6 THE NEW PHILOSOPHY 



in the course and revolution of many ages, come to light of themselves, 

 just as the others did; only by the method of which we are now treating 

 can they be speedily and suddenly and simultaneously presented and 

 anticipated." These doctrines of Bacon were revolutionary and they 

 in fact brought about an intellectual revolution. The new or experi- 

 mental philosophy almost instantly came to the front. It marked the 

 17th century as the beginning of a new epoch. 



Hardly were the seven philosophies securely in place in their daily 

 calendar atGresham College, when the new upstart challenged the com- 

 pleteness of their sacred number. You all know, of course, that the 

 sacred number came to the Hebrews because of their contemplation of 

 the sun, moon, and the five wandering stars. There was a day of the 

 week for each. Bacon added the earth itself, as the eighth heavenly 

 body. The new philosophy was to be the philosophy of things near to 

 man, and v^as to give him for the first time, as Bacon said, empire over 

 the earth and over the forces of nature. Bacon's work had a profound 

 influence, both in England and on the continent. Within twenty years 

 of his death a group of vigorous young men in London had taken up 

 the new philosophy. For the first home of the new learning there stood 

 the ever open hospitality of the London tavern. This may seem a 

 strange place of beginning for the new learning, but the place, never- 

 theless, was natural enough. Private homes, for the most part, were 

 - poorly built, uncomfortable and cold. The taverns were warm and 

 cheery and the center of life and hospitality. Only the more pretentious 

 houses of the rich and powerful were fit for social intercourse. Hence 

 it was quite natural that in 1645 we should find a group of diners regu- 

 larly getting together at the Bullhead Inn in Cheapside, for the purpose 

 of discussing the new or experimental philosophy. 



/ It was this group, called by Boyle the "Invisible College," that in 

 1660 organized the "Visible College," chartered as the "Royal Society 

 of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge." Prominent 

 in this group were Lord Brouncker, an "excellent mathematician," best 

 known as a generous and enthusiastic patron of all branches of learn- 

 ing, rather than as a specialist in any one; Bishop Wilkins, Master of 

 Trinity College, able and active in high office both in the church and 

 in the university, perhaps best known by his eloquent exposition of the 

 Copernican Theory; Robert Boyle, the physicist, the most prominent 

 man of science of his day, second only to Bacon as the creator of the 

 philosophical revolution, and the author of numerous books in the de- 

 fense of Christianity; John Evelyn, "scholar and true gentleman," 

 whose writings on the garden and on forestry led English country gen- 

 tlemen to replant and reforest their lands, much to the joy even of the 

 present generation; whose diary, covering about sixty years of the 

 seventeenth century, like the diary of Samuel Pepys, is one of the most 



