2 A HISTORY OF 



as a result of these and other influences, the Royal 

 Society sprang into being in November 1660. 



In the same way, the Dublin Society was heralded 

 by one or two associations formed in Dublin by learned 

 men interested in scientific pursuits and experiments. 

 Though at no time distinctly scientific, being founded 

 for practical purposes, which only took in science so far 

 as it applied to them, the Dublin Society was moulded 

 and fostered by men influenced by those of a prior 

 generation, who had formed clubs for philosophic pur- 

 suits. In 1684, the Dublin Philosophical Society was 

 founded by William Molyneux, agreeably (as he says) 

 to the design of the Royal Society of London. Pro- 

 fessor S. P. Johnston, 1 says that " it might in justice 

 be called the embryonic form of one of the most 

 prominent of Irish institutions — the Royal Dublin 

 Society." William Molyneux was son of Samuel 

 Molyneux, by Margaret Dowdall, his wife, and brother 

 of Sir Thomas Molyneux, bart. He was born in 

 1656, and died in 1698. William Molyneux was ap- 

 pointed in 1684 Surveyor of Works in Ireland, and in 

 the next year he was sent by Government to survey 

 important fortresses in the Low Countries. He was 

 elected m.p. for the University of Dublin in 1692, 

 and was distinguished as a philosopher and astronomer. 

 His most celebrated work, the Case of Ireland being 

 bound by Acts of Parliament in England stated, was 

 published in 1698. Sir William Petty 2 was the first 

 president of the Philosophical Society — Molyneux him- 

 self being constituted secretary. The society at first 



1 Note contributed to a lecture on Marsh's Library in Dr. G. T. 

 Stokes' Worthies of the Irish Church. 



2 Famous for his survey of estates forfeited after the rebellion 

 of 1 64 1, known as the Down Survey. Thomas, first Earl of Kerry, 

 married Petty's daughter, Anne, and they were ancestors of the 

 Lansdowne family. 



