IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE 339 



" Our business was (precluding matters of theology and 

 state affairs) to discourse and consider of philosophical 

 enquiries, and such as related thereunto : as Physick, 

 Anatomy, Geometry, Astronomy, Navigation, Staticks, 

 Magneticks, Chymicks, Mechanicks, and Natural Experi- 

 ments ; 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 venae lacteae, the 

 lymphatic vessels, the Gopernican hypothesis, the nature 

 of comets and new stars, the satellites of Jupiter, the 

 oval shape (as it then appeared) of Saturn, the spots on the 

 sun and its turning on its own axis, the inequalities and 

 selenography of the moon, the several phases of Venus and 

 Mercury, the improvement of telescopes and grinding of 

 glasses for that purpose, the weight of air, the possibility 

 or impossibility of vacuities and nature's abhorrence thereof, 

 the Torricellian experiment in quicksilver, the descent of 

 heavy bodies and the degree of acceleration therein, with 

 divers other things of like nature, some of which were then 

 but new discoveries, and others not so generally known 

 and embraced as now they are ; with other things apper- 

 taining to what hath been called the New Philosophy, 

 which from the times of Galileo at Florence, and Sir Francis 

 Bacon (Lord Verulam) in England, hath been much culti- 

 vated in Italy, France, Germany, and other parts abroad, 

 as well as with us in England." 



The learned Dr. Wallis, writing in 1696, narrates in these 

 words, what happened half a century before, or about 1645. 

 The associates met at Oxford, in the rooms of Dr.Wilkins, 

 who was destined to become a bishop ; and subsequently 

 coming together in London, they attracted the notice of 

 the king. And it is a strange evidence of the taste for 

 knowledge which the most obviously worthless of the Stuarts 

 shared with his father and grandfather, that Charles the 

 Second was not content with saying witty things about his 

 philosophers, but did wise things with regard to them. 

 For he not only bestowed upon them such attention as he 

 could spare from his poodles and his mistresses, but, being 

 in his usual state of impecuniosity, begged for them of the 

 Duke of Ormond ; and, that step being without effect, 

 gave them Chelsea College, a charter, and a mace : crowning 

 his favours in the best way they couid be crowned, by 

 burdening them no further with royal patronage or state 

 interference. 



