THE NEW SCIENCE 13 



Furthermore, the apparent interest of Charles II from the very 

 beginning gave social prestige to scientific experiments, so that 

 many fashionable gentlemen would assume this virtue, if they had 

 it not. The King had a laboratory equipped in Whitehall, which 

 Samuel Pepys describes. 47 "It was almost necessary to the char 

 acter of a fine gentleman to have something to say about air-pumps 

 and telescopes ", 48 But there is nothing here of serious effort or 

 of untiring application, both of which are essential to scientific 

 accomplishment. If these things exist they will be found else 

 where. And so it was, when the movement had lost the first flush 

 of its novelty, when fashionable society had turned its attention 

 elsewhere, then the real workers were left. James II showed no 

 interest; nor did William; Queen Anne was petitioned for aid to 

 furnish the Society with suitable quarters, but she refused. 49 In 

 1713, however, she did send word to the Society that "ministers 

 and governors who go abroad " should make reports of their ob 

 servations. 50 George II was asked to become a patron in 1727 ; he 

 consented, but took no further interest. 51 



From the records it is perfectly clear that the serious scien 

 tific work was done by a few men. Several of them were men of 

 means and leisure, as Sir Robert Boyle, Sir Hans Sloane, and Sir 

 Kenelm Digby. The reader of the Philosophical Transactions soon 

 grows familiar with the names of Boyle, Wilkins, Wallis, Hooke, 

 Bay, Leeuwenhoek, Newton, Sloane, and Halley. And it is to be 

 noted in passing that the most of these men are yet famous for 

 scientific achievement. They were not dilettantes; they were stu 

 dents by nature and interest. And, though at times led astray 

 from scientific activity, they were for the most part faithful, un 

 tiring, and assiduous. From them came the great discoveries of 

 the period. 



Even although the Royal Society itself was born in college halls, 

 yet the universities were on the whole conservative toward the 

 New Philosophy. It was during this period, however, that "Aris 

 totle and the Schoolmen were to be displaced by the influence of 



* T Pepys, Samuel, Diary of, May 30, 1667. 

 "Macaulay, T. B., History of England, vol. I, p. 376. 

 49 Weld, C. R., History of the Royal /Society, vol. I, p. 388. 

 80 Ibid. vol. I, p. 420, quoted. 

 Ibid. vol. I, p. 45. 



