PURE SCIENCE AND THE IDEA OF THE HOLY 



I shall give two other instances of the close connection between 

 revolutionary politics in the seventeenth century and strongly pro- 

 gressive ideas in science. Puritans coupled intense scorn for "jejune 

 Peripatetick Philosophy" (i.e. the outworn Aristotelianism) with 

 admiration for "mechanical knowledge." Noah Biggs, a staunch 

 puritan, wrote a book entitled Mataeotechnia Medicinae Praxeos 

 (165 1), dedicated to Parliament and Cromwell, and calling on its title- 

 page for "a thorough reformation of the whole art of physick." He 

 put his finger on the right spot in asking "Wherein do the Univer- 

 sities contribute to the promotion or discovery of truth? Where have 

 we anything to do with Mechanicall Chymistrie, the handmaid of 

 Nature, that hath outstript the other sects of philosophy, by her 

 multiplied real experiences } Where is there an examination and con- 

 secution of Experiments } encouragements to a new world of know- 

 ledge, promoting new Inventions.^ where have we constant reading 

 upon either quick or dead Anatomies ? or an ocular demonstration of 

 Herbs } Where a Review of the old Experiments and Traditions and 

 a casting out of the rubbish that has pestered the Temple of 

 Knowledge.^" 



So also that remarkable man, Marchamont Needham. From 1643 

 to 1647 he edited the newspaper of Parliament, in opposition to the 

 royalist newspaper edited by Sir Roger I'Estrange. He then started a 

 new paper, more royalist in tone, for which he has often been con- 

 demned by subsequent writers as a turncoat, but when the facts are 

 closely examined, it is seen that this was just the time when Cromwell 

 and indeed all parties were trying to get the King to come to some 

 compromise. The change was thus more apparent than real, as is 

 further shown by the violence with which the new paper attacked 

 the Presbyterian Scots, even before they had invaded England to 

 restore the King. After the King's death and the establishment of 

 Cromwell as Protector, Needham threw off conciliatory masks and 

 published The Case of the Commonwealth of England Stated, in which 

 he showed himself almost the only writer then living who fully 

 understood that he was in a revolutionary period. For the rest of 

 the Commonwealth period he continued to edit the Parliament's 

 newspaper, in co-operation with John Milton. But now, at the 

 Restoration, after he had retired from public life, and taken up again 

 the practice of medicine, he produced his Medulla Medicinae (1665). 

 In this book he made an intensive attack on the old-fashioned reliance 

 on Galenic or herbal remedies in therapy, thus aligning himself with 



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