168 THE NEW SCIENCE AND ENGLISH LITERATURE 



dogs alive, or impaling insects upon the point of a needle for 

 microscopical investigations; besides those that are employed in 

 the gathering of weeds and the chase of butterflies ; not to mention 

 the cockle-shell merchants and spider-catchers". The works of 

 Sir Isaac Newton occupy a place beside the French romances on 

 the shelves in the library of the learned lady. 82 The evil effect 

 which the new science may have upon the minds of young women 

 is explained in a letter from a man who has two nieces deeply im 

 bued with the virtuoso spirit. These two young women talk of 

 "the magnetical virtue of the loadstone rather than the best way 

 to make a sack-posset "; they scorn to express themselves in other 

 than Latin derivatives; and, finally, they will not let their uncle 

 "smoke one pipe in the quiet " of ignorance. 83 With the appear 

 ance of seriousness The Spectator suggests that a fitting employ 

 ment for the Royal Society would be a new natural history. 84 It 

 is claimed, however, that these papers have usurped the original 

 purpose of the new scientific interest; namely, "to draw men's 

 minds off from the bitterness of party". 85 



But in spite of the "Chymist's jargon", the quacks and charla 

 tans in medicine, and the useless studies of insects, The Spectator 

 finds much to admire in the new philosophy. Bacon, Boyle, and 

 Newton are mentioned with praise, 86 and the new "theories of the 

 earth and the heavens" have "gratified and enlarged the imagina 

 tion". 87 The studies in anatomy have revealed how "fearfully and 

 wonderfully the human frame is made". 88 Addison caught a 

 glimpse of that new and revolutionizing idea of the new science, 

 that the earth is a mere speck in space, that man is but "an atom 

 of this atom world ". "In the same manner, when I considered that 

 infinite host of stars, or, to speak philosophically, of suns, which 

 were then shining upon me, with those innumerable sets of planets 

 or worlds, which were moving around their respective suns ; when 

 I still enlarged the idea, and supposed another heaven of suns, and 



82 The Spectator, Number 54. 

 Ibid. 242. 



84 Ibid. 121. 



85 Ibid. 262. 



86 The Spectator, 554 (Hughes), 543 (Addison). 



87 Ibid. 420 (Addison). 



88 Ibid. 543 (Addison). 



