Up through all 'the weeds and tares of his brain,' as Sir Thomas
himself calls them, his imagination and his faith shot, and sprang, and
spread, till they covered with their finest fruits his whole mind, and
heart, and life.
Sir Thomas Browne was a noble illustration of Bacon's noble law. For Sir
Thomas carried all his studies, experiments, and operations to such a
depth in his own mind, and heart, and imagination, that he was able to
testify to all his fellow-physicians that he who studies man and medicine
deeply enough will meet with as many intellectual, and scientific, and
religious adventures every day as any traveller will meet with in Africa
itself. As a living man of genius in the medical profession, Dr. George
Gould, has it in that wonderful Behmenite and Darwinian book of his, _The
Meaning and the Method of Life_, 'A healing and a knitting wound,' he
argues, 'is quite as good a proof of God as a sensible mind would
desire.' This was Sir Thomas Browne's wise, and deep, and devout mind in
all parts of his professional and personal life. And he was man enough,
and a man of true science and of true religion enough, to warn his
brethren against those 'academical reservations' to which their strong
intellectual and professional pride, and their too weak faith and
courage, continually tempted them.
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