COOPERATION IN SCIENCE 107 



court, the army, the navy, trade, agriculture, and 

 other industries were there represented. Social par- 

 tition walls were broken down, and the Fellows, 

 sobered by years of political and religious strife, 

 joined, mutually assisting one another, in the advance 

 of science for the sake of the common weal. Their 

 express purpose was the improvement of all professions 

 from the highest general to the lowest artisan. Par- 

 ticular attention was paid to the trades, the mechanic 

 arts, and the fostering of inventions. One of their 

 eight committees dealt with the histories of trades ; 

 another was concerned with mechanical inventions, 

 and the king ordained in 1662 that no mechanical 

 device should receive a patent before undergoing 

 their scrutiny. A great many inventions emanated 

 from the Fellows themselves Hooke's hygroscope ; 

 Boyle's hydrometer, of use in the detection of coun- 

 terfeit coin ; and, again, the tablet anemometer used 

 by Sir Christopher Wren (the Leonardo da Vinci 

 of his age) to register the velocity of the wind. A 

 third committee devoted itself to agriculture, and in 

 the Society's museum were collected products and 

 curiosities of the shop, mine, sea, etc. One Fellow 

 advised that attention should be paid even to the 

 least and plainest of phenomena, as otherwise they 

 might learn the romance of nature rather than its 

 true history. So bent were they on preserving a spirit 

 of simplicity and straightforwardness that in their 

 sober discussions they sought to employ the language 

 of artisans, countrymen, and merchants rather than 

 that of wits and scholars. 



Of course there was in the Society a predominance 

 of gentlemen of means and leisure, " free and uncon- 



