The Works of Sir Thomas Browne, Volume 3

Some think there were few Consumptions in the Old World, when Men lived much upon Milk; and that the ancient Inhabitants of this Island were less troubled with Coughs when they went naked, and slept in Caves and Woods, than Men now in Chambers and Feather-beds. Plato will tell us, that there was no such Disease as a Catarrh in Homer’s time, and that it was but new in Greece in his Age. Polydore Virgil delivereth that Pleurisies were rare in England, who lived but in the Days of Henry the Eighth. Some will allow no Diseases to be new, others think that many old ones are ceased and that such which are esteem’d new, will have but their time: However, the Mercy of God hath scatter’d the Great Heap of Diseases, and not loaded any one Country with all: some may be new in one Country which have been old in another. New Discoveries of the Earth discover new Diseases: for besides the common Swarm, there are endemial and local Infirmities proper unto certain Regions, which in the whole Earth make no small Number: and if Asia, Africa, and America should bring in their List, Pandora’s Box would swell, and there must be a strange Pathology.

Most Men expected to find a consumed Kell, empty and bladder-like Guts, livid and marbled Lungs, and a wither’d Pericardium in this exuccous Corps: but some seemed too much to wonder that two Lobes of his Lungs adher’d unto his Side; for the like I had often found in Bodies of no suspected Consumptions or difficulty of Respiration. And the same more often happeneth in Men than other Animals; and some think in Women than in Men; but the most remarkable I have met with, was in a Man, after a Cough of almost fifty Years, in whom all the Lobes adhered unto the Pleura,302 and each Lobe unto another; who having also been much troubled with the Gout, brake the Rule of Cardan,303 and died of the Stone in the Bladder. Aristotle makes a Query, Why some Animals cough, as Man; some not, as Oxen. If Coughing be taken as it consisteth of a natural and voluntary motion, including Expectoration and spitting out, it may be as proper unto Man as bleeding at the Nose; otherwise we find that Vegetius and rural Writers have not left so many Medicines in vain against the Coughs of Cattel; and Men who perish by Coughs die the Death of Sheep, Cats and Lions: and tho' Birds have no Midriff, yet we meet with divers Remedies in Arrianus against the Coughs of Hawks. And tho' it might be thought that all Animals who have Lungs do cough; yet in cetaceous Fishes, who have large and strong Lungs, the same is not observed; nor yet in oviparous Quadrupeds: and in the greatest thereof, the Crocodile, altho' we read much of their Tears, we find nothing of that Motion.

From the Thoughts of Sleep, when the Soul was conceived nearest unto Divinity, the Ancients erected an Art of Divination, wherein while they too widely expatiated in loose and inconsequent Conjectures, Hippocrates304 wisely considered Dreams as they presaged Alterations in the Body, and so afforded hints toward the Preservation of Health, and prevention of Diseases; and therein was so serious as to advise Alteration of Diet, Exercise, Sweating, Bathing and Vomiting; and also so religious, as to order Prayers and Supplications unto respective Deities, in good Dreams unto Sol, Jupiter cœlestis, Jupiter opulentus, Minerva, Mercurius and Apollo; in bad unto Tellus and the Heroes.

And therefore I could not but take notice how his Female Friends were irrationally curious so strictly to examine his Dreams, and in this low State to hope for the Fantasms of Health. He was now past the healthful Dreams of the Sun, Moon and Stars, in their Clarity and proper Courses. 'Twas too late to dream of Flying, of Limpid Fountains, smooth Waters, white Vestments, and fruitful green Trees, which are the Visions of healthful Sleeps, and at good Distance from the Grave.

And they were also too deeply dejected that he should dream of his dead Friends, inconsequently divining, that he would not be long from them; for strange it was not that he should sometimes dream of the dead, whose Thoughts run always upon Death; beside, to dream of the dead, so they appear not in dark Habits, and take nothing away from us, in Hippocrates his Sense was of good Signification: for we live by the dead, and every thing is or must be so before it becomes our Nourishment. And Cardan, who dream’d that he discoursed with his dead Father in the Moon, made thereof no mortal Interpretation: and even to dream that we are dead, was no condemnable Fantasm in old Oneirocriticism, as having a Signification of Liberty, vacuity from Cares, Exemption and Freedom from Troubles unknown unto the dead.

Some Dreams I confess may admit of easie and feminine Exposition; he who dream’d that he could not see his right Shoulder, might easily fear to lose the Sight of his right Eye; he that before a Journey dream’d that his Feet were cut off, had a plain Warning not to undertake his intended Journey. But why to dream of Lettuce should presage some ensuing Disease, why to eat Figs should signifie foolish Talk, why to eat Eggs great Trouble, and to dream of Blindness should be so highly commended, according to the Oneirocritical Verses of Astrampsychus and Nicephorus, I shall leave unto your Divination.

He was willing to quit the World alone and altogether, leaving no Earnest behind him for Corruption or After-grave, having small content in that common Satisfaction to survive or live in another, but amply satisfied that his Disease should die with himself, nor revive in a Posterity to puzzle Physick, and make sad Memento’s of their Parent hereditary. Leprosie awakes not sometimes before forty, the Gout and Stone often later; but consumptive and tabid305 Roots sprout more early, and at the fairest make seventeen Years of our Life doubtful before that Age. They that enter the World with original Diseases as well as Sin, have not only common Mortality but sick Traductions to destroy them, make commonly short Courses, and live not at length but in Figures; so that a sound Cæsarean306 Nativity may out-last a Natural Birth, and a Knife may sometimes make Way for a more lasting Fruit than a Midwife; which makes so few Infants now able to endure the old Test of the River,307 and many to have feeble Children who could scarce have been married at Sparta, and those provident States who studied strong and healthful Generations; which happen but contingently in mere pecuniary Matches, or Marriages made by the Candle, wherein notwithstanding there is little redress to be hoped from an Astrologer or a Lawyer, and a good discerning Physician were like to prove the most successful Counsellor.

Julius Scaliger, who in a sleepless Fit of the Gout could make two hundred Verses in a Night, would have but five308 plain Words upon his Tomb. And this serious Person, tho' no minor Wit, left the Poetry of his Epitaph unto others; either unwilling to commend himself, or to be judg’d by a Distich, and perhaps considering how unhappy great Poets have been in versifying their own Epitaphs: wherein Petrarcha, Dante, and Ariosto, have so unhappily failed, that if their Tombs should outlast their Works, Posterity would find so little of Apollo on them, as to mistake them for Ciceronian Poets.

In this deliberate and creeping Progress unto the Grave, he was somewhat too young, and of too noble a Mind, to fall upon that stupid Symptom observable in divers Persons near their Journey's End, and which may be reckoned among the mortal Symptoms of their last Disease; that is, to become more narrow minded, miserable and tenacious, unready to part with any thing, when they are ready to part with all, and afraid to want when they have no Time to spend; mean while Physicians, who know that many are mad but in a single depraved Imagination, and one prevalent Decipiency; and that beside and out of such single Deliriums a Man may meet with sober Actions and good Sense in Bedlam; cannot but smile to see the Heirs and concern’d Relations, gratulating themselves in the sober Departure of their Friends; and tho' they behold such mad covetous Passages, content to think they die in good Understanding, and in their sober Senses.

Avarice, which is not only Infidelity but Idolatry, either from covetous Progeny or questuary Education, had no Root in his Breast, who made good Works the Expression of his Faith, and was big with Desires unto publick and lasting Charities; and surely where good Wishes and charitable Intentions exceed Abilities, Theorical Beneficency may be more than a Dream. They build not Castles in the Air who would build Churches on Earth; and tho' they leave no such Structures here, may lay good Foundations in Heaven. In brief, his Life and Death were such, that I could not blame them who wished the like, and almost to have been himself; almost, I say; for tho' we may wish the prosperous Appurtenances of others, or to be an other in his happy Accidents; yet so intrinsecal is every Man unto himself, that some doubt may be made, whether any would exchange his Being, or substantially become another Man.

He had wisely seen the World at home and abroad, and thereby observed under what variety Men are deluded in the pursuit of that which is not here to be found. And altho' he had no Opinion of reputed Felicities below, and apprehended Men widely out in the Estimate of such Happiness; yet his sober Contempt of the World wrought no Democratism or Cynicism, no laughing or snarling at it, as well understanding there are not Felicities in this World to satisfy a serious Mind; and therefore to soften the Stream of our Lives, we are fain to take in the reputed Contentations of this World, to unite with the Crowd in their Beatitudes, and to make ourselves happy by Consortion, Opinion, or Co-existimation: for strictly to separate from received and customary Felicities, and to confine unto the Rigor of Realities, were to contract the Consolation of our Beings unto too uncomfortable Circumscriptions.

Not to fear Death,309 nor Desire it, was short of his Resolution: to be dissolved, and be with Christ, was his dying Ditty. He conceived his Thred long, in no long course of Years, and when he had scarce out-liv'd the second Life of Lazarus;310 esteeming it enough to approach the Years of his Saviour, who so order’d his own human State, as not to be old upon Earth.

But to be content with Death may be better than to desire it: a miserable Life may make us wish for Death, but a virtuous one to rest in it; which is the Advantage of those resolved Christians, who looking on Death not only as the Sting, but the Period and End of Sin, the Horizon and Isthmus between this Life and a better, and the Death of this World but as Nativity of another, do contentedly submit unto the common Necessity, and envy not Enoch or Elias.

Not to be content with Life is the unsatisfactory State of those which destroy themselves;311 who being afraid to live, run blindly upon their own Death, which no Man fears by Experience: And the Stoicks had a notable Doctrine to take away the Fear thereof; that is, in such Extremities, to desire that which is not to be avoided, and wish what might be feared; and so made Evils voluntary, and to suit with their own Desires, which took off the Terror of them.

But the ancient Martyrs were not encouraged by such Fallacies; who, tho' they feared not Death, were afraid to be their own Executioners; and therefore thought it more Wisdom to crucify their Lusts than their Bodies, to circumcise than stab their Hearts, and to mortify than kill themselves.

His Willingness to leave this World about that Age, when most men think they may best enjoy it, tho' paradoxical unto worldly Ears, was not strange unto mine, who have so often observed, that many, tho' old, oft stick fast unto the World, and seem to be drawn like Cacus’s Oxen, backward, with great Struggling and Reluctancy unto the Grave. The long Habit of Living makes meer men more hardly to part with Life, and All to be Nothing, but what is to come. To live at the rate of the old World, when some could scarce remember themselves young, may afford no better digested Death than a more moderate Period. Many would have thought it an Happiness to have had their Lot of Life in some notable Conjunctures of Ages past; but the Uncertainty of future Times hath tempted few to make a Part in Ages to come. And surely, he that hath taken the true Altitude of things, and rightly calculated the degenerate State of this Age, is not like to envy those that shall live in the next, much less three or four hundred Years hence, when no Man can comfortably imagine what Face this World will carry: And therefore since every Age makes a Step unto the End of all things, and the Scripture affords so hard a Character of the last Times; quiet Minds will be content with their Generations, and rather bless Ages past, than be ambitious of those to come.

Tho' Age had set no Seal upon his Face, yet a dim Eye might clearly discover Fifty in his Actions; and therefore since Wisdom is the grey Hair, and an unspotted Life old Age; altho' his Years came short he might have been said to have held up with longer Livers, and to have been Solomon’s312 Old Man. And surely if we deduct all those Days of our Life which we might wish unliv’d, and which abate the Comfort of those we now live; if we reckon up only those Days which God hath accepted of our Lives, a Life of good Years will hardly be a Span long: the Son in this Sense may out-live the Father, and none be climacterically old. He that early arriveth unto the Parts and Prudence of Age, is happily old without the uncomfortable Attendants of it; and ’tis superfluous to live unto grey Hairs, when in a precocious Temper we anticipate the Virtues of them. In brief, he cannot be accounted young who out-liveth the old Man. He that hath early arrived unto the measure of a perfect Stature in Christ, hath already fulfilled the prime and longest Intention of his Being: and one Day lived after the perfect Rule of Piety, is to be preferr’d before sinning Immortality.

Altho' he attain’d not unto the Years of his Predecessors, yet he wanted not those preserving Virtues which confirm the Thread of weaker Constitutions. Cautelous Chastity and crafty Sobriety were far from him; those Jewels were Paragon, without Flaw, Hair, Ice, or Cloud in him: which affords me an Hint to proceed in these good Wishes, and few Memento’s unto you.

Tread softly and circumspectly in this funambulous Track, and narrow Path of Goodness: pursue Virtue virtuously; be sober and temperate, not to preserve your Body in a sufficiency to wanton Ends; not to spare your Purse; not to be free from the Infamy of common Transgressors that way, and thereby to ballance or palliate obscure and closer Vices; nor simply to enjoy Health: By all which you may leaven good Actions, and render Virtues disputable: but in one Word, that you may truly serve God; which every Sickness will tell you, you cannot well do without health. The sick Man's Sacrifice is but a lame Oblation. Pious Treasures laid up in healthful Days, excuse the Defect of sick Non-performances; without which we must needs look back with Anxiety upon the lost Opportunities of Health; and may have cause rather to envy than pity the Ends of penitent Malefactors, who go with clear Parts unto the last Act of their Lives; and in the Integrity of their Faculties return their Spirit unto God that gave it.

Consider whereabout thou art in Cebes his Table, or that old philosophical Pinax of the Life of Man; whether thou art still in the Road of Uncertainties; whether thou hast yet entred the narrow Gate, got up the Hill and asperous Way which leadeth unto the House of Sanity, or taken that purifying Potion from the Hand of sincere Erudition, which may send the clear and pure away unto a virtuous and happy Life.

In this virtuous voyage let not Disappointment cause Despondency, nor Difficulty Despair: Think not that you are sailing from Lima313 to Manillia, wherein thou may'st tye up the Rudder, and sleep before the Wind; but expect rough Seas, Flaws, and contrary Blasts; and ’tis well if by many cross Tacks and Veerings thou arrivest at thy Port. Sit not down in the popular Seats, and common Level of Virtues, but endeavour to make them Heroical. Offer not only Peace-Offerings but Holocausts unto God. To serve him singly to serve our selves, were too partial a Piece of Piety, nor likely to place us in the highest Mansions of Glory.

He that is chaste and continent, not to impair his Strength, or terrified by Contagion, will hardly be heroically virtuous. Adjourn not that Virtue unto those Years when Cato could lend out his Wife, and impotent Satyrs write Satyrs against Lust: but be chaste in thy flaming Days, when Alexander dared not trust his Eyes upon the fair Daughters of Darius, and when so many Men think there is no other Way but Origen’s.314

Be charitable before Wealth makes thee covetous, and lose not the Glory of the Mitre. If Riches increase, let thy Mind hold Pace with them; and think it not enough to be liberal, but munificent. Tho' a Cup of cold Water from some hand may not be without its Reward; yet stick not thou for Wine and Oyl for the Wounds of the distressed: and treat the poor as our Saviour did the Multitude, to the Relicks of some Baskets.

Trust not to the Omnipotency of Gold, or say unto it, Thou art my Confidence: kiss not thy Hand when thou beholdest that terrestrial Sun, nor bore thy Ear unto its Servitude. A Slave unto Mammon makes no Servant unto God: Covetousness cracks the Sinews of Faith, numbs the Apprehension of any thing above Sense, and only affected with the Certainty of Things present, makes a Peradventure of things to come; lives but unto one World, nor hopes but fears another; makes our own Death sweet unto others, bitter unto our selves; gives a dry Funeral, Scenical Mourning, and no wet Eyes at the Grave.

If Avarice be thy Vice, yet make it not thy Punishment: Miserable Men commiserate not themselves, bowelless unto themselves, and merciless unto their own Bowels. Let the Fruition of things bless the Possession of them, and take no Satisfaction in dying but living rich: for since thy good Works, not thy Goods, will follow thee; since Riches are an Appurtenance of Life, and no dead Man is rich, to famish in Plenty, and live poorly to die rich, were a multiplying Improvement in Madness, and Use upon Use in Folly.

Persons lightly dip’d, not grain’d in generous Honesty, are but pale in Goodness, and faint hued in Sincerity: but be thou what thou virtuously art, and let not the Ocean wash away thy Tincture: stand magnetically upon that Axis where prudent Simplicity hath fix’d thee, and let no Temptation invert the Poles of thy Honesty: and that Vice may be uneasie, and even monstrous unto thee, let iterated good Acts, and long confirm’d Habits make Vertue natural, or a second Nature in thee. And since few or none prove eminently vertuous but from some advantageous Foundations in their Temper, and natural Inclinations; study thy self betimes, and early find what Nature bids thee to be, or tells thee what thou may'st be. They who thus timely descend into themselves, cultivating the good Seeds which Nature hath set in them, and improving their prevalent Inclinations to Perfection, become not Shrubs, but Cedars in their Generation; and to be in the form of the best of the Bad, or the worst of the Good, will be no Satisfaction unto them.

Let not the Law of thy Country be the non ultra of thy Honesty, nor think that always good enough which the Law will make good. Narrow not the Law of Charity, Equity, Mercy; joyn Gospel Righteousness with Legal Right; be not a meer Gamaliel in the Faith; but let the Sermon in the Mount be thy Targum unto the Law of Sinai.

Make not the Consequences of Vertue the Ends thereof: be not beneficent for a Name or Cymbal of Applause, nor exact and punctual in Commerce, for the Advantages of Trust and Credit which attend the Reputation of just and true Dealing; for such Rewards, tho' unsought for, plain Vertue will bring with her, whom all Men honour, tho' they pursue not. To have other bye Ends in good Actions, sowers laudable Performances, which must have deeper Roots, Motions, and Instigations, to give them the Stamp of Vertues.

Tho' human Infirmity may betray thy heedless Days into the popular Ways of Extravagancy, yet let not thine own Depravity, or the Torrent of vicious Times, carry thee into desperate Enormities in Opinions, Manners, or Actions: if thou hast dip’d thy Foot in the River, yet venture not over Rubicon; run not into Extremities from whence there is no Regression, nor be ever so closely shut up within the Holds of Vice and Iniquity, as not to find some Escape by a Postern of Resipiscency.

Owe not thy Humility unto Humiliation by Adversity, but look humbly down in that State when others look upward upon thee: be patient in the Age of Pride and Days of Will and Impatiency, when Men live but by Intervals of Reason, under the Sovereignty of Humor and Passion, when ’tis in the Power of every one to transform thee out of thy self, and put thee into the short Madness. If you cannot imitate Job, yet come not short of Socrates,315 and those patient Pagans, who tir’d the Tongues of their Enemies while they perceiv’d they spet their Malice at brazen Walls and Statues.

Let Age, not Envy, draw Wrinkles on thy Cheeks: be content to be envied, but envy not. Emulation may be plausible, and Indignation allowable; but admit no Treaty with that Passion which no Circumstance can make good. A Displacency at the Good of others, because they enjoy it, altho' we do not want it, is an absurd Depravity, sticking fast unto human Nature from its primitive Corruption; which he that can well subdue, were a Christian of the first Magnitude, and for ought I know, may have one Foot already in Heaven.

While thou so hotly disclaim'st the Devil, be not guilty of Diabolism; fall not into one Name with that unclean Spirit, nor act his Nature whom thou so much abhorrest; that is, to accuse, calumniate, backbite, whisper, detract, or sinistrously interpret others; degenerous Depravities and narrow-minded Vices, not only below S. Paul’s noble Christian, but Aristotle’s316 true Gentleman. Trust not with some, that the Epistle of S. James is Apocryphal, and so read with less Fear that Stabbing Truth, that in company with this Vice thy Religion is in vain. Moses broke the Tables without breaking of the Law; but where Charity is broke the Law it self is shatter’d, which cannot be whole without Love, that is the fulfilling of it. Look humbly upon thy Vertues, and tho' thou art rich in some, yet think thy self poor and naked, without that crowning Grace, which thinketh no Evil, which envieth not, which beareth, believeth, hopeth, endureth all things. With these sure Graces, while busie Tongues are crying out for a Drop of cold Water, Mutes may be in Happiness, and sing the Trisagium317 in Heaven.

Let not the Sun in Capricorn go down upon thy Wrath, but Write thy Wrongs in Water: draw the Curtain of Night upon Injuries; shut them up in the Tower of Oblivion,318 and let them be as tho' they had not been. Forgive thine Enemies totally, and without any Reserve of Hope, that however, God will revenge thee.

Be substantially great in thy self, and more than thou appearest unto others; and let the World be deceived in thee, as they are in the Lights of Heaven. Hang early Plummets upon the Heels of Pride, and let Ambition have but an Epicyche or narrow Circuit in thee. Measure not thy self by thy Morning Shadow, but by the Extent of thy Grave; and reckon thy self above the Earth by the Line thou must be contented with under it. Spread not into boundless Expansions either to Designs or Desires. Think not that Mankind liveth but for a few, and that the rest are born but to serve the Ambition of those, who make but Flies of Men, and Wildernesses of whole Nations. Swell not into Actions which embroil and confound the Earth; but be one of those violent ones which force the Kingdom of Heaven.319 If thou must needs reign, be Zeno, King, and enjoy that Empire which every Man gives himself. Certainly, the iterated Injunctions of Christ unto Humility, Meekness, Patience, and that despised Train of Vertues, cannot but make pathetical Impressions upon those who have well consider’d the Affairs of all Ages, wherein Pride, Ambition, and Vain glory, have led up the worst of Actions, and whereunto Confusion, Tragedies, and Acts denying all Religion, do owe their Originals.