34 ON SOME ASPECTS OF THE 



period casts off the shackles of such speculations into 

 Nature as derived their sole authority from this source. 

 ' But the mortallest enemy unto knowledge,' wrote Sir 

 Thomas Browne in 1 646, ' and that which hath done the 

 greatest execution upon truth hath been a peremptory 

 adhesion unto authority and more especially the estab- 

 lishing of our belief upon the dictates of antiquity/ 



The search after a causative explanation of natural 

 phenomena was, therefore, represented by its opponents 

 as hostile to the authority of the State and subversive of 

 the Christian faith ; its pursuit must, it was said, inevit- 

 ably lead to the extinction of the Universities, whose 

 business it was to teach the wisdom of the past, and 

 which, according to Sir Thomas Browne, were at this 

 period ' though full of men oftentimes empty of learning '. 



Tracts were written fulminating against the Royal 

 Society, which was rightly regarded as the head quarters 

 of the New Philosophy ; attacks and rejoinders were as 

 thick as leaves in June. Sprat found it desirable to write a 

 history of the foundation and work of the Society in order 

 to demonstrate that it did not exist for the purpose of 

 upsetting Church and State, but that when fully under- 

 stood the New Philosophy would be found to be a bulwark 

 of Christianity, not its destroyer. In an article upon the 

 Royal Society, included in the Quarrels of Authors, the 

 elder Disraeli gives an interesting account of this literary 

 controversy. From this it appears that the zeal of the 

 opponents often outran their discretion ; for not only the 

 aims but many of the obvious practical results of 

 scientific inquiry were inveighed against. Crosse, the 

 vicar of Chew Magna in Somersetshire, anathematized 

 the Royal Society as a Jesuitical conspiracy against both 

 society and religion ; he regarded the use of the newly- 

 invented optick glasses as immoral, since they perverted 



