248 The Bible of Nature 



task, the meaning of our ambitious title will be 

 clear. It was expressed long ago by Sir Thomas 

 Browne in his "Religio Medici": 



"Thus there are two books from whence I collect my 

 divinity; besides that written one of God, another of his 

 servant nature, that universal and public manuscript that 

 lies expansed unto the eyes of all, those that never saw 

 him in the one, have discovered him in the other: this was 

 the scripture and theology of the heathens: the natural 

 motion of the sun made them more admire him than its 

 supernatural station did the children of Israel; the ordi- 

 nary effects of nature wrought more admiration in them 

 than in the other all his miracles; surely the heathens 

 knew better how to joyn and read these mystical letters 

 than we Christians, who cast a more careless eye on these 

 common hieroglyphics, and disdain to suck divinity from 

 the flowers of nature." (Sect. 16.) 



Hear, indeed, in Bacon's words the conclusion 

 of the whole matter. 



"This I dare affirm in knowledge of Nature, that a 

 little natural philosophy, and the first entrance into it, 

 doth dispose the opinion to atheism, but on the other side, 

 much natural philosophy, and wading deep into it, will 

 bring about men's minds to religion." (Bacon, " Medita- 

 tiones Sacrse X.") 



