THE CONFLICT OF OLD AND NEW IDEAS 65 



entering into all the avenues of life that made men ready to dis 

 card the old idols and the "ancient faith". 



Thus far, then, the men of imagination who had the best oppor 

 tunity to know the new scientific ideas, with the exception of 

 Glanvil and Burnet, show a general lack of appreciation of them 

 and their literary possibilities. Milton, indeed, had found an 

 infinite universe without abandoning the old science; to him the 

 world had become a speck in space and man "an atom of an atom- 

 world ". But other poets had followed Hobbes's dictum, "the 

 subject of poetry is not natural science but the manners of men". 162 

 The day had not yet fully dawned, "when, through the roof of 

 the little theatre on which the drama of man's history had been 

 enacted, men began to see the eternal stars shining in silent con 

 tempt upon their petty imaginings", 163 or when "they began to 

 suspect that the whole scenery was but a fabric woven by their own 

 imaginations". 164 And, finally, imagination had not yet over 

 taken reason, nor had the "framework of formulae gathered round 

 it the necessary associations" for a direct expression of emotion, 

 without the aid of an outworn hypothesis. 



182 Hobbes, Thomas, Letter to D'Avenant, 1650. 



163 Stephens, Leslie, History of 18th Century Thought, vol. I, p. 82. 



16 *Ibid. vol. I, p. 15. 



