Volume 1

The works of Sir Thomas Browne / edited by Charles Sayle.

  • Browne, Thomas, Sir, 1605-1682.
Date:
1927
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The works of Sir Thomas Browne / edited by Charles Sayle. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Sect. i. Pag. i. ANNOTATIONS UPON RELIGIO MEDICI The Epistle to the READER CERTAINLY that man were greedy of life, who should desire to live when all the World were at an end;] This Mr. Merryweather hath rendred thus; Gupidum esse vitae oportet, qui universo jam expirante mundo vivere cuperet; and well enough: but it is not amiss to remember, that we have this saying in Seneca the Tragcedian, who gives it us thus, Vitae est amdus quisquis non vult mundo secum pereunte mori. There are many things delivered Rhetorically.'] The Author herein imitates the ingenuity of St. Austin, who in his Retract. corrects himself for having delivered some things more like a young Rhetorician than a sound Divine; but though St. Aug. doth deservedly acknowledge it a fault in himself, in that he voluntarily published such things, yet cannot it be so in this Author, in that he intended no publication of it, as he pro- fesseth in this Epistle, and in that other to Sir Kenelm Digby. THE FIRST PART THE general scandal of my Profession.] Physitians (of the number whereof it appears by several passages in this Book the Author is one) do commonly hear ill in this behalf. It is a common speech (but only amongst the unlearn’d sort) Ubi tres Medici, duo Athei. The reasons why those of that Pro¬ fession (I declare my self that I am none, but Causarum Actor Mediocris, to use Horace his Phrase) may be thought to deserve that censure, the Author rendreth Sect, 19. The natural course of my studies.] The vulgar lay not the imputation of Atheism only upon Physitians, but upon Philo¬ sophers in general, who for that they give themselves to under¬ stand the operations of Nature, they calumniate them, as though they rested in the second causes without any respect to the