It goes without saying that we live in an age of extremes; chiefly because it goes with a lot of saying. As a matter of fact, we live in an age of moderation, too, and, it may be, of more moderation than extremes. Of course there are those who would abolish private property, whom we call socialists, and there are those who would abolish public property, whom we call conspiracy theorists. There are those who would reinvent gender, and those who would uninvent gender; there are those who would dispense with the West and there are those who would dispense with humankind. There are luddites and flat-earthers, ultra-atheists and fundamentalists, Buddhist ascetics and environmentalist ascetics. Whether there are more extremes in our century than in previous centuries, and whether they represent a greater portion of the population, I do not pretend to know; which of the extremes are best, and which are necessary, everyone is at liberty to decide for themselves. But whether all extremes should be avoided because they are extremes is a question of great moment, and it is that question that concerns us here. We all realise, even us extremists, that if the world swung to any extreme, even our own, it would be cataclysmic and calamitous. It might be worthwhile, it might bear good fruit; but it would be a revolution nonetheless. That means it would be dangerous, and if the wrong revolution had its way, we dare not think of the results. It is dangerous to play with fire, though we might with due consideration do so; and it is dangerous to play with revolution, even if a revolution is necessary.
But it is also dangerous to play with moderation. Taken too far, moderation would send the world up in flames as rapidly as any revolution. I say this with regard to a particular variety – unfortunately a particularly popular variety. It is one thing to be neither communist nor capitalist because you are something quite different – I take the example merely for its convenience; and as the Swiss are neither French nor German, because they are something else. Again, you might be neither because you have not thought about the topic; and that is respectable, since you are not likely, by yourself, to have much say in the social structure of your society. But it is quite another thing to be neither communist nor capitalist because either would be too extreme; to be nothing else, if not pure and undefined moderation; to see merit in both, but believe they take their ideas too far, as if ideas are redeemed by being lukewarm. This is the philosophy of the idle oracle, μηδὲν ἄγαν, nothing in excess, both sides have merits, but both are over the top. And it is a powerful thing, this affable unenthusiasm; it too is a firebrand. The day when the world as a whole falls into this apathy will be a fearful day, a day of darkness and thick gloom, a day when all things will be thrown into immeasurable confusion. Nation will fall before nation and the land will be thrown into the sea, when amiability reigns supreme. A simple land dispute will be enough to ignite the world: for though wars and the clashing of passions will be no more, doubts and disputes will remain, and they will be settled by no definite decision, but by a vague dismissal, and vast swathes of uncertain territory will spring up between all sovereign states. The states themselves will be set in silent upheaval, and they will fall into uncomplaining anarchy as all sorts of rival rules and rival rulers spring up, and merit is found in all, but nothing is taken too far, and nothing is taken exclusively. The sea has always fought the land for supremacy, but that quarrel too will come to an end, when, as was the case with Holland of old, all lands will become netherlands, neither lands nor seas. And when the blue planet has become the bog planet, and the flat-earthers have been pacified by the tender of a hemisphere, or perhaps a hollow bowl, the revolution against all revolutions will climb the ladder of the stars, leaving the nebulae more nebulous than ever before, and gradually upsetting any sense of clarity and definition, until at last it finds, beyond the blazing ramparts of the world, half a God on half a throne, who is himself half Hindu, half Christian, half Muslim, half Shinto, and may not, in fact, be God, after all. The real God (if he is different) may or may not have been killed by Nietzsche, but which is the case will not then be considered a matter of much importance. Nothing will be left intact, because clarity requires decisiveness.
For this philosophy of compromise is not a matter of agreeing to disagree; it is a matter of agreeing to dismiss. When you agree to disagree, you leave it understood that one of you is right, and the other is wrong, and who is what may in time become apparent, and then you will be compelled to agree. It is a risky business. But to agree to dismiss, or to agree not to be too precise, is only saved from being risky by being hopeless. In the end, you might not be wrong, but you certainly will never be right, and in one sense you will inevitably be more wrong than others who were decisive and were decisively wrong. They at least tried to be right.
To understand any philosophy worthy of the name, one must realise that this halfway house philosophy is not the only house halfway. It is possible to be moderate without being vague or compromising, and it is possible to be moderate without being lukewarm. It is even advisable, in many cases. With those who have the good sense to say they are neither hot nor cold because they do not yet know which is better, we have no concern at present, except to note that they exist, and, though neither hot nor cold, they have this in their favour, that they are not lukewarm by preference. But the possibility of being very precise in one’s opinions without being one-sided is one of the fundamental facts in many questions of philosophy. Even the extreme positions can only be properly appreciated when we recognise that they represent rejection not only of the other extreme, but also of a defensible middle position; and those who take up a moderate stance are often misjudged when we assume they are moderate because they lack enthusiasm or have no strong opinions.
The basic premise of Religio Medici is that Browne is neither an atheist nor an anti-intellectual, not because he lacks strong opinions, but because he has strong opinions. He does not waver because he sees unique merits in both sides; rather he sees merits that each of them lack in a third position, his own. Nor does he think they have gone too far: he simply thinks they have gone wrong. The same may be said of another conflict that makes itself felt in this little treatise, the conflict of sects. He is neither a Roman Catholic nor an extreme Protestant – once again, not because he lacks religious convictions, but because he has them, and those convictions are neither Romanist nor Puritan, but something else altogether. And in this case we might add that he respects both the Catholics and the Puritans, but not because he sees each as having its own unique merits, and believes that no one position is perfect anyway: rather he respects their opinions because he thinks it is right to respect peoples’ opinions. Thus we may say that on these two great questions of religion he is not lukewarm and compromising, but in a way fanatical while moderate; and we may add that he is uncompromisingly respectful.
That is the tenor of the little book called Religio Medici. It is masked by two circumstances, one of which is praiseworthy in him, and the other blameworthy in us. In the first place, there are issues in which he confesses himself uncertain; and, being a man of real humility, and intrepid curiosity, he does not try to make them seem smaller than they are. Thus though it is true that he is sometimes willing to concede ignorance and openly resort to speculation and scepticism, the claim that Religio Medici is speculative and sceptical is indefensible. Yet this is precisely what some critics say. For in the second place, there is that general assumption that to be moderate is to be undogmatic. People will read Browne and praise all that is moderate as undogmatic, and all that is dogmatic as extreme. This is an insane estimation: it is sometimes the exact opposite. He is often noticeably dogmatic about his moderate positions; and at times it is his mere fancies that are extreme.
The point may be put another way. We are always apt to read our own ideas into authors we like; and one critic, doubtless enthralled by Browne and disgusted by theology, infers that Browne, like him, had no interest in theology. If I may speculate about the critic, who is an outstanding biographer, but tends to wear his convictions on his sleeve, I would venture to say that he associates theology with dogma and dogma with narrow-mindedness; but he is sure that Browne is not narrow-minded, so he is sure that Browne does not care for theology. Now, this is precisely the kind of reasoning we cannot allow, for it is precisely the reasoning that Religio Medici was written to refute. The thesis of the book is that though Browne is a scientist and a liberal-minded man, he is still a Christian, and not only a Christian, but a committed Christian, and even a theological Christian. He states this in no uncertain terms at the beginning of the book, and he is still proclaiming it, with a built-up richness, in the last words of the book.
Another critic describes Browne as ‘above all undogmatic’; and he has made the same mistake. Browne is not undogmatic, he simply has better, sounder dogmas than the average Englishman of his time. For he is moderate, peaceable, and amiable, and it is his unbending dogmas that make him so.
I stress this principle from the outset, not simply because it is important in itself, nor because so many critics who have not considered it have made such strange comments about Browne as a result, but rather because it is the central thesis of Religio Medici. Insofar as that rambling and reflective journal has any theme binding it together, the theme is that a broad-minded and moderate man can like Browne can still have a deep and dogmatic theology. As I have said, this is the theme he announces at the outset; and it is about time that I quoted the passage in full.
theparsnipoftime 