For that mysticall metall of gold, whose solary and celestiall nature I admire, &c.
Rather anti-solar and terrene nature! For gold, most of all metals, repelleth light, and resisteth that power and portion of the common air, which of all ponderable bodies is most akin to light, and its surrogate in the realm of [Greek: antiph"os]; or gravity, namely, oxygen. Gold is "tellurian" [Greek: kat exochaen] and if solar, yet as in the solidity and dark "nucleus" of the sun.
S. 52.
I thank G.o.d that with joy I mention it, I was never afraid of h.e.l.l, nor never grew pale at the description of that place; I have so fixed my contemplations on heaven, that I have almost forgot the idea of h.e.l.l, &c.
Excellent throughout. The fear of h.e.l.l may, indeed, in some desperate cases, like the _moxa_, give the first rouse from a moral lethargy, or like the green venom of copper, by evacuating poison or a dead load from the inner man, prepare it for n.o.bler ministrations and medicines from the realm of light and life, that nourish while they stimulate.
S. 54.
There is no salvation to those that believe not in Christ, &c.
This is plainly confined to such as have had Christ preached to them;--but the doctrine, that salvation is in and by Christ only, is a most essential verity, and an article of unspeakable grandeur and consolation. Name--_nomen_, that is, [Greek: noumenon], in its spiritual interpretation, is the same as power, or intrinsic cause. What? Is it a few letters of the alphabet, the hearing of which in a given succession, that saves?
S. 59.
"Before Abraham was, I am," is the saying of Christ; yet is it true in some sense if I say it of myself, for I was not only before myself, but Adam, that is, in the idea of G.o.d, and the decree of that synod held from all eternity. And in this sense, I say, the world was before the creation, and at an end before it had a beginning; and thus was I dead before I was alive;--though my grave be England, my dying-place was Paradise, and Eve miscarried of me before she conceived of Cain.
Compare this with s. 11, and the judicious remark there on the mere accommodation in the "prae" of predestination. But the subject was too tempting for the rhetorician.
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 compa.s.s of myself, I do not finde the battaile of Lepanto, pa.s.sion 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 G.o.d, 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.
G.o.d, 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 G.o.d loveth himself.
[Footnote 1: Communicated by Mr. Wordsworth.--Ed.]
[Footnote 2: A mistake as to aenesidemus, 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 quant.i.ty, but quant.i.ty from quality,--and as matter opposed to spirit is shape by modification of extension, or pure quant.i.ty,--Paracelsus"s "dictum" is defensible.
Ib.
The aequivocall 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 gla.s.ses 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 G.o.d;--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 G.o.d 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.
x.x.xiii. v. 10. "And he said, thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live". By the "face of G.o.d," Moses meant the [Greek: idea noaetikae] which G.o.d 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.