144 ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE 



themselves to entertain it, once a year at least, with a philosophical discourse, 

 grounded upon experiments made or to be made ; and in case of fhihire, to for- 

 feit «£5." This voluntary engagement on the part of l"'elh)ws, deemed " able 

 and likely" to furnish such discourses, was at the same time made an impei'ative 

 obligation on each member of the existing council. For one, the indefatigable 

 Ilooke is recorded in the journal-book as having produced new experinienta 

 and inventions at alniost every meeting. An agent was salaried to traverse 

 England and Scotland in search of zoological and botanical specimens, and this 

 at a time Avhen a default on the part of many members in the payment of the 

 weekly subscription had so crippled the resources of the Society as to render 

 even its existence precarious. An active foreign correspondence had contributed 

 to secure to it an influence abroad scarcely inferior to that which it enjoyed at 

 home, as was testilied by the learned of Europe, among others by Leibnitz, 

 Malpighi, and Leuwenhoeck, in the dedication of their Avorks to the Society, or 

 a submission of their labors to its judgment. It is a coincidence not unworthy, 

 jierhaps, of notice, that about the time Avhen " one Mr. Leuwenhoeck," as we 

 lind him called in the correspondence, recommended to the notice of the Society 

 his improved microscope, by the assiduous use of which he eventually arrived 

 at the distinction of being esteemed "the father of microscopical discoveries," a 

 " poor Cambridge student," named Isaac Newton, presented to it his reflecting 

 telescnpo, " the first perfect reflector known, and made by the hands of Newton 

 himself."* Thus science was simultaneously endowed with the perfected means 

 of realizing both terms of Cowley's poetical prophecy — the penetration alike 

 "of the crowds of golden Avorlds on high," and "the recesses of nature's imper- 

 ceptible littleness." The presentation of the telescope was soon followed by 

 the adoption of the inventor into the Society, the year 1671 being the date of 

 the accession of the great philosopher, destined, in the eloquent language of Dr. 

 Young, " to advance with one gigantic stride from the regions of twilight into 

 tlie noonday of science." 



From this period the history of the Royal Society becomes so thoroughly 

 interwoven Avith the general history of science that it is manifestly impossible, 

 in a sketch necessarily confined within the narrow limits of the present, to do 

 more than touch upon a few prominent points illustrative either of the progress 

 of the Society or of the knowledge which it has cultivated. 



On the 8th of February, lG71-'72, Newton communicated to the Society his 

 investigations respecting " light, refractions, and colors, importing light to be 

 not a similar, but a heterogeneous thing, consisting of difibrm rays." For these 

 discoveries the author received the " solemn thanks" of the Society, at whose re- 

 quest they were jiublished in the J^li'dowphical Transactions, being the first of 

 Newton's jjroductions which saw the light. His experiments had been made 

 in 1G66, when he was only twenty-three years of age. No sooner, however, 

 was his theory of light g'-ven to the world than it was vehemently attacked, 

 both as regarded his conclusions and the accuracy of the experiments from 

 which they had been deduced; Hooke and Huygheus appearing among the 

 number of his assailants. So true is it, as Biot has remarked, that " by un- 

 veiling himself Newton obtained glory but at the price of his repose." 



* Newton's telescope, says Weld, was the first reffectin<T telescope directed to the heavens, 

 thouj^h .Tames Gieffoiy hail previously (Jt>ti:>) described the manner of constructing one with 

 two concave specula. Newton jierceived so p^reat disadvantages in Gregory's plan, that, ac- 

 cording to his own statement, "he found it necessary to alter the design, and place the eye- 

 glass at the side of the tube, rather than at the middle." Newton's mechanical labors led to 

 his being someliuies regarded abroad as a )nakcr of telescopes, and we lind him styled in a 

 book of that period, Artifer. (juiilatii <iu<rlus noniine Newton. It is suggestive to consider into 

 what gigantic proportions the instrument constructed by the Cambridge student has been 

 developed under the hands of Hersciiel and Rosse. Newton's first telescope is nine inches 

 long ; the length of Lord Rosse's six-feet reffector is sixty feet. 



