'The Democratical Enemies of Truth'

Like me, Matthew Walther was attracted to the work of Sir Thomas Browne (1605-82) by his “enchanting prose.” I see from the title page that I bought The Prose of Sir Thomas Browne in the Cleveland bookstore where I worked in April 1975. It’s a fat yellow paperback, part of the Anchor Seventeenth-Century Series, and includes all the major works and selections from the letters and minor essays – 646 pages and a cover designed by Leonard Baskin for $3.95. Given my frequency of use, it may be the best book bargain of my life. Along with my copies of Ulysses, Pascal’s Pensées and Rasselas, it is probably the most heavily underlined and annotated volume I own. 

Take this passage from the fourth chapter of Pseudodoxia Epidemica, or Vulgar Errors, which is devoted to “the fallible nature of Man even from his first production” and “the erroneous disposition of the People”:

 

“Thus having been deceived by themselves, and continually deluded by others, they must needs be stuffed with Errors, and even over-run with these inferiour falsities; whereunto whosoever shall resign their reasons, either from the Root of deceit in themselves, or inability to resist such trivial ingannations from others, although their condition and fortunes may place them many Spheres above the multitude, yet are they still within the line of Vulgarity, and Democratical enemies of truth.”

 

Timeless truths. The OED defines ingannation as “deceiving; deception,” though I prefer Dr. Johnson’s definition: “cheat; fraud; deception; juggle; delusion; imposture; trick; slight. A word neither used nor necessary.” For once, Johnson is wrong. Walther comments:

 

“Implicit in all of this is Browne’s belief that error is a product of sin. Man in his fallen state was not only born ignorant but predisposed to falsehood; only by way of prudent inquiry, guided by prayer, could we come to know the truth about the world.”