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Thomas Browne – religion as passion and pastime, part 1: reason within limits Thomas Browne – religion as passion and pastime, part 1: reason within limits
(4 months later)
One of the major weaknesses of the "new atheism" is that it sometimes fails to understand the lived experience of quiet, happy faith. It is also baffled by the fact that intelligent people, with scientific and scholarly interests, have lived their life without religious doubts, content with what they were taught. The 17th-century writer and mystic Thomas Browne is fascinating for many reasons: for a great prose style, his quirky intelligence, his solid reading and his interest in backing that up with empirical observation – but perhaps for this above all. He is one of the best examples we have of an intelligent, moderate man for whom Anglican belief was not a safe haven after years of intellectual struggle, but the natural home he never felt like leaving.One of the major weaknesses of the "new atheism" is that it sometimes fails to understand the lived experience of quiet, happy faith. It is also baffled by the fact that intelligent people, with scientific and scholarly interests, have lived their life without religious doubts, content with what they were taught. The 17th-century writer and mystic Thomas Browne is fascinating for many reasons: for a great prose style, his quirky intelligence, his solid reading and his interest in backing that up with empirical observation – but perhaps for this above all. He is one of the best examples we have of an intelligent, moderate man for whom Anglican belief was not a safe haven after years of intellectual struggle, but the natural home he never felt like leaving.
​Around Browne, civil wars raged, kings were killed and republics overthrown, and yet he managed to lead one of the quietest lives of all important English writers. If, as is sometimes claimed, he was defrauded of part of his inheritance by a wicked uncle, he treated the loss with equanimity. Nothing much happened to him during his travels and medical studies on a continent devastated by the thirty years war; he spent the years of the civil war in a town loyal to parliament but safe for an open but discreet royalist such as him. He lived a productive life and died after a short painful illness that failed entirely to shatter the deep complacent faith and equanimity in which he had lived.​Around Browne, civil wars raged, kings were killed and republics overthrown, and yet he managed to lead one of the quietest lives of all important English writers. If, as is sometimes claimed, he was defrauded of part of his inheritance by a wicked uncle, he treated the loss with equanimity. Nothing much happened to him during his travels and medical studies on a continent devastated by the thirty years war; he spent the years of the civil war in a town loyal to parliament but safe for an open but discreet royalist such as him. He lived a productive life and died after a short painful illness that failed entirely to shatter the deep complacent faith and equanimity in which he had lived.
He did one very bad thing that we know about, one which seems peculiarly inconsistent with his elevation of empirical reason as a partner to faith. He appeared as an expert witness in a witchcraft trial in Bury St Edmunds, and testified that some young girls who, he said, undoubtedly had things medically wrong with them, were also bewitched. He also mentioned reports of a similar case in Denmark. It's been claimed that his testimony swayed the jurors into sending two old women to the gallows, though a town that had been caught up a few years earlier in the murderous frenzy of Matthew Hopkins, witchfinder-general, hardly needed much persuading. In the end, Browne was complicit in judicial murder because he regarded witchcraft as a real thing, because it was in scripture and in the news reports – when we praise his sweet reasonableness, we need to remember its limits.He did one very bad thing that we know about, one which seems peculiarly inconsistent with his elevation of empirical reason as a partner to faith. He appeared as an expert witness in a witchcraft trial in Bury St Edmunds, and testified that some young girls who, he said, undoubtedly had things medically wrong with them, were also bewitched. He also mentioned reports of a similar case in Denmark. It's been claimed that his testimony swayed the jurors into sending two old women to the gallows, though a town that had been caught up a few years earlier in the murderous frenzy of Matthew Hopkins, witchfinder-general, hardly needed much persuading. In the end, Browne was complicit in judicial murder because he regarded witchcraft as a real thing, because it was in scripture and in the news reports – when we praise his sweet reasonableness, we need to remember its limits.
Part of the point of writing his books was that sweet reasonableness: Browne's need to demonstrate that the title of his most famous book, Religio Medici, was not a paradox. He was a doctor caught up in an age of new medical ideas, who saw no inconsistency between empirical observation and faith. This was part of why he saw his remarkably dull life as full of adventure – daily observation of his own inner experiences and the world around him took him near to ecstasy through fascination with the micromanaging operations of divine providence. He was convinced that the Reformation was a good thing and yet regarded papists as fellow Christians caught up in error rather than as enemies – he would rather pray with them when abroad than neglect prayer or Christian charity altogether: "We have reformed from them, not against them." Much of the charm of his account of his religious views comes from his desire to clear away unnecessary rancour from religious discussion because it got in the way.Part of the point of writing his books was that sweet reasonableness: Browne's need to demonstrate that the title of his most famous book, Religio Medici, was not a paradox. He was a doctor caught up in an age of new medical ideas, who saw no inconsistency between empirical observation and faith. This was part of why he saw his remarkably dull life as full of adventure – daily observation of his own inner experiences and the world around him took him near to ecstasy through fascination with the micromanaging operations of divine providence. He was convinced that the Reformation was a good thing and yet regarded papists as fellow Christians caught up in error rather than as enemies – he would rather pray with them when abroad than neglect prayer or Christian charity altogether: "We have reformed from them, not against them." Much of the charm of his account of his religious views comes from his desire to clear away unnecessary rancour from religious discussion because it got in the way.
The point of his Pseudodoxia Epidemica, or Vulgar Errors, was of a similar kind. He wanted to dispense with a lot of commonplace superstitions and the many things people believed in the face of observation because Aristotle had said it was so. From our point of view, the book is full of wonderful bits of forgotten idiocy; from his, it was an affront to reason that people believe that a hunted male beaver would bite off its own balls, or that mother bears licked their offspring from amorphous blobs into cubs.The point of his Pseudodoxia Epidemica, or Vulgar Errors, was of a similar kind. He wanted to dispense with a lot of commonplace superstitions and the many things people believed in the face of observation because Aristotle had said it was so. From our point of view, the book is full of wonderful bits of forgotten idiocy; from his, it was an affront to reason that people believe that a hunted male beaver would bite off its own balls, or that mother bears licked their offspring from amorphous blobs into cubs.
His greatest books are probably the two essays Hydrioptaphia (or Urne-Buriall) and The Garden of Cyrus, in which he considers on one hand the various arrangements that human beings have made for disposing of their remains, and the mortality that such arrangements constantly remind us of; and on the other, the prevalence of quincunx patterns in human designs and living things, and the way that human reason is drawn to God-given symmetry. These are the books in which his sonorous near-musical style becomes rich to a point just this side of incomprehensible lushness:His greatest books are probably the two essays Hydrioptaphia (or Urne-Buriall) and The Garden of Cyrus, in which he considers on one hand the various arrangements that human beings have made for disposing of their remains, and the mortality that such arrangements constantly remind us of; and on the other, the prevalence of quincunx patterns in human designs and living things, and the way that human reason is drawn to God-given symmetry. These are the books in which his sonorous near-musical style becomes rich to a point just this side of incomprehensible lushness:
"The treasures of time lie high, in Urnes, Coynes, and Monuments, scarce below the roots of some vegetables. Time hath endlesse rarities, and shows of all varieties; which reveals old things in heaven, makes new discoveries in earth, and even earth it self a discovery. That great Antiquity America lay buried for a thousand years; and a large part of the earth is still in the Urne unto us."
"The treasures of time lie high, in Urnes, Coynes, and Monuments, scarce below the roots of some vegetables. Time hath endlesse rarities, and shows of all varieties; which reveals old things in heaven, makes new discoveries in earth, and even earth it self a discovery. That great Antiquity America lay buried for a thousand years; and a large part of the earth is still in the Urne unto us."
He loved reason and he loved language and he loved good sense, and this is why he constantly found an audience that includes Samuel Johnson, Edgar Allen Poe and Jorge Luis Borges. We can learn a lot from him – even from the easy acceptance, against his own better angel of reason, of the commonplace belief in witches that sent two old women to hang by the neck until dead.He loved reason and he loved language and he loved good sense, and this is why he constantly found an audience that includes Samuel Johnson, Edgar Allen Poe and Jorge Luis Borges. We can learn a lot from him – even from the easy acceptance, against his own better angel of reason, of the commonplace belief in witches that sent two old women to hang by the neck until dead.
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