The Works Of the Learned Sr Thomas Brown 1686
Among the many curiosities in the 1686 folio of Sir Thomas Browne’s Works are two passages rarely considered together: a “Prophecy concerning the future state of several Nations,” and a thirteen-page enquiry into the causes of what Browne called “the Blackness of Negroes.” Read together, they reveal Browne grappling with the instability of nations and the diversity of mankind in a rapidly expanding early modern world.
Near the end of this 1686 folio appears a small but striking tract, “A Prophecy concerning the future state of several Nations.” Browne introduces the piece as a response to an old prophetic text sent to him by a friend. Already in the opening lines he signals his method. The second line frames the prophecy not as unquestioned revelation but as an occasion for reflection on the uncertain course of human affairs, while later lines (notably the seventh and eighth) emphasize the precarious fortunes of nations and the difficulty of predicting their destinies. Browne thus transforms the prophecy into a philosophical meditation: the rise and fall of peoples, the shifting power of kingdoms, and the limits of human foresight in interpreting the future.
This reflective skepticism toward historical prediction is characteristic of Brow’s intellectual method throughout the volume. In Pseudodoxia Epidemica, his famous Enquiries into Vulgar and Common Errors, Browne applies a similar habit of inquiry to widely accepted beliefs in natural philosophy. One chapter examines contemporary explanations for what he terms “the Blackness of Negroes.” Rather than asserting a single cause, Browne surveys a range of inherited theories—from classical geography and climatic influence to biblical genealogy and natural philosophy—illustrating how seventeenth-century thinkers attempted to reconcile expanding global knowledge with older intellectual traditions.
Read together, the Prophecy and the scientific enquiries illuminate Browne’s distinctive position in the intellectual landscape of the seventeenth century. He stands at the intersection of two modes of understanding the world: the older tradition of interpreting the destiny of nations through prophecy and providence, and the emerging Baconian effort to examine received beliefs through observation, authority, and reason. The resulting work is both a catalogue of early modern curiosities and a revealing document of how European thinkers grappled with the diversity of peoples and cultures in an expanding global horizon.
The reflections on the fate of nations in Browne’s “Prophecy” are echoed elsewhere in the 1686 folio, where Browne turns from politics and prophecy to the diversity of mankind itself. In Book VI of Pseudodoxia Epidemica he devotes three chapters—thirteen pages in all—to a question that had troubled natural philosophers since antiquity: the cause of what he calls “the Blackness of Negroes.”
Chapter X – Of the Blackness of Negroes
Browne begins the discussion not with race but with the broader philosophical problem of colour itself. Even the most visible phenomena in nature, he observes, often remain obscure to human understanding, and colour—though universally perceived—has resisted a clear explanation of its causes. Early modern natural philosophers attributed colour to a variety of principles: the mixture of the elements, the chemical triad of salt, sulphur, and mercury, or the effects of light and opacity. Against this uncertain background Browne introduces the specific question of African complexion. The problem, he suggests, cannot be resolved simply by appealing to traditional authorities, whether classical geography or scriptural interpretation, because the underlying causes of colour in nature are themselves imperfectly understood.
Chapter XI – Of the Same
In the following chapter Browne turns to the most common explanation inherited from antiquity: the belief that the intense heat of the sun in tropical regions produces blackness. He subjects this theory to a series of empirical objections. Populations living at the same latitude do not share identical complexions; Europeans who reside for long periods in Africa do not become black; and Africans transported to other regions retain their complexion across generations. These observations lead Browne to question the sufficiency of the solar explanation. While heat may influence complexion, he argues, it cannot alone account for the consistent and hereditary nature of the phenomenon.
Chapter XII – A Digression concerning Blackness
The final section expands the inquiry beyond climate. Browne considers additional explanations proposed by natural philosophers and physicians, including hereditary transmission, environmental conditions, diet, and even the speculative idea that maternal imagination might influence the appearance of offspring. He also surveys examples drawn from animals and plants, suggesting that variations in colour occur widely throughout nature and may arise from complex combinations of causes. The digression therefore broadens the question from a geographical curiosity into a more general investigation of how colour and physical difference emerge within living species.
Taken together, these three chapters reveal Browne approaching the question of human difference with the tools of early modern natural philosophy. Rather than endorsing a single explanation, he reviews competing theories—climatic influence, heredity, scriptural tradition, and environmental factors—and tests them against observation and comparative evidence. The result is not a definitive answer but a careful demonstration of the limits of existing knowledge. In this respect the discussion reflects the emerging scientific method of the seventeenth century: hypotheses are proposed, evidence is weighed, and inherited authorities are reconsidered. At the same time, the chapters preserve a record of the historical misunderstandings and uncertainties through which early modern thinkers attempted to interpret the diversity of mankind in an expanding global world.
Like the rest of Browne’s Works, these chapters attempt to resolve a commonly repeated explanation of nature by subjecting it to careful scrutiny through authority, reason, and observation—the characteristic method of seventeenth-century natural philosophy.
941J Browne Thomas 1605-1682
The Works Of the Learned Sr Thomas Brown, Kt. Doctor of Physick, late of Norwich. Containing I. Enquiries into Vulgar and Common Errors. II. Religio Medici: With Annotations and Observations upon it. III. Hydriotaphia; or, Urn-Burial: Together with The Garden of Cyrus. IV. Certain Miscellany Tracts. with Alphabetical Tables.
London: Tho. Basset, Ric. Chiswell, Tho. Sawbridge, Charles Mearn, and Charles Brome, 1686 Price $2,300
Folio 33 x 19 cm. Signatures: A6, (a)4, B-Z4, Aa-Zz4, Aaa-Iii4, Kkk6, Lll-Qqq4, Rrr6, Sss-Zzz4, Aaaa-Dddd4, Eeee2. This copy has the portrait of Browne by R. White; the engraving of the urns is bound before the Hydriotaphia, and the engraving of the quinqunx is bound opposite the title for the Garden of Cyrus. This copy is in good condition, bound in full contemporary calf with an early repacking (100 years ago or so) with coat of armor on the top board. The Arms are those of William BAGOT, 1st Baron Bagot 1728-1798 Son of Sir Walter Wagstaffe Bagot, 5th bart, from whom he inherited the title and family estates in 1768. He matriculated at Magdalen College, Oxford in 1747, but did not graduate; he travelled in Europe 1749-52. He was MP for Staffordshire 1754-80, where he was an active parliamentarian, a frequent speaker, and a supporter of Lord North’s government. In 1780 he was made 1st Baron Bagot
“[Thomas Browne’s] affluence and established residence (the transport of a collection containing many folio volumes is not lightly to be undertaken) enabled him to build up in ten years or so the substantial scholarly library which provided the materials for his longest work, Pseudodoxia Epidemica. First published in 1646, it was revised and expanded in successive editions up to the sixth in 1672. In it Browne took up a suggestion by Bacon in his Advancement of Learning that there should be compiled a list of erroneous beliefs held at that time in the fields of the natural sciences and general knowledge. Browne went further, and, by combining in his disquisition on each topic the testimonies of authority, reason, and experiment, endeavored to dispose once for all of some hundreds of fallacies. The work, executed with wide learning, wit, and characteristic style, immediately established his reputation as a savant, remaining popular at home and abroad for at least a century.” (Robbins) Browne acquired books throughout his life and established a significant library; it has been studied in detail by Lucy Gwynn (see below), who revises the accounts of earlier writers. Most of his books descended to his son Edward Browne, but some are likely to have remained with his widow Dorothy, and the exact size of the library at the time of Thomas’s death is not known (but would have been well over a thousand volumes). Evidence suggests that the books were stored in multiple places around Browne’s house; he also collected animal and plant specimens, minerals, coins and other artefacts. John Evelyn wrote of “his whole house and garden being a paradise and cabinet of rarities” (ODNB). [Gwynn, L. The library of Sir Thomas Browne, unpublished PhD thesis, Queen Mary University London, 2016.]
“Browne is more scientific than Bacon when he discusses some notions already touched in Sylva Sylvarum: for instance, that coral is soft under water and hardens in the air; that a salamander can live in and extinguish fire (if ancient tradition is true, says Bacon, the creature has a very close skin and some very cold ‘virtue’); that the chameleon lives on air (Bacon makes air its ‘principall Sustenance’ but admits flies as well). In the examination of these and other arresting items in his encyclopedia, Browne appeals to critical authority, reason, and experience; of these criteria only the last is strictly Baconian. But Browne was in fact a tireless observer and experimenter. And when a whale was thrown upon the coast of Norfolk he verified his notion of spermaceti; in later years he was able, through his son, to test the belief that ‘the
’—after swallowing a nugget the bird died ‘of a soden.’ But in the settling of a more commonplace problem, the reputed inequality of the badger’s legs, the mere report of the senses appears, happily for readers, to count less than abstract and almost metaphysical logic. Many exotic and ‘occult’ traditions were less readily verifiable by experience, and in this un-Baconian realm Browne of necessity relied upon reason and the weighing of authorities. ” (Bush)
Browne’s works are as delightful and as varied as the man himself. “A man of enormous learning and prodigious memory, Browne was also whimsical, eccentric, and superstitious—a paradoxical mixture of medieval lore, Baconian science, and great intellectual curiosity. […] Browne’s religious position in Religio Medici and his other works is that of a cultivated, tolerant Roman stoic thoroughly knowledgeable of Bacon’s foolish idols but emotionally aligned to the ceremonial and ritualistic Anglican religion of John Donne, George Herbert, and Lancelot Andrewes. His Religio Medici covers much the same ground as Richard Hooker’s Of The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, but does so with the brilliant speculations of Montaigne, coupled with his own characteristic tone of ‘love and wonder.’ For Browne there is no tension between faith and reason, and doubt is not agony but occasion for paradoxical joy.” (Ruoff, Elizabethan and Stuart)
In the present work, the following subjects are treated: “I. Enquiries into Vulgar and Common Errors. II. Religio Medici: With Annotations and Observations upon it. III. Hydriotaphia; or, Urn-Burial: Together with The Garden of Cyrus. IV. and the Certain Miscellany Tracts,” which further contains “I. Observations upon several Plants mentioned in Scripture; II. Of Garlands, and Coronary or Garland-plants; III. Of the Fishes eaten by our Saviour with his Disciples after the Resurrection from the dead; IV. An Answer to certain Queries relating to Fishes, Birds, Insects; V. Of Hawks and Falconry, ancient and modern; VI. Of Cymbals, &c.; VII. Of Ropalic or Gradual Verses, &c.; VIII. Of Languages, and particularly of the Saxon-Tongue; IX. Of Artificial Hills, Mounts or Boroughs in many parts of England: what they are, and to what end raised, and by what Nations; X. Of Troas, what place is meant by that Name. Also of the situations of Sodom, Gomorrah, Zeboim, in the Dead Sea; XI. Of the Answers of the Oracle of Apollo at Delphos to Croesus King of Lydia; XII. A Prophecy concerning the future state of several Nations; in a Letter written upon occasion of an old Prophecy sent to the Author from a Friend, with a request that he would consider it;
XIII. Musaeum Clausum, or Bibliotheca Abscondita: containing some remarkable Books, Antiquities, Pictures and Rarities of several kinds, scarce or never seen by any man now living.”
“Hydriotaphia is the leisurely excursion of a scholarly mind into the burial customs of past nations, and The Garden of Cyrus a pursuit of a number and form through art, nature, and philosophy. […] Hydriotaphia has been considered by George Williamson as a dissertation on human identity and the quest for its immortal retention. Its sections develop from the initial ease of identifying the purpose of the relics discussed, through a consideration of their failure to achieve this purpose—in that it is difficult to date such relics, let alone put a name to them—to the orthodox Christian consolation of expected resurrection, and the vanity by contrast of all earthly monuments. […] Likewise, The Garden of Cyrus is no horticultural handbook: rather, its pentatonic groves and thickets are a musical score transposed into verbal imagery, a reading of ‘that universal and public manuscript’ of the great Platonic Idea, of ‘that harmony which intellectually sounds in the ears of God.’” (Robbins)
Wing B-5150. Keynes 201. Sabin no. 8677.
JAMESGRAY2@ME.COM
Here is a partial list of copies recorded in US Libraries.
Brown University, John Hay Library, Providence, Rhode Island, United States: Koopman 1-SIZE PR3327 .A1 1686
Brown University, John Hay Library, Providence, Rhode Island, United States: Hist-Sci 1-SIZE PR3327 .A1 1686
Brown University, John Hay Library, Providence, Rhode Island, United States: Lownes 1-SIZE PR3327 .A1 1686
Bryn Mawr College, Canaday Library, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, United States: PR3327 .A1 1686
Columbia University, Rare Book & Manuscript Library, New York, New York, United States: PR3327 .A1 1686
Countway Library of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, United States: PR3327 .W89 1686
Autograph of Thomas A. Warthin; autograph of H. Bythall. ; Bound in contemporary speckled calf, covers panelled in blind; rebacked with modern leather, red leather label on spine, lettered and ruled in gilt.
Emory University, Candler School of Theology, Pitts Theology Library, Atlanta, Georgia, United States: 1686 BROW
Emory University, Robert W. Woodruff Library, Atlanta, Georgia, United States: Folio 2011 16
Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, District of Columbia, United States: B5150
cs930. Made-up copy: 2C2 from another copy. MS. notes re Religio medici tipped in after 4E2. 2C2 mutilated and repaired, affecting text, and trimmed, affecting MS. note. Some leaves foxed, affecting text.
engraved armorial bookplate of T. T. Watson
Haverford College, Magill Library, Haverford, Pennsylvania, United States: 61
Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery, San Marino, California, United States: 618885
-port.
signature of George Dock; bookplate of LeRoy Crummer; Los Angeles County Medical Association collection
Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery, San Marino, California, United States: 618909
frontis. bound after general t.p.
signature of James Ths. Law, Lichfield; Los Angeles County Medical Association collection
Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery, San Marino, California, United States: 83114
bookplate of Syston Park; signed on flyleaf: Cha: Churchill
Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery, San Marino, California, United States: 476482
bookplate of George Agar Ellis; gift of the Friends of the Huntington Library
Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States: *EC65.B8185.C686w (A)
Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States: *EC65.B8185.C686w (B) Imperfect: front. wanting.
Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States: *EC8.So888.Zz686b
Autographed: Robert Southey. Bristol. 1803.
Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States: *2004G-16
Igoe Library Foundation, Charleston, South Carolina, United States: Igoe Library Foundation
With a bookplate: R.P. Kemp
Library Company of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
New York Academy of Medicine, New York, New York, United States: rbr
New York Public Library, New York, New York, United States: *KC+ 1686 (Browne, T. Works of the learned Sr Thomas Brown)
Newberry Library, Chicago, Illinois, United States: Case Y 12
Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, United States: L 824.4 B88 1686
Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, United States: L Adams 824.4 B88 1686
Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States
Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, United States: RHT 17th-711 Oversize
Smith College Libraries, Northampton, Massachusetts, United States: 825 B814 1686
Binding: Contemporary full calf (rebacked).
Smith College Libraries, Northampton, Massachusetts, United States: x PR3327 .A1 1686
Illustrations and title pages as DFo.
Indecipherable signature (–ytt-) on title. Binding: Contemporary full calf.
Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts, United States: N6761.6 B76w 1686. Bookplate: Sr. Clement Cottrell Kt. CAI copy lacks front. (port.)
Julius S. Held Collection of Rare Books.
U.S. National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, Maryland, United States: WZ 250 B8846 1686
University of California, Los Angeles, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, Los Angeles, California, United States
University of California, Riverside, Rivera Library, Riverside, California, United States: SpC fPR3327.A1 1686 t.p. and prelims of Pseudoxia epidemica; -all after p.52 of Hydriotaphia
University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, United States: f PR3327.A1 1686
University of Colorado, Norlin Library, Boulder, Colorado, United States: PR3327.A1 1686 OS1
University of Colorado, Norlin Library, Boulder, Colorado, United States: Special Collections
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois, United States: Q. 828 B811686
University of Tennessee, Knoxville Libraries, Knoxville, Tennessee, United States: xPR3327.A1 1686
University of Texas at Austin, Harry Ransom Center, Austin, Texas, United States: PR3327.A1 1686
University of Toronto, Library, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, United States
University of Virginia, Alderman Library, Charlottesville, Virginia, United States: McGregor E 1686 .B76
Gilt armorial on covers: Hudson Gurney.
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Golda Meir Library, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States: PR3327.A1 1686
Virginia Commonwealth University, Health Sciences Library, Richmond, Virginia, United States
Wesleyan University, Olin Library, Middletown, Connecticut, United States
Yale University, Sterling Memorial, New Haven, Connecticut, United States
Jamesgray2@me.com
For university and special collections purchases, I am accustomed to working within committee timelines and budget cycles. Titles may be placed on hold during review, and flexible invoicing arrangements can be discussed where appropriate. I welcome inquiries at jamesgray2@me.com.
Leave a Reply