Name: Pseudodoxia epidemica
ISBN: 9780198127062

Pseudodoxia epidemica

Pseudodoxia Epidemica or Enquries into very many received tenets and commonly presumed truths, also known simply as Pseudodoxia Epidemica or Vulgar Errors, is a work by Thomas Browne refuting the common errors and superstitions of his age. It first appeared in 1646 and went through five subsequent editions, the last revision occurring in 1672. The work includes evidence of Browne's adherence to the Baconian method of empirical observation of nature, and was in the vanguard of work-in-progress scientific journalism in the 17th century scientific revolution, though he refers to his work as an encyclopaedia. Throughout its pages frequent examples of Browne's subtle humour can also be found. Browne's three determinants for obtaining truth were firstly, the authority of past authors, secondly, the act of reason and lastly, empirical experience. Each of these determinants are employed upon subjects ranging from the cosmological to common folklore. Subjects covered in Pseudodoxia are arranged in the time-honoured Renaissance scale of creation, the learned doctor assaying to dispel errors and fallacies concerning the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms before moving to errors pictorial, to those of man, geography, astronomy and finally of the cosmos.

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mjdAug 2026

One really nice thing about Pseudodoxia Epidemica is that you don't have to read it cover to cover. You can pick it up, read the bit about whether “a Diamond is made soft, or broke by the blood of a Goate”, or what he has to say about Pope Joan (a woman who supposedly tricked the college of cardinals into electing her pope) and put it down gain ten minutes later. It's great bathroom reading.

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jallmannJun 2015

Pseudodoxia Epidemica is dense, strange and delightful. Probably my favorite chapter is on the Amphisbaena [1] (a serpent with a head on both ends), which Browne dismisses as basically being too weird to exist. Then he can't help but throw a jab at philosophers:

"And therefore this duplicity was ill contrived to place one head at both extreams, and had been more tolerable to have setled three or four at one. And therefore also Poets have been more reasonable then Philosophers, and Geryon or Cerberus less monstrous than Amphisbæna."

How funny is that -- the idea of the Amphisbaena is so wild, how more plausible is having three or four heads at a single end? (Geyron being a multi-headed giant, and Cerberus a multi-headed dog.)

Further, Browne does mention the existence of multi-headed serpents (snakes), but those too are anomalies:

"Which double formations do often happen unto multiparous generations, more especially that of Serpents; whose productions being numerous, and their Eggs in chains or links together (which sometime conjoyn and inoculate[13] into each other) they may unite into various shapes and come out in mixed formations. But these are monstrous productions, beside the intention of Nature, and the statutes of generation, neither begotten of like parents, nor begetting the like again, but irregularly produced, do stand as Anomalies in the general Book of Nature. Which being shifts and forced pieces, rather then genuine and proper effects, they afford us no illation; nor is it reasonable to conclude, from a monstrosity unto a species, or from accidental effects, unto the regular works of Nature."

Really wonderful writing; I couldn't help but share.

[1] Of the Amphisbaena: http://penelope.uchicago.edu/pseudodoxia/pseudo315.html

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rsynnottAug 2026

> I have trouble connecting with the thinkers of the Middle Ages. Their thinking seems to me to be frightened, so overcautious, so cramped and circumscribed, I can't read it without sadness for the way that medieval Christianity strangled the human spirit for so long.

As I understand it, particularly for the bizarre natural sciences stuff, a lot of this is actually _Aristotle's_ fault, not Christianity's.

Adding the Pseudodoxia Epidemica to my list of things to read if I ever have infinite time.

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