THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF ENGLAND. 229 



Lindheim fell victims in four years. In the district of Como, 

 Switzerland, one thousand were burned in one year (1524). In 

 France the destruction of life was equally frightful. Witch-per- 

 secutions in England came on later, but were equally ferocious. 



James I wrote a treatise on " Demonology," and during the 

 Long Parliament three thousand persons were executed by legal 

 processes alone, not counting the victims by mobs, as a result of 

 this witch-mania. 



But, according to Hutchison, chaplain to George I, who wrote 

 upon witchcraft, " there were but two witches executed in Eng- 

 land after the Royal Society published their ' Transactions,' and 

 one of these was in the year after their first publication." 



And Sir Walter Scott, in his letters on " Demonology and 

 Witchcraft," expresses his belief that the Royal Society " tended 

 greatly to destroy the belief in witchcraft and superstition gen- 

 erally." 



What a comment upon the value of scientific studies ! 



Touching for king's-evil or scrofula, which was long rife in 

 England, was another but more harmless superstition which the 

 Royal Society was active in destroying. Imagine the feelings of 

 the fastidious Charles, under such ordeals as the one related of 

 him by Aubrey in his " Miscellanies " : " Arise Evans had a fun- 

 gous nose, and said it was revealed to him that the king's hand 

 would cure him : and at the first coming of King Charles II in 

 St. James's Park he kissed the king's hand and rubbed his nose 

 with it, which disturbed the king, but cured him." 



Even within the Royal Society itself there was a lack of pre- 

 cision in scientific investigation. Upon the same evening that Sir 

 Robert Moray was elected president he brought in a contribution 

 on " A Relation concerning Barnicles," in which he relates of a visit 

 to Scotland, where he found attached to a certain variety of trees 

 innumerable little shells, each containing a little bird. He con- 

 fesses that, while he found everything for " making up a perfect 

 sea-f owle," he never saw any of the birds alive. " Here we have 

 the absurd notion of the Lepas anatifera breeding geese, brought 

 before the society by their president." 



We find in the same minutes that " Dr. Clark was intreated to 

 lay before the society Mr. Pellin's relation of the production of 

 young vipers from the powder of the liver and lungs of vipers." 



The Royal Society owes to the Hon. Robert Boyle more than to 

 any other one person for its inception. A bachelor of independent 

 fortune, he devoted his great resources, mental and material, to 

 experimental researches, especially in relation to chemistry and 

 of the atmosphere. An enthusiastic follower of Bacon, he believed 

 and practiced the cherished doctrines of the great philosopher, 

 that experiment and experiment is the only and sure method of 



