126 SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. pt. ill. 



and Nature's abhorrence thereof, the Torricellian experiment 

 in quicksilver, the descent of heavy bodies and the degrees 

 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 they now 

 are ; with other things appertaining 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 cultivated in Italy, France, Ger- 

 many, and other parts abroad, as well as with us in Eng- 

 land.' 



How well we can picture from this account (written 

 in 1696), the pleasure which this little group of men, 

 weary of the quarrels and bloodshed of the times, felt in 

 discussing and investigating those laws of nature which seem 

 to bring us into the calm presence of an Almighty Un- 

 changing Power far above the petty wranglings of man ! 

 The Royal Society has become, as I have said, one of the 

 grandest scientific bodies in the world ; but it has probably 

 never held more earnest or enthusiastic meetings than in the 

 small lodgings at Oxford where it first took its rise in the 

 midst of civil war. 



England was not long the only country which had a 

 scientific society. Italy had already had two in the time of 

 Galileo and Torricelli, but they had soon been broken up 

 again. In Germany, the ' Imperial Academy of the Curious 

 in Nature' was founded in 1662; and in 1666 the famous 

 'French Academy of Sciences' was legally established by 

 the French Government in Paris. 



All these societies were a great help in spreading the 

 knowledge of scientific discoveries. Men who before were 

 unable to publish what they knew, now sent or read their 



