenents, and commonly presumed truths / By Thomas Brown Dr. of Physick. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    11/572
    TO THE READER. )u!d Truth difpenfe, wc could be content, with Plato that Knowledge were but Re¬ membrance; that Intelle&ual acquHition were but reminifcentia! evocation, and new Imprefsions but thecolourifhing of old (lamps which flood pale in the foul before. For what isworfe, knowledge is made by oblivion, and to purchafea clear and warrantable body of Truth, we muft forget and part with much we know. Our tender Enquiries taking up Learning at large, and-together with true and allured notions, receiving many, wherein our re¬ viewing judgements do find no fatisfa&ion. And therefore in this Encyclopedic and round of Know led g, like the great and exemplary wheels of Heaven, we muft ohferve two Circles: that while we are daily car¬ ried about, and whirled on by the fwing and rapt of the one, we may maintain a natural and proper courfe? in the (low and fober wheel of the other. And this we fl ail more readily perform, if we timely furvey our knowledge; impa'tialJy ftngling out thofe encroach- m nts, which junior compliance and popular creduli- tv hath admitted. Whereof at prefent we have en¬ deavoured a long and ferious advif@ propofing not only a large and copious. Lift, but from experience, and rcafon attempting their decisions. And ftift we crave exceeding pardon in the audacity :• r •> - i °s
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3