Religio medici with Observations thereon / by Sir Kenelm Digby. To which is added, Hydriotaphia, or Urn-burial, a discourse on sepulchral urns; and also Christian morals ; by Sir Thomas Browne.

  • Browne, Thomas, Sir, 1605-1682.
Date:
1848
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Religio medici with Observations thereon / by Sir Kenelm Digby. To which is added, Hydriotaphia, or Urn-burial, a discourse on sepulchral urns; and also Christian morals ; by Sir Thomas Browne. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    titude of heads that do deny traduction, having no other argument to confirm their belief, than that rhetorical sentence, and antimetathesis of Augus- tine, Creando infunditur, infundendo creatur. Either opinion will consist well enough with religion ; yet I should rather incline to this, did not one ob- jection haunt me, not wrung from speculations and subtleties, but from common sense and observation; not picked from the leaves of any author, but bred amongst the weeds and tares of mine own brain. And this is a conclusion from the equivocal and monstrous productions in the copulation of a man with a beast; for if the soul of man be not trans- mitted, and transfused in the seed of the parents, why are not those productions merely beasts, but have also an impression and tincture of reason in as high a measure, as it can evidence itself in those improper organs P Nor truly can I peremptorily deny, that the soul in this, her sublunary estate, is wholly, and in all acceptions inorganical; but that, for the performance of her ordinary actions, there is required not only a symmetry and proper disposi- tion of organs, but a crasis and temper correspon- dent to its operations. Yet is not this mass of flesh and visible structure the instrument and proper corps of the soul, but rather of sense, and that the hand of reason. In our study of anatomy there is a mass of mysterious philosophy, and such as re- duced the very heathens to divinity; yet amongst all those rare discourses, and curious pieces I find his who taught how, on the top of arid mountains, artificial springs might be made. (Bacon Sylva Sylvarum. 1.25.)—Ed.