ON IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE 17 



And one may picture to one's self how harmoni- 

 ously the holy cursing of the Puritan of that day 

 would have chimed in with the unholy cursing and 

 the crackling wit of the Rochesters and Sedleys, and 

 with the revilings of the political fanatics, if my 

 imaginary plain dealer had gone on to say that, if the 

 return of such misfortunes were ever rendered impos- 

 sible, it would not be in virtue of the victory of the 

 faith of Laud, or of that of Milton ; and, as little, by 

 the triumph of republicanism, as by that of monarchy. 

 But that the one thing needful for compassing this 

 end was, that the people of England should second 

 the efforts of an insignificant corporation, the estab- 

 lishment of which, a few years before the epoch of the 

 great plague and the great fire, had been as little no- 

 ticed, as they were conspicuous. 



Some twenty years before the outbreak of the plague 

 a few calm and thoughtful students banded themselves 

 together for the purpose, as they phrased it, of "im- 

 proving natural knowledge." The ends they proposed 

 to attain cannot be stated more clearly than in the 

 words of one of the founders of the organisation : 



" Our business was (precluding matters of theology 

 and state affairs) to discourse and consider of philo- 

 sophical enquiries, and such as related thereunto : 

 as Physick, Anatomy, Geometry, Astronomy, Navi- 

 gation, Staticks, Magneticks, Chymicks, Mechanicks, 

 and Natural Experiments; with the state of these 

 studies and their cultivation at home and abroad. We 

 then discoursed of the circulation of the blood, the 

 valves in the veins, the vense lactese, the lymphatic 

 vessels, the Copernican hypothesis, the nature of comets 

 and new stars, the satellites of Jupiter, the oval shape 



