TO THE READER.

N ancient times it was held as a matter of

IN

faith by many, that man's spiritual part did not go at once to its ultimate state of existence, but did undergo a kind of purification, by the passing from one body to another of a better or worse kind; until, being thus corrected of its earthly desires and propensions, it was fitted for its final beatitude. Pythagoras, it was said by some, had good recollection of the time when his soul was far worse bestowed than in that body wherein he preached temperance and virtue so effectually to the citizens of Crotona, as to raise that city at once to greatness, and its people to a merited superiority over their neighbours of Sybaris:-a body kept in such holiness and purity by its beatified inhabitant, that we may well believe it fitted for that resurrection of the just, where "they that do well shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness, as the stars for ever and ever."

B

Good reader, I will not ask thee to believe that Pythagoras hath revisited earth under my semblance, albeit, my wish to amend the morals, and increase the wise knowledge of my contemporaries, be not less lively than his; but merely to give me so far credit as to believe for the nonce, that the pen which doth now address thee, is that of Thomas Brown, whilome Doctor of Physick; who began his inquiry into vulgar and common errors some two centuries back, and having laughed somewhat at the odd blunders in science made by the men of that age, hath now, in return, somewhat to blush for his own. We are always wont to inquire anxiously what men of other lands have to say concerning us; rightly judging that they who have been brought up in other habits, will notice the strangenesses or excellencies of ours, with a sharper observation than that of one born and nurtured in the country: there is, therefore, good reason to think that the opinions of a man of another age stepping onward into this, will not be without their value to such as can forget their own præjudgments so far as to profit thereby.

Within the last two hundred years the very face of the world is changed; and he who should

rise at once from his grave, passing through no intermediate stage, and look on the nineteenth century with the eyes of the seventeenth, would go near to expire again with amazement at what he saw; and would despair of ever, in the short span of one life, attaining to the knowledge of all the discoveries which have graced these later times. But let the same man go into society, and he will find things far less changed there, than, with such a change in all else, there would be good cause to expect. True it is, that there is more of refinement in expression and manners: but the unthinking many have gained, on the whole, far less from the deep thinking few, than, -taking a theoretic view of the case,-might in fair reason have been looked for; and the same error which my Lord Bacon doth so feelingly complain of in his time, remaineth very little corrected in this: namely, a "mistaking or misplacing the last or farthest end of knowledge; for men," saith that wise writer, "have entered into a desire of learning and knowledge, sometimes upon a natural curiosity, and inquisitive appetite; sometimes to entertain their minds with variety and delight; sometimes for ornament and reputation; and sometimes to enable them to victory of wit and contradiction; and

most times for lucre and profession; and seldom to give a true account of their gift of reason, to the benefit and use of men : as if there were sought in knowledge a couch whereupon to rest a searching and restless spirit; or a terrace for a wandering and variable mind to walk up and down with a fair prospect; or a tower of state for a proud mind to raise itself upon; or a fort or commanding ground for strife and contention; or a shop for profit or sale; and not a rich storehouse for the glory of the Creator, and the relief of man's estate."-In brief, learning is sought as the means to an end,—and that end is too usually a worldly one; not for the love of knowledge per se; nor for the elevation of the soul, by the giving it strength of pinion to soar above the things of earth: neither if it settle down towards lower regions, doth it come, bird of paradise-like, radiant with the hues of heaven, to make us love the skies it hath left; but it descendeth the rather like the fuliginous particles of the smoke which hath soared upwards for a time, dark and unlovely; with much talk of utility, but little of benevolent usefulness.

Neither do I find that the great advance of science hath done much in the rendering pædagogy more facile and pleasant, either unto the