20 ON IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE 



lems, 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. 



The fact is perhaps rather too much, than too 

 little, forced upon one's notice, nowadays, that all 

 this marvellous intellectual growth has a no less won- 

 derful expression in practical life; and that, in this 

 respect, if in no other, the movement symbolised by 

 the progress of the Royal Society stands without a 

 parallel in fhe history of mankind. 



A series of volumes as bulky as the "Transactions 

 of the Royal Society" might possibly be filled with 

 the subtle speculations of the Schoolmen; not im- 

 probably, the obtaining a mastery over the products 

 of mediaeval thought might necessitate an even greater 

 expenditure of time and of energy than the acquire- 

 ment of the " New Philosophy" ; but though such work 

 engrossed the best intellects of Europe for a longer 

 time than has elapsed since the great fire, its effects 

 were " writ in water," so far as our social state is con- 

 cerned. 



On the other hand, if the noble first President of 

 the Royal Society could revisit the upper air and once 

 more gladden his eyes with a sight of the familiar 

 mace, he would find himself in the midst of a material 

 civilisation more different from that of his day, than 

 that of the seventeenth was from that of the first cen- 

 tury. And if Lord Brouncker's native sagacity had 

 not deserted his ghost, he would need no long reflec- 

 tion to discover that all these great ships, these rail- 

 ways, these telegraphs, these factories, these printing- 

 presses, without which the whole fabric of modern 

 English society would collapse into a mass of stagnant 

 and starving pauperism, that all these pillars of 



