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SIR THOMAS BROWNE AS A NATURALIST. 
IX. 
SIR THOMAS BROWNE AS A NATURALIST. 
By W. A. Nicholson, Hon. Sec. 
A proposal having been made in Norwich to raise a memorial 
to Sir Thomas Browne, it might be interesting to bring before our 
members, a few thoughts hearing more particularly on his writings 
on Natural History, having regard to the state of scientific thought 
in his time, and his position as a naturalist. 
As Sir Thomas Browne was horn in 1605, and died in 1682, his 
life may he said to have been almost contemporaneous with the 
seventeenth century. As he spent forty-five years of his life in 
Norwich, his name must be invested with special interest to 
Norwich naturalists. 
Though the fame of Sir Thomas Browne does not depend, 
except in a comparatively small degree, on his contributions to 
natural science, yet these alone, considering the period in which he 
lived, would have entitled him to the admiration of all lovers 
of nature, for the keen interest he displayed in animals and plants, 
and the pains he took to refute the errors existing about them. In 
these days of text-books and popular science, it is a somewhat 
difficult task to appreciate the position of a naturalist 250 years 
ago, without a brief survey of the state of knowledge at that time. 
Though John Ray was Brown’s contemporary, Linnaeus was still 
unborn, to shed light on the classification of plants and animals. 
The animal and vegetable worlds have been so minutely mapped 
out for us, that it is hard now to understand the point of view 
of a period when specialism in science was so little developed, 
when natural science herself was looked on as more or less allied to 
