20 THE NEW SCIENCE AND ENGLISH LITERATURE 



for his discovery of the explanation of the rings about Saturn, his 

 pendulum clock, and his micrometer; Robert Hooke, a mechanical 

 genius, who constructed a spring watch, an air-pump for Boyle, 

 and who suggested the law of gravitation; Flamsteed, the Royal 

 Astronomer, whose chief work consisted in the collection of data 

 about the moon; Halley, who experimented with the magic needle, 

 who brought to perfection the " lunar theory "; Descartes, with his 

 new scheme of planetary motion, by means of " vortices "; Newton, 

 with his law of gravitation demonstrated and sustained against all 

 1 'adversaries"; Bradley, with his "aberration of the fixed stars ", 

 and his study of the earth's motion. 



The scientific work of the astronomers was of a high character. 

 The whole tendency was to destroy the superstitions of astrology, 

 although there was even yet some extravagance in the claims of 

 knowledge about the moon. "Astrology and Alchemy", wrote 

 Macaulay, "had become jests" 80 Although these pseudo-sciences 

 continued to flourish, 81 there is not a hint of the old astrological 

 beliefs in the Philosophical Transactions; there is no investigation 

 of the subject. Nor indeed could the new science be other than 

 an enemy of astrology, with its purpose so definitely stated, to 

 seek "natural" causes as distinguished from supernatural. The 

 contribution to astronomy of this period was solid and substantial, 

 and, while thte study may have "silenced the stars", 82 it also ex 

 panded the horizon and stimulated the imagination. 



"All that was known in the sixteenth and the beginning of the 

 seventeenth century of the phenomena of life in plants was scarce 

 ly more than had been learned in the earliest times of human 

 civilization from agriculture, gardening, and other practical deal 

 ing with plants. It was known, for instance, that the roots serve 

 to fix plants in the soil and so supply them with food ; that certain 

 kinds of manure, such as ashes and, under certain conditions, salt, 

 strengthen vegetation; that buds develop into shoots; and that the 

 blossom precedes the production of seeds and fruit". 83 But "sys- 



80 Macaulay, T. B., History of England, vol. I, p. 378. 



81 The famous astrologers were, William Lilly, Evans, Hart, Captain Bubb, Jeffrey 

 Neve, Dr. Ardee, Besant, Walter, London in the Time of the Stuarts, p. 162. Cf. also 

 Ashmole's Theatrum Chymicum. 



82 Elton, Oliver, The Augustan Age, p. 270. 

 88 Sachs, Julius von, History of Botany, p. 359. 



