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
Moreover, their understanding thus weak in it self, and perverted by
sensible delusions, is yet farther impaired by the dominion of their
appetite; that is, the irrational and brutal part of the soul, which
lording it over the soveraign faculty, interrupts the actions of that
noble part, and choaks those tender sparks, which _Adam_ hath left them
of reason. And therefore they do not only swarm with Errors, but vices
depending thereon. Thus they commonly affect no man any further than he
deserts his reason, or complies with their aberrancies. Hence they
imbrace not vertue for it self, but its reward; and the argument from
pleasure or Utility is far more powerful, than that from vertuous
Honesty: which _Mahomet_ and his contrivers well understood, when he set
out the felicity of his Heaven, by the contentments of flesh, and the
delights of sense, slightly passing over the accomplishment of the Soul,
and the beatitude of that part which Earth and visibilities too weakly
affect. But the wisdom of our Saviour, and the simplicity of his truth
proceeded another way; defying the popular provisions of happiness from
sensible expectations; placing his felicity in things removed from
sense, and the intellectual enjoyment of God. And therefore the doctrine
of the one was never afraid of Universities, or endeavoured the
banishment of learning, like the other. And though _Galen_ doth
sometimes nibble at _Moses_, and, beside the Apostate Christian, [SN:
_Julian._] some _Heathens_ have questioned his Philosophical part, or
treaty of the Creation: Yet is there surely no reasonable _Pagan_, that
will not admire the rational and well grounded precepts of Christ; whose
life, as it was conformable unto his Doctrine, so was that unto the
highest rules of Reason; and must therefore flourish in the advancement
of learning, and the perfection of parts best able to comprehend it.
[Sidenote: Non sani esse hominis, non sanus juret Orestes.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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