46 THE NEW SCIENCE AND ENGLISH LITERATURE 



keep step with the progress of the men at Gresham College. In 

 consequence, he put up a man of straw, "vain Philosophy," to 

 serve as his antagonist. This "vain Philosophy" he confused 

 with the Aristotelianism of his own university days. "Since the 

 Autliority of Aristotle is only current there, ' ' he says of Oxford in 

 The Leviathan, "that study is not properly Philosophy (the Nature 

 whereof dependeth not on Authors) but Aristotelity".^^ But he 

 had never read those valiant words of a new philosopher, — "No 

 principles are received as cogent, no principles allowed as current, 

 but what in themselves are intelligible". He had only recently 

 come under the fascination of mathematics. * ' Hobbes never opened 

 Euclid until he was past forty. When he was at Oxford, Geometry 

 made no part of a student's training".^® Remembering the uni- 

 versities as they were in his youth, and unaware that Oxford had 

 outstripped him in scientific progress, he launched his criticism 

 against a curriculum that had no mathematics in it, against an 

 attitude that regarded this study as an "Art Diabolicall". But 

 his criticism was late in coming; as for mathematics, Wallis, upon 

 whom Hobbes later concentrated his hostility, was a far superior 

 mathematician to that philosopher himself. When Wallis showed 

 him his mistake in this matter, Hobbes continued his opposition 

 through wounded pride. Wallis had also shown the absurdity of 

 Hobbes 's attempts to square the circle and to find a quadrature for 

 the cube.^^ The criticisms that Hobbes had to make were, therefore, 

 due at first to ignorance and at last found support in perversity. 



The task of writing the historical defence of the new science 

 fell upon Bishop Sprat. The result of his efforts to perform this 

 task was his History of the Boyal Society (1667). He divided 

 the book into three parts; the first giving only the origin and de- 

 velopment of the Society up to the date of writing, the second de- 

 voted to the achievements of the virtuosi, and the third serving as 

 a defense of the new philosophy. ^^ In this defense the author 

 discussed the various benefits to be derived from the new study. 

 The last of these benefits from experiments "is that their dis- 



*• Leviathan, p. 496. 



«• Traill, H. D., Social England, vol. VI, p. 79. 



f" Phil. Trans. Mar. 16, 1668; Apr. 13, 1668; Feb. 16, 1669; June 21, 1669; 

 Jan. 17, 1670. 



^History of B. S., pp. 323, 413, 417. 



