The Works of Sir Thomas Browne, Volume 1Browne, Thomas, Sir
Religion
The Works of Sir Thomas Browne, Volume 1
Browne, Thomas, Sir
Christianity; Ethics; Religion and medicine
the lye if I should absolutely detest or hate any essence but the Devil;
or so at least abhor any thing, but that we might come to composition.
If there be any among those common objects of hatred I do contemn and
laugh at, it is that great enemy of Reason, Virtue and Religion, the
Multitude; that numerous piece of monstrosity, which taken asunder seem
men, and the reasonable creatures of God; but confused together, make
but one great beast, and a monstrosity more prodigious than Hydra: it is
no breach of Charity to call these Fools; it is the style all holy
Writers have afforded them, set down by _Solomon_ in Canonical
Scripture, and a point of our Faith to believe so. Neither in the name
of Multitude do I onely include the base and minor sort of people; there
is a rabble even amongst the Gentry, a sort of Plebeian heads, whose
fancy moves with the same wheel as these; men in the same Level with
Mechanicks, though their fortunes do somewhat guild their infirmities,
and their purses compound for their follies. But as in casting account,
three or four men together come short in account of one man placed by
himself below them: So neither are a troop of these ignorant Doradoes,
of that true esteem and value, as many a forlorn person, whose condition
doth place him below their feet. Let us speak like Politicians, there
is a Nobility without Heraldry, a natural dignity, whereby one man is
ranked with another; another filed before him, according to the quality
of his Desert, and preheminence of his good parts: Though the corruption
of these times, and the byas of present practice wheel another way. Thus
it was in the first and primitive Commonwealths, and is yet in the
integrity and Cradle of well-order'd Polities, till corruption getteth
ground, ruder desires labouring after that which wiser considerations
contemn; every one having a liberty to amass and heap up riches, and
they a licence or faculty to do or purchase any thing.
SECT. 2
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