281 NOTES ON SIR THOMAS BROWNE'S GARDEN OF CYRUS, OR THE QUINCUNCIAL, ETC., PLANTATIONS OF THE Chap. iii. That bodies are first spirits, Paracelsus could affirm, &c. Effects purely relative from properties merely comparative, such as edge, point, grater, &c., are not proper qualities: for they are indifferently producible ab extra, by grinding, &c., and ab intra, from growth. In the latter instance, they suppose qualities as their antecedents. Now, therefore, since qualities cannot proceed from quantity, but quantity from quality,and as matter opposed to spirit is shape by modification of extension, or pure quantity,-Paracelsus's dictum is defensible. Ibid. The æquivocall production of things, under undiscerned principles, makes a large part of generation, &c. Written before Harvey's ab ovo omnia. Since his work, and Leuwenhoek's Microscopium, the question is settled in physics; but whether in metaphysics, is not quite so clear. Chap. iv. And mint growing in glasses of water, until it arriveth at the weight of an ounce, in a shady place, will sometimes exhaust a pound of water. How much did Browne allow for evaporation? Ibid. Things entering upon the intellect by a pyramid from without, and thence into the memory by another from within, the common decussation being in the understanding, &c. This nearly resembles Kant's intellectual mechanique. The Platonists held three knowledges of God; -first, Tapovσía, his own incommunicable selfcomprehension; second, кarà vóŋow-by pure mind, unmixed with the sensuous;-third, κar' Toτýμη-by discursive intelligential act. Thus a Greek philosopher:-τοὺς ἐπιστημονικούς λόγους μύθους ἡγήσεται συνοῦσα τῷ πατρὶ καὶ συνεστιωμένη ἡ ψυχὴ ἐν τῇ ἀληθείᾳ τοῦ ὄντος, καὶ ἐν αὐτῇ καθαρα. -Those notions of God which we attain by processes of intellect, the soul will consider as mythological allegories, when it exists in union with the Father, and is feasting with him in the truth of very being, and in the pure, unmixed, absolutely simple and elementary, splendour. Thus expound Exod. c. xxxiii. v. 10. And he said, thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live. By the "face of God," Moses meant the idéa voŋTEкn, which God declared incompatible with human life, it implying ἐπαφὴ τοῦ νοητοῦ, or contact with the pure spirit. 283 NOTES ON SIR THOMAS BROWNE'S VULGAR ERRORS. DR. PRIMROSE, Address to the Reader. Is not this the same person as the physician mentioned by Mrs. Hutchinson in her Memoirs of her husband? Book I. Chap. viii. Sect. 1. The veracity and credibility of Herodotus have increased and increase with the increase of our discoveries. Several of his relations deemed fabulous, have been authenticated within the last thirty years from this present 1808. Ibid. Sect. 2. Sir John Mandevill left a book of travels :-herein he often attesteth the fabulous relations of Ctesias. Many, if not most, of these Ctesian fables in Sir J. Mandevill were monkish interpolations. Ibid. Sect. 13. Cardanus-is of singular use unto a prudent reader; but unto him that only desireth hoties, or to replenish his head with varieties,-he may become no small occasion of error. Hoties-ÕTLES-" whatevers," that is, whatever is written, no matter what, true or false,-omniana ; "all sorts of varieties," as a dear young lady once said to me. Ibid. Chap. ix. If Heraclitus with his adherents will hold the sun is no bigger than it appeareth. It is not improbable that Heraclitus meant merely to imply that we perceive only our own sensations, and they of course are what they are;—that the image of the sun is an appearance, or sensation in our eyes, and, of course, an appearance can be neither more nor less than what it appears to be ;that the notion of the true size of the sun is not an image, or belonging either to the sense, or to the sensuous fancy, but is an imageless truth of the understanding obtained by intellectual deductions. He could not possibly mean what Sir T. B. supposes him to have meant; for if he had believed the sun to be no more than a mile distant from us, every tree and house must have shown its absurdity. In the following books I have endeavoured, whereever the author himself is in a vulgar error, as far as my knowledge extends, to give in the margin, either the demonstrated discoveries, or more probable opinions, of the present natural philosophy;-so that, independently of the entertainingness of the thoughts and tales, and the force and splendour of Sir Thomas Browne's diction and manner, you may at once learn from him the history of human fancies and superstitions, both when he detects them, and when he himself falls into them,—and from my notes, the real truth of things, or, at least, the highest degree of probability, at which human research has hitherto arrived. Book II. Chap. i. Production of crystal. Cold is the attractive or astringent power, comparatively uncounteracted by the dilative, the diminution of which is the proportional increase of the contractive. Hence the astringent, or power of negative magnetism, is the proper agent in cold, and the contractive, or oxygen, an allied and consequential power. Crystallum, non ex aquá, sed ex substantiâ metallorum communi confrigeratum dico. As the equator, or mid point of the equatorial hemispherical line, is to the centre, so water is to gold. Hydrogen is to the electrical azote, as azote to the magnetic hydrogen. Ibid. Crystal-will strike fire-and upon collision with steel send forth its sparks, not much inferiourly to a flint. It being, indeed, nothing else but pure flint. Ibid. Chap. iii. And the magick thereof (the lodestone) is not safely to be believed, which was delivered by Orpheus, that sprinkled with water it will upon a question emit a voice not much unlike an infant. That is to the twin counterforces of the magnetic power, the equilibrium of which is revealed in magnetic iron, as the substantial, add the twin counterforces or positive and negative poles of the electrical power, the indifference of which is realised in water, as the superficial-(whence Orpheus employed the term 'sprinkled,' or rather affused or superfused)— and you will hear the voice of infant nature ;-that |