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THE NEW SCIENCE AND ENGLISH LITERATURE 



here, too, he is raised by religious contemplation to something like 

 emotional literary expression, where the " pressure of an immense 

 brooding mind can be felt". 20 "Did blind Chance know there was 

 light, and what was its refraction, and fit the eyes of all creatures, 

 after the most curious manner, to make use of it ? ' ' 21 But this 

 great mind never gave in any sense an adequate literary expres 

 sion to those lone voyages on the seas of thought. His work was, 

 however, incalculably stimulating and his personality gave dignity 

 and seriousness to scientific research. 



There is another class of books of which mention must be made ; 

 namely, the books of travel. Ray's Account of his Journeys on 

 the Continent, Lister's Journey to Paris, burlesqued by William 

 King in his Journey to London, Dampier's Voyages, Thoresby's 

 Autobiography, and others, contain the same spirit of inquiry that 

 impelled the new philosophers in their microscopical and tele- 

 scopical investigations. As the scientists were sent forth into all 

 the world from Solomon's House in The New Atlantis, so, in real 

 life, did the new philosophers go among strange peoples, Ray and 

 Willughby to the continent, Browne to Iceland, Lister to Paris, 

 Sir Robert Moray to Hungary, Halley to South America, Thoresby 

 to Holland. Books of prose resulted from these excursions, that 

 afford stores of information for the student of social and political 

 history, but were never intended as literary productions. 



II 



The new science, after an early appreciation, fell among the 

 thorns of satire. The "Wits and Railleurs" in prose attacked 

 without mercy, yet with more discrimination than the poets. There 

 is keen and cutting satire in The Grounds and Occasions of the 

 Contempt of the Clergy (1670), by the schoolmaster, John Each- 

 ard. He finds fault with the new philosophy for its evil effect 

 upon the students who are preparing for the ministry. He does 

 not claim that it gives them wrong ideas. "Neither shall I here 

 examine which Philosophy, the Old or the New, makes the best 

 sermons. It is hard to say, that exhortation can be to no purpose, 

 if the preacher believes that the earth turns round! or that his 



20 Elton, Oliver, The Augustan Ages, p. 59. 

 a Observations on the Prophecy of Daniel. 



