Chapter XXXVIII: Part II: s. 1

But as in casting account, three or four men together come short in
account of one man placed by himself below them, &c.

Thus 1,965. But why is the 1, said to be placed below the 965?

S. 7.

Let me be nothing, if within the compass of myself, I do not finde the
battaile of Lepanto, passion against reason, 'reason against faith',
faith against the devil, and my conscience against all.

It may appear whimsical, but I really feel an impatient regret, that this good man had so misconceived the nature both of faith and reason as to affirm their contrariety to each other.

Ib.

For my originale sin, I hold it to bee washed away in my baptisme; for
my actual transgressions, I compute and reckon with God, but from my
last repentance, &c.

This is most true as far as the imputation of the same is concerned. For where the means of avoiding its consequences have been afforded, each after transgression is actual, by a neglect of those means.

S. 14.

God, being all goodnesse, can love nothing but himself; he loves us
but for that part which is, as it were, himselfe, and the traduction
of his Holy Spirit.

This recalls a sublime thought of Spinosa. Every true virtue is a part of that love, with which God loveth himself.

[Footnote 1: Communicated by Mr. Wordsworth.--Ed.]

[Footnote 2: A mistake as to Ænesidemus, who lived in the age of Augustus--Ed.]

NOTES ON SIR THOMAS BROWNE'S GARDEN OF CYRUS,

OR THE QUINCUNCIAL, ETC. PLANTATIONS OF THE ANCIENTS, ETC.

Ch. III.

That bodies are first spirits, Paracelsus could affirm, &c.

Effects purely relative from properties merely comparative, such as edge, point, grater, &c. are not proper qualities: for they are indifferently producible 'ab extra', by grinding, &c., and 'ab intra', from growth. In the latter instance, they suppose qualities as their antecedents. Now, therefore, since qualities cannot proceed from quantity, but quantity from quality,--and as matter opposed to spirit is shape by modification of extension, or pure quantity,--Paracelsus's 'dictum' is defensible.

Ib.

The æquivocall production of things, under undiscerned principles,
makes a large part of generation, &c.

Written before Harvey's 'ab ovo omnia'. Since his work, and Lewenhock's 'Microscopium', the question is settled in physics; but whether in metaphysics, is not quite so clear.

Ch. IV.

And mint growing in glasses of water, until it arriveth at the weight
of an ounce, in a shady place, will sometimes exhaust a pound of
water.

How much did Brown allow for evaporation?

Ib.

Things entering upon the intellect by a pyramid from without, and
thence into the memory by another from within, the common decussation
being in the understanding, &c.

This nearly resembles Kant's intellectual 'mechanique'.

The Platonists held three knowledges of God;--first, [Greek: parousia], his own incommunicable self-comprehension;--second, [Greek: kata noaesin]--by pure mind, unmixed with the sensuous;--third, [Greek: kat epistaemaen]--by discursive intelligential act. Thus a Greek philosopher:--[Greek: tous epistaemonikous logous muthous haegaesetai sunousa t'o patri kai sunesti'omenae hae psuchae en tae alaetheia tou ontos, kai en augae kathara].--Those notions of God which we attain by processes of intellect, the soul will consider as mythological allegories, when it exists in union with the Father, and is feasting with him in the truth of very being, and in the pure, unmixed, absolutely simple and elementary, splendor. Thus expound Exod. c. xxxiii. v. 10. 'And he said, thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live'. By the 'face of God,' Moses meant the [Greek: idea noaetikae] which God declared incompatible with human life, it implying [Greek: epaphae tou noaetou], or contact with the pure spirit.

NOTES ON SIR THOMAS BROWNE'S VULGAR ERRORS.

ADDRESS TO THE READER.

Dr. Primrose,

Is not this the same person as the physician mentioned by Mrs. Hutchinson in her Memoirs of her husband?