The Works of Sir Thomas Browne, Volume 3Browne, Thomas, Sir
Religion
The Works of Sir Thomas Browne, Volume 3
Browne, Thomas, Sir
Christianity; Ethics; Religion and medicine
Right lines and circles make out the bulk of plants; In the parts
thereof we finde Helicall or spirall roundles, voluta's, conicall
Sections, circular Pyramids, and frustums of _Archimedes_; And cannot
overlook the orderly hand of nature, in the alternate succession of the
flat and narrower sides in the tender shoots of the Ashe, or the regular
inequality of bignesse in the five leaved flowers of Henbane, and
something like in the calicular leaves of _Tutson_. How the spots of
_Persicaria_ do manifest themselves between the sixth and tenth ribbe.
How the triangular capp in the stemme or _stylus_ of Tuleps doth
constantly point at three outward leaves. That spicated flowers do open
first at the stalk. That white flowers have yellow thrums or knops. That
the nebbe of Beans and Pease do all look downward, and so presse not
upon each other; And how the seeds of many pappous or downy flowers
lockt up in sockets after a gomphosis or _mortis_-articulation, diffuse
themselves circularly into branches of rare order, observable in
_Tragopogan_ or Goats-beard, conformable to the Spiders web, and the
_Radii_ in like manner telarely inter-woven.
And how in animall natures, even colours hold correspondencies, and
mutuall correlations. That the colour of the Caterpillar will shew again
in the Butterfly, with some latitude is allowable. Though the regular
spots in their wings seem but a mealie adhesion, and such as may be
wiped away, yet since they come in this variety, out of their cases,
there must be regular pores in those parts and membranes, defining such
Exudations.
That _Augustus_[161] had native notes on his body and belly, after the
order and number in the Starre of _Charles wayne_, will not seem strange
unto astral Physiognomy, which accordingly considereth moles in the body
of man, or Physicall Observators, who from the position of moles in the
face, reduce them to rule and correspondency in other parts. Whether
after the like method medicall conjecture may not be raised, upon parts
inwardly affected; since parts about the lips are the criticall seats of
Pustules discharged in Agues; And scrophulous tumours about the neck do
so often speak the like about the Mesentery, may also be considered.
[161] Suet. in vit. Aug.
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