NATURE'S INSURGENT SON 5 



All over Western Europe such associations or aca- 

 demies for the building up of the New Philosophy 

 (as it was called here) came into existence. It is a fact 

 which is strangely overlooked at the present day, when 

 the assumption is made that the acquirement of a know- 

 ledge of Greek grammar is the traditional and imme- 

 morial occupation of Oxford students that until the 

 modern days of the eighteenth century ( ' modern ' in 

 the history of Oxford) Greek was less known in Oxford 

 than Hebrew is at present, and that the study of Nature 

 Nature-knowledge and Nature-control was the appro- 

 priate occupation of her learned men. It is indeed 

 a fact that the very peculiar classical education at 

 present insisted on in Oxford, and imposed by her on 

 the public schools of the country, is a modern innova- 

 tion, an unintentional and, in a biological sense, * morbid ' 

 outgrowth of that ' Humanism' to which a familiarity 

 with the dead languages was, but is no longer, the 

 pathway. 



4. THE DOCTRINE OF EVOLUTION. 



What is sometimes called the scientific movement, 

 but may be more appropriately described as the Nature- 

 searching movement, rapidly attained an immense 



and brought those studies into fashion there ; meetings first at 

 Dr. Petty's lodgings (in an apothecarie's house) because of the con- 

 venience of inspecting drugs and the like, as there was occasion ; and 

 after his remove to Ireland (though not so constantly) at the lodgings of 

 Dr. Wilkins, then Warden of Wadham College, and after his removal 

 to Trinity College in Cambridge, at the lodgings of the Honourable 

 Mr. Robert Boyle, then resident for divers years in Oxford. . . .In 

 the meanwhile our company at Gresham College being much again 

 increased by the accession of divers eminent and noble persons, upon 

 his Majesty's return, we were (about the beginning of the year 1662) by 

 his Majesty's grace and favour incorporated by the name of the Royal 

 Society.' 



