And thus it is that we have a work of a simplicity and a sincerity that
would have been impossible had its author in any part of his book sat
down to compose for the public. Sir Thomas Browne lived so much within
himself, that he was both secret writer and sole reader to himself. His
great book is 'a private exercise directed solely,' as he himself says,
'to himself: it is a memorial addressed to himself rather than an example
or a rule directed to any other man.' And it is only he who opens the
_Religio Medici_ honestly and easily believing that, and glad to have
such a secret and sincere and devout book in his hand,--it is only he who
will truly enjoy the book, and who will gather the same gain out of it
that its author enjoyed and gained out of it himself. In short, the
properly prepared and absolutely ingenuous reader of the _Religio Medici_
must be a second Thomas Browne himself.
'I am a medical man,' says Sir Thomas, in introducing himself to us, 'and
this is my religion. I am a physician, and this is my faith, and my
morals, and my whole true and proper life. The scandal of my profession,
the natural course of my studies, and the indifference of my behaviour
and discourse in matters of religion, might persuade the world that I had
no religion at all.
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