L] ADFISAELENESS OF IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE. 3 



And one may picture to oneself how harmoniously 

 the holy cursing of the Puritan of that clay would have 

 chimed in with the unholy cursing and the crackling 

 wit of the Rochcsters and Scdleys, and with the reviling^ 

 of the political fanatics, if my imaginary plain dealer 

 had gone on to say that, if the return of such misfortunes 

 were ever rendered impossible, it would not be in virtue 

 of the victory of the faith of Laud, or of that of 

 ]\ lilton ; and, as little, by the triumph of republicanism, 

 as by that of monarchy. But that the one thing 

 needful for compassing this end was, that the people 

 of England should second the efforts of an insi^;- 

 nificant corporation, the establishment of which, a few 

 years before the epoch of the great plague and the 

 great fire, had. been as little noticed, as they were 

 conspicuous. 



Some twenty years before the outbreak of the plague 

 a few calm and thoughtful students banded themselves 

 together for the purpose, as they phrased it, of "im- 

 proving natural knowledge." The ends they proposed 

 to attain cannot be stated more clearly than in the 

 words of one of the founders of the organization : — 



" Our business was (precluding matters of theology 

 and state affairs) to discourse and consider of philo- 

 sophical enquiries, and such as related thereunto : — as 

 Physick, Anatomy, Geometry, Astronomy, Navigation, 

 Staticks, Magneticks, Chymicks, Mechanicks, and 

 Natural Experiments ; with the state of these studies 

 and their cultivation at home and abroad. We then 

 discoursed of the circulation of the blood, the valves 

 in the veins, the venae lacteae, the lymphatic vessels, 

 the Copernican hypothesis, the nature of comets and 

 new stars, the satellites of Jupiter, the oval shape (as 

 it then appeared) of Saturn, the spots on the sun and 



