32 Selections from Huxley 



teenth century, grew in numerical and in real strength, 

 until, in its latter part, the " Royal Society for the Im- 

 provement of Natural Knowledge " had already become 

 famous, and had acquired a claim upon the veneration of 



5 Englishmen, which it has ever since retained, as the 

 principal focus of scientific activity in our islands, and the 

 chief champion of the cause it was formed to support. 



It was by the aid of the Royal Society that Newton 

 published his Prindpia. If all the books in the world, 



10 except the Philosophical Transactions, were destroyed, it 

 is safe to say that the foundations of physical science 

 would remain unshaken, and that the vast intellectual 

 progress of the last two centuries would be largely, though 

 incompletely, recorded. Nor have any signs of halting 



15 or of decrepitude manifested themselves in our own times. 

 As in Dr. Wallis' days, so in these, " our business is, pre- 

 cluding theology and state affairs, to discourse and con- 

 sider of philosophical inquiries." But our " Mathematick " 

 is one which Newton would have to go to school to 



20 learn ; our " Staticks, Mechanicks, Magneticks, Chymicks, 

 and Natural Experiments" constitute a mass of physical 

 and chemical knowledge, a glimpse at which would com- 

 pensate Galileo for the doings of a score of inquisitorial 

 cardinals; our " Physick " and " Anatomy " have embraced 



25 such infinite varieties of being, have laid open such new 

 worlds in time and space, have grappled, not unsuc- 

 cessfully, with such complex problems, that the eyes of 

 Vesalius and of Harvey might be dazzled by the sight of 

 the tree that has grown out of their grain of mustard seed. 



30 The fact is perhaps rather too much, than too little, 

 forced upon one's notice, nowadays, that all this mar- 

 velous intellectual growth has a no less wonderful ex- 

 pression in practical life; and that, in this respect, if 

 in no other, the movement symbolized by the progress 



