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Brown, Thomas; Digby, Kenelm.
[Brown’s Vulgar Errors]: Pseudodoxia Epidemica: or, Enquiries into very many Received Tenets and Commonly presumed Truthsi [bound with, as issued] Religio Medici [...] With Annotations upon all the Obscure Passages Also Observations by Sir Kenelm Digby.
Publisher: Printed by J. R. for Nath. Elkins; printed for Andrew Crook, London;
Date of Publication: 1672
Stock Code: 15419
The stated sixth ‘and last’ edition; the stated seventh edition ‘corrected and emended’. Quarto, pp., [xx], 440, [12], plus engraved frontispiece; [viii], 144. Sig., [A]² (-1 = [A]2) *-2*⁴ 3*², B-3N⁴ 3M²; [A]⁴, B-S⁴. Lacks the half-title, otherwise complete. Contemporary varnished sheep; morocco corners; re-backed with modern calf and new marbled end-papers. Occasional annotations in ink in a contemporary hand; partially scraped contemporary inscription of ‘John B[???]’ to title-page. Leather dry and cracking; scuffs and rubbing to boards; binding otherwise strong and square. Very minor loss to frontispiece and a few leaves, affecting margins only; occasional toning and scattered foxing; very occasional spots of ink. A very serviceable copy. A pioneering work of Enlightenment empiricism, Pseudodoxia Epidemica gave the English reading public a scientific guide to common misconceptions, superstitions, and false beliefs. The author, Thomas Brown (1605-82) might be thought of as one of the first writers on popular science, aiming to inculcate the public with an Enlightened ethos of systematic, empirical observation. The subjects within the book are wide ranging indeed, from hermaphrodism in hyenas, to the death of Aristotle, to gryphons, phoenixes, and unicorns. Many of Brown’s claims now seem absurd and even problematic (his exposition on the causes of racial qualities, for example, is an early example of scientific racism), but the book was nonetheless a figurehead for the spread of rational, scientific thought among English readers. ‘Religio Medici’ was Brown’s first book, an attempt to justify the pursuit of Brown’s reason where no guidance is laid down by Scripture. Carter and Muir call Brown ‘one of the great writers of the seventeenth century’ his ‘combination of detachment from the world with fascination with its smallest physical objects, the style, and the mind which both style and contents reveal, has absorbed the interest of readers of all kinds ever since its first appearance’. £650.00