I.] ON IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE. 



times. As in Dr. Wallis s days, so in these, &quot; our business is, 

 precluding theology and state affairs, to discourse and consider 

 of philosophical enquiries.&quot; But our &quot; Mathematick &quot; is one 

 which Newton would have to go to school to learn ; our 

 &quot;Staticks, Mechanicks, Magneticks, Chymicks, and Natural 

 Experiments&quot; constitute a mass of physical and chemical 

 knowledge, a glimpse at which would compensate Galileo for the 

 doings of a score of inquisitorial cardinals ; our &quot; Physick &quot; and 

 &quot; Anatomy &quot; have embraced such infinite varieties of being, have 

 laid open such new worlds in time and space, have grappled, 

 not unsuccessfully, with such complex problems, that the eyes of 

 Vesalius and of Harvey might be dazzled by the sight of the 

 tree that has grown out of their grain of mustard seed. 



The fact is perhaps rather too much, than too little, forced 

 upon one s notice, nowadays, that all this marvellous intellectual 

 growth has a no less wonderful expression in practical life ; and 

 that, in this respect, if in no other, the movement symbolized 

 by the progress of the Royal Society stands without a parallel 

 in the history of mankind. 



A series of volumes as bulky as the Transactions of the 

 Royal Society might possibly be filled with the subtle specu 

 lations of the Schoolmen ; not improbably, the obtaining a 

 mastery over the products of mediaeval thought might necessitate 

 an even greater expenditure of time and of energy than the 

 acquirement of the &quot; New Philosophy ; &quot; but though such work 

 engrossed the best intellects of Europe for a longer time than 

 has elapsed since the great fire, its effects were &quot; writ in water,&quot; 

 so far as our social state is concerned. 



On the other hand, if the noble first President of the Royal 

 Society could revisit the upper air and once more gladden his 

 eyes with a sight of the familiar mace, he would find himself in 

 the midst of a material civilization more different from that of 

 his day, than that of the seventeenth was from that of the first 

 century. And if Lord Brouncker s native sagacity had not 

 deserted his ghost, he would need no long reflection to dis 

 cover that all these great ships, these railways, these telegraphs, 



