Clifton College Scientific Society. 45 



MEETING, Oct. 7, 1870. 



The President read a comraunication from the Head 

 Master of Winchester College, offering to exchange ' Trans- 

 actions.' Also an ' Address to Dr. Debus,' and his reply. 



After the reading of the above letters, the President intro- 

 duced G. P. EodweU, Esq., P.E.A.S., P.C.S., who read the 

 following Paper : — 



THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ROBERT FLUDD.i 



The first half of the seventeenth century was rendered so 

 exceptionally brilliant by the labours of Francis Bacon and 

 of Galileo, that many lesser names have almost passed from 

 the memory of mankind. This must ever be the case in an 

 age distinguished by the presence of men who dignify and 

 illumine, not alone their own period, but all time. In one 

 sense it was the misfortune of Leo Baptista Alberti that he 

 was the contemporary of Michael Angelo and Leonardo da 

 Yinci ; and similarly it was the misfortune of Robert Pludd 

 that he was the contemporary of Bacon and Galileo. Pludd 

 lived in an age that was altogether stupendous ; it abounded 

 in intellectual giants, and men, who would have been the 

 glory of any ordinary age of mental activity, were now almost 

 unnoticed. A profound change had taken place in the 

 character and attitude of human thought — a change which 

 some of the martyrs of the preceding century had hastened, 

 and almost brought to a climax. We must not forget that 

 the world had been somewhat prepared for this change : 

 Copernicus and Eegiomontanus, Jordano Bruno, Marius 

 Nizolius, and many others had swerved far from the esta- 

 blished and orthodox course of philosophy ; in other direc- 

 tions the power of the Church had been lessened by Savona- 

 rola and Luther, and a host of reformers ; and the invention 

 of printing had done much to induce a freedom of thought 

 unknown for many previous centuries. Hierarchical influence 

 had long been on the wane. It has been remarked that the 

 long pontificate of Urban VIII. was a period of transition 

 from strength to weakness ; but I would rather call it a 

 transition from an already commenced weakness to absolute 

 feebleness. The Church had been attacked on many sides at 

 once, and the downfall of scholasticism was not least among 



' Portions of this essay have been printed elsewhere, but it has not appeared 

 before in this form in which it was read to the Society. 



