THE NEW SCIENCE 27 



to be so". "No arguments are received as cogent, no principles 

 allowed as current, but what in themselves are intelligible ", 110 * 

 The point can hardly be over-emphasized, for the influence of this 

 insistence is pervasive. It is a demand for commonsense and 

 reasonableness in all thinking. This is the attempt "to get a 

 true relation between form and substance", 111 as found in English 

 prose style of the time. And not only is intelligibility insisted up 

 on, but carefulness also. There must be an accumulation of data, 

 a course of experiments, a period of preliminary thinking, an avoid 

 ance of snap-judgments and broad generalizations. Finally, this 

 is the period of practical knowledge; learning must tend to some 

 useful purpose if it is to be worth while. 



Out of the scientific activity came certain new ideas affecting 

 man's conception of the physical world. Newton wrote in his 

 System of the World (1689) a new description of the heavens and 

 the earth, showing the position and the motion of the planets, and 

 their relation to the sun, and gave a new conception of the in 

 finity of space. He also explained the phenomena of colors and an 

 alyzed the rays of light. The air was found to be a substance, with 

 weight, compressible, expansive, a thing of interest, comprehensible. 

 The microscope revealed a new world of minutiae, and raised to a 

 plane of dignity in the minds of the scientists, the meanest crea 

 tures. Even the least were found to be fearfully and wonderfully 

 made. The structure of objects generally was studied, the bark, 

 the fruit, the sap of plants. Then came the larger idea that they 

 belonged in great families. The telescope, likewise, stimulated the 

 imagination by extending the horizon, by discovering countless 

 multitudes of stars in the "infinite meadows of the heavens"; 

 while mathematics demonstrated the order and beauty of their mo 

 tions. Comets lost their mystery, eclipses were explained, seleno 

 graphy was written, the sunspots observed. In a new sense the 

 "heavens were declaring the glory of God and the firmament 

 showing His handiwork". With this expanding horizon came a 



u Wotton, supra, p. 12. 



111 Elton, Oliver, The Augustan Ages, p. 420. 



* That an idea should become intelligible to the New Philosophers it must "have in 

 some sense a Mechanical Conception." Oldenburg, Henry, Phil. Trans, vol. XVII, 

 Preface. 



