Excerpts from Thomas Browne’s Religio Medici
To the Reader
"Certainly that man were greedy of life, who should desire to live when all the world were at an end; and he must needs be very impatient, who would repine(i.e. worry, brood; complain) at death in the societie of all things that suffer under it. Had not almost every man suffered by the presse(i.e. printing press; publishers); or were not the tyranny thereof become universall; I had not wanted(i.e. lack) reason for complaint."
The First Part.
Sect. 3.
"I could never heard the Ave Marie Bell(i.e. A Church Bell that tolls every day directed to the Virgin) without an elevation, or thinke it a sufficient warrant, because they erred in one circumstance(i.e. The Catholics worshipped Virgin Mary, while Browne, as a Protestant did not), for me to erre in all, that is in silence and dumbe contempt; whilst therefore they directed their devotions to her, I offered mine to God, and rectified the errours of their prayers by rightly ordering mine owne;"
Sect. 5.
"In briefe, where the Scripture is silent, the Church is my Text; where that speakes, 'tis but my Comment(繆哲譯：聖經沉默之處，教會是我的經文；聖經有言之處，教會只是詮釋); where there is a joynt silence of both, I borrow not the rules of my Religion from Rome or Geneva, but the dictates of my own reason."
Sect. 6.
"I could never divide my selfe from any man upon the difference of an opinion, or be angry with his judgement for not agreeing with mee in that, from which perhaps within a few dayes I should dissent my selfe... I must confesse my greener studies have beene polluted with two or three(i.e. heresies), not any begotten in the latter Centuries(i.e. his later life), but old and obsolete, such as could never have been revived, but by such extravagant and irregular heads as mine; for indeed Heresies perish not with their Authors, but like the River Arethusa,* though they lose their currents in one place, they rise up againe in another: one generall Councell is not able to extirpate one single Heresie, it may be canceld for the present, but revolution of time and the like aspects from Heaven, will restore it, when it will flourish till it be condemned againe; for as though there were a Metempsuchosis轉世, and the soule of one man passed into another; opinions doe finde, after certaine revolutions, men and mindes like those that first begat them. To see our selves againe wee neede not looke for Platoes yeare**: every man is not onely himselfe; there have beene many Diogenes, and as many Timons(i.e. a legendary Athenien misanthrope), though but few of(i.e. bear) that name; men are lived over againe; the world is now as it was in ages past; there was none then(i.e. none the world as it is now then), but there hath been some one since that parallels(i.e. corresponds; or emulates due to perceiving) him, and is as it were his revived selfe."
*A nymph who was pursued by the river god Alpheus, fled from her home in Arcadia beneath the sea and came up as a fresh water fountain on the island of Ortygia in Syracuse, Sicily.
**Browne's own note: A revolution of certaine thousand yeares when all things should returne unto their former estate and he(i.e. Plato) be teaching againe in his schoole as when he delivered this opinion.
Sect. 7.
"A serious reflex(i.e. reflection) upon my owne unworthinesse did make me backward from challenging this prerogative of my soule; so I might enjoy my Saviour at the last, I could with patience be nothing almost unto(i.e. until) eternity.(繆哲譯：我材朽質穢；每念及此，未嘗不心存疑懼，不敢懷疑自己靈魂的這一特權。所以，假如末日來臨時，我可以得見我的救世主，那麼在永生之前，我甘願成為虛無。)"
"These opinions I never maintained with pertinacity, or endeavoured to enveagle(i.e. inveigle; coax) any mans beliefe unto mine, nor so much as ever revealed or disputed them with my dearest friends; by which meanes I neither propagated them in others, nor confirmed them in my selfe, but suffering them to flame upon their own substance, without addition of new fuell, they went out insensibly of themselves... Those have not only depraved understandings but diseased affections, which cannot enjoy a singularity without a Heresie, or be the author of an opinion, without they be of a Sect also; this was the villany of the first Schisme of Lucifer, who was not content to erre alone, but drew into his faction many Legions of Spirits; and upon this experience hee tempted only Eve, as well understanding the communicable nature of sin, and that to deceive but one, was tacitely and upon consequence to delude them both."
Sect. 9.
"As for those wingy mysteries in Divinity, and ayery(i.e. airy) subtilties in Religion, which have unhindg'd(i.e. unhinge; unsettle) the braines of better heads, they never stretched the Pia Mater(i.e. brain; mind) of mine; me thinkes there be not impossibilities enough in Religion for an active faith; the deepest mysteries ours containes, have not only been illustrated, but maintained by syllogisme, and the rule of reason: (while) I love to lose my selfe in a mystery to pursue my reason to an oh altitudo(i.e. spiritual exaltation). 'Tis my solitary recreation to pose my apprehension with those involved ænigma's(i.e. enigma) and riddles of the Trinity, with Incarnation and Resurrection. I can answer all the objections of Satan, and my rebellious reason, with that odde resolution I learned of Tertullian(i.e. an early Christian author),
'Certum est quia impoßibile est.' (i.e. it is true because it is impossible).
I desire to exercise my faith in the difficultest point, for to credit ordinary and visible objects is not faith, but perswasion(i.e. by facts). Some beleeve the better for seeing Christ his Sepulchre石墓, and when they have seene the Red Sea, doubt not of the miracle. Now contrarily I blesse my selfe, and am thankefull that I lived not in the dayes of miracles, that I never saw Christ nor his Disciples; I would not have beene one of those Israelites that passed the Red Sea, nor one of Christs Patients, on whom he wrought his wonders; then had my faith beene thrust upon me, nor should I enjoy that greater blessing pronounced to all that believe & saw not. 'Tis an easie and necessary beliefe to credit what our eye and sense hath examined: (Yet) I believe he was dead, and buried, and rose againe(i.e. even without seeing); and desire to see him in his glory, rather then(i.e. than) to contemplate him in his Cenotaphe(碑記。按：此句道得深沉), or Sepulchre. Nor is this much to beleeve(i.e. nor could this be counted as 'believe'), as we have reason(i.e. historical evidences), we owe this faith unto History: they only had the advantage of a bold and noble faith, who lived before his(i.e. Christ) comming, who upon obscure prophesies and mysticall Types(i.e. symbol) could raise a beliefe, and expect apparent impossibilities.*"
*Browne在《瓮葬》（Hydriotaphia）第四章裏，亦曾就此表達過相近的見解，可作參照："...all or most apprehensions rested in Opinions of some future being(i.e. afterlife), which ignorantly or coldly beleeved, begat those perverted conceptions, Ceremonies, Sayings, which Christians pity or laugh at. Happy are they(i.e. the Christians), which live not in that disadvantage of time, when men could say little for futurity, but from reason(i.e. pagan reason). Whereby the noblest mindes fell often upon doubtfull deaths, and melancholy Dissolutions; With these hopes Socrates warmed his doubtfull spirits, against that cold potion, and Cato before he durst(i.e. dare) give the fatall stroak(i.e. stroke) spent part of the night in reading the immortality of Plato, thereby confirming his wavering hand unto the animosity of that attempt."
Sect. 10.
"where there is an obscurity too deepe for our reason, 'tis good to set downe with a description, periphrasis(i.e. an indirect and circumlocutory phrase), or adumbration(i.e. hint, sketch; to foreshadow vaguely); for by acquainting our reason how unable it is to display the visible and obvious effect of nature, it becomes more humble and submissive unto the subtilties of faith: and thus I teach my haggard and unreclaimed reason to stoope unto the lure of faith. I believe there was already a tree whose fruit our unhappy parents tasted, though in the same Chapter, when God forbids it, 'tis positively said, the plants of the field were not yet growne; for God had not caused it to raine upon the Earth. I beleeve that the Serpent (if we shall literally understand it) from his proper forme and figure, made his motion on his belly before the curse. I find the triall of the Pucellage(i.e. chastity) and Virginity of women, which God ordained the Jewes, is very fallible(i.e. 'If any man take a wife... and bring up an evil name upon her, and say, I took this woman, and when I came to her, I found her not a maid: Then shall the father of the damsel... take and bring forth the tokens of the damsel's virginity unto the elders of the city in the gate:', Deuteronomy 22:13-15). Experience, and History informes me, that not onely many particular women, but likewise whole Nations have escaped the curse of childbirth, which God seemes to pronounce upon the whole Sex(i.e. 'I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children;', Genesis 3:16); yet doe I beleeve that all this is true, which indeed my reason would perswade me to be false; and this I think is no vulgar part of faith to believe a thing not only above, but contrary to reason, and against the arguments of our proper senses."
Sect. 11.
"Time we may comprehend, 'tis but five days elder then our selves(i.e. God created Time on the first day, and man on the sixth),"
"God hath not made a creature that can comprehend him, 'tis the priviledge of his owne nature; I am that I am, was his owne definition unto Moses... indeed he only is, all others have and shall be, but in eternity there is no distinction of Tenses; and therefore that terrible terme Predestination, which hath troubled so many weake heads to conceive, and the wisest to explaine, is in respect to God no prescious(i.e. prescient; foreknowing) determination of our estates to come, but a definitive blast of his will already fulfilled(繆譯「即令即行」), and at the instant that he first decreed it;"
Sect. 13.
"Wisedome is his most beauteous attribute, no man can attaine unto it, yet Solomon pleased God when hee desired it(i.e. 'Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and bad: for who is able to judge this thy so great a people? And the speech pleased the LORD, that Solomon had asked this thing.', 1 Kings 9-10)."
"Hee is wise because hee knowes all things, and hee knoweth all things because he made them all, but his greatest knowledg is in comprehending that he made not, that is himselfe. And this is also the greatest knowledge in man. For this do I honour my own profession and embrace the counsell even of the Devill himselfe: had he(i.e. God?! Or did he just mean Christians in general?) read such a Lecture in Paradise as hee did at Delphos(i.e. know thyself), we had better knowne our selves, nor had we stood in feare to know him."
"my humble speculations have another Method, and are content to trace and discover those expressions hee hath left in his creatures, and the obvious effects of nature(繆譯：我的鄙陋之心，卻別有所趨，我甘於訪求上帝留在造物身上的指痕，和自然的形跡。);"
"Search while thou wilt, and let thy reason goe
To ransome(i.e. redeem) truth even to the Abysse below.
Rally the scattered causes, and that line
Which nature twists be able to untwine.
It is thy Makers will, for unto none
But unto reason can he ere be knowne.
...
Teach my endeavours so thy workes to read,
That learning them, in thee I may proceed.
Give thou my reason(i.e. give me thy reason) that instructive flight,
Whose weary wings may on thy hands still light.
Teach me to soare aloft, yet ever so,
When neare the Sunne, to stoope againe below.
Thus shall my humble feathers safely hover,
And though neere earth, more then the heavens discover.
And then at last, when holmeward I shall drive
Rich with the spoyles(i.e. spoils; goods, prizes) of nature to my hive,
There will I sit, like that industrious flye,
Buzzing thy prayses, which shall never die
Till death abrupts them, and succeeding glory
Bid me goe on in a more lasting story."
"for if not he that sayeth Lord, Lord; but he that doth the will of the Father shall be saved('Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.', Matthew 7:21); certainely our wills must bee our performances, and our intents make out our actions; otherwise our pious labours shall finde anxiety in their graves, and our best endeavours not hope, but feare a resurrection."
Sect. 17.
"All cannot be happy at once, for because the glory of one State depends upon the ruine of another,"
Sect. 18.
"'tis we that are blind, not fortune:"
"To wiser desires 'tis satisfaction enough to deserve, though not to enjoy the favours of fortune; let providence provide for fooles: 'tis not partiality, but equity in God, who deales with us but as our naturall parents; those that are able of body and mind, he leaves to their deserts; to those of weaker merits hee imparts a larger portion, and pieces out the defect of one by the excesse of the other. Thus have wee no just quarrell with Nature, for leaving us naked, or to envie the hornes, hoofs, skins, and furs of other creatures, (as) being provided with reason, that can supply them all."
"Those that hold that all things were governed by fortune had not erred, had they not persisted there:"
Sect. 25.
"for the Turke... if hee fall asunder there may be conceived hopes(i.e. of conversion)... The Jew is obstinate in all fortunes; the persecution of fifteene hundred yeares hath but confirmed them in their errour: they have already endured whatsoever may be inflicted, and have suffered, in a bad cause, even to the condemnation(i.e. sympathy) of their enemies. Persecution is a bad and indirect way to plant Religion; It hath beene the unhappy(i.e. unfortunate) method of angry devotions, not onely to confirme honest Religion, but wicked Heresies, and extravagant opinions."
"'Tis not in the power of every honest faith to proceed thus farre, or passe to Heaven through the flames; every one hath it not in that full measure, nor in so audacious and resolute a temper, as to endure those terrible tests and trialls, who notwithstanding in a peaceable way doe truely adore their Saviour, and have (no doubt) a faith acceptable in the eyes of God."
Sect. 26.
"I would not perish upon a Ceremony, Politick points, or indifferency(繆譯：我絕不捨命於某種儀式、政治觀點、或無謂的瑣事); nor is my beleefe of that untractable(stubborn; unmanageable) temper, as not to bow at their obstacles, or connive默許 at matters wherein there are not manifest impieties: The leaven酵母 therefore and ferment of all, not onely Civill, but Religious actions, is wisedome; without which, to commit our selves to the flames is... but to passe through one fire into another(繆譯：沒有智慧而投身於火……只怕是穿過了一片大火，復落於另一片大火)."
Sect. 29.
"And truely since I have understood the occurrences of the world, and know in what counterfeit shapes & deceitfull vizzards(i.e. mask; disguise) times present represent on the stage things past; I doe beleeve them little more than things to come."
"Some have beene of my opinion(i.e. 和我有相同想法), and endevoured to write the History of their own Lives; wherein Moses hath outgone them all, and left not onely the story of his life, but as some will have it of his death also(一笑。『摩西五書』中的《申命記》有記述到摩西的死，詳見Deuteronomy 34:5-8)."
Sect. 33.
"Now if you demand my opinion and Metaphysicks of their(i.e. Angels) natures, I confesse them very shallow, most of them in a negative way, like that of God(繆譯：多數是以否定形式表述的，如同我對上帝的看法那樣);"
Sect. 37.
“Now for these wals(i.e. walls) of flesh... it is nothing but an elementall composition, and a fabricke that must fall to ashes; All flesh is grasse(Isaiah 40:6), is not onely metaphorically, but literally true, for all those creatures we behold, are but the hearbs(i.e. herbs) of the field, digested into flesh in them, or more remotely carnified(i.e. make or turn into flesh) in our selves. Nay further, we are what we all abhorre, Antropophagi(i.e. cannibals in Shakespeare's Othello) and Cannibals, devourers not onely of men, but of our selves; and that not in an allegory, but a positive truth; for all this masse of flesh which wee behold, came in at our mouths: this frame wee looke upon, hath beene upon our trenchers(i.e. plates; platters);”
Sect. 38.
"Not that I am insensible of the dread and horrour thereof, or by raking into the bowells of the deceased, continuall sight of Anatomies, Skeletons, or Cadaverous(i.e. very pale, thin, or bony) reliques(i.e. relics; corpse), like Vespilloes扛屍夫, or Grave-makers, I am become stupid, or have forgot the apprehension of mortality..."
"...to dye, that is, to cease to breathe, to take a farewell of the elements, to be a kinde of nothing for a moment, to be within one instant of a spirit."
"When I take a full view and circle of my selfe, without this reasonable moderator, and equall piece of justice, Death, I doe conceive my selfe the miserablest person extant(i.e. still existing. 繆譯：假如沒有死亡，這個通情達理的調解，這個公正的法官（按：原文為「正義」），那麼我檢點平生，會覺得並世之人中再沒有我這樣苦命的人了); were there not another life that I hope for, all the vanities of this world should not intreat a moments breath from me; could the Devill worke my beliefe to imagine I could ever dye, I would not out-live that very thought;"
Sect. 39.
“In that obscure world and wombe of our mother, our time is short, computed by the Moone; yet longer than the dayes of many creatures that behold the Sunne,”
Sect. 40.
"I am not so much afraid of death, as ashamed thereof; tis the very disgrace and ignominy(i.e. shame) of our natures, that in a moment can so disfigure us that our nearest friends, Wife, and Children stand afraid and start(i.e. startled) at us. The Birds and Beasts of the field that before in a naturall feare obeyed us, forgetting all allegiance begin to prey upon us. This very conceite hath in a tempest disposed(i.e. incline someone towards a particular mood) and left me willing to be swallowed up in the abysse of waters; wherein I had perished unseene, unpityed, without wondring eyes, teares of pity, Lectures of mortality(i.e. eulogy?), and none had said,
'quantum mutatus ab illo(i.e. how changed from what he once was)!'
Not that I am ashamed of the Anatomy of my parts, or can accuse nature for playing the bungler in any part of me(繆譯：或責怪大化手拙，造壞了我的某一肢體), or my owne vitious life for contracting any shamefull disease upon me, whereby I might not call my selfe as wholesome a morsell(i.e. a small piece of food; bite) for the wormes as any."
Sect. 41.
"mee thinkes I have outlived my selfe, and begin to bee weary of the Sunne... the world to mee is but a dreame, or mockshow, and wee all therein but Pantalones(i.e. Pantaloon) and Antickes(i.e. clown; bufoon) to my severer contemplations."
Sect. 42.
"yet, if (as Divinity(i.e. theology) affirmes) there shall be no gray hayres(i.e. hairs) in Heaven, but all shall rise in the perfect state of men, we doe but out-live those perfections in this world, to be recalled unto them, by a greater miracle in the next, and run on here but to be retrograde(i.e. moving backwards) hereafter(繆譯：但假如將神學家們斷言的那樣，天堂中沒有頒白者，人們復起於塵土，都是在盛壯之年，那我們在塵世中活過盛年，也只是為了在來世被喚回到盛年而已，或者說，再倒活過來)."
"Were there any hopes to out-live vice, or a point to be super-annuated from sin, it were worthy our knees to implore the dayes of Methuselah(i.e. grandfather of Noah, who died at the age of 969). But age doth not rectifie, but incurvate(i.e. bend) our natures(繆譯：然而老壽加之於人性的是枉之於直，而非直之於枉), turning bad dispositions into worser habits, and (like diseases) brings on incurable vices; for every day as we grow weaker in age, we grow stronger in sinne... wherein besides the constant and inexcusable habit of transgressing, the maturity of our Judgement cuts off pretence unto excuse or pardon: every sin, the oftner it is committed, the more it acquireth in the quality of evill... And though I thinke no man can live well once but hee that could live twice, yet for my owne part, I would not live over my houres past... not upon Cicero's ground, because I have lived them well, but for feare I should live them worse: I find my growing Judgement dayly instruct me how to be better, but my untamed affections and confirmed vitiosity makes mee dayly doe worse; I finde in my confirmed age the same sinnes I discovered in my youth, I committed many then because I was a child, and because I commit them still I am yet an Infant. Therefore I perceive a man may bee twice a child before the dayes of dotage(i.e. old age), and stand in need of Æsons bath(i.e. a bath that could restore one to his youth) before threescore(i.e. sixty. That is, still feels oneself not 'young'(i.e. sinful) enough even when his life is already near its end.)."
Sect. 44.
"Men that looke no further than their outsides thinke health an appertinance unto life, and quarrell with their constitutions for being sick(繆譯：以為健康是生命的本色，患了疾病，只是與體質發生了爭吵); but I that have examined the parts of man(i.e. insides), and know upon what tender filaments that Fabrick hangs, doe wonder that we are not alwayes so; and considering the thousand dores(i.e. doors) that lead to death doe thanke my God that we can die but once. 'Tis not onely the mischiefe of diseases, and the villanie of poysons that make an end of us, we vainly accuse the fury of Gunnes, and the new inventions of death; 'tis in the power of every hand to destroy us, and wee are beholding unto every one wee meete hee doth not kill us. There is therefore but one comfort left, that though it be in the power of the weakest arme to take away life, it is not in the strongest to deprive us of death: God would not exempt himselfe from that(i.e. Jesus still died by crucifixion), the misery of immortality in the flesh, he undertooke not that was in it immortall(繆譯：肉體的長生是痛苦（的），因此他不允許肉體裏有永恆之物). Certainly there is no happinesse within this circle of flesh, nor is it in the Opticks of these eyes to behold felicity... the devill hath therefore fail'd of his desires; wee are happier with death than we should have beene without it: there is no misery but in himselfe where there is no end of misery; and so indeed in his own sense, the Stoick is in the right. Hee forgets that hee can die who complaines of misery, wee are in the power of no calamitie while death is in our owne."
Sect. 45.
"I beleeve the world growes neare its end, yet is neither old nor decayed, nor will ever perish upon the ruines of its owne principles. As the worke of Creation was above nature, so is its adversary, annihilation; without which the world hath not its end, but its mutation."
"Some beleeve(繆哲注：在布朗最初的原稿中，『有人』本來是『我』的，由於這一段話背離了對《聖經·創世記》的字面解釋，謹慎起見，才改成如今的字樣) there went not a minute to the worlds creation, nor shal there go to its destruction; those six dayes so punctually described, make not to them one moment, but rather seem to manifest the method and Idea of the great worke of the intellect of God, than the manner how hee proceeded in its operation. I cannot dreame that there should be at the last day any such Judiciall proceeding, or calling to the Barre, as indeed the Scripture seemes to imply, and the literall commentators doe conceive: for unspeakable mysteries in the Scriptures are often delivered in a vulgar and illustrative way(繆譯：是以方便的說法和比興之道來表達的), and being written unto man, are delivered, not as they truely are, but as they may bee understood; wherein notwithstanding the different interpretations according to different capacities may stand firme with our devotion, nor bee any way prejudiciall to each single edification(繆譯：每一種經解，都不失為一種教誨的)."
Sect. 46.
"it hath not onely mocked the predictions of sundry Astrologers in ages past, but the prophecies of many melancholy heads in these present, who neither understanding reasonably things past or present(繆譯：他們於古於今，全無信解), pretend a knowledge of things to come, heads ordained onely to manifest the incredible effects of melancholy, and to fulfill old prophesies, rather than be the authors of new."
Sect. 47.
"I have practised that honest artifice(i.e. trick; method) of Seneca, and in my retired and solitary imaginations, to detaine me from the foulenesse of vice, have fancyed to my selfe the presence of my deare and worthiest friends, before whom I should lose my head, rather than be vitious,"
Sect. 48.
"...the formes of alterable bodies in these sensible corruptions perish not; nor, as wee imagine, wholly quit their mansions, but retire and contract themselves into their secret and unaccessible parts, where they may best protect themselves from the action of their Antagonist. A plant or vegetable consumed to ashes, to a contemplative and schoole Philosopher seemes utterly destroyed, and the forme to have taken his leave for ever: But to a sensible Artist the formes are not perished, but withdrawne into their incombustible part, where they lie secure from the action of that devouring element."
Sect. 50.
"I cannot tell how to say that fire is the essence of hell, I know not what to make of Purgatory, or conceive a flame that can either prey upon, or purifie the substance of a soule... for in this materiall world, there are bodies that persist invincible in the powerfullest flames, and though by the action of fire they fall into ignition and liquation, yet will they never suffer a destruction: I would gladly know how Moses with an actuall fire calcin'd煅燒, or burnt the golden Calfe into powder(Deuteronomy 9:21): for that mysticall mettle(i.e. spirit) of gold, whose solary and celestiall nature I admire, exposed unto the violence of fire, grows onely hot and liquifies, but consumeth not: so when the consumable and volatile pieces of our bodies shall be refined into a more impregnable and fixed temper like gold, though they suffer from the action of flames, they shall never perish, but lie immortall in the armes of fire. And surely if this frame must suffer onely by the action of this element, there will many bodies escape, and not onely Heaven("天地要廢去，我的話卻不能廢去", Mark 13:31), but earth will not bee at an end, but rather a beginning... Philosophers that opinioned the worlds destruction by fire, did never dreame of annihilation, which is beyond the power of sublunary(i.e. temporal) causes; for the last and proper action of that element is but vitrification玻璃化 or a reduction of a body into Glasse(繆譯：這一種元素即便盡其所能，也只能將一個物體化成玻璃);"
"Nor need we fear this term [annihilation] or wonder that God will destroy the workes of his Creation... In the seed of a Plant to the eyes of God, and to the understanding of man, there exists, though in an invisible way, the perfect leaves, flowers, and fruit thereof(繆譯：在植物的種子中，葉子、花朵、和果實雖然隱而不彰，而對於上帝的眼睛和人的理智來說，卻仍然是不爽毫釐地敷展着): (for things that are in posse(i.e. not in actuality; having a potential to exist) to the sense, are actually existent to the understanding.) Thus God beholds all things, who contemplates as fully his workes in their Epitome, as in their full volume, and beheld as amply the whole world in that little compendium of the sixth day(繆譯：第六天的簡短摘要), as in the scattered and dilated(i.e. expanded) pieces of those five before(繆譯：前五日的汗漫之文)."
Sect. 51.
"Men commonly set forth the torments of Hell by fire, and the extremity of corporall afflictions, and describe Hell in the same method that Mahomet doth Heaven. This indeed makes a noyse, and drums in popular eares: but if this be the terrible piece thereof, it is not worthy to stand in diameter(i.e. opposite) with Heaven, whose happinesse consists in that part that is best able to comprehend it, that immortall essence, that translated divinity and colony of God, the Soule. Surely though wee place Hell under earth, the Devils walke and purlue(i.e. purlieu; a person's haunt or resort) is about it... The heart of man is the place the devill dwels in; I feele somtimes a hell within my selfe, Lucifer keeps his court in my brest, Legion is revived in me. There are as many hels as Anaxagoras(i.e. a Pre-Socratic Greek philosopher) conceited worlds; there was more than one hell in Magdalen, when there were seven devils(i.e. Luke 8:2); for every devill is an hell unto himselfe: hee holds enough of torture in his owne ubi(i.e. whereabouts), and needs not the misery of circumference to afflict him(繆譯：在身內受盡拷打的人，是不須身外之苦難的), and thus a distracted conscience here is a shadow or introduction unto hell hereafter; Who can but pity the mercifull intention of those hands that doe destroy themselves?* the devill were it in his power would doe the like, which being impossible his miseries are endlesse, and he suffers most in that attribute wherein he is impassible(i.e. invulnerable; exempt from decay), his immortality."
*"If Milton justified the ways of God to man, Browne, a humbler Christian, sought only to justify the ways of man to God. He appeals to many readers today largely because of his ability, in language that startles while it informs, to reconcile science and religion.", from Frank Livingstone Huntley, "Sir Thomas Browne and the Metaphor of the Circle"
Sect. 53.
"It is a singular piece of wisedome to apprehend truly, and without passion the workes of God, and so well to distinguish his justice from his mercy, as not to miscall those noble attributes; yet it is likewise an honest piece of Logick so to dispute and argue the proceedings of God, as to distinguish even his judgements into mercies."
Sect. 55.
"Diogenes I hold to bee the most vaineglorious man of his time, and more ambitious in refusing all honours, than Alexander in rejecting none."
"To perfect vertue, as to Religion, there is required a Panoplia or compleat armour, that whilst we lye at close ward against one vice we lye open to the vennie(i.e. veny; strike) of another: And indeed wiser discretions that have the thred of reason to conduct them, offend without a pardon; whereas under heads(i.e. blockheads) may stumble without dishonour."
"There goe so many circumstances to piece up one good action(繆譯：靠多少機緣的彌縫，才可以補綴起一片善行來), that it is a lesson to be good(i.e. to be good must it first be a lesson), and wee are forced to be vertuous by the booke. Againe, the practice of men holds not an equall pace, yea(i.e. yes), and often runnes counter to their Theory(i.e. 即言行不一也); we naturally know what is good, but naturally pursue what is evill: the Rhetoricke wherewith I perswade another cannot perswade my selfe: there is a depraved appetite in us, that will with patience heare the learned instructions of Reason; but yet performe no farther than agrees to its owne irregular Humour."
"Lastly, I doe desire with God, that all, but yet affirme with men, that few shall know salvation, that the bridge is narrow, the passage straite unto life; yet those who doe confine the Church of God, either to particular Nations, Churches, or Families, have made it farre narrower than our Saviour ever meant it(一笑)."
Sect. 56.
"those Christians... serving God in the fire, whereas we honour him but in the Sunshine."
Sect. 58.
"I beleeve there shall never be an Anarchy in Heaven, but as there are Hierarchies amongst the Angels, so shall there be degrees of priority amongst the Saints. Yet is it (I protest(i.e. insist)) beyond my ambition to aspire unto the first rankes, my desires onely are, and I shall be happy therein, to be but the last man, and bring up the Rere(i.e. rear; be last in a line or sequence) in Heaven(繆譯：我的希望，僅僅是……在天堂叨陪末座)."
Sect. 59.
"yet when an humble soule shall contemplate her owne unworthinesse, she shall meete with many doubts and suddainely finde how little wee stand in need of the precept of Saint Paul, Worke out your salvation with feare and trembling(Philippians 2:12). That which is the cause of my election, I hold to be the cause of my salvation, which was the mercy, and beneplacit(i.e. approval; consent) of God, before I was, or the foundation of the world. Before Abraham was, I am, is the saying of Christ, yet is it true in some sense if I say it of my selfe, for I was not onely before my selfe, but Adam, that is, in the Idea of God... And in this sense, I say, the world was before the Creation, and at an end before it had a beginning; and thus was I dead before I was alive, though my grave be England, my dying place was Paradise, and Eve miscarried of mee before she conceiv'd of Cain(一笑)."*
*"This passage, which has been taken as an instance of Browne’s self-serving wit, is, to be sure, breathtakingly bold, first in its quotation of Christ, with its embedding of the present-tense ‘I am’, an allusion to Jahweh’s words to Moses, in a way that first implies that this is Browne’s own statement, then seems to retreat, showing it to be a quotation (‘is the saying of Christ’), before finally claiming it for himself as well. The complexity of the prose reflects the complexity of the idea, as Browne plays on both casual and more seriously existential meanings of ‘my selfe’, and on the meanings of life and death, of physical and spiritual existence, of conception and miscarriage. Like Religio Medici 1.11, this passage juxtaposes the realms of time and eternity, and moves us rapidly backwards—to before the Creation— and forwards—to the end, not of time; but of innocence and of life—‘and at an end before it had a beginning’. Although the idea does not change, it is articulated in ever more radical forms, until the whole of human history and of Browne’s own life is reduced to a single moment in Eden. This passage demonstrates the tension possible within a paratactic並列 structure, where the writer does not suspend meaning as in a Ciceronian period, but draws it out in a succession of brilliant formulations of a principle stated at the beginning.", from Sharon Cadman Seelig, "'Speake, that I may see thee': The Styles of Sir Thomas Browne"
Sect. 60.
"I doe not deny, but that true faith... where to finde this, is as obscure to me, as my last end. And if our Saviour could object(i.e. adduce; expose) unto his owne Disciples, & favourites, a faith, that to the quantity of a graine of Mustard seed, is able to remove mountaines(Matthew 17:20); surely that which wee boast of, is not any thing, or at the most, but a remove from nothing."
The Second Part.
Sect. 1.
"Now for that other Vertue of Charity, without which Faith is a meer(i.e. mere) notion, and of no existence,"
"I am no Plant that will not prosper out of a Garden. All places, all ayres make unto me one Country; I am in England, every where, and under any meridian;"
Sect. 3.
"Divinity hath wisely divided the act(i.e. Charity) thereof into many branches, and hath taught us in this narrow way, many pathes unto goodnesse(繆譯：在這條狹窄的道路上，有許多小徑是通往善的);"
"there are infirmities, not onely of body, but of soule, and fortunes, which doe require the mercifull hand of our abilities. I cannot contemn a man for ignorance but behold him with as much pity as I doe Lazarus. It is no greater Charity to cloath his body, than apparell the nakednesse of his Soule. It is an honourable object to see the reasons of other men weare our Liveries(i.e. uniforms), and their borrowed understandings doe homage to the bounty(i.e. generosity) of ours. It is the cheapest way of beneficence, and like the naturall charity of the Sunne illuminates another without obscuring it selfe(繆譯：這於仁慈可以說是最不破費的，正像太陽的生性仁慈，照亮別人，卻不自損榮輝那樣)."
"even amongst wiser militants, how many wounds have beene given, and credits slaine for the poore victory of an opinion or beggerly conquest of a distinction? Schollers are men of peace, they beare no armes, but their tongues are sharper than Actius(i.e. Attus Navius, an augur占兆官 during the reign of Tarquinius Priscus, the legendary fifth king of Rome) his razor(i.e. Tarquinius Priscus intended to change Romulus' system of tribes and enlarged his army, yet Navius objected, since he deemed the omens unfavorable. Thus the king commanded him to divine whether what he was thinking of in his mind could be done, and that when Navius said that it could, the king held out a whetstone and a razor to cut it with. Navius immediately cut it. See Livy, The History of Rome, Book I, Ch. 36), their pens carry farther, and give a lowder(i.e. louder) report than thunder; I had rather stand in the shock of a Basilisco(i.e. a large brass cannon) than in the fury of a mercilesse Pen(繆譯：我寧可忍受大炮的轟鳴，也不願承受一枝無情之筆的怒火)."
"It is not meere zeale to Learning, or devotion to the Muses, that wiser Princes Patron the Arts, and carry an indulgent aspect unto Schollers, but a desire to have their names eternized by the memory of their writings, and a feare of the revengefull pen of succeeding ages(繆譯：聰明的君主們獎掖藝術、寵愛學者，這不僅是向心學問、敬重詩神，也是想借重他們的作品垂名千古，並防止後人以筆報怨): for these are the men, that when they(i.e. Princes) have played their parts, and had their exits, must step out and give the morall of their Scenes, and deliver unto posterity an Inventory of their vertues and vices."
Sect. 4.
"There is another offence unto Charity... that's the reproach, not of whole professions, mysteries(i.e. trade) and conditions, but of whole nations, wherein by opprobrious(i.e. derogatory; abusive) Epithets綽號 wee miscall each other, and by an uncharitable Logicke from a disposition in a few conclude a habit in all... It is as bloody a thought in one way as Neroes was in another(i.e. 'When I am dead let Earth be mingled with Fire, yea whilst I live'; or the wish of Caligula, that the people of Rome have but one Neck, that he might destroy them all at a blow). For by a word wee wound a thousand, and at one blow assassine the honour of a Nation. It is as compleate a piece of madnesse(繆譯：不折不扣的瘋狂) to miscall and rave against the times, or thinke to recall men to reason, by a fit of passion: Democritus(古希臘哲學家，原子論的創始者) that thought to laugh the times into goodnesse(繆譯：以為世風受到嘲笑，就能變得淳樸起來), seemes to me as deeply Hypochondriack臆症/疑病症, as Heraclitus that bewailed them; it moves not my spleene to behold the multitude in their proper humours, that is, in their fits of folly and madnesse, as well understanding that Wisedome is not prophan'd(i.e. profane) unto the World, and 'tis the priviledge of a few to be vertuous. They that endeavour to abolish vice destroy also vertue, for contraries, though they destroy one another, are yet the life of one another."
"No man can justly censure or condemne another, because indeed no man truely knowes another. This I perceive in my selfe, for I am in the darke to all the world, and my nearest friends behold mee but in a cloud, those that know mee but superficially, thinke lesse of me... (while) those of my neere acquaintance thinke more; God, who truely knowes me, knowes that I am nothing, for hee... lookes not on us through a derived ray, or a trajection(i.e. casting through) of a sensible species, but beholds the substance without the helpes of accidents, and the formes of things, as wee their operations. Further, no man can judge another, because no man knowes himselfe, for we censure others but as they disagree from that humour which wee fancy laudable in our selves, and commend others but for that wherein they seeme to quadrate(i.e. roughly square; conform) and consent with us. So that in conclusion, all is but that we all condemne, selfe-love. 'Tis the generall complaint of these times, and perhaps of those past, that charity growes cold; which I perceive most verified in those which most doe manifest the fires and flames of zeale; for it is a vertue that best agrees with coldest natures, and such as are complexioned for humility:"
"But how shall we expect charity towards others, when we are uncharitable to our selves? Charity begins at home, is the voyce of the world, yet is every man his greatest enemy, and as it were, his owne executioner(繆譯：『仁德始於家裏』，世人都這麼說，但每個人照樣做自己的大敵，或者說，自己的劊子手). Non occides(不可殺人), is the Commandement of God, yet scarce observed by any man; for I perceive every man is his owne Atropos(命運三女神之一，職責是將生命之線剪斷), and lends a hand to cut the thred of his owne dayes."
Sect. 5.
"It is not the teares of our owne eyes onely, but of our friends also, that doe exhaust the current of our sorrowes, which falling into many streames, runne more peaceably, and is contented with a narrower channel. It is an act within the power of charity, to translate a passion out of one breast into another, and to divide a sorrow almost out of it selfe; for an affliction like a dimension may be so divided, as if not indivisible, at least to become insensible."
Sect. 7.
"I can hold there is no such thing as injury, that if there be, there is no such injury as revenge, and no such revenge as the contempt of an injury; that to hate another, is to maligne himselfe, that the truest way to love another, is to despise our selves. I were unjust unto mine owne conscience, if I should say I am at variance(i.e. disagreeing; quarrelling) with any thing like my selfe. I finde there are many pieces in this one fabricke of man; this frame is raised upon a masse of Antipathies: I am one mee thinkes, but as the world; wherein notwithstanding there are a swarme of distinct essences, and in them another world of contrarieties(繆譯：原質之中，還另有一片由各相背斥之物構成的天地);"
"I thanke the goodnesse of God I have no sinnes that want a name, I am not singular in offences, my transgressions are Epidemicall, and from the common breath of our corruption."
Sect. 8.
"for indeed heads of capacity, and such as are not full(i.e. content) with a handfull, or easie measure of knowledg, thinke they know nothing, till they know all, which being impossible, they fall upon the opinion of Socrates, and onely know they know not any thing. I cannot thinke that Homer pin'd away upon the riddle of the Fisherman(i.e. 'What we caught, we threw away; what we didn't catch, we kept.' The answer was lice. From Pseudo-Plutarch, Vita Homeri), or that Aristotle, who understood the uncertainty of knowledge, and confessed so often the reason of man too weake for the workes of nature, did ever drowne himselfe upon the flux and reflux of Euripus:* wee doe but learne to day, what our better advanced judgements will unteach to morrow: and Aristotle doth but instruct us as Plato did him; that is, to confute himselfe. I have runne through all sorts, yet finde no rest in any... yet I perceive the wisest heads prove at last, almost all Scepticks, and stand like Janus(i.e. a Roman god who presided over the beginning and ending of conflict, and hence war and peace, and is depicted with two opposite faces) in the field of knowledge. I have therefore on[e] common and authentick Philosophy I learned in the Schooles, whereby I discourse and satisfie the reason of other men, another more reserved and drawne from experience, whereby I content mine owne(繆譯：我在學校裏學到了一套平實的哲學，我用於交談，滿足他人的理性；還有一套得自於經驗的哲學，我則留下來自奉自養)."
*"It is unusual for the waters of the Mediterranean Sea to move noticeably anywhere, but here(i.e. Euripus) they rushed back and forth in a flagrant manner that demanded an explanation... It turns not like an ocean tide, but capriciously, at irregular intervals, seven times a day. Indeed, the strait is named Euripus after the Greek word for 'weathercock' because of this erratic behavior; 'Euripus-heads' were people who were unable to make up their minds... Aristotle did not believe Plato's ideas that tides were the remnant eddies of the outflow of rivers into the sea... but he got no further toward a solution... disgusted by his lack of progress, he threw himself into the churning waters to be drown... exclaiming, 'Si quidem ego non capio te, tu capies me'(If I cannot grasp you, then you must take me)."-From Hugh Aldersey-Williams, The Tide: The Science and Lore of the Greatest Force on Earth
"There is yet another conceit that hath sometimes made me shut my bookes; which tels mee it is a vanity to waste our dayes in the blind pursuit of knowledge, it is but attending a little longer, and wee shall enjoy that by instinct and infusion which we endeavour at here by labour and inquisition: it is better to sit downe in a modest ignorance, & rest contented with the naturall blessing of our owne reasons, then(i.e. than) buy the uncertaine knowledge of this life, with sweat and vexation, which death gives every foole gratis, and is an accessary of our glorification."
Sect. 9.
"I feele not in me those sordid, and unchristian desires of my profession, I doe not secretly implore and wish for Plagues, rejoyce at Famines... I rejoyce not at unwholsome Springs, nor unseasonable(i.e. untimely; not befitting the occasion) Winters; my Prayer goes with the Husbandmans(i.e. farmers); I desire every thing in its proper season, that neither men nor the times bee out of temper."
"And to speak more generally, those three Noble professions which all civil Common wealths doe honour, are raised upon the fall of Adam, & are not any exempt from their infirmities; there are not onely diseases incurable in Physicke, but cases indissoluble in Lawes, Vices incorrigible(i.e. beyond cure) in Divinity:"
"...I doe not see why particular Courts should be infallible... the Lawes of one, doe but condemn the rules of another;"
"I can cure the gout or stone in some, sooner than Divinity, Pride, or Avarice in others. I can cure vices by Physicke, when they remaine incurable by Divinity, and shall obey my pils, when they contemne their precepts. I boast nothing, but plainely say, we all labour against our owne cure, for death is the cure of all diseases. There is no Catholicon(i.e. cure-all) or universall remedy I know but this, which thogh nauseous to queasie(i.e. inclined to nausea) stomachs, yet to prepared appetites is Nectar and a pleasant potion of immortality."
Sect. 10.
"there is no mans minde of such discordant and jarring a temper to which a tuneable disposition may not strike a harmony(繆譯：沒有誰的心靈是嘔呀啁哳的，以至於韻律優美的性格，竟引不出它的一道和聲來)."
"Magnæ virtutes, nec minora vitia(i.e. 'Great virtues, nor less vices.' From Plutarch, Parallel Lives, Demetrius I, quote this as a saying of Plato. 繆譯：德高者，惡亦如之), it is the posie(i.e. poesy; poetry) of the best natures, and may bee inverted on the worst;"
"There is no man alone, because every man is a Microcosme, and carries the whole world about him(繆譯：沒有人是孤獨的，因為人人都是一個微型的宇宙，一身之內涵蓋着大千); Nunquam minus solus quam cum solus(i.e. 'Never less alone than when alone', Cicero, De Officiis 3.1. 繆譯：獨而不孤／不孤唯在獨), though it bee the Apophthegme箴言 of a wise man, is yet true in the mouth of a foole;"
Sect. 11.
"Now for my life, it is a miracle of thirty yeares, which to relate, were not a History, but a peece of Poetry, and would sound to common eares like a fable; for the world, I count it not an Inne, but an Hospitall, and a place, not to live, but to die in. The world that I regard is my selfe; it is the Microcosme of mine owne frame, that I cast mine eye on; for the other, I use it but like my Globe, and turne it round sometimes for my recreation.”
“The earth is a point not onely in respect of the heavens above us, but of that heavenly and celestiall part within us: that masse of flesh that circumscribes me, limits not my mind:"
"and surely it is not a melancholy conceite to thinke we are all asleepe in this world, and that the conceits of this life are as meare dreames to those of the next, as the Phantasmes of the night, to the conceit of the day. There is an equall delusion in both, and the one doth but seeme to bee the embleme or picture of the other(繆譯：一世之人都在沉睡，今生之念對於來生之念，只是一場夢寐……因為兩者之中，都有惑人的幻影，彼此之間，事實上（是）互為影像的); we are somewhat more than our selves in our sleepes, and the slumber of the body seemes to bee but the waking of the soule. It is the ligation結紮 of sense, but the liberty of reason(繆譯：我們在睡眠中，總有心超神越之處，身體的睡眠恰是靈魂的警醒；它囚禁感官，卻開釋了理性), and our awaking conceptions doe not match the fancies of our sleepes... I am no way facetious(i.e. flippant; frivolous), nor disposed for the mirth and galliardize(i.e. gay; merry) of company, yet in one dreame I can compose a whole Comedy, behold the action, apprehend the jests, and laugh my self awake at the conceits thereof; were my memory as faithfull as my reason is then fruitfull, I would never study but in my dreames, and this time also would I chuse(i.e. choose) for my devotions, but our grosser memories have then so little hold of our abstracted understandings, that they forget the story, and can only relate to our awaked soules, a confused & broken tale of that that hath passed..."
"for those Noctambuloes夢游病者 and night-walkers, though in their sleepe, doe yet enjoy the action of their senses: wee must therefore say that there is something in us that is not in the jurisdiction of Morpheus希臘夢神; and that those abstracted and ecstaticke soules doe walke about in their owne corps(i.e. groups; legions), as spirits with the bodies they assume, wherein they seeme to heare, see, and feele, though indeed the organs are destitute of sense, and their natures of those faculties that should informe them. Thus it is observed that men sometimes upon the houre of their departure, doe speake and reason above themselves. For then the soule begins to bee freed from the ligaments(i.e. bonds) of the body, begins to reason like her selfe, and to discourse in a straine(i.e. sound; music) above mortality."
Sect. 12.
"We tearme sleepe a death, and yet it is waking that kils us, and destroyes those spirits that are the house of life... Themistocles(i.e the Athen general that commanded the Greek fleet during the Battle of Salamis) therefore that slew his Souldier(i.e. soldiers) in his sleepe was a mercifull executioner(此典實或出自Isocrates), 'tis a kinde of punishment the mildnesse of no lawes hath invented(繆譯：從沒有哪種溫和的法律發明過這樣的刑法); I wonder the fancy of Lucan and Seneca did not discover it(i.e. both were commanded by Nero to commit suicide, but with choice of the means). It is that death by which we may be literally said to die daily, a death which Adam died before his mortality; a death whereby we live a middle and moderating point betweene life and death; in fine(i.e. in short), so like death, I dare not trust it without my prayers, and an halfe adiew unto the world, and take my farewell in a Colloquy(i.e. conversation) with God."
"Sleepe is a death, O make me try,
By sleeping what it is to die."
Sect. 14.
"Nor is it strange that wee should place affection on that which is invisible... We betake our selves to a woman, forgetting our mothers in a wife, and the wombe that bare us in that that shall beare our image. This woman blessing us with children, our affection leaves the levell it held before, and sinkes from our bed unto our issue and picture of posterity, where affection holds no steady mansion(i.e. abode; dwelling place). They growing up in yeares desire our ends(繆譯：在成人之後，他們盼着我們一命歸西), or applying themselves to a woman, take a lawfull way to love another better than our selves. Thus I perceive a man may bee buried alive, and behold his grave in his owne issue(繆譯：在子孫的身上，我們可以看見自己的墳墓)."
Sect. 15.
"Blesse mee in this life with but the peace of my conscience, command of my affections, the love of thy selfe and my dearest friends, and I shall be happy enough to pity Cæsar. These are O Lord the humble desires of my most reasonable ambition and all I dare call happinesse on earth: wherein I set no rule or limit to thy hand or providence, dispose of me according to the wisedome of thy pleasure. Thy will bee done, though in my owne undoing."
To the Reader
"Certainly that man were greedy of life, who should desire to live when all the world were at an end; and he must needs be very impatient, who would repine(i.e. worry, brood; complain) at death in the societie of all things that suffer under it. Had not almost every man suffered by the presse(i.e. printing press; publishers); or were not the tyranny thereof become universall; I had not wanted(i.e. lack) reason for complaint."
The First Part.
Sect. 3.
"I could never heard the Ave Marie Bell(i.e. A Church Bell that tolls every day directed to the Virgin) without an elevation, or thinke it a sufficient warrant, because they erred in one circumstance(i.e. The Catholics worshipped Virgin Mary, while Browne, as a Protestant did not), for me to erre in all, that is in silence and dumbe contempt; whilst therefore they directed their devotions to her, I offered mine to God, and rectified the errours of their prayers by rightly ordering mine owne;"
Sect. 5.
"In briefe, where the Scripture is silent, the Church is my Text; where that speakes, 'tis but my Comment(繆哲譯：聖經沉默之處，教會是我的經文；聖經有言之處，教會只是詮釋); where there is a joynt silence of both, I borrow not the rules of my Religion from Rome or Geneva, but the dictates of my own reason."
Sect. 6.
"I could never divide my selfe from any man upon the difference of an opinion, or be angry with his judgement for not agreeing with mee in that, from which perhaps within a few dayes I should dissent my selfe... I must confesse my greener studies have beene polluted with two or three(i.e. heresies), not any begotten in the latter Centuries(i.e. his later life), but old and obsolete, such as could never have been revived, but by such extravagant and irregular heads as mine; for indeed Heresies perish not with their Authors, but like the River Arethusa,* though they lose their currents in one place, they rise up againe in another: one generall Councell is not able to extirpate one single Heresie, it may be canceld for the present, but revolution of time and the like aspects from Heaven, will restore it, when it will flourish till it be condemned againe; for as though there were a Metempsuchosis轉世, and the soule of one man passed into another; opinions doe finde, after certaine revolutions, men and mindes like those that first begat them. To see our selves againe wee neede not looke for Platoes yeare**: every man is not onely himselfe; there have beene many Diogenes, and as many Timons(i.e. a legendary Athenien misanthrope), though but few of(i.e. bear) that name; men are lived over againe; the world is now as it was in ages past; there was none then(i.e. none the world as it is now then), but there hath been some one since that parallels(i.e. corresponds; or emulates due to perceiving) him, and is as it were his revived selfe."
*A nymph who was pursued by the river god Alpheus, fled from her home in Arcadia beneath the sea and came up as a fresh water fountain on the island of Ortygia in Syracuse, Sicily.
**Browne's own note: A revolution of certaine thousand yeares when all things should returne unto their former estate and he(i.e. Plato) be teaching againe in his schoole as when he delivered this opinion.
Sect. 7.
"A serious reflex(i.e. reflection) upon my owne unworthinesse did make me backward from challenging this prerogative of my soule; so I might enjoy my Saviour at the last, I could with patience be nothing almost unto(i.e. until) eternity.(繆哲譯：我材朽質穢；每念及此，未嘗不心存疑懼，不敢懷疑自己靈魂的這一特權。所以，假如末日來臨時，我可以得見我的救世主，那麼在永生之前，我甘願成為虛無。)"
"These opinions I never maintained with pertinacity, or endeavoured to enveagle(i.e. inveigle; coax) any mans beliefe unto mine, nor so much as ever revealed or disputed them with my dearest friends; by which meanes I neither propagated them in others, nor confirmed them in my selfe, but suffering them to flame upon their own substance, without addition of new fuell, they went out insensibly of themselves... Those have not only depraved understandings but diseased affections, which cannot enjoy a singularity without a Heresie, or be the author of an opinion, without they be of a Sect also; this was the villany of the first Schisme of Lucifer, who was not content to erre alone, but drew into his faction many Legions of Spirits; and upon this experience hee tempted only Eve, as well understanding the communicable nature of sin, and that to deceive but one, was tacitely and upon consequence to delude them both."
Sect. 9.
"As for those wingy mysteries in Divinity, and ayery(i.e. airy) subtilties in Religion, which have unhindg'd(i.e. unhinge; unsettle) the braines of better heads, they never stretched the Pia Mater(i.e. brain; mind) of mine; me thinkes there be not impossibilities enough in Religion for an active faith; the deepest mysteries ours containes, have not only been illustrated, but maintained by syllogisme, and the rule of reason: (while) I love to lose my selfe in a mystery to pursue my reason to an oh altitudo(i.e. spiritual exaltation). 'Tis my solitary recreation to pose my apprehension with those involved ænigma's(i.e. enigma) and riddles of the Trinity, with Incarnation and Resurrection. I can answer all the objections of Satan, and my rebellious reason, with that odde resolution I learned of Tertullian(i.e. an early Christian author),
'Certum est quia impoßibile est.' (i.e. it is true because it is impossible).
I desire to exercise my faith in the difficultest point, for to credit ordinary and visible objects is not faith, but perswasion(i.e. by facts). Some beleeve the better for seeing Christ his Sepulchre石墓, and when they have seene the Red Sea, doubt not of the miracle. Now contrarily I blesse my selfe, and am thankefull that I lived not in the dayes of miracles, that I never saw Christ nor his Disciples; I would not have beene one of those Israelites that passed the Red Sea, nor one of Christs Patients, on whom he wrought his wonders; then had my faith beene thrust upon me, nor should I enjoy that greater blessing pronounced to all that believe & saw not. 'Tis an easie and necessary beliefe to credit what our eye and sense hath examined: (Yet) I believe he was dead, and buried, and rose againe(i.e. even without seeing); and desire to see him in his glory, rather then(i.e. than) to contemplate him in his Cenotaphe(碑記。按：此句道得深沉), or Sepulchre. Nor is this much to beleeve(i.e. nor could this be counted as 'believe'), as we have reason(i.e. historical evidences), we owe this faith unto History: they only had the advantage of a bold and noble faith, who lived before his(i.e. Christ) comming, who upon obscure prophesies and mysticall Types(i.e. symbol) could raise a beliefe, and expect apparent impossibilities.*"
*Browne在《瓮葬》（Hydriotaphia）第四章裏，亦曾就此表達過相近的見解，可作參照："...all or most apprehensions rested in Opinions of some future being(i.e. afterlife), which ignorantly or coldly beleeved, begat those perverted conceptions, Ceremonies, Sayings, which Christians pity or laugh at. Happy are they(i.e. the Christians), which live not in that disadvantage of time, when men could say little for futurity, but from reason(i.e. pagan reason). Whereby the noblest mindes fell often upon doubtfull deaths, and melancholy Dissolutions; With these hopes Socrates warmed his doubtfull spirits, against that cold potion, and Cato before he durst(i.e. dare) give the fatall stroak(i.e. stroke) spent part of the night in reading the immortality of Plato, thereby confirming his wavering hand unto the animosity of that attempt."
Sect. 10.
"where there is an obscurity too deepe for our reason, 'tis good to set downe with a description, periphrasis(i.e. an indirect and circumlocutory phrase), or adumbration(i.e. hint, sketch; to foreshadow vaguely); for by acquainting our reason how unable it is to display the visible and obvious effect of nature, it becomes more humble and submissive unto the subtilties of faith: and thus I teach my haggard and unreclaimed reason to stoope unto the lure of faith. I believe there was already a tree whose fruit our unhappy parents tasted, though in the same Chapter, when God forbids it, 'tis positively said, the plants of the field were not yet growne; for God had not caused it to raine upon the Earth. I beleeve that the Serpent (if we shall literally understand it) from his proper forme and figure, made his motion on his belly before the curse. I find the triall of the Pucellage(i.e. chastity) and Virginity of women, which God ordained the Jewes, is very fallible(i.e. 'If any man take a wife... and bring up an evil name upon her, and say, I took this woman, and when I came to her, I found her not a maid: Then shall the father of the damsel... take and bring forth the tokens of the damsel's virginity unto the elders of the city in the gate:', Deuteronomy 22:13-15). Experience, and History informes me, that not onely many particular women, but likewise whole Nations have escaped the curse of childbirth, which God seemes to pronounce upon the whole Sex(i.e. 'I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children;', Genesis 3:16); yet doe I beleeve that all this is true, which indeed my reason would perswade me to be false; and this I think is no vulgar part of faith to believe a thing not only above, but contrary to reason, and against the arguments of our proper senses."
Sect. 11.
"Time we may comprehend, 'tis but five days elder then our selves(i.e. God created Time on the first day, and man on the sixth),"
"God hath not made a creature that can comprehend him, 'tis the priviledge of his owne nature; I am that I am, was his owne definition unto Moses... indeed he only is, all others have and shall be, but in eternity there is no distinction of Tenses; and therefore that terrible terme Predestination, which hath troubled so many weake heads to conceive, and the wisest to explaine, is in respect to God no prescious(i.e. prescient; foreknowing) determination of our estates to come, but a definitive blast of his will already fulfilled(繆譯「即令即行」), and at the instant that he first decreed it;"
Sect. 13.
"Wisedome is his most beauteous attribute, no man can attaine unto it, yet Solomon pleased God when hee desired it(i.e. 'Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and bad: for who is able to judge this thy so great a people? And the speech pleased the LORD, that Solomon had asked this thing.', 1 Kings 9-10)."
"Hee is wise because hee knowes all things, and hee knoweth all things because he made them all, but his greatest knowledg is in comprehending that he made not, that is himselfe. And this is also the greatest knowledge in man. For this do I honour my own profession and embrace the counsell even of the Devill himselfe: had he(i.e. God?! Or did he just mean Christians in general?) read such a Lecture in Paradise as hee did at Delphos(i.e. know thyself), we had better knowne our selves, nor had we stood in feare to know him."
"my humble speculations have another Method, and are content to trace and discover those expressions hee hath left in his creatures, and the obvious effects of nature(繆譯：我的鄙陋之心，卻別有所趨，我甘於訪求上帝留在造物身上的指痕，和自然的形跡。);"
"Search while thou wilt, and let thy reason goe
To ransome(i.e. redeem) truth even to the Abysse below.
Rally the scattered causes, and that line
Which nature twists be able to untwine.
It is thy Makers will, for unto none
But unto reason can he ere be knowne.
...
Teach my endeavours so thy workes to read,
That learning them, in thee I may proceed.
Give thou my reason(i.e. give me thy reason) that instructive flight,
Whose weary wings may on thy hands still light.
Teach me to soare aloft, yet ever so,
When neare the Sunne, to stoope againe below.
Thus shall my humble feathers safely hover,
And though neere earth, more then the heavens discover.
And then at last, when holmeward I shall drive
Rich with the spoyles(i.e. spoils; goods, prizes) of nature to my hive,
There will I sit, like that industrious flye,
Buzzing thy prayses, which shall never die
Till death abrupts them, and succeeding glory
Bid me goe on in a more lasting story."
"for if not he that sayeth Lord, Lord; but he that doth the will of the Father shall be saved('Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.', Matthew 7:21); certainely our wills must bee our performances, and our intents make out our actions; otherwise our pious labours shall finde anxiety in their graves, and our best endeavours not hope, but feare a resurrection."
Sect. 17.
"All cannot be happy at once, for because the glory of one State depends upon the ruine of another,"
Sect. 18.
"'tis we that are blind, not fortune:"
"To wiser desires 'tis satisfaction enough to deserve, though not to enjoy the favours of fortune; let providence provide for fooles: 'tis not partiality, but equity in God, who deales with us but as our naturall parents; those that are able of body and mind, he leaves to their deserts; to those of weaker merits hee imparts a larger portion, and pieces out the defect of one by the excesse of the other. Thus have wee no just quarrell with Nature, for leaving us naked, or to envie the hornes, hoofs, skins, and furs of other creatures, (as) being provided with reason, that can supply them all."
"Those that hold that all things were governed by fortune had not erred, had they not persisted there:"
Sect. 25.
"for the Turke... if hee fall asunder there may be conceived hopes(i.e. of conversion)... The Jew is obstinate in all fortunes; the persecution of fifteene hundred yeares hath but confirmed them in their errour: they have already endured whatsoever may be inflicted, and have suffered, in a bad cause, even to the condemnation(i.e. sympathy) of their enemies. Persecution is a bad and indirect way to plant Religion; It hath beene the unhappy(i.e. unfortunate) method of angry devotions, not onely to confirme honest Religion, but wicked Heresies, and extravagant opinions."
"'Tis not in the power of every honest faith to proceed thus farre, or passe to Heaven through the flames; every one hath it not in that full measure, nor in so audacious and resolute a temper, as to endure those terrible tests and trialls, who notwithstanding in a peaceable way doe truely adore their Saviour, and have (no doubt) a faith acceptable in the eyes of God."
Sect. 26.
"I would not perish upon a Ceremony, Politick points, or indifferency(繆譯：我絕不捨命於某種儀式、政治觀點、或無謂的瑣事); nor is my beleefe of that untractable(stubborn; unmanageable) temper, as not to bow at their obstacles, or connive默許 at matters wherein there are not manifest impieties: The leaven酵母 therefore and ferment of all, not onely Civill, but Religious actions, is wisedome; without which, to commit our selves to the flames is... but to passe through one fire into another(繆譯：沒有智慧而投身於火……只怕是穿過了一片大火，復落於另一片大火)."
Sect. 29.
"And truely since I have understood the occurrences of the world, and know in what counterfeit shapes & deceitfull vizzards(i.e. mask; disguise) times present represent on the stage things past; I doe beleeve them little more than things to come."
"Some have beene of my opinion(i.e. 和我有相同想法), and endevoured to write the History of their own Lives; wherein Moses hath outgone them all, and left not onely the story of his life, but as some will have it of his death also(一笑。『摩西五書』中的《申命記》有記述到摩西的死，詳見Deuteronomy 34:5-8)."
Sect. 33.
"Now if you demand my opinion and Metaphysicks of their(i.e. Angels) natures, I confesse them very shallow, most of them in a negative way, like that of God(繆譯：多數是以否定形式表述的，如同我對上帝的看法那樣);"
Sect. 37.
“Now for these wals(i.e. walls) of flesh... it is nothing but an elementall composition, and a fabricke that must fall to ashes; All flesh is grasse(Isaiah 40:6), is not onely metaphorically, but literally true, for all those creatures we behold, are but the hearbs(i.e. herbs) of the field, digested into flesh in them, or more remotely carnified(i.e. make or turn into flesh) in our selves. Nay further, we are what we all abhorre, Antropophagi(i.e. cannibals in Shakespeare's Othello) and Cannibals, devourers not onely of men, but of our selves; and that not in an allegory, but a positive truth; for all this masse of flesh which wee behold, came in at our mouths: this frame wee looke upon, hath beene upon our trenchers(i.e. plates; platters);”
Sect. 38.
"Not that I am insensible of the dread and horrour thereof, or by raking into the bowells of the deceased, continuall sight of Anatomies, Skeletons, or Cadaverous(i.e. very pale, thin, or bony) reliques(i.e. relics; corpse), like Vespilloes扛屍夫, or Grave-makers, I am become stupid, or have forgot the apprehension of mortality..."
"...to dye, that is, to cease to breathe, to take a farewell of the elements, to be a kinde of nothing for a moment, to be within one instant of a spirit."
"When I take a full view and circle of my selfe, without this reasonable moderator, and equall piece of justice, Death, I doe conceive my selfe the miserablest person extant(i.e. still existing. 繆譯：假如沒有死亡，這個通情達理的調解，這個公正的法官（按：原文為「正義」），那麼我檢點平生，會覺得並世之人中再沒有我這樣苦命的人了); were there not another life that I hope for, all the vanities of this world should not intreat a moments breath from me; could the Devill worke my beliefe to imagine I could ever dye, I would not out-live that very thought;"
Sect. 39.
“In that obscure world and wombe of our mother, our time is short, computed by the Moone; yet longer than the dayes of many creatures that behold the Sunne,”
Sect. 40.
"I am not so much afraid of death, as ashamed thereof; tis the very disgrace and ignominy(i.e. shame) of our natures, that in a moment can so disfigure us that our nearest friends, Wife, and Children stand afraid and start(i.e. startled) at us. The Birds and Beasts of the field that before in a naturall feare obeyed us, forgetting all allegiance begin to prey upon us. This very conceite hath in a tempest disposed(i.e. incline someone towards a particular mood) and left me willing to be swallowed up in the abysse of waters; wherein I had perished unseene, unpityed, without wondring eyes, teares of pity, Lectures of mortality(i.e. eulogy?), and none had said,
'quantum mutatus ab illo(i.e. how changed from what he once was)!'
Not that I am ashamed of the Anatomy of my parts, or can accuse nature for playing the bungler in any part of me(繆譯：或責怪大化手拙，造壞了我的某一肢體), or my owne vitious life for contracting any shamefull disease upon me, whereby I might not call my selfe as wholesome a morsell(i.e. a small piece of food; bite) for the wormes as any."
Sect. 41.
"mee thinkes I have outlived my selfe, and begin to bee weary of the Sunne... the world to mee is but a dreame, or mockshow, and wee all therein but Pantalones(i.e. Pantaloon) and Antickes(i.e. clown; bufoon) to my severer contemplations."
Sect. 42.
"yet, if (as Divinity(i.e. theology) affirmes) there shall be no gray hayres(i.e. hairs) in Heaven, but all shall rise in the perfect state of men, we doe but out-live those perfections in this world, to be recalled unto them, by a greater miracle in the next, and run on here but to be retrograde(i.e. moving backwards) hereafter(繆譯：但假如將神學家們斷言的那樣，天堂中沒有頒白者，人們復起於塵土，都是在盛壯之年，那我們在塵世中活過盛年，也只是為了在來世被喚回到盛年而已，或者說，再倒活過來)."
"Were there any hopes to out-live vice, or a point to be super-annuated from sin, it were worthy our knees to implore the dayes of Methuselah(i.e. grandfather of Noah, who died at the age of 969). But age doth not rectifie, but incurvate(i.e. bend) our natures(繆譯：然而老壽加之於人性的是枉之於直，而非直之於枉), turning bad dispositions into worser habits, and (like diseases) brings on incurable vices; for every day as we grow weaker in age, we grow stronger in sinne... wherein besides the constant and inexcusable habit of transgressing, the maturity of our Judgement cuts off pretence unto excuse or pardon: every sin, the oftner it is committed, the more it acquireth in the quality of evill... And though I thinke no man can live well once but hee that could live twice, yet for my owne part, I would not live over my houres past... not upon Cicero's ground, because I have lived them well, but for feare I should live them worse: I find my growing Judgement dayly instruct me how to be better, but my untamed affections and confirmed vitiosity makes mee dayly doe worse; I finde in my confirmed age the same sinnes I discovered in my youth, I committed many then because I was a child, and because I commit them still I am yet an Infant. Therefore I perceive a man may bee twice a child before the dayes of dotage(i.e. old age), and stand in need of Æsons bath(i.e. a bath that could restore one to his youth) before threescore(i.e. sixty. That is, still feels oneself not 'young'(i.e. sinful) enough even when his life is already near its end.)."
Sect. 44.
"Men that looke no further than their outsides thinke health an appertinance unto life, and quarrell with their constitutions for being sick(繆譯：以為健康是生命的本色，患了疾病，只是與體質發生了爭吵); but I that have examined the parts of man(i.e. insides), and know upon what tender filaments that Fabrick hangs, doe wonder that we are not alwayes so; and considering the thousand dores(i.e. doors) that lead to death doe thanke my God that we can die but once. 'Tis not onely the mischiefe of diseases, and the villanie of poysons that make an end of us, we vainly accuse the fury of Gunnes, and the new inventions of death; 'tis in the power of every hand to destroy us, and wee are beholding unto every one wee meete hee doth not kill us. There is therefore but one comfort left, that though it be in the power of the weakest arme to take away life, it is not in the strongest to deprive us of death: God would not exempt himselfe from that(i.e. Jesus still died by crucifixion), the misery of immortality in the flesh, he undertooke not that was in it immortall(繆譯：肉體的長生是痛苦（的），因此他不允許肉體裏有永恆之物). Certainly there is no happinesse within this circle of flesh, nor is it in the Opticks of these eyes to behold felicity... the devill hath therefore fail'd of his desires; wee are happier with death than we should have beene without it: there is no misery but in himselfe where there is no end of misery; and so indeed in his own sense, the Stoick is in the right. Hee forgets that hee can die who complaines of misery, wee are in the power of no calamitie while death is in our owne."
Sect. 45.
"I beleeve the world growes neare its end, yet is neither old nor decayed, nor will ever perish upon the ruines of its owne principles. As the worke of Creation was above nature, so is its adversary, annihilation; without which the world hath not its end, but its mutation."
"Some beleeve(繆哲注：在布朗最初的原稿中，『有人』本來是『我』的，由於這一段話背離了對《聖經·創世記》的字面解釋，謹慎起見，才改成如今的字樣) there went not a minute to the worlds creation, nor shal there go to its destruction; those six dayes so punctually described, make not to them one moment, but rather seem to manifest the method and Idea of the great worke of the intellect of God, than the manner how hee proceeded in its operation. I cannot dreame that there should be at the last day any such Judiciall proceeding, or calling to the Barre, as indeed the Scripture seemes to imply, and the literall commentators doe conceive: for unspeakable mysteries in the Scriptures are often delivered in a vulgar and illustrative way(繆譯：是以方便的說法和比興之道來表達的), and being written unto man, are delivered, not as they truely are, but as they may bee understood; wherein notwithstanding the different interpretations according to different capacities may stand firme with our devotion, nor bee any way prejudiciall to each single edification(繆譯：每一種經解，都不失為一種教誨的)."
Sect. 46.
"it hath not onely mocked the predictions of sundry Astrologers in ages past, but the prophecies of many melancholy heads in these present, who neither understanding reasonably things past or present(繆譯：他們於古於今，全無信解), pretend a knowledge of things to come, heads ordained onely to manifest the incredible effects of melancholy, and to fulfill old prophesies, rather than be the authors of new."
Sect. 47.
"I have practised that honest artifice(i.e. trick; method) of Seneca, and in my retired and solitary imaginations, to detaine me from the foulenesse of vice, have fancyed to my selfe the presence of my deare and worthiest friends, before whom I should lose my head, rather than be vitious,"
Sect. 48.
"...the formes of alterable bodies in these sensible corruptions perish not; nor, as wee imagine, wholly quit their mansions, but retire and contract themselves into their secret and unaccessible parts, where they may best protect themselves from the action of their Antagonist. A plant or vegetable consumed to ashes, to a contemplative and schoole Philosopher seemes utterly destroyed, and the forme to have taken his leave for ever: But to a sensible Artist the formes are not perished, but withdrawne into their incombustible part, where they lie secure from the action of that devouring element."
Sect. 50.
"I cannot tell how to say that fire is the essence of hell, I know not what to make of Purgatory, or conceive a flame that can either prey upon, or purifie the substance of a soule... for in this materiall world, there are bodies that persist invincible in the powerfullest flames, and though by the action of fire they fall into ignition and liquation, yet will they never suffer a destruction: I would gladly know how Moses with an actuall fire calcin'd煅燒, or burnt the golden Calfe into powder(Deuteronomy 9:21): for that mysticall mettle(i.e. spirit) of gold, whose solary and celestiall nature I admire, exposed unto the violence of fire, grows onely hot and liquifies, but consumeth not: so when the consumable and volatile pieces of our bodies shall be refined into a more impregnable and fixed temper like gold, though they suffer from the action of flames, they shall never perish, but lie immortall in the armes of fire. And surely if this frame must suffer onely by the action of this element, there will many bodies escape, and not onely Heaven("天地要廢去，我的話卻不能廢去", Mark 13:31), but earth will not bee at an end, but rather a beginning... Philosophers that opinioned the worlds destruction by fire, did never dreame of annihilation, which is beyond the power of sublunary(i.e. temporal) causes; for the last and proper action of that element is but vitrification玻璃化 or a reduction of a body into Glasse(繆譯：這一種元素即便盡其所能，也只能將一個物體化成玻璃);"
"Nor need we fear this term [annihilation] or wonder that God will destroy the workes of his Creation... In the seed of a Plant to the eyes of God, and to the understanding of man, there exists, though in an invisible way, the perfect leaves, flowers, and fruit thereof(繆譯：在植物的種子中，葉子、花朵、和果實雖然隱而不彰，而對於上帝的眼睛和人的理智來說，卻仍然是不爽毫釐地敷展着): (for things that are in posse(i.e. not in actuality; having a potential to exist) to the sense, are actually existent to the understanding.) Thus God beholds all things, who contemplates as fully his workes in their Epitome, as in their full volume, and beheld as amply the whole world in that little compendium of the sixth day(繆譯：第六天的簡短摘要), as in the scattered and dilated(i.e. expanded) pieces of those five before(繆譯：前五日的汗漫之文)."
Sect. 51.
"Men commonly set forth the torments of Hell by fire, and the extremity of corporall afflictions, and describe Hell in the same method that Mahomet doth Heaven. This indeed makes a noyse, and drums in popular eares: but if this be the terrible piece thereof, it is not worthy to stand in diameter(i.e. opposite) with Heaven, whose happinesse consists in that part that is best able to comprehend it, that immortall essence, that translated divinity and colony of God, the Soule. Surely though wee place Hell under earth, the Devils walke and purlue(i.e. purlieu; a person's haunt or resort) is about it... The heart of man is the place the devill dwels in; I feele somtimes a hell within my selfe, Lucifer keeps his court in my brest, Legion is revived in me. There are as many hels as Anaxagoras(i.e. a Pre-Socratic Greek philosopher) conceited worlds; there was more than one hell in Magdalen, when there were seven devils(i.e. Luke 8:2); for every devill is an hell unto himselfe: hee holds enough of torture in his owne ubi(i.e. whereabouts), and needs not the misery of circumference to afflict him(繆譯：在身內受盡拷打的人，是不須身外之苦難的), and thus a distracted conscience here is a shadow or introduction unto hell hereafter; Who can but pity the mercifull intention of those hands that doe destroy themselves?* the devill were it in his power would doe the like, which being impossible his miseries are endlesse, and he suffers most in that attribute wherein he is impassible(i.e. invulnerable; exempt from decay), his immortality."
*"If Milton justified the ways of God to man, Browne, a humbler Christian, sought only to justify the ways of man to God. He appeals to many readers today largely because of his ability, in language that startles while it informs, to reconcile science and religion.", from Frank Livingstone Huntley, "Sir Thomas Browne and the Metaphor of the Circle"
Sect. 53.
"It is a singular piece of wisedome to apprehend truly, and without passion the workes of God, and so well to distinguish his justice from his mercy, as not to miscall those noble attributes; yet it is likewise an honest piece of Logick so to dispute and argue the proceedings of God, as to distinguish even his judgements into mercies."
Sect. 55.
"Diogenes I hold to bee the most vaineglorious man of his time, and more ambitious in refusing all honours, than Alexander in rejecting none."
"To perfect vertue, as to Religion, there is required a Panoplia or compleat armour, that whilst we lye at close ward against one vice we lye open to the vennie(i.e. veny; strike) of another: And indeed wiser discretions that have the thred of reason to conduct them, offend without a pardon; whereas under heads(i.e. blockheads) may stumble without dishonour."
"There goe so many circumstances to piece up one good action(繆譯：靠多少機緣的彌縫，才可以補綴起一片善行來), that it is a lesson to be good(i.e. to be good must it first be a lesson), and wee are forced to be vertuous by the booke. Againe, the practice of men holds not an equall pace, yea(i.e. yes), and often runnes counter to their Theory(i.e. 即言行不一也); we naturally know what is good, but naturally pursue what is evill: the Rhetoricke wherewith I perswade another cannot perswade my selfe: there is a depraved appetite in us, that will with patience heare the learned instructions of Reason; but yet performe no farther than agrees to its owne irregular Humour."
"Lastly, I doe desire with God, that all, but yet affirme with men, that few shall know salvation, that the bridge is narrow, the passage straite unto life; yet those who doe confine the Church of God, either to particular Nations, Churches, or Families, have made it farre narrower than our Saviour ever meant it(一笑)."
Sect. 56.
"those Christians... serving God in the fire, whereas we honour him but in the Sunshine."
Sect. 58.
"I beleeve there shall never be an Anarchy in Heaven, but as there are Hierarchies amongst the Angels, so shall there be degrees of priority amongst the Saints. Yet is it (I protest(i.e. insist)) beyond my ambition to aspire unto the first rankes, my desires onely are, and I shall be happy therein, to be but the last man, and bring up the Rere(i.e. rear; be last in a line or sequence) in Heaven(繆譯：我的希望，僅僅是……在天堂叨陪末座)."
Sect. 59.
"yet when an humble soule shall contemplate her owne unworthinesse, she shall meete with many doubts and suddainely finde how little wee stand in need of the precept of Saint Paul, Worke out your salvation with feare and trembling(Philippians 2:12). That which is the cause of my election, I hold to be the cause of my salvation, which was the mercy, and beneplacit(i.e. approval; consent) of God, before I was, or the foundation of the world. Before Abraham was, I am, is the saying of Christ, yet is it true in some sense if I say it of my selfe, for I was not onely before my selfe, but Adam, that is, in the Idea of God... And in this sense, I say, the world was before the Creation, and at an end before it had a beginning; and thus was I dead before I was alive, though my grave be England, my dying place was Paradise, and Eve miscarried of mee before she conceiv'd of Cain(一笑)."*
*"This passage, which has been taken as an instance of Browne’s self-serving wit, is, to be sure, breathtakingly bold, first in its quotation of Christ, with its embedding of the present-tense ‘I am’, an allusion to Jahweh’s words to Moses, in a way that first implies that this is Browne’s own statement, then seems to retreat, showing it to be a quotation (‘is the saying of Christ’), before finally claiming it for himself as well. The complexity of the prose reflects the complexity of the idea, as Browne plays on both casual and more seriously existential meanings of ‘my selfe’, and on the meanings of life and death, of physical and spiritual existence, of conception and miscarriage. Like Religio Medici 1.11, this passage juxtaposes the realms of time and eternity, and moves us rapidly backwards—to before the Creation— and forwards—to the end, not of time; but of innocence and of life—‘and at an end before it had a beginning’. Although the idea does not change, it is articulated in ever more radical forms, until the whole of human history and of Browne’s own life is reduced to a single moment in Eden. This passage demonstrates the tension possible within a paratactic並列 structure, where the writer does not suspend meaning as in a Ciceronian period, but draws it out in a succession of brilliant formulations of a principle stated at the beginning.", from Sharon Cadman Seelig, "'Speake, that I may see thee': The Styles of Sir Thomas Browne"
Sect. 60.
"I doe not deny, but that true faith... where to finde this, is as obscure to me, as my last end. And if our Saviour could object(i.e. adduce; expose) unto his owne Disciples, & favourites, a faith, that to the quantity of a graine of Mustard seed, is able to remove mountaines(Matthew 17:20); surely that which wee boast of, is not any thing, or at the most, but a remove from nothing."
The Second Part.
Sect. 1.
"Now for that other Vertue of Charity, without which Faith is a meer(i.e. mere) notion, and of no existence,"
"I am no Plant that will not prosper out of a Garden. All places, all ayres make unto me one Country; I am in England, every where, and under any meridian;"
Sect. 3.
"Divinity hath wisely divided the act(i.e. Charity) thereof into many branches, and hath taught us in this narrow way, many pathes unto goodnesse(繆譯：在這條狹窄的道路上，有許多小徑是通往善的);"
"there are infirmities, not onely of body, but of soule, and fortunes, which doe require the mercifull hand of our abilities. I cannot contemn a man for ignorance but behold him with as much pity as I doe Lazarus. It is no greater Charity to cloath his body, than apparell the nakednesse of his Soule. It is an honourable object to see the reasons of other men weare our Liveries(i.e. uniforms), and their borrowed understandings doe homage to the bounty(i.e. generosity) of ours. It is the cheapest way of beneficence, and like the naturall charity of the Sunne illuminates another without obscuring it selfe(繆譯：這於仁慈可以說是最不破費的，正像太陽的生性仁慈，照亮別人，卻不自損榮輝那樣)."
"even amongst wiser militants, how many wounds have beene given, and credits slaine for the poore victory of an opinion or beggerly conquest of a distinction? Schollers are men of peace, they beare no armes, but their tongues are sharper than Actius(i.e. Attus Navius, an augur占兆官 during the reign of Tarquinius Priscus, the legendary fifth king of Rome) his razor(i.e. Tarquinius Priscus intended to change Romulus' system of tribes and enlarged his army, yet Navius objected, since he deemed the omens unfavorable. Thus the king commanded him to divine whether what he was thinking of in his mind could be done, and that when Navius said that it could, the king held out a whetstone and a razor to cut it with. Navius immediately cut it. See Livy, The History of Rome, Book I, Ch. 36), their pens carry farther, and give a lowder(i.e. louder) report than thunder; I had rather stand in the shock of a Basilisco(i.e. a large brass cannon) than in the fury of a mercilesse Pen(繆譯：我寧可忍受大炮的轟鳴，也不願承受一枝無情之筆的怒火)."
"It is not meere zeale to Learning, or devotion to the Muses, that wiser Princes Patron the Arts, and carry an indulgent aspect unto Schollers, but a desire to have their names eternized by the memory of their writings, and a feare of the revengefull pen of succeeding ages(繆譯：聰明的君主們獎掖藝術、寵愛學者，這不僅是向心學問、敬重詩神，也是想借重他們的作品垂名千古，並防止後人以筆報怨): for these are the men, that when they(i.e. Princes) have played their parts, and had their exits, must step out and give the morall of their Scenes, and deliver unto posterity an Inventory of their vertues and vices."
Sect. 4.
"There is another offence unto Charity... that's the reproach, not of whole professions, mysteries(i.e. trade) and conditions, but of whole nations, wherein by opprobrious(i.e. derogatory; abusive) Epithets綽號 wee miscall each other, and by an uncharitable Logicke from a disposition in a few conclude a habit in all... It is as bloody a thought in one way as Neroes was in another(i.e. 'When I am dead let Earth be mingled with Fire, yea whilst I live'; or the wish of Caligula, that the people of Rome have but one Neck, that he might destroy them all at a blow). For by a word wee wound a thousand, and at one blow assassine the honour of a Nation. It is as compleate a piece of madnesse(繆譯：不折不扣的瘋狂) to miscall and rave against the times, or thinke to recall men to reason, by a fit of passion: Democritus(古希臘哲學家，原子論的創始者) that thought to laugh the times into goodnesse(繆譯：以為世風受到嘲笑，就能變得淳樸起來), seemes to me as deeply Hypochondriack臆症/疑病症, as Heraclitus that bewailed them; it moves not my spleene to behold the multitude in their proper humours, that is, in their fits of folly and madnesse, as well understanding that Wisedome is not prophan'd(i.e. profane) unto the World, and 'tis the priviledge of a few to be vertuous. They that endeavour to abolish vice destroy also vertue, for contraries, though they destroy one another, are yet the life of one another."
"No man can justly censure or condemne another, because indeed no man truely knowes another. This I perceive in my selfe, for I am in the darke to all the world, and my nearest friends behold mee but in a cloud, those that know mee but superficially, thinke lesse of me... (while) those of my neere acquaintance thinke more; God, who truely knowes me, knowes that I am nothing, for hee... lookes not on us through a derived ray, or a trajection(i.e. casting through) of a sensible species, but beholds the substance without the helpes of accidents, and the formes of things, as wee their operations. Further, no man can judge another, because no man knowes himselfe, for we censure others but as they disagree from that humour which wee fancy laudable in our selves, and commend others but for that wherein they seeme to quadrate(i.e. roughly square; conform) and consent with us. So that in conclusion, all is but that we all condemne, selfe-love. 'Tis the generall complaint of these times, and perhaps of those past, that charity growes cold; which I perceive most verified in those which most doe manifest the fires and flames of zeale; for it is a vertue that best agrees with coldest natures, and such as are complexioned for humility:"
"But how shall we expect charity towards others, when we are uncharitable to our selves? Charity begins at home, is the voyce of the world, yet is every man his greatest enemy, and as it were, his owne executioner(繆譯：『仁德始於家裏』，世人都這麼說，但每個人照樣做自己的大敵，或者說，自己的劊子手). Non occides(不可殺人), is the Commandement of God, yet scarce observed by any man; for I perceive every man is his owne Atropos(命運三女神之一，職責是將生命之線剪斷), and lends a hand to cut the thred of his owne dayes."
Sect. 5.
"It is not the teares of our owne eyes onely, but of our friends also, that doe exhaust the current of our sorrowes, which falling into many streames, runne more peaceably, and is contented with a narrower channel. It is an act within the power of charity, to translate a passion out of one breast into another, and to divide a sorrow almost out of it selfe; for an affliction like a dimension may be so divided, as if not indivisible, at least to become insensible."
Sect. 7.
"I can hold there is no such thing as injury, that if there be, there is no such injury as revenge, and no such revenge as the contempt of an injury; that to hate another, is to maligne himselfe, that the truest way to love another, is to despise our selves. I were unjust unto mine owne conscience, if I should say I am at variance(i.e. disagreeing; quarrelling) with any thing like my selfe. I finde there are many pieces in this one fabricke of man; this frame is raised upon a masse of Antipathies: I am one mee thinkes, but as the world; wherein notwithstanding there are a swarme of distinct essences, and in them another world of contrarieties(繆譯：原質之中，還另有一片由各相背斥之物構成的天地);"
"I thanke the goodnesse of God I have no sinnes that want a name, I am not singular in offences, my transgressions are Epidemicall, and from the common breath of our corruption."
Sect. 8.
"for indeed heads of capacity, and such as are not full(i.e. content) with a handfull, or easie measure of knowledg, thinke they know nothing, till they know all, which being impossible, they fall upon the opinion of Socrates, and onely know they know not any thing. I cannot thinke that Homer pin'd away upon the riddle of the Fisherman(i.e. 'What we caught, we threw away; what we didn't catch, we kept.' The answer was lice. From Pseudo-Plutarch, Vita Homeri), or that Aristotle, who understood the uncertainty of knowledge, and confessed so often the reason of man too weake for the workes of nature, did ever drowne himselfe upon the flux and reflux of Euripus:* wee doe but learne to day, what our better advanced judgements will unteach to morrow: and Aristotle doth but instruct us as Plato did him; that is, to confute himselfe. I have runne through all sorts, yet finde no rest in any... yet I perceive the wisest heads prove at last, almost all Scepticks, and stand like Janus(i.e. a Roman god who presided over the beginning and ending of conflict, and hence war and peace, and is depicted with two opposite faces) in the field of knowledge. I have therefore on[e] common and authentick Philosophy I learned in the Schooles, whereby I discourse and satisfie the reason of other men, another more reserved and drawne from experience, whereby I content mine owne(繆譯：我在學校裏學到了一套平實的哲學，我用於交談，滿足他人的理性；還有一套得自於經驗的哲學，我則留下來自奉自養)."
*"It is unusual for the waters of the Mediterranean Sea to move noticeably anywhere, but here(i.e. Euripus) they rushed back and forth in a flagrant manner that demanded an explanation... It turns not like an ocean tide, but capriciously, at irregular intervals, seven times a day. Indeed, the strait is named Euripus after the Greek word for 'weathercock' because of this erratic behavior; 'Euripus-heads' were people who were unable to make up their minds... Aristotle did not believe Plato's ideas that tides were the remnant eddies of the outflow of rivers into the sea... but he got no further toward a solution... disgusted by his lack of progress, he threw himself into the churning waters to be drown... exclaiming, 'Si quidem ego non capio te, tu capies me'(If I cannot grasp you, then you must take me)."-From Hugh Aldersey-Williams, The Tide: The Science and Lore of the Greatest Force on Earth
"There is yet another conceit that hath sometimes made me shut my bookes; which tels mee it is a vanity to waste our dayes in the blind pursuit of knowledge, it is but attending a little longer, and wee shall enjoy that by instinct and infusion which we endeavour at here by labour and inquisition: it is better to sit downe in a modest ignorance, & rest contented with the naturall blessing of our owne reasons, then(i.e. than) buy the uncertaine knowledge of this life, with sweat and vexation, which death gives every foole gratis, and is an accessary of our glorification."
Sect. 9.
"I feele not in me those sordid, and unchristian desires of my profession, I doe not secretly implore and wish for Plagues, rejoyce at Famines... I rejoyce not at unwholsome Springs, nor unseasonable(i.e. untimely; not befitting the occasion) Winters; my Prayer goes with the Husbandmans(i.e. farmers); I desire every thing in its proper season, that neither men nor the times bee out of temper."
"And to speak more generally, those three Noble professions which all civil Common wealths doe honour, are raised upon the fall of Adam, & are not any exempt from their infirmities; there are not onely diseases incurable in Physicke, but cases indissoluble in Lawes, Vices incorrigible(i.e. beyond cure) in Divinity:"
"...I doe not see why particular Courts should be infallible... the Lawes of one, doe but condemn the rules of another;"
"I can cure the gout or stone in some, sooner than Divinity, Pride, or Avarice in others. I can cure vices by Physicke, when they remaine incurable by Divinity, and shall obey my pils, when they contemne their precepts. I boast nothing, but plainely say, we all labour against our owne cure, for death is the cure of all diseases. There is no Catholicon(i.e. cure-all) or universall remedy I know but this, which thogh nauseous to queasie(i.e. inclined to nausea) stomachs, yet to prepared appetites is Nectar and a pleasant potion of immortality."
Sect. 10.
"there is no mans minde of such discordant and jarring a temper to which a tuneable disposition may not strike a harmony(繆譯：沒有誰的心靈是嘔呀啁哳的，以至於韻律優美的性格，竟引不出它的一道和聲來)."
"Magnæ virtutes, nec minora vitia(i.e. 'Great virtues, nor less vices.' From Plutarch, Parallel Lives, Demetrius I, quote this as a saying of Plato. 繆譯：德高者，惡亦如之), it is the posie(i.e. poesy; poetry) of the best natures, and may bee inverted on the worst;"
"There is no man alone, because every man is a Microcosme, and carries the whole world about him(繆譯：沒有人是孤獨的，因為人人都是一個微型的宇宙，一身之內涵蓋着大千); Nunquam minus solus quam cum solus(i.e. 'Never less alone than when alone', Cicero, De Officiis 3.1. 繆譯：獨而不孤／不孤唯在獨), though it bee the Apophthegme箴言 of a wise man, is yet true in the mouth of a foole;"
Sect. 11.
"Now for my life, it is a miracle of thirty yeares, which to relate, were not a History, but a peece of Poetry, and would sound to common eares like a fable; for the world, I count it not an Inne, but an Hospitall, and a place, not to live, but to die in. The world that I regard is my selfe; it is the Microcosme of mine owne frame, that I cast mine eye on; for the other, I use it but like my Globe, and turne it round sometimes for my recreation.”
“The earth is a point not onely in respect of the heavens above us, but of that heavenly and celestiall part within us: that masse of flesh that circumscribes me, limits not my mind:"
"and surely it is not a melancholy conceite to thinke we are all asleepe in this world, and that the conceits of this life are as meare dreames to those of the next, as the Phantasmes of the night, to the conceit of the day. There is an equall delusion in both, and the one doth but seeme to bee the embleme or picture of the other(繆譯：一世之人都在沉睡，今生之念對於來生之念，只是一場夢寐……因為兩者之中，都有惑人的幻影，彼此之間，事實上（是）互為影像的); we are somewhat more than our selves in our sleepes, and the slumber of the body seemes to bee but the waking of the soule. It is the ligation結紮 of sense, but the liberty of reason(繆譯：我們在睡眠中，總有心超神越之處，身體的睡眠恰是靈魂的警醒；它囚禁感官，卻開釋了理性), and our awaking conceptions doe not match the fancies of our sleepes... I am no way facetious(i.e. flippant; frivolous), nor disposed for the mirth and galliardize(i.e. gay; merry) of company, yet in one dreame I can compose a whole Comedy, behold the action, apprehend the jests, and laugh my self awake at the conceits thereof; were my memory as faithfull as my reason is then fruitfull, I would never study but in my dreames, and this time also would I chuse(i.e. choose) for my devotions, but our grosser memories have then so little hold of our abstracted understandings, that they forget the story, and can only relate to our awaked soules, a confused & broken tale of that that hath passed..."
"for those Noctambuloes夢游病者 and night-walkers, though in their sleepe, doe yet enjoy the action of their senses: wee must therefore say that there is something in us that is not in the jurisdiction of Morpheus希臘夢神; and that those abstracted and ecstaticke soules doe walke about in their owne corps(i.e. groups; legions), as spirits with the bodies they assume, wherein they seeme to heare, see, and feele, though indeed the organs are destitute of sense, and their natures of those faculties that should informe them. Thus it is observed that men sometimes upon the houre of their departure, doe speake and reason above themselves. For then the soule begins to bee freed from the ligaments(i.e. bonds) of the body, begins to reason like her selfe, and to discourse in a straine(i.e. sound; music) above mortality."
Sect. 12.
"We tearme sleepe a death, and yet it is waking that kils us, and destroyes those spirits that are the house of life... Themistocles(i.e the Athen general that commanded the Greek fleet during the Battle of Salamis) therefore that slew his Souldier(i.e. soldiers) in his sleepe was a mercifull executioner(此典實或出自Isocrates), 'tis a kinde of punishment the mildnesse of no lawes hath invented(繆譯：從沒有哪種溫和的法律發明過這樣的刑法); I wonder the fancy of Lucan and Seneca did not discover it(i.e. both were commanded by Nero to commit suicide, but with choice of the means). It is that death by which we may be literally said to die daily, a death which Adam died before his mortality; a death whereby we live a middle and moderating point betweene life and death; in fine(i.e. in short), so like death, I dare not trust it without my prayers, and an halfe adiew unto the world, and take my farewell in a Colloquy(i.e. conversation) with God."
"Sleepe is a death, O make me try,
By sleeping what it is to die."
Sect. 14.
"Nor is it strange that wee should place affection on that which is invisible... We betake our selves to a woman, forgetting our mothers in a wife, and the wombe that bare us in that that shall beare our image. This woman blessing us with children, our affection leaves the levell it held before, and sinkes from our bed unto our issue and picture of posterity, where affection holds no steady mansion(i.e. abode; dwelling place). They growing up in yeares desire our ends(繆譯：在成人之後，他們盼着我們一命歸西), or applying themselves to a woman, take a lawfull way to love another better than our selves. Thus I perceive a man may bee buried alive, and behold his grave in his owne issue(繆譯：在子孫的身上，我們可以看見自己的墳墓)."
Sect. 15.
"Blesse mee in this life with but the peace of my conscience, command of my affections, the love of thy selfe and my dearest friends, and I shall be happy enough to pity Cæsar. These are O Lord the humble desires of my most reasonable ambition and all I dare call happinesse on earth: wherein I set no rule or limit to thy hand or providence, dispose of me according to the wisedome of thy pleasure. Thy will bee done, though in my owne undoing."
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