RELIGIO MEDICI was the first of Sir Thomas Browne's books and has always been the one most generally read. It was first printed in an unauthorized edition in 1642, followed in the next year by an edition under Browne's own supervision. The hook was the fruit of much reading and much quiet observation and reflection, but is not Browne's most characteris tic work. Enthusiasts arc more likely to turn to his (Pseudodoxia Epidemica or Enquiries into very many received Tenets and commonly pre sumed Truths) (1646) or to his
If one sought for it, so he thought, one would find some good in everything. His habit of mind was to steer a middle course between credulity and scepticism, with a strong leaning toward the latter. But nobody so charitable to ward strange views as the sceptic turned loose in the field of speculation, and in reading Browne, one is continually being caught up by his defense of such opinions as the belief in witchcraft, by his apparent desire to put faith in the existence of "changelings" (though he will not go so far as to say that a man can be "despeciated" into a horse), or by his oc casional defense of ecclesiastical practices which in his day the normal Protestant (and Browne asserted that the only thing he disliked about Protestantism was the name) would never have thought of defending. In short, Browne loved to sport in paradox and intellectual hyperbole, habits of mind often annoying to the literal minded reader. Beneath these eccentricities, however, diere lay a solid foundation of character and belief, an open-mindedness and readiness to see the best in everything, which make of him a better proponent of his views than an orthodox dogmatist, or a bitter iconoclast could have been.