Helmont might dream himself a bubble

Its only in recent times that a clearer assessment of the Belgian chemist and scientist, physician and alchemystical philosopher Jan Baptist van Helmont (1579-1644) in science and medicine has been made. Likewise, its only recently that the influence of J.B.van Helmont on the English physician-philosopher Sir Thomas Browne (1605-82) has been recognised. 

Just as historians only slowly acknowledged the seminal influence which the Swiss alchemist-physician Paracelsus (1493-1541) exerted upon the development of medicine during the Renaissance, so too, J. B. van Helmont has long occupied an ambiguous place in intellectual history.

J.B. van Helmont's writings are couched in the language of Renaissance mysticism and his belief in alchemy and magic is in tandem to his rational, scientific enquiries. This has resulted in an unsympathetic attitude towards him by historians of science and his writings labelled as an 'un-scientific' miscellany of medicine, philosophy and alchemy. One leading historian of medicine somewhat resignedly calling him an enigmatic figure.[1]

Quite simply the enigma of J.B. van Helmont rests in the paradox to modern sensibilities of his being defined in near equal measure as much a scientist and physician as religious mystic and 'alchemystical' philosopher. All these compartmentalized definitions did not of course exist in J.B. Helmont's time; himself possessing an entirely holistic and unified view of science, religion, medicine and philosophy.

Throughout his life J.B. van Helmont endured much misfortune. In his youth he gallantly picked up a glove which a lady had dropped only to be infected by scabies from it. He consulted the writings of the famous physician Galen for a remedy but found it ineffective and a sulphur ointment prescription by Paracelsus  successful. He subsequently vowed to reject Galenic medicine and follow Paracelsus instead. J.B.van Helmont toured Europe, including London and worked in Antwerp during a plague epidemic in 1605. He graduated as Doctor of Medicine of the University of Louvain in 1599 but he was later denounced by his Alma Mater in 1623 as a heretic through the Spanish authorities occupying Flanders. His unorthodox views resulted in his arrest, trial and imprisonment in 1634 followed by house-arrest for the rest of his life. He almost died from Carbon monoxide poisoning in 1643 and contracted pleurisy in 1644. His good fortune however was to marry an heiress whose wealth enabled him to abandon his onerous medical duties and engage in scientific research for several years.

In essence, J.B. van Helmont is a transitional figure in the history of science. Like many other early scientists including Browne, he regarded all science and wisdom to be a gift from God.  J.B. Helmont was also highly influenced by the so-called 'Luther of Medicine' in his scientific thought and experiments. It was the Swiss alchemist-physician Paracelsus who proposed that the true purpose of alchemy was to investigate the properties of nature, advocating the 'art of fire' to distil 'quintessences' of mineral and vegetable-life in order to discover new medicines. J.B. Helmont has been defined as the foremost follower of Paracelsus, who, whilst highly critical of Paracelsian mysticism nevertheless subscribed to what the Swiss physician termed his 'Spagyric' medicine, the rudimentary beginnings of  iatrochemistry or medical chemistry no less, and as such J.B. van Helmont is credited, alongside the English scientist Robert Boyle (1627-91) as a 'Father of modern chemistry'.

Upon J.B. van Helmont's death in 1644 his son Franciscus Mercurius van Helmont (1614-98/99) randomly collated and edited his father's writings for the publication of Ortus Medicinae, or the 'Dawn of Medicine' in Amsterdam in 1648. An English translation by John Chandler entitled Oriatrike was published in London in 1662. 

In his brilliant and scholarly biographical study of Thomas Browne, the American academic Reid Barbour notes Browne is especially keen to include J.B.van Helmont's research on magnetism in the forthcoming second edition of his Pseudodoxia Epidemica in 1650. [2]  Other recent publications on Browne singularly fail to even mention J.B. van Helmont yet alone elaborate on his influence on Browne. However, scattered throughout his writings are several references to J.B. van Helmont which strongly suggest that the Norwich-based scientist and physician Thomas Browne held the Belgian scientist and physician  in high regard. It shouldn't be too surprising to discover that Browne took the medical ideas of J.B. van Helmont seriously. Circa 1629 he had completed his continental studies at Leiden University in Holland, an educational institute whose reputation for chemical medicine was centred upon J.B. van Helmont's Paracelsian science.

Although none of J.B. van Helmont's writings are listed in the 1711 Sales Auction Catalogue of Browne's library (there's a lapse of almost 30 years from Browne's death until his library contents are auctioned. Not a single one of the books advertised on the Auction Catalogue title-page as 'Books of Sculpture and Painting' ever arrived at the auction-house) Thomas Browne surely had access to Van Helmont's writings. For example, when speculating on the formation of kidney-stones, a disease long prevalent in East Anglia due to its many chalky water-courses, Browne  praises Van Helmont, albeit in parenthesis - '(as Helmont excellently declareth)'.[3] However, like J.B. van Helmont, Browne was also prone to read the 'Book of Nature' through the prism of esoteric schemata, the most elaborate being the microcosm-macrocosm correspondence, or from long-held folk-lore, as here-

'and Helmont affirmeth he could never find the spider and the fly upon the same trees, that is the signs of war and pestilence which often go together' [4]

Because early scientists such as Paracelsus, J.B. van Helmont and Thomas Browne encountered undefinable properties and phenomena in their scientific investigations they each had a propensity for coining and introducing new words, some of which remain in modern language. The word 'alcohol' is credited as originating from Paracelsus and that of 'electricity', amongst hundreds of others, to Browne. J.B.van Helmont's most famous neologism is undoubtedly the word 'gas' derived from the ancient Greek word for chaos. In fact, Van Helmont investigated and categorized a number of gases, including gas from belching, poisonous red gas (NO2) which is formed when aqua fortis (HNO3) acts on silver and sulfurous gas that “flies off” burning sulfur, amongst others. J.B. van Helmont proposed that gas is composed of invisible atoms which can come together by intense cold and condense to minute liquid drops; and that gases can be contained in bodies in fixed form, and set free again by heat, fermentation, or chemical reaction. In relation to combustion, he concluded there were two classes of gas which he named as Gas sylvestre – one that would not burn or support combustion (Carbon Monoxide) and Gas pingue – one that would burn (a combustible gas).

The most well-known of J.B. van Helmont's experiments involved his demonstration that water is the foremost element sustaining life.  He wrote of his famous experiment with a willow tree circa 1620, thus-

"That all plants immediately and substantially stem from the element water alone I have learned from the following experiment. I took an earthen vessel in which I placed two hundred pounds of earth dried in an oven, and watered with rain water. I planted in it a willow tree weighing five pounds. Five years later it had developed a tree weighing one hundred and sixty-nine pounds and about three ounces. Nothing but rain (or distilled water) had been added. The large vessel was placed in earth and covered by an iron lid with a tin-surface that was pierced with many holes. I have not weighed the leaves that came off in the four autumn seasons. Finally I dried the earth in the vessel again and found the same two hundred pounds of it diminished by about two ounces. Hence one hundred and sixty-four pounds of wood, bark and roots had come up from water alone".

Helmont's famous experiment was known to Thomas Browne. He alludes to it when speculating on water's ability to generate growth in The Garden of Cyrus-

'How water it self is able to maintain the growth of Vegetables, and without extinction of their generative or medical vertues; Beside the experiment of Helmont's tree, we have found in some which have lived six years in glasses'.

J.B van Helmont is only one of three 'moderns' who make the cut as worthy of mention in The Garden of Cyrus, the other two 'moderns' who also held in equal measure a rational and mystical view of science named in the discourse are the Swiss alchemist-physician Paracelsus (1493-1541) and the Italian esoteric scholar and polymath Giambattista Della Porta (1535-1615).

It was from Paracelsus that J.B. van Helmont evolved his own idea of an 'Archeus' or 'Master Workman' responsible for giving life and form to the human body. In Ortus Medicinae he situated the “archeus” in the upper opening of the stomach. All diseases according to J.B. van Helmont have their seat in the Archeus and every disease, he believed, had a vital principle of it own (archeus) which could be treated by a specific medical-spiritual response. Disease, J.B. van Helmont believed, could be overcome by  pacifying the disturbed Archeus. Medicines, in particular, minerals, targeted the disease and helped the host overcome its archeus. According to J.B. van Helmont-

'A Disease therefore is a certain Being, bred, after that a certain hurtful strange power hath violated the vital Beginning...and by piercing hath stirred up the Archeus unto Indignation, Fury and Fear'.[5]

'Fever is the effort of the chief Archeus to get rid of some irritant, just as local inflammation is the reaction of the local Archeus to some injury'.[6]

J.B.Helmont's contemporary, the Paracelsian physician and alchemist Martin Ruland the Younger (1569-1611) attempts to define the nebulous  term 'Archeus' in his Lexicon alchemiae (1612) thus-

ARCHEUS - is a most high, exalted, and invisible spirit, which is separated from bodies, is exalted, and ascends; it is the occult virtue of Nature, universal in all things, the artificer, the healer. Also Archiatros - supreme physician of Nature, who to every substance and member dispenses in an occult manner, by means of the air, its own individual Archeus. Also the primal Archeus in Nature is a most secret virtue producing all things out of Master, doubtless certainly supported by divine virtue. Or, Archeos is an errant, invisible species, the power and virtue of Nature's healing, the artist and healer of Nature, separating itself from bodies, and ascending from them. Archeus signifies, in addition, the power which reduces the One Substance from Iliaster, and is the dispenser and composer of all things. It individualizes in all things, including human nature.[7]

The medical ideas of J.B.van Helmont are linked to those of Thomas Browne in an astounding observation by the psychologist C.G. Jung (1875-1961).  Writing on the Belgian alchemist Gerard Dorn, Jung unites the Paracelsian/ Helmontian concept of the Archeus with Thomas Browne's medical image of an 'invisible sun'  which blazes at the apotheosis of  Urn-Burial  ('Life is a pure flame and we live by an invisible sun within us'.) C.G.Jung links Gerard Dorn, the foremost promoter of Paracelsian/Helmontian medicine to Thomas Browne's 'invisible sun' (an image Browne 'borrowed from his reading of Dorn) when stating-

In Dorn's view there is in man an 'invisible sun', which he identifies with the Archeus. This sun is identical with the 'sun in the earth'. The invisible sun enkindles an elemental fire which consumes man's substance and reduces his body to the prima materia.  [8]

As a child J.B. Helmont experienced apocalyptic visions in the cloisters of the Capuchins at Louvain. Devout and pious throughout his life, he was deeply  inspired by Thomas a Kempis (1380-1471) and his Imitation of Christ which urges the penitent to self-knowledge and a denial of the self for Christ.

The psychological element is ever-present in spiritual affairs, and in conjunction with his physiological studies J.B. van Helmont took the workings of the human psyche seriously. Indeed, J.B. Helmont may be credited as an Ur-psychologist, that is, any one of a number of well-educated and isolated individuals, often from the professions of physician or priest, scattered throughout Europe circa 1500-1700 who recognised a correct understanding and interpretation of one's personal dreams to be no small contributing factor towards self-awareness and individuation. To the present-day this spiritual-psychological dimension  remains of paramount importance, in particular,  not only for individual understanding of the self but equally, for the very future of humanity's existence. 'Alchemystical' physician-philosophers such as Paracelsus, J.B. van Helmont and Thomas Browne each engaged in the arduous yet rewarding task of self-realization, J.B. van Helmont declaring-

'Our soul's understanding  of itself, does after a sort, understand all other things, because all other things are in an intellectual manner in the Soul, as in the image of God. Wherefore indeed, the understanding of ourselves, is most exceedingly difficult, ultimate or remote, excellent, profitable, beyond all other things'.[9]

J.B. Helmont was aware of the numinous nature of dreams. In the Judaic Pentateuch, the Old Testament of the Christian Bible, dreams are sanctioned as conduits of revelation from God. The story in the book of Genesis of Joseph and his ability to interpret Pharaoh's dreams was seen as endorsement of divine dreams and the art of interpretation. Using theological symbolism J.B. van Helmont seems to anticipate, along with other Renaissance-era alchemystical philosophers and Ur-psychologists, the existence of the unconscious psyche and its relationship to God when stating-

'In sleep, the whole knowledge of the Apple (i.e. that which obscures the magical powers of pristine man ) doth sometimes sleep: Hence also it is, that our dreams are sometimes Prophetical, and God himself is therefore the nearer unto Man in Dreams, through that effect'. [10]

In his writings J.B.van Helmont recollects a dream which determined his choice to become a physician.  In this dream he saw himself as an empty bubble whose diameter reached from the earth to the heavens. Above the bubble hung a tomb, while below it was the dark abyss, a vision that horrified the young van Helmont. Upon waking he interpreted his dream and of being transformed into a giant bubble as representing his own boastful, vacuous self and a god-given sign that he must pursue the vocation of physician.

Thomas Browne was fascinated by dreams and was able to lucid dream, that is, able to orchestrate the events and action of a dream whilst in a state of dreaming, as he confesses in Religio Medici-

'Yet in one dream I can compose a whole comedy, behold the action, apprehend the jests and laugh myself awake at the conceits thereof. Were my memory as faithful as my reason is fruitful I would chose never to study but in my dreams". [11]

Browne even wrote a short tract On Dreams in which he speculates upon 'symbolical adaptation' in dream interpretation thus-

'Many dreams are made out by sagacious exposition and from the signature of their subjects; carrying their interpretation in their fundamental sense and mystery of  similitude, whereby he that understands upon what natural fundamental every notional dependeth, may by symbolical adaption hold a ready way to read the characters of Morpheus'.

In his tract On Dreams Browne supplies his reader with examples of how dimensions can be greatly exaggerated in dreams,  humorously exclaiming-

'Helmont might dream himself a bubble extending unto the eighth sphere'.

A statement which indicates Browne was familiar with J.B. Helmont's accounts of his mystical experiences as well as his medical and scientific thoughts. Browne himself took an interest in bubbles as seen in his short writing On Bubbles in which he proposes-

'Even man is a bubble if we take his consideration in his rudiments, and consider the vesicular or bulla pulsans wherein begins the rudiment of life.

Ever the subtle thinker, perhaps the strongest evidence of Thomas Browne's interest in J.B. Helmont's science occurs in correspondence to his travel-loving eldest son Edward Browne (1644-1708). Discreetly fishing for an answer Thomas Browne enquires-

'What esteem they have of Van Helmont, in Brabant, his home country ? [12]

In the same letter Thomas Browne also remarks-

'When you were at Amsterdam, I wished you had enquired after Dr.Helvetius who writ Vitulus aureus, and saw projection made, and had pieces of gold to show of it.' [13]

J.B. van Helmont himself believed in the existence of  Philosopher's Stone and  claimed he was once given it by a stranger writing- 'It was of a colour such as is saffron in it powder yet weighty and shining like unto powdered glass. ....He who first gave the the gold-making powder had likewise also at least as much of it as might be sufficient to change two hundred thousand pounds of gold. For he gave me perhaps half a grain of that powder, and nine ounces and three quarters of quicksilver were thereby transchanged. [14]

Late in his life Browne articulated his critical opinion and estimate of J.B. van Helmont and Paracelsus in his advisory and moralistic Christian Morals  -

'many would be content that some would write like Helmont or Paracelsus; and be willing to endure the monstrosity of some opinions, for divers singular notions requiting such aberrations'. [15]

In other words, in Thomas Browne's view, the many original ideas which authors such as Helmont and Paracelsus express excuse them from 'monstrous opinions'  which can be found elsewhere in their writings.

There remains one last remarkable connection between J.B. van Helmont and Thomas Browne, seldom, if ever noted before now. It exists in the form of the German translator, scholar of Hebrew and the kabbalah, Christian Knorr von Rosenroth (1636-1689). At the request of the kabbalist and wandering hermit Franciscus Mercurius van Helmont (1614-98/99) who had, together with Henry More of the Cambridge Platonists annotated Knorr von Rosenroth's translations of kabbalistic texts, Knorr von Rosenroth, in return for Franciscus van Helmont's favour, helped him translate, edit and publish into Latin his father J.B. van Helmont's writings.

Christian Knorr von Rosenroth (1636-89)

In his relatively short life Christian Knorr von Rosenroth somehow found time to also translate Thomas Browne's vast-ranging work of scientific journalism, Pseudodoxia Epidemica  totalling over 200,000 words into German, completing this task in 1680 for publication in Frankfurt and Leipzig. Its therefore quite possible that discussion of Thomas Browne's scientific writings could have occurred between Knorr von Rosenroth and J.B. Helmont's eldest son, Franciscus Mercurius van Helmont. A large field is yet to be explored in this matter.

In any event Christian Knorr von Rosenroth surely recognised  J.B. van Helmont and Thomas Browne  as sharing values in Paracelsian medicine and scientific thought. Indeed, the Belgian scientist, physician and Christian mystic J.B. Helmont may even lay claim to being  along with Francis Bacon, one of the foremost scientific influences upon the physician-philosopher Thomas Browne. 

Notes

[1] Roy Porter 'The Greatest benefit to Mankind': A medical history of humanity from antiquity to the present. pub. Harper Collins 1999 describes Helmont as enigmatic.
[2] Reid Barbour - Sir Thomas Browne A Life
pub. Oxford University Press 2013
[3] Pseudodoxia Epidemica Book 2 chapter 4
[4] P.E. Bk. 2 chapter 7
[5] Johannes Baptista van Helmont- Alchemist, physician and philosopher by H. Stanley Redgrove  pub. William Rider and son London 1922
[6] Ibid.
[7] Martin Ruland's Dictionary of alchemy is listed in the 1711 sales auction catalogue as once in Browne's library page 22. no 119
[8] Collected Works of C.G.Jung Volume 14:49
[9] Redgrove 1922
[10] Ibid.
[11] Religio Medici Part 2 Section 11
[12] Correspondence dated September 22nd 1668 to Edward Browne
[13] Ibid.
[14] The Devil's Doctor: Paracelsus and the World of Renaissance Magic and Science pub. Heinemann 2006 by Philip Ball
[15] Christian Morals Part 2 Section 5

Not consulted

The standard, comprehensive of J.B.Helmont, prohibitively priced is-
* Joan Baptista Van Helmont: Reformer of Science and Medicine (Cambridge Studies in the History of Medicine) Walter Pagel pib.Cambridge University Press 1982

But possibly the most modern interpretation of  J.B. van Helmont yet is-
* An Alchemical Quest for Universal Knowledge: The 'Christian Philosophy' of Jan Baptist Van Helmont  (Studies in Intellectual History, 1550-1700)  Routledge 2016 by Georgiana D. Hedesan
See also -

*    Paracelsus and Sir Thomas Browne
*   Paracelsus and the interpretation of dreams
*   Thomas Browne and the Kabbalah

Dr. Browne's Ethereal Salt

Once considered to be the 'ultimate oddity’ of Thomas Browne's collected writings, the miscellaneous tract Musaeum Clausum (Sealed Museum) is now seen as clear evidence of the physician-philosopher possessing a versatile imagination along with a sly sense of humour in his last years.

Ever the consummate literary showman, Browne announces to an unknown correspondent that his Musaeum Clausum consists of, ‘some remarkable Books, Antiquities, Pictures and Rarities of several kinds, scarce or never seen by any man now living'. [1]

The first section of Musaeum Clausum is a scholastic wish-list of books rumoured to exist which Browne would like to read, such as the writings of the Chinese philosopher Confucius translated into Spanish. Browne's one-line inventory of book-titles anticipates the Argentinian magic realism author Jorge Luis Borges who declared that, 'to write vast books is a laborious nonsense. Much better is to offer a summary, as if those books actually existed.'

Musaeum Clausum's ‘Rarities of Pictures’ features exotic locations such as the Arctic and Desert, historical events, including sieges and sea-battles, physiognomic coincidences, random reproductions and optical art.

In 2016 the North Sea magic realism artists Peter Rodulfo and Mark Burrell each produced a highly-polished and original artwork from the skeletal sketches of  'Rarities of Pictures'.  [2]

In the final section, 'Antiquities and Rarities of several sorts' Browne lampoons some of the improbable artefacts of doubtful provenance collected by the undiscerning of his era. He also subtly mocks the outlandish claims of those engaged in alchemical experiments, with his own bizarre curio in the curtain-falling ‘rarity’ of-

'A Glass of Spirits made of Æthereal Salt, Hermetically sealed up, kept continually in quick-silver; of so volatile a nature that it will scarce endure the Light, and therefore only to be shown in Winter, or by the light of a Carbuncle, or Bononian Stone'.

Before revealing the medical nature of Dr. Browne’s ‘ethereal salt’ and exploring the labyrinthine symbolism of salt in alchemy, it's worthwhile looking a little closer at  Browne's curio, as it names the 'deity' synonymous with alchemy, the Egypto-Greek god Hermes and his Roman counterpart, Mercurius.

The term 'hermetically sealed up' is a great example of how the opaque language of the alchemystical philosophers metamorphosed into early chemistry terminology. The term originates from the Egypto-Greek god Hermes and his magic ability to seal treasure chests so that no-one could access their contents. In the early days of the chemical process of distillation, the ability to make an airtight seal was highly valued and the secret of the seal was a  closely guarded one.

Hermetic philosophers such as Browne believed in the mythic Hermes Trismegistus, even after it was proved that writings attributed to him originated from the early Christian era, and were not, as believed penned in ancient Egyptian times. Browne states his subscription to the tenets of Hermetic philosophy in  Religio Medici boldly declaring - ‘The severe schools shall never laugh me out of the philosophy of Hermes'.[3]

The very title Musaeum Clausum may itself allude to a Hermetic publication. As a keen bibliophile Browne kept up-to-date with forthcoming publications and may well have known that the alchemical anthology Musaeum Hermeticum, which first saw light in 1625 was reprinted in Latin in 1678.

'Glass' in Browne's curio is synonymous with the alchemical apparatus of the Vessel, Vas, or philosopher's egg. Its modern chemistry equivalent would be the distillation retort. [4]

The word clausum is closely associated with alchemy, C.G. Jung reminding us that - ‘The vas bene clausum (well-sealed vessel) is a precautionary measure very frequently mentioned in alchemy’. Jung also reminds us in words applicable to both the inner, psychic process within the alchemist (i.e. the mind/ vessel) as much as the outer, experimental process in the laboratory, stating - ‘The adept must always take care to keep the Hermetic vessel well sealed, in order to prevent what is in it from flying away'. [5]

Hermes lends his name not only to the solitary figure of the spiritual searcher, the hermit, but also to winged Mercury, the 'trickster-god' of communication, thieves and traders, who either assisted the adept with revelation or thwarted him in his search for gold. Known today as mercury, Quicksilver was so named from its seemingly living properties, ('quick' being an early English word for alive or living). Because of its peculiar properties, being a liquid metal which contracted and expanded when exposed to cold and heat, as capable of division as easily as reunifying itself, the chemical substance of mercury acted as play-dough upon the alchemical imagination. The alchemist's encounter with the numinous through unconscious psychological projection upon substances and processes when engaged in experiment are well-illustrated in Browne’s declaring in Religio Medici -

‘I have often beheld as a miracle, that artificial resurrection and revivification of Mercury, how being mortified into thousand shapes, it assumes again its own, and returns into its numerical self’. [6]

From the ancient Greek Pythagoreans who called the sea the 'tear of Kronos', because of its 'bitter saltness' to the late Renaissance chemist and alchemist Johannes Baptista Van Helmont (1579-1644) who believed that volatile salts composed the vital spirit or the breath of animals and plants, Salt has featured in the speculations of philosophers, alchemists and early modern chemists alike.  Indeed, it has been said that 'salt chymistry' is pivotal to the study of the inter-relationship between chemistry, natural history, physiology and medical sciences in the early modern period. [7]

Salt is the only mineral rock which is eaten by man. Its a substance which man valued enough to risk his life and labour in dangerous mining conditions in order to acquire.  One of the oldest and most ubiquitous of all food seasonings; salt has a dual nature—preserving and corrupting, its also a disinfectant, a component of ceremonial offerings, and was once a unit of value exchange. During the Roman era, salt was  used as a currency with the custom of paying soldiers in pieces of compressed salt (the word ‘salary’ originates from salārium, ‘salt money’) hence the phrase - ‘to be worth one’s salt’. Man’s relationship to salt has generated enormous poetic and mythic meanings, not least when promoted in  importance by the alchemist-physician Paracelsus.

Above all others, it was Paracelsus (1493-1541) with his advocating chemical-based alchemy who influenced the development of medicine during the Renaissance and beyond. Paracelsus urged physicians to investigate nature in order to discover new  properties in the mineral, botanical and animal kingdoms whose extracted ‘essences’ could be potentially useful for healing. In Paracelsus’s voluminous writings there can also be found a moralist and theologian as profound and radical as the Reformation figure of Martin Luther (1483-1546). Taking his cue from the Persian alchemist, Rhazes (854–925 CE) who suggested that metals contained a third, salty component, Paracelsus added to the alchemical duality of sulphur and mercury a third element, salt, perhaps in imitation of the Christian Trinity. Paracelsus maintained that everything is made of philosophical mercury, sulphur and salt, though without abandoning the ancient Greek schemata of the four elements, effectively giving alchemists two differing schemata to play, speculate and base their experiments upon.

Paracelsus stressed the importance of salt in the alchemical triad, which greatly influenced his followers for over a century after his death. Thomas Browne's edition of Paracelsus, entitled Opera Medico-Chimica, is dated Frankfurt 1603. The Paracelsian physician Martin Ruland's Dictionary of Alchemy (Lexicon Alchemiae 1612) also in his library, lists a bewildering number of salts, including Sal Sapientia, the salt of the wise. Ruland’s promotion of Salt states-

'Therefore, he that understands the Salt and its solution possesses the wisdom of the ancients. Therefore, place your whole reliance on the Salt. Count nothing else of importance. For Salt by itself is the most important secret which all the Wise have thought proper to conceal'. [8]

Astoundingly Ruland even asserts - 'The Salt of the Philosophers is the Stone of the Philosophers', as well as mentioning  a 'Salt of Universal Harmony'. [9]

Paracelsus’s promotion of salt, along with its multifaceted qualities and many symbolic associations, attracted various 'alchemystical' philosophers and early chemists to philosophize upon and experiment with salt, sometimes mixing philosophy, religious insight, medicine and laboratory work indeterminately, as in Johann Glauber's De Salium Natura (On the Nature of Salt, 1658).

In the alchemical anthology 'The Rose-Garden of the Philosophers' (Rosarium Philosophorum, c.1550) one reads-

'Who therefore knows the salt and its solution knows the hidden secret of the wise men of old. Therefore turn your mind upon the salt and think not of other things; for in it alone (i.e. the mind) is the science concealed and the most excellent and hidden secret of all the most excellent and most hidden secret of all the ancient philosophers’. [10]

C.G. Jung reminds us - 'Whenever an alchemist speaks of “salt”, he does not mean sodium chloride or any other salt, or only in a very limited sense. He could not get away from its symbolic substance, and therefore included the sal sapiente in the chemical substance.  [11]

'Salt was considered to be an arcane substance by the sixteenth and seventeenth-century alchemists, in ecclesiastical as well as alchemical usage, salt is the symbol for Sapientia and also for the distinguished or elect personality, as in 'Ye are the Salt of the earth'.  [12]

'Salt was associated with Christ through the sal sapientiae association. In antiquity salt denoted wit, good sense, good taste, etc., as well as spirit. Cicero for example remarks: “In wit [sale] and humour Caesar.....surpassed them all."  [13]

This philosophical aspect of Salt features in what is one of C.G. Jung’s most memorable sayings. Juxtaposing two of salt's primary attributes, namely, its bitterness with sal sapiente, the salt of the wise, to make the profound spiritual observation-

'Tears, sorrow, and disappointment are bitter, but wisdom is the comforter in all psychic suffering. Indeed, bitterness and wisdom form a pair of alternatives: where there is bitterness wisdom is lacking, and where wisdom is there can be no bitterness'. [14]

In one of the six door-step sized volumes of the alchemical anthology Theatrum Chemicum (The Chemical Theatre 1612) (one of Jung's favourite reads and in Browne's library) the physician-philosopher would have had his curiosity aroused when reading-

'But if Thales of Miletus chose to call that stone of Hercules, the magnet, an animate thing, because we see it attract and move iron, why shall we not likewise call salt, which in wonderous wise penetrates, purges, contracts, expands, hinders, and reduces a living thing?’  [15]

In Pseudodoxia Epidemica (1646-72) Browne notes the place of salt in folklore, in religious ceremonies and throughout the Bible. Salt is featured in Pseudodoxia in the chapter entitled Of Crystal as well as in several of Browne's 'chymical operations', including an experiment as to whether magnetism increases or decreases in fresh or saline water.

Its when speculating upon the origins of colour that Browne displays his familiarity with the Paracelsian triad of alchemy, stating - ‘The Chymists have laudably reduced their causes unto Sal, Sulphur, and Mercury'. [16]

As a medical doctor Browne knew, as he states in Pseudodoxia - 'there being in everything we eat, a natural and concealed salt, which is separated by digestions, and doth appear in our tears, sweat and urines, although we refrain all salt, or what doth seem to contain it’. [17]

Well-informed of events in the medical world, Browne certainly also knew of the success his contemporary Johann Glauber (1604-1670) had with salt. The German-Dutch alchemist and chemist Johann Glauber was the first to produce salt extracted from Hungarian spring water. This naturally occurring salt is water soluble, has a bitter taste, and is sometimes used in medicine as a mild laxative; it's also used in dyeing. Glauber's salt, the common name for sodium sulfate, occurs as white or colorless crystals which upon exposure to fairly dry air effloresces, forming a powdery  sodium sulfate. Glauber’s production of sodium sulfate, which he called sal mirabilis or "wonderful salt", was an effective but relatively safe laxative and a popular alternative to purging (emptying the digestive tract being a treatment for many diseases) which brought him fame and the honour of it being named "Glauber's salt".

Browne was aware of Glauber's Salts not only from his owning an edition of Glauber's De Salium Natura  but also from his eldest son Edward Browne (1644-1708) who visited 'old Glauber in Amsterdam in 1668, and dutifully informed his father of the fact in his travel correspondence. [18]

Alchemist-physicians such as Paracelsus and Glauber paved the way for future advances in medicine in their experimentation with the properties of salt. The medical world first began using saline around 1831. Today saline solution, a mixture of sodium chloride in water, has several uses. Applied to an affected area its used to clean wounds and to treat dehydration from illnesses such as gastroenteritis and diabetic ketoacidosis, as well as to dilute medications given by injection. In alternative medicine the light which is emitted by crystal rock lamps is believed to have therapeutic benefits. Its also known today that an excessive consumption of salt in one's diet can be the cause of many serious medical conditions, including high blood pressure.

Its in Pseudodoxia Epidemica that clues to the true nature of Dr. Browne's 'ethereal salt' can be found. Adhering to the Paracelsian principle of the three primary substances of nature, namely sulphur, mercury and salt, Browne writes-

'For beside the fixed and terrestrious Salt, there is in natural bodies a Sal niter referring unto Sulphur; there is also a volatile or Armoniack Salt, retaining unto Mercury; by which Salts the colours of bodies are sensibly qualified, and receive degrees of lustre or obscurity, superficiality or profundity, fixation or volatility. [19]

Dr. Browne's 'ethereal Salt' may well allude to none other than medicinal smelling salts for Sal volitalis, the alchemist's name for ammonium chloride named here by Browne as  'Armoniack Salt', is the main component of smelling salts. Chaucer knew of sal ammoniac, and mentions it  along with sublimed mercury, vitriol, saltpetre,  arsenic and brimstone in his Canon Yeoman's Tale.

An early form of smelling salts or sal ammoniac was known as Salt of hartshorn (ammonium carbonate). Hartshorn salt, or simply hartshorn, also known as baker's ammonia was used in the seventeenth century as a forerunner of baking powder, but there can be little doubt that Browne’s interest in a Sal Volitalis, would be of a medical nature and not for baking.  One can be confident that Dr. Browne's 'ethereal salt' is smelling salt, for in his commonplace notebooks there can be found a number of notes on how to prepare harthorn, the active ingredient for the manufacture of Sal Volitalis.

'As is observable in gums, hartshorn...... Wherein it is presumable the water may also imbibe some part of the volatile salt.... in half a pint of jelly of hartshorn there is not above two drachms......Much hartshorn is therefore lost in the usual decoction of hartshorn in shavings and raspings, where the greater part is cast away.......The calcination of hartshorn by vapour of water is a neat invention, but whether much of the virtue be not impaired, while the vapour insinuating into the horn hath carried away the tenacious parts and made it butter' [20]

Smelling salts release ammonia gas, which triggers an inhalation reflex, irritating the mucous membranes of the nose and lungs, effectively rousing someone who has fainted or suffered a shock, back into consciousness. In an age of violent social change and Civil War, when news of fortunes and lives lost was frequent, there'd have been call for Dr. Browne to revive those who had fainted from bad news, during pregnancy or even from excessive blood-letting.

In alchemy Volatilis, the Latin word for flying, was how the alchemists described the vaporous fumes rising from their distillation vessel. In alchemical symbolism the fixed and the volatile are depicted as a pair of birds, one wingless, the other with wings, that is, one bird able to fly, the other grounded and 'fixed'. Keeping the contents of the Vessel (i.e. the mind)  'fixed' was one of the alchemist's great challenges, and often disaster struck during their 'chymical operations' and their endeavours came to nothing.

C.G. Jung recognised that the inner, psychic process within the alchemist and the outer, ongoing experimental process in the laboratory often cross-referenced and transformed each other; the 'volatile essence'  being preserved in the vessel, i.e. the psyche and its precious content of individuation was vulnerable to 'flying away' -

‘The volatile essence so carefully shut up and preserved in the Hermetic vessel of the unio mentalis could not be left to itself for a moment, because this elusive Mercurius would then escape and return to its former nature, as, according to the testimony of the alchemists, not infrequently happened’. [21]

'An Alchemist being tempted by Luxury' c. 1580

It's possible that Thomas Browne had someone specific in mind when conjuring his image of a volatile and 'ethereal salt'. The alchemist Sir Robert Paston, resident at Oxnead Hall, some dozen miles north of Norwich (not quite Browne’s neighbour geographically) wrote to him about his laboratory experiments in April 1669 -

Honoured Sir,
On Saturday night last, going into my laboratory, I found some of the adrop (that had been run four or five times in the open air, and every time its aetherial attracted spirits drawn from it) congealed to a hard candied substance......Upon about half a pound of this I cohabated some of its aetherial spirit, which it notwithstanding tinged red, and I am now drawing it again, for I think I had better have exposed it in its consistence to the open air again.....and by grinding, exposing, and distilling, it may at last go a white and spiss water, such an one as philosophers look after, or at least be fit to receive, and to be actuated with (....) and saline parts of the aetherial spirit, when that operation comes in hand if  it affords us any that way. [22]

And again in September 1674-

'I have little leisure and less convenience to try anything here, yet my own salt will set me on work, having now arrived to this that I can with four drachmes of it dissolve a drachme of leaf gold...  I am going to seal up two glasses, one of the menstruum with gold dissolved in it, and another of the menstruum per se, and to put them in an athanor, to see if they will putrefy, or what alteration will happen. I have at Oxnead  seen this salt change black as ink, I must, at the lowest, have an excellent aurum potable, and if the signs we are to judge in Sendivogius’ description be true, I have the key which answers to what he says, that if a man has that which will dissolve gold as warm water doth ice, you have that which gold was first made in the earth'. [23]

In his brilliant study on the 17th century painting known as The Paston Treasure Spike Bucklow notes-

'Paston was assisted in his laboratory by Thomas Henshaw (1618–1700) (who used the pen-name "Halophilus" meaning ‘salt-lover’). Together they  attempted to discover a formula for the fabled "red elixir", another name for the philosopher's stone, which alchemists believed could transmute base metals into gold'. [24]

‘So, Sir Robert's recipe for 'Manna' was playing with extraordinary potent cosmic forces. It all hinged upon a mysterious salt that mediated between the 'fixed' and the 'volatile'. Clues to the exact identity of that salt lay hidden in the maze and opinions varied. Brickenden gave Sir Robert details of 'a salt for infinite health and riches' that could be gathered from drops of dew gathered in May. But many, including Charles II's alchemist, thought the 'universal salt' was gunpowder's key ingredient - saltpetre. Sir Robert's recipe for making salt,  Spiritus salis, was evidently important because he wrote it in Latin. [25]

Like Robert Paston who suffered a  'whirlpool of misfortunes’, Browne in his old age may, for want of a better description be described as a ‘disappointed alchemist’ that is, one who devoted less time on alchemical experiment and more time in prayer and meditation. As Spike Bucklow perceptively puts it-

'Alchemy was not suddenly found to be ‘wrong’, but the Norwich science of Arthur Dee, Thomas Browne and Robert Paston was quietly sidelined by the London science of the Royal Society. The differences were mainly social and political. The Norwich practitioners read signs, like Polynesian canoeists, Yarmouth fishermen and Navy tars, the London practitioners started to use instruments and charts, like naval officers'. [26]

The Paracelsian neologism 'Spagyrici' inscribed on Browne’s coffin-plate supplies the true nature of Browne’s alchemy. As ever, Martin Ruland, a physician who served the esoteric-loving Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II, assists our enquiry.  Ruland's Lexicon Alchemiae (1612)  includes definitions of -

SPAGIRIA - 'The Spagyric Art, is that which treats of the separation of the pure from the impure, so that after the refuse matter has been rejected, the virtue which remains can operate. It is the Art of Distilling and Separating'.

and of the moral character of the spagyrist  -

SPAGIRUS– 'Any man who can separate the true from the false, set the good apart from the bad, and the pure from the impure, rejecting duality and cleaving to unity'. [27]

Technically speaking, Browne was a spagyricist, that is, one who believed that the calcined essences of plants could be useful in medicine. Historically speaking, the spagyrics were active just before the iatrochemists, the true beginning of purely chemical medicine, as opposed to those searching for hidden 'quintessences'  extracted from the natural world.

Browne’s continental medical education acclimatised him towards Paracelsian medicine to a far greater degree than many of his British contemporaries. Some have suggested  he was unsympathetic to Paracelsian medicine, but the long list of books by continental Paracelsian physicians, an edition of the complete works of the Swiss physician listed in Browne’s library, the Paracelsian neologism 'Spagyrici’ inscribed upon his coffin-plate, and the many references to the Swiss physician in Browne’s writings, all suggest otherwise. Although often critical of mystical aspects of Paracelsian thought, Browne was a follower of Paracelsus, a highly-critical follower, but follower nonetheless.

An even closer analogy to Browne's science than Paracelsus, can be found in the ideas of the Belgian chemist, alchemist and physician Jan Baptist van Helmont (1580-1644). Van Helmont, like Browne, is a transitional figure in the history of science. Though Van Helmont was skeptical of specific mystical theories, dismissing much of Paracelsian mysticism, nevertheless he refused to discount magical forces as a valid explanation for some natural phenomena. Van Helmont, like Browne regarded all science and wisdom to be a gift from God. Browne's estimate of Van Helmont along with Paracelsus, can be seen in his stating in his late work Christian Morals -

'many would be content that some would write like Helmont or Paracelsus; and be willing to endure the monstrosity of some opinions, for divers singular notions requiting such aberrations'. [28]

Evidence of Browne's joining the ranks of 'disappointed alchemists' can be gleaned from his late writings. Because of its alleged Egyptian origins alchemy was sometimes known as ‘Cleopatra’s Art’ amongst many other names. Browne concludes The Garden of Cyrus in disappointment at ever being unable to achieve the alchemical feat of palingenesis, that is, the revivification of a plant from it ashes.

'And though in the bed of Cleopatra can hardly with any delight, raise up the ghost of a Rose'.

Its interesting to note that the funeral ashes of Urn-Burial are 'answered' by an abundance of flowers in bloom in The Garden of Cyrus. 

Committed throughout his life to the Christian faith, Browne endorsed Christianity above alchemy as a philosophy for developing one’s inner self, when, making allusion to alchemy as 'Vulcan’s Art' he states in his late work Christian Morals-

Vulcan’s Art doth nothing in this internal Militia: wherein not the Armour of Achilles,  but the Armature of St. Paul,  gives the Glorious day. [29]

Browne's real alchemy is in the word, in particular the sonority, rhythm and symbolism of his 1658 discourses Urn-Burial and The Garden of Cyrus with their plexiform relationship in polarity, truth and imagery. Together they are Browne's literary philosopher's stone, of which one critic perceptively notes -

'Mystical symbolism (of this kind) is woven throughout the texture of Browne's work and adds, often subconsciously, to its associative power of impact....there is nothing vague or wooly about Browne's mysticism,...Every symbol is interrelated with the overall pattern'. [30]

Although the diptych discourses Urn-Burial and The Garden of Cyrus (1658) appear as if two identical, white, crystalline substances, when empirically sampled they differ sharply; Urn-Burial  is discovered to be the bitter salt of Christian Stoicism, a sprinkling of which is essential for spiritual well-being in the face of disease, suffering, death and the grave. (Indeed, Salt is mentioned in Urn-Burial in Browne's description of adipocere, or grave wax, his solitary credited scientific discovery). In complete contrast, the 'light' half of the diptych The Garden of Cyrus is fructose sugar, with its excited rush of ideas, playfulness and sweet delight in nature. 

Today we may be skeptical of the scientific credentials and achievements of alchemists such as Paracelsus, Sir Thomas Browne or Sir Robert Paston and take their science cum granis salis, with a pinch of salt; nevertheless, their collective spirit of enquiry paved the way for future generations of scientists; we may therefore agree with Virginia Woolf -

'Few people love the writings of Sir Thomas Browne, but those who do are the salt of the earth’.












 Part 2 to follow - Of the Carbuncle and  the Bononian Stone.

Notes

[1] 'Ultimate oddity' from C.A. Patrides 'Approaches to Sir Thomas Browne': The Ann Arbor Tercentenary Lectures and Essays edited by C.A. Patrides  pub. University of Missouri 1982.

A manuscript of Musaeum Clausum was found amongst the papers of the Collector and Natural philosopher Walter Charleton (1619-1707). It may have been written for him for his delivering the Harveian Oration at the Royal College of Physicians in the late 1670's.

[2] See    Four 'Rarities in pictures' from Dr. Browne's Musaeum Clausum

[3] Religio Medici  Part 1:12
[4]  Haeffner : Dictionary of Alchemy Aquarian Press 1999

[5] C. G. Jung Collected Works vol. 12:219 and  vol 14: paragraph 200

[6] Religio Medici 1:46

[7] ‘The Salt of the Earth: Natural Philosophy, Medicine, and Chymistry in England, 1650-1750 (History of Science and Medicine Library) Anna Marie Roos Brill 2007

[8] Ruland Lexicon Alchemiae. Listed in Browne's library p.22 no. 119

[9] Ibid. Other books by Paracelsian physicians in Browne's library include Theodore Turquet de Mayerne (S.C. page 25 no. 98, page 51 no. 103,104) Joseph Duchesne (S.C. page 33 no. 8 page 34 no. 63) Alexander Suchten (S.C. page 51 no. 128) Petrus Severinus (S.C. page 18 no. 50 page 20 no. 23, 24, 25, 26) John French (S.C. page 51 no. 118) Johann Glauber (S.C. page 43 no. 10) and Gerard Dorn (S.C. page 25 no. 118)

[10]  C.W  12: 359
[11]  C.W  9 ii : 247
[12]  C.W  9 i : 575
[13]  C.W  14 : 324
[14] C.W 14: 330 C.G. Jung's Mysterium Coniunctionis : An Inquiry into the separation and synthesis of psychic opposites in alchemy (1955-56) includes his most detailed writings on salt., in particular Chapter 5  p.183 - 239

[15] C.W 9 ii: 143 Jung quoting Chrysippus Theatrum Chemicum vol. 1 listed in Sales Auction Catalogue page 25 no.124

[16] Kevin Killeen's highly recommended paperback edition, the Selected writings of Thomas Browne (21st-Century Oxford Authors OUP paperback  edition 2018) has a great introduction. Its index lists over 30 references to salt in Browne's writings.

Browne's experiments with salt and snow Bk. 2 chapter 1 Of Crystall.  Experiment with magnetism and salt water Bk. 2 ch.2 Concerning the Loadstone.
  
[17]  P.E. Book 4 chapter 10
[18] Johann Glauber De Salium Natura S.C. page 43 no. 8 Amsterdam 1658 Keynes Selected correspondence letter no. 22  dated 22nd September 1668
[19]  P.E. Book 4 chapter 10
[20] Wilkins  1835 edition Commonplace notebook
[21]  C.W14:742
[22]  Wilkins 1835 edition
[23] Ibid
[24] The Anatomy of Riches:Sir Robert Paston's Treasure Spike Bucklow Reaktion Books 2018. Highly recommended.
[25] Ibid.
[26] Ibid.
[27]  Martin Ruland's Lexicon Alchemiae  (1612) Sales Catalogue p. 22 no 119
[28] Christian Morals  Part 2:5
[29]  Christian Morals Part 1:24
[30] Peter Green  Sir Thomas Browne Writers and their work no. 108 Longmans, Green and Co. 1959

See also

Paracelsus and Browne

Carl Jung and Sir Thomas Browne

Notes on Pictures

*  Photo:  A Salt Crystal magnified

*  Alchemical symbols for Sulphur, Salt and Mercury.

*  Painting: -  'The unconscious Patient'.
Rembrandt's early oil painting, is one of a set of five depicting the senses completed c. 1624 or 1625. They are  among his earliest surviving works, and are identical in size. The Sense of Smell shows a physician reviving a swooning woman by placing a handkerchief soaked in a volatile salt under her nose, in order to rouse her into consciousness. It was reidentified in 2015. The whereabouts of the painting representing the sense of taste remains unknown.

*  Painting: 'An Alchemist  being tempted by Luxuria'  anon. circa 1580
* Photo - Alchemical flower Stand with four tubes and glowing flower of fern.       Dina Belenko Photography

Stargazing with Dr. Browne

The physician-philosopher Sir Thomas Browne (1605-82) occupies a unique place in Western intellectual history. The age in which he lived, the greater part of the seventeenth century, has been described as a century of transition and one of fundamental change. Predominantly religious in outlook in its opening, it was scientific in perspective by its end. Sir Thomas Browne's response to this seismic shift in Western consciousness is one of balanced equilibrium; neither unreservedly advocating advancement of the new science, nor renouncing of his life-long interest in esoteric and Hermetic ways of thinking. As one critic noted - 

'to the student of the history of ideas in its modern sense of the inter-relation of philosophy, science, religion and art, Browne is of great importance'. [1] 

Browne himself seems to have been aware of his Janus-like place in intellectual history when confessing in Religio Medici (1643) - 

'In Philosophy where truth seems double-faced there is no man more paradoxical than myself’.[2] 

Browne’s ‘paradoxical philosophy’ is exemplified in his appreciation of the new science of astronomy alongside a more than casual interest in the esoteric art of astrology ; subjects which for centuries co-existed but which began to go their quite separate ways in his life-time. Remarks and observations upon astronomy as well as astrology can be found in each and every book by the Norwich physician-philosopher.

Browne proclaims his knowledge of astronomy in his Religio Medici, revealing himself as someone who doesn’t always suffer fools gladly, declaring-

'I know the names, and somewhat more, of all the constellations in my Horizon, yet I have seen a prating Mariner that could only name the Pointers and the North Star, out-talk me, and conceit himself a whole Sphere above me'. [3]

The newly-qualified physician also informs his reader in Religio Medici that -

'I was born in the planetary hour of Saturn, and I think I have a piece of that Leaden Planet in me'. [4] 

and - ‘If there be any truth in Astrology, I may outlive a Jubilee, as yet I have not seen one revolution of Saturn, nor hath my pulse beat thirty years’. [5]

In these characteristic fusions of medical and scientific imagery, Browne seems concerned with a highly-significant approaching astrological event in his life, the so-called 'Saturn Return' of astrology, a strong, though little commented upon incentive for his putting pen to paper in order to write his spiritual testament and psychological self-portrait. 

In  astrology Saturn is a malefic planet of restriction, contraction, limitation and melancholy. The astrological term of the Saturn return occurs when the planet Saturn returns to the same place it occupied at a person's birth.  The influence of the Saturn return is considered to start in the person's late twenties, notably from the age of 27 until around 30. Astrologers believe that when Saturn "returns" to the same degree in its orbit it occupied at the time of birth, a person crosses over a major threshold and enters the next stage of life. Psychologically, the first Saturn return is seen as the time of reaching full adulthood, and being faced with adult challenges and responsibilities. With the second Saturn return, full maturity occurs. And with the third and usually final return, a person enters wise old age. These periods are estimated to occur at the ages of 27-31, 56-60 and 84-90. 

Browne’s subsequent publication, the encyclopaedic endeavour Pseudodoxia Epidemica (1646-72) was a vanguard work of scientific journalism which went through 6 editions in his life-time.  Translated into several languages it earned its author European fame. The bulk of Browne’s science can be found in its pages, including experiments with magnetism and static electricity as well as numerous examples of ‘occular observation’ along with introducing hypothesis and deductive reasoning to the general reading public. Browne's major contribution to the English Scientific Revolution has often been under-estimated. Pseudodoxia Epidemica was respected and inspirational to a whole generation of younger English scientists who increasingly did not work empirically 'in the field’ as much as engage in abstract reasoning, as Newton’s discoveries demonstrated. 

A somewhat simplistic analogy of Browne’s place in the English Scientific Revolution can be made in the form of a circuit of a  relay race. Browne receives and firmly  grasps the baton from the early English scientist Francis Bacon (1561-1626) heeding Bacon’s exhortation of 'ocular observation’ along with rational deduction, as illustrated throughout the pages of his Pseudodoxia Epidemica. Indeed, the opening lines of its address ‘To the Reader’ echoes the very same words as those found in an essay by Bacon.[6] 

Browne is fast off the blocks while all around him are engaged in the horrors of the English Civil war (1642-49) and is responsible in passing on the baton of scientific enquiry from Bacon to a number of  men of science and learning who engaged in correspondence with him, these include Robert Boyle, Christopher Merret, Henry Power, Henry Oldenburg, John Evelyn, Walter Charleton and William Dugdale amongst many others. Several of these correspondents became participating members of the Royal Society. The Royal Society’s endorsement of scientific enquiry and  public debate passes the baton on for one final leg to its most illustrious member, Isaac Newton, who mathematically deduced the laws of gravity. In Newton’s discoveries the team-work of several generations of English scientists collectively achieve the victory of first past the post in the seventeenth century scientific revolution. 

In essence however, Browne, like his mentor Francis Bacon, held fast to a double theory that, while sense and experience are the sources of our knowledge of the natural world, faith and inspiration are the sources of our knowledge of the supernatural, of God, and of the rational soul. 

A fruitful comparison can also be made between Browne and the astronomer Johannes Kepler (1571-1630). Kepler’s life like Browne’s, spanned a watershed in scientific thought. The German astronomer augmented his rational inductive science and the astronomical discoveries of Galileo with Neoplatonic and Pythagorean ideas. Kepler’s astronomical discoveries were as much structured upon precise mathematical calculation as deeply held theological beliefs and God-given revelation; his scientific perspective, not unlike Browne’s, were a complex fusion of Christian awe of the Creation, along with precise analysis as well as concepts originating from the ancient Greek philosophers Plato and Pythagoras. Whilst Kepler extolled the virtues of the number six in his study of snowflakes, the number five is celebrated in Browne’s discourse The Garden of Cyrus. 

Like his near exact contemporary Francis Bacon (1561-1626) Kepler believed in two, quite contrasting sources of knowledge, only one of which is credited nowadays. In addition to natural forms of knowledge obtained through reason, hypothesis, deduction and experiment, he also believed in supernatural sources of knowledge such as astrology. Even the scientist Isaac Newton (1642-1726) it is now known, believed in these two kinds of knowledge, namely natural and supernatural. 

Kepler’s three laws of planetary motion were fundamental contributions to Newton's development of a theory of gravity, whilst his strong astrological inclinations were responsible for introducing the aspect of the Quincunx to denote planets 150 degrees apart. Unsurprisingly, Kepler’s books are well-represented in Browne’s library. [7]

As with Kepler, the seventeenth century Norwich physician-philosopher just won’t fit neatly into tight, restrictive 21st definitions, no matter how much certain science journalists attempt to do so. [8]

Browne's beliefs, paradoxical to modern sensibilities are evident in the fact that in Pseudodoxia Epidemica he not  demonstrates an understanding of astronomy in conjunction to ideas on astrological correspondences. Thus its possible for him to make the astronomical observation-

'For if we consult the Doctrine of the sphere, and observe the ascension of the Pleiades, which maketh the beginning of Summer, we shall discover that in the latitude of 40, these stars arise in the 16 degree of Taurus; but in the latitude of 50, they ascend in the eleventh degree of the same sign, that is, 5 days sooner'. [9] 

as well as the astrological speculation -  

'since the natures of the fixed Stars, are astrologically differenced by the Planets, and are esteemed Martial or Jovial, according to the colours whereby they answer these Planets; why although the red Comets do carry the portensions of Mars, the brightly-white should not be of the Influence of Jupiter or Venus, answerably unto Cor Scorpii and Arcturus; is not absurd to doubt'. [10]

Its also in Pseudodoxia Epidemica that the first recorded usage of the word ‘Selenography’ occurs, amongst numerous words introduced by Browne into the English language. Although  its not listed in the 1711 Sales Auction Catalogue of Sir Thomas Browne and his son Edward’s libraries, Browne must surely have perused a copy of the Polish astronomer Hevelius’ Atlas of the moon, Selenographia (1647) in order for him to state-  

'And therefore the learned Hevelius in his accurate Selenography, or description of the Moon, hath well translated the known appellations of Regions, Seas and Mountains, unto the parts of that Luminary: and rather then use invented names or humane denominations, with witty congruity hath placed Mount Sinai, Taurus, Mæotis Palus, the Mediterranean Sea, Mauritania, Sicily, and Asia Minor in the Moon'. [11]

The Copernican heliocentric universe seems to be somewhat reluctantly accepted by Browne in Religio Medici when stating - 'I conclude therefore and say, there is no happiness under (or as Copernicus will have it, above) the Sun'. [11b]

Galileo's great work of astronomy Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo (1635) advocating the Copernican heliocentric universe, along with its English translation known as The Two World Systems (1661) is in Browne's library, but the Polish astronomer's great work is not to be found listed as once upon his library-shelves.  However, an edition of the Dutch astronomer Christiaan van Huygens (1629-95) study of the planet Saturn, the first to accurately detect and describe the planet's ring-system, Systema Saturniun (pub.1659) is listed as once upon his library shelves, suggesting that the Norwich doctor kept up to date with astronomical discoveries. 

Urn-Burial

Nowhere in his collected writings is there greater evidence of Browne's subscribing to the tenets of Hermetic philosophy than in his diptych discourses Urn-Burial and The Garden of Cyrus (1658). Never intended by their author to be separated, a common modern-day publishing error, together they are structured upon a fundamental tenet of Hermeticism, namely the myriad of correspondences between Microcosm and Macrocosm. The subject of Urn-Burial being the small, little world of mortal man, the Microcosm, whilst The Garden of Cyrus concerns itself with the universal and eternal, the Macrocosm. 

A number of polarities involving truth, imagery and symbolism can be detected in Browne's diptych discourses, among them (and this list is far from exhaustive) - unknowingness and revelation, Darkness and Light, along with symbolism of the tomb/womb, and the Grave and Garden. Their plexiformed relationship  often works through unconscious association upon the reader. Together their respectives themes of Time and Space form a mandala-like unity. Even stylistically they are antithetical to each other. The baroque flourishes and slow, stately prose of  Urn-Burial is stylistically far removed from the breathless and experimental, Mannerist in concept, numerological preoccupations of The Garden of Cyrus.

Several of Browne's amateur hobbies are featured in the Discourses, notably antiquarianism and archaeology in Urn-Burial, whilst optics and botany are prominent in The Garden of  Cyrus. Each  discourse also includes remarks and observations upon astronomy and astrology. (Incidentally, the word ‘polarity’ is yet another word introduced into the English language by Browne).

The theme of the unknowingness of the human condition is amplified in Urn-Burial in a passage on the astronomical phenomena of newly discovered stars and sunspots, detected by ‘Perspectives’, as telescopes were once known as. The new discoveries of astronomy revealed to those living in the seventeenth century that the Universe may be neither as fixed nor as stable as once believed by the ancient world of Ptolemaic astronomy. 

'whereof beside Comets and new Stars, perspectives begin to tell tales. And the spots that wander about the Sun, with Phaetons favour, would make clear conviction'.

Browne’s knowledge of astronomy was sufficiently advanced to know that one face of the moon,  the so-called  dark side of the moon, is permanently invisible to human eyes -

.’.....while according to better discovery the poor Inhabitants of the Moon have but a polary life, and must pass half their days in the shadow of that Luminary'.

The apotheosis of Urn-Burial includes an example of Browne's unique astral symbolism,  the learned Norwich physician-philosopher declaiming -

'Life is a pure flame and we live by an invisible sun within us'.

Besides being a fine example of Browne’s frequent usage of the literary device of parallelism, that is, stating the same thing twice contrastingly, this superb fusion of Browne’s scientific, spiritual and psychological learning deserves elaboration. The idea of an ‘invisible sun’ can be found in the writings of the Belgian physician Gerard Dorn (1530-84) the foremost promoter of the ideas of the alchemist Paracelsus and whose principal works can be found in the vast compendium Theatrum Chemicum  [12] The notion of an 'invisible sun’ can be traced even further back in time to the source of much Christian mysticism, that of Pseudo-Dionysus the Areopagite, a Christian theologian and philosopher of the late 5th to early 6th century CE. 

Perhaps one of the most accessible books in recent years on the beginnings of Western science is Philip Ball’s, ‘Curiosity: How Science Became Interested in Everything’ (2013). Those wishing to understand the beginnings of modern-day Scientific enquiry and the vital influence which Hermeticism wielded in its development are recommended to consult its pages. For example, Philip Ball notes of the Elizabethan mathematician and magus John Dee (1527-1608) whose eldest son Arthur Dee (b. Manchester 1572 d. Norwich 1651) was a close friend of Browne’s -

 ‘Like Kepler, Galileo and later Newton, Dee held that the secrets of the world were at root mathematical and geometrical’ and crucially, ‘we have been encouraged to divorce mathematical and geometrical reasoning from its strong Renaissance associations with magic’. [13] Philip Ball’s remarks on Dee are equally applicable to Browne’s own scientific perspective, not least in the transcendent geometry and ‘mystical mathematics’ in the discourse The Garden of Cyrus.   

The Garden of Cyrus

No literary work of Browne’s demonstrates his esoteric approach to science better than The Garden of Cyrus (1658). Its primary objective is advocation, via the Quincunx pattern, of God as a skillful geometrician and the intelligent Designer of the universe. Browne’s quinary quest cites examples of the Quincunx, amongst other inter-related symbols including the lattice pattern, the figure of decussation X and the number five, in subjects as diverse as - Biblical scholarship, Egyptology, comparative religion, especially the Bembine Tablet of Isis, mythology, ancient world plantations and gardening, geometry, including the Archimedean solids, sculpture, numismatics, architecture, paving-stones, battle-formations, optics, including the camera obscura, zoology, ornithology, the kabbalah, astrology, astronomy and not least numerous botanical  observations which anticipate modern-day studies in genetics, germination, generation and heredity.

The Discourse opens dramatically with a dazzling fusion of comparative religion, optical imagery and cosmology  -

'That Vulcan gave arrows unto Apollo and Diana the fourth day after their Nativities, according to Gentile Theology, may pass for no blind apprehension of the Creation of the Sun and Moon, in the work of the fourth day When the diffused light and shooting rays of those Luminaries contracted into orbs’.

There's a generous amount of highly original astral symbolism sprinkled throughout the pages of The Garden of Cyrus, while mention of astronomical constellations, in conjunction with Browne’s subtle humour can be found in the opening of the Discourse’s central, third chapter-

'Could we satisfy ourselves in the position of the lights above, or discover the wisdom of that order so invariably maintained in the fixed Stars of heaven; Could we have any light, why the stellar part of the first mass, separated into this order, that the Girdle of Orion should ever maintain its line, and the two Stars in Charles's Wain never leave pointing at the Pole-Star, we might abate the Pythagorical Music of the Spheres, the sevenfold Pipe of Pan; and the strange Cryptography of Gaffarel in his Starry Book of Heaven....'

But not to look so high as Heaven or the single Quincunx of the Hyades upon the head of Taurus....

In a literary work jam-packed with esoteric references, Browne's numerological quest can be seen to endorse the teachings of the seminal scholar Pico della Mirandola (1463-94) who was responsible for re-introducing Pythagorean 'mystical mathematics' to Renaissance Europe, advocating-  

'By number, a way is had, to the searching out and understanding of everything able to be known'. 

In many ways The Garden of Cyrus is a highly-condensed compendium of esoteric topics which fascinated Browne. It includes the astrological speculation-  

'Under what abstruse foundation Astrologers do Figure the good or bad Fate from our Children, in a good Fortune, or the fifth house of their Celestial Schemes. Whether the Egyptians described a Star by a Figure of five points, with reference unto the five Capital aspects, whereby they transmit their Influences, or abstruser Considerations ?'

The same curious mixture of  a critical belief in  astrology and  an awareness of the discoveries of astronomy occurs in Browne's posthumous collection of short essays unimaginatively entitled by  its literary executor as Christian Morals (1716). 

In Christian Morals (circa 1670 pub. post. 1716) Browne introduces into English language the astronomical description of stars as seen in the Milky Way as 'nebulous’ and 'lacteous’, declaring -

'numerous numbers must be content to stand like lacteous or nebulous stars, little taken notice of, or dim in their generations'. [14]  

Browne's cosmological speculations led him to the profound observation that - 'The created world is but a small parenthesis in eternity'. [15]

Its also in Christian Morals that Browne’s ambiguous relationship to astrology can be detected. He’s highly critical of natal astrology when declaiming -

'Burden not the back of Aries, Leo, or Taurus, with thy faults, nor make Saturn, Mars, or Venus, guilty of thy Follies'.  [16]

And effectively demolishes the claims of the astrological birth-chart in his sharp observation - ‘for some are Astrologically well-disposed who are morally highly viscous’. [17]

However, far from entirely dismissing the esoteric art, Browne also speculates -

'If we rightly understood the Names whereby God calleth the Stars, if we knew his Name for the Dog-Star, or by what appellation Jupiter, Mars, and Saturn obey his Will, it might be a welcome accession unto Astrology, which speaks of great things, and is fain to use  Greek and Barbaric systems'.[18]

A quite emphatic statement by Browne demonstrating his critical belief in astrology can be seen in his stating in Christian Morals -

'And therefore the Wisdom of Astrologers, who speak of future things, hath wisely softened the severity of their Doctrines; and even in their sad predictions, while they tell us of inclination not coaction from the Stars, they Kill us not with Stygian Oaths and merciless necessity, but leave us hopes of evasion'.  

(Part 3: 16)

Nor can one omit mention of  a couplet found in Browne's Commonplace notebooks-

'Who will not commend the wit of astrology ?

Venus born out the sea hath her exaltation in Pisces.'

Browne kept abreast and well-informed of the latest scientific discoveries throughout his life. Astronomy seems to have been of great interest to him in his later years. Writing to his eldest son Edward Browne (1644-1708) resident in Rome on his travels, he confirms of their joint eye-witnessing -

'I see the little comet or blazing star every clear evening, the last time I observed it about 42 degrees of height, about 7 o’ clock, in the constellation of Cetus, or the whale, in the head thereof; it moveth west and northly, so that it moveth towards Pisces or Linum Septentrionale pisces. Ten degrees is the utmost extent of the tail...That which I saw in 1618 began in Libra, and moved northward, ending about the tail of Ursa Major; it was far brighter than this, and the tail extended 40 degrees, lasted little above a month. This now seen hath lasted above a month already, so that I believe from the motion that it began in Eridanus or Fluvius'.  [19]

He even considers acquiring astronomical instruments, writing to Edward Browne-

'..some that have had them tell me there is account made of some kind of spectacles without glasses, and made by a little trunk or case to admit the species with advantage. ....I hear such instruments are made and sold in London; and some tell me they have had them here. Enquire after them, and where they are made, and send a pair, as I remember there is no great art in the making thereof'.  [20]

However, although his eye-sight seems as sharp as ever, his advanced years are now of little help for stargazing, writing to Edward -

'The stream or tail of the comet was very long, when I saw it, in a clear  night, and I believe it was the same night when you saw it,  at St. Albans ; but the weather was so piercing cold, that I  could not endure to stand in it, otherwise I might have taken the altitude of the star or head of the comet, and then  reckoned the length of the tail to our vertical point, and then, allowing for the altitude, I might have seen how much  of ninety degrees the tail took up ; as, if the altitude were 30 degrees, the tail, coming to the vertex, must be sixty degrees extended'. [21]

Comets remain  of interest to Browne, when writing to Edward Browne, less than two years before his death -

'The news letters mentioned it, but to little or no purpose, or any information. We have had somewhat cloudy or foggy evenings, so that we hear no more of it, and this day was clear and frosty, and the sun set very bright and red, but we could not see a star, it was so misty this night, while I am writing, which is between seven and eight o'clock. I never saw a large and very long tail of a comet, since 1618, when I was at school. I believe it will be much observed and discoursed, and accounts given of it by the R. S. (i.e. Royal Society) and observers beyond sea'. [22] 

Browne also demonstrates his understanding of parallaxis, explaining the astronomical term to his eldest son thus -

'By this parallaxis astronomers find out the comet's distance from the earth ; and, in that of 1618, they found it to be as far above the moon as  the moon is above the earth, and so find out its place, or sphere it is in, which I believe will be performed, or is already, by some astronomers'. [23]

He advises his son - 'You might do well to have a figure of parallaxis, and to understand it, for it may be very useful, and is in many books. Now, if this comet be very high, and at a great distance above the moon, or in the sphere of Mercury or Venus, it will have but little parallaxis, and so we may conclude that it is above the moon'. [24] 

Perhaps Browne's late interest in astronomy was the result of his having a mystical apprehension of stars as the source of all life on Earth. Our own star, the sun supports and sustains all life on earth, including humanity.

In essence, Browne's scientific outlook was forever inclined towards the tenets of Hermeticism with its correspondences, analogies and polarities, concepts not always conducive to modern quantitative science. Browne was also a believer in unquantifiable aesthetic principles such as symmetry, harmony, order and proportion, and for this reason he never fully embraced the discoveries of a science which challenged or refuted concepts such as his beloved 'music of the Spheres' or the eternal patterns and archetypes of an Intelligent or Grand Designer.

Its thus as a paradoxical figure in intellectual history, with one foot planted firmly in esoteric lore and the other, in modern scientific enquiry that Browne reveals himself to us today. His holistic approach to medicine and critical following of Paracelsus marks him as a progressive-thinking medical man in seventeenth century England. Indeed, it's in the fields of psychiatry and psychology, not astronomy that Browne's greatest achievements lay. Its not without significance that the double-faced figure of Janus, one of Browne's favourite symbols, which the Swiss psychologist C.G. Jung considered to be a 'perfect symbol of the Psyche',  or that one of the very earliest usages of the word  'Archetype'  occurs in Browne's literary works.

To summarize, Browne's place in intellectual history, as one of the very last Renaissance men who held an equal interest in both astrology and the newly developing science of astronomy is paradoxical to modern sensibilities, forever insistent upon Either/Or.

Yet its precisely because of Sir Thomas Browne's consultation of both natural and supernatural knowledge that he may be defined as much an early chemist as an alchemist, as much an Hermetic philosopher as advocate of rational, deductive science and as much an astrologer as vigorous promoter of the new science of astronomy. And this is precisely why Norwich's very own 'Starman' remains a controversial and little-understood, yet also highly significant figure in Western intellectual history. 

  

Science and Astronomy books in Browne’s library includes -

Robert Boyle - Usefulness of Experimental Philosophy, London 1671 

Galileo, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, Trent 1635

Sidereus Nuncius, London 1653

Two World Systems Englished by T. Sainsbury, 1661

William Gilbert. De Magnete, Magneticisque Corporibus, et de Magno Magnete Tellure 1600

Robert Hooke - Lectures, London 1678

Christian Huygens - Systema Saturnium, The Hague 1659

Johannes Kepler -  Mysterium Cosmographicum, Tübingen 1596

Kepler - de Stella nova in pede Serpentis, Prague 1606

Highly Recommended

* Philip Ball - Curiosity: How Science Became Interested in Everything pub. Vintage 2013

* Wonders of the Solar System presented by Professor Brian Cox BBC DVD 2010

Also consulted


Star Names : Their Lore and Meaning Richard Hinckley 1899 Allen Dove pub. 1963

Ingenious Pursuits : Building the Scientific Revolution Lisa Jardine pub. Little, Brown and co. 1999

Notes

Images Top -Dying double helix Nebula in the constellation Aquarius

Next - Hevelius Selenographia

Next - Hyades star cluster in the constellation Taurus

Next - Galaxy in which our own solar system is located

Next - Comet ISON

Last -  A Page from a Star Atas dated 1674

Link to the latest astronomical discovery. Astronomers witness neutron stars colliding. This extraordinary event has been ‘seen’ for the first time, in both gravitational waves and light – ending decades-old debate about where gold comes from

[1] Leonard Nathanson -The Strategy for Truth pub. Chicago Uni. Press 1967

[2] Religio Medici Part 1: 6

[3] R.M. Part 2. 6

[4]  R.M Part 2:11

[5]  R.M Part 1: 41

[6] Bacon's Essay 'Of Vicissitude of Things' opens with the words - 'Salomon saith, There is no new thing upon the earth. So that as Plato had an imagination, that all knowledge was but remembrance; so Salomon giveth his sentence, that all novelty is but oblivion'. 

Browne's to the Reader opens with the words - 'Would Truth dispense, we could be content, with Plato, that knowledge were but remembrance; that intellectual acquisition were but reminiscential evocation, and new Impressions but the colouring of old stamps which stood pale in the soul before. For what is worse, knowledge is made by oblivion',

[7] Kepler's books in Browne's Library includes -Mysterium Cosmographicum (Prague 1596) 1711 Sales Catalogue Page 28 Quarto no. 2

De stella nova in pede Serpentarii (Prague 1606) Sales Catalogue  page 29 no. 18  and Ad Vitellionem Paraipolomena (Frankfurt 1606) S.C.  page 29 no.34

[8] Hugh Aldersey Williams 'The Adventures of Sir Thomas Browne in the 21st century' Granta 2015. There's a number of caveats to be sounded about this book. Whilst its to be applauded for generating interest in Browne, its also very much Aldersey-William's own Religio Medici Link to Review here. Hugh Aldersey-William's proposal that Browne was a closet atheist in particular is highly unlikely, but also a good example how Browne's strongly archetypical 'Old wise man' persona is a magnet for psychological projection, invariably of an unconscious nature.

[9] Pseudodoxia Epidemica bk 7 chapter 3

[10] P.E. bk 6 chapter 14

[11] Ibid.

[11b] R.M Part 2 : Section 15

[12] 1711 Sales Catalogue Page 25 no. 124

[13] Philip Ball - Curiosity: How Science Became Interested in Everything pub. Vintage 2013 

[14] Christian Morals Part 3 Section 24

[15] C.M. Part 3 Section 29

[16]  C.M. Part 3 section 7

[17]  Ibid.

[18] Ibid.

[19] Letter dated Nch. Jan 1st 1664-65 to Edward Browne

[20] Letter dated Nov 23rd 1677 to Edward Browne

[21] Letter dated 7th Jan 1681 to Edward Browne

[22] Letter dated 17th Dec 1680 to Edward Browne

[23] Letter dated 7th Jan 1681 to Edward Browne

[24] Letter dated 12 Jan 1681 to Edward Browne

This essay dedicated to Tchenka Sunderland - Astrologer, one-time mentor and decades long encourager of my Brunonian studies.