THE CONFLICT OF OLD AND NEW IDEAS 37 



of view. They, too, were intimately connected with the new 

 scientists. Edmund Waller was elected to a fellowship in the 

 Royal Society, and must, therefore, have evinced considerable in 

 terest in the new scientific research. But the effect of the new 

 discoveries upon his mind was slight. A rather striking figure 

 came to him from Descartes. "Besides their verses ran all into 

 one another, and hung together, throughout the whole copy, like 

 the hooked atoms that compose a body in Des Cartes". 39 The 

 physical imagery in his verse is almost always that of the old 

 science; there are "the rolling planets and the glorious sun", 40 

 "the influence of the stars", 41 and "the bright stars and milky 

 way". 42 A few items of scientific news he had gleaned, however, 

 such as the newly discovered sunspots, the motion of the earth, 43 

 and the cause of the winds. 44 But not even these ideas are used 

 with consistency. What a meagre expression is this for a poet 

 who lived through those years of splendid scientific development 

 from 1660 to 1680. He may have come too late to adjust himself 

 to the new ideas; certainly he was not inspired by them. 



Denham, likewise a Fellow of the Royal Society, touched upon 

 the new material in only one poem, The Progress of Learning. He 

 manifested in these lines little confidence in the firm foundation 

 that was being laid for a new natural history. 



"Through seas of knowledge, we our course advance, 

 Discovering still new worlds of Ignorance, 

 And those discoveries make us all confess 

 That sublunary Science is but guess. 

 Matters of fact, to man are only known, 

 And what seems more is meer opinion." 48 



This, then, was the boasted progress that learning had made through 

 the ages; this was the kind of knowledge which "like the blood, 

 must circulate"! All attempts to "anatomize the truth into 



89 Waller, Edmund, Poems, pt. II, Preface, p. XXI. 



* On the Fear of God, canto II, 1. 23. 



41 Instructions to a Painter; the Presage of Rain. 



The Night Piece. 



43 Divine Love, canto IV, 15-18. 



"Divine Poesy, canto II, 15-16. 



46 The Progress of Learning. 



