THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF ENGLAND. 227 



excesses. There was an element which, likewise turned from the 

 heated discussions of theology, but, more wisely, sought the serene 

 companionship of Nature as the restful change. 



" There arose at this time/' says Dr. Whewell, " a group of 

 philosophers, who began to knock at the door where truth was 

 to be found, although it was left for Newton to force it open. 

 These were the founders of the Royal Society." 



But to Lord Bacon, who died but thirty-six years before the 

 incorporation of the society, is due the first impulse in England 

 to the proper study of nature. Indeed, some such an institution 

 as the Royal Society, for the study of the sciences, was in his 

 mind when he wrote his philosophical romance, the " New Atlan- 

 tis." What he did not live to form, his disciples realized. 



Dr. Wallis, in his diary of 1696-'97, says : " About the year 

 1645, while I lived in London (at a time when, by our civil wars, 

 academical studies were much interrupted in both our univer- 

 sities), besides the conversation of diverse eminent divines, as 

 to matters theological, I had the opportunity of being acquainted 

 with diverse worthy persons, inquisitive into natural philosophy 

 and other parts of human learning, and particularly of what had 

 been called the New Philosophy or Experimental Philosophy. . . . 

 Our business (at these meetings, held at Gresham College) was 

 (precluding matters of theology and statecraft) to discourse and 

 consider of Philosophical Enquiries, and such as related thereto : 

 as Physick, Anatomy, Geometry, Astronomy, Navigation, Staticks, 

 Magneticks, Chemicks, Mechanicks, and Natural Experiments. 

 We then discoursed of the circulation of the blood, the valves of 

 the veins, the venae lactese, the lymphatick vessels, the Copernican 

 hypothesis, the nature of comets and new stars, the satellites of 

 Jupiter, the oval shape of Saturn, the spots in the sun, and its 

 turning on its own axis, the inequalities and selenography of the 

 moon, the several phases of Venus and Mercury, the improvement 

 of telescopes, and grinding of glasses for that purpose, the weight 

 of air, the possibility or impossibility of vacuities, and nature's 

 abhorrence thereof, the Torricellian experiment in quicksilver, 

 the descent of bodies and the degree of acceleration therein, and 

 diverse other things of like nature." 



These meetings were continued at Gresham College and at 

 Oxford, whither many went with Charles I, as frequently as the 

 exigencies of war permitted; but, with Charles II firmly seated on 

 the throne, the fugitives returned to London, where, in 1660, the 

 society was formally instituted, and application was made to the 

 king to give it a corporate being and name by a royal charter. 



Sir Robert Moray, the first president, brought in word from 

 the court that " the king had been acquainted with the design of 

 the meeting. And he did well approve of it, and would be ready 



