2G ON IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE i 



although London contains tenfold the inflammable 

 matter that it did in 1666; though, not content 

 with filling our rooms with woodwork and light 

 drajH'ries, we must needs lead inflammable and 

 explosive gases into every corner of our streets 

 and houses, we never allow even a street to burn 

 down. And if he asked how this had come about, 

 we should have to explain that the improvement 

 of natural knowledge has furnished us with dozens 

 of machines for throwing water upon fires, any 

 one of which would have furnished the ingenious 

 Mr. Hooke, the first " curator and experimenter " 

 of the Royal Society, with ample materials for 

 discourse before half a dozen meetings of that 

 body ; and that, to say truth, except for the 

 progress of natural knowledge, we should not 

 have been able to make even the tools by which 

 these machines are constructed. And, further, it 

 would be necessary to add, that although severe 

 fires sometimes occur and inflict great damage, 

 the loss is very generally compensated by societies, 

 the operations of which have been rendered 

 possible only by the progress of natural knowledge 

 in tin- direction of mathematics, and the accu- 

 mulation of wealth in virtue of other natural 

 knowledge. 



But tin- plague? My Lord Brouncker's <>i 

 vation wmild not, I fear, lead him to think that 

 Englishmen of the nineteenth century are purer 

 in life, or more fervent in religious faith, than the 



