The Works of Sir Thomas Browne, Volume 2Browne, Thomas, Sir
Religion
The Works of Sir Thomas Browne, Volume 2
Browne, Thomas, Sir
Christianity; Ethics; Religion and medicine
Now it is manifest, and most men likewise know, that the Calenders of
these computers, and the accounts of these days are very different; the
Greeks dissenting from the Latins, and the Latins from each other; the
one observing the _Julian_ or ancient account, as great _Britain_ and
part of _Germany_; the other adhering to the _Gregorian_ or new account,
as _Italy_, _France_, _Spain_, and the united Provinces of the
Netherlands. Now this later account by ten days at least anticipateth
the other; so that before the one beginneth the account, the other is
past it; yet in the several calculations, the same events seem true, and
men with equal opinion of verity, expect and confess a confirmation from
them all. Whereby is evident the Oraculous authority of tradition, and
the easie seduction of men, neither enquiring into the verity of the
substance, nor reforming upon repugnance of circumstance.
And thus may divers easily be mistaken who superstitiously observe
certain times, or set down unto themselves an observation of unfortunate
months, or dayes, or hours; As did the _Egyptians_, two in every month,
and the _Romans_, the days after the Nones, Ides and Calends. And thus
the Rules of Navigators must often fail, setting down, as _Rhodiginus_
observeth, suspected and ominous days in every month, as the first and
seventh of March, the fift and sixt of April, the sixt, the twelfth and
fifteenth of February. For the accounts hereof in these months are very
different in our days, and were different with several Nations in Ages
past; and how strictly soever the account be made, and even by the
self-same Calender, yet is it possible that Navigators may be out. For
so were the Hollanders, who passing Westward through _fretum le Mayre_,
and compassing the Globe, upon their return into their own Country,
found that they had lost a day. For if two men at the same time travel
from the same place, the one Eastward, the other Westward round about
the earth, and meet in the same place from whence the first set forth;
it will so fall out, that he which hath moved Eastward against the
diurnal motion of the Sun, by anticipating dayly something of its circle
with his own motion, will gaine one day; but he that travelleth
Westward, with the motion of the Sun, by seconding its revolution,
shall lose or come short a day. And therefore also upon these grounds
that _Delos_ was seated in the middle of the earth, it was no exact
decision, because two Eagles let fly East and West by _Jupiter_, their
meeting fell out just in the Island _Delos_.
CHAPTER V
A Digression of the wisdom of God in the site and motion of the Sun.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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