Samuel Pepys 227 



" Micrographia," Hooke's book on microscopy " a most 

 excellent piece, of which I am very proud." 



Although Pepys had no scientific training he only began 

 to learn the multiplication table when he was in his thirtieth 

 year, but, later, took the keenest pleasure in teaching it 

 to Mrs. Pepys one could have wished that Mrs. Pepys' 

 views had been recorded he, nevertheless, attained to the 

 Presidentship of the Koyal Society. He had always delighted 

 in the company of " the virtuosos " and, in 1662, three years 

 after he began to study arithmetic he was admitted a Fellow 

 of their the Royal Society. In 1681 he was elected 

 President. This post he owed, not to any genius for science, 

 or to any great invention or generalization, but to his very 

 exceptional powers as an organizer and as a man of business, 

 to his integrity and to the abiding interest he ever showed 

 in the cause of the advancement of knowledge. 



It has been said that a competent man of science should 

 be able to put into language " understanded of the people " 

 any problem, no matter how complex, at which he is working, 

 This seems hardly possible in the twentieth century. To 

 explain to a trained histologist double functions or to a 

 skilled mathematician the intricacies of karyokinesis would 

 take a very long time. The introduction hi all the sciences 

 of technical words is due not to any spirit of perverseness 

 on the part of modern savants ; these terms, long as they 

 usually are, serve as the shorthand of science. In the Stewart 

 times, however, an investigator could explain in simple 

 language to his friends what he was doing, and the advance 

 of natural science was keenly followed by all sorts and 

 conditions of men. 



Whatever were the political and moral deficiencies of 

 the Stewart kings, no one of them lacked intelligence in 

 things artistic and scientific. At Whitehall, Charles II. 

 had his " little elaboratory, under his closet, a pretty place," 1 

 and was working there but a day or two before his death, 

 his illness disinclining him for his wonted exercise. The 

 king took a curious interest in anatomy; on May llth, 

 1663, Pierce, the surgeon, tells Pepys " that the other day 



1 Pepys, January 16th, 1669. 



P 2 



