THE CONFLICT OF OLD AND NEW IDEAS 53 



construct a coherent system. "The gradual ebbing of an ancient 

 faith leaves a painful discord between the imagination and the 

 reason".^^^ Glanvil should not, therefore, be discredited because 

 of his inability to be consistent. His great literary achievement 

 was that in the midst of this "imperfect fusion of experiment and 

 dreaming" his mind could give life to the dry bones of scientific 

 facts and formulae. This man had the prophetic vision inspired 

 by the possibilities in science. "I dare not therefore mention our 

 greatest hopes; but this I will adventure, That 'tis not unlikely 

 but Posterity may by those Tubes, when they are brought to higher 

 degrees of perfection, find a sure way to determine those mighty 

 questions: Wliether the Earth moves? or, the Planets are in- 

 habited? And who knows which way Conclusions may fall?""^ 

 The glimpse he had caught of the "constant Prodigy" of nature 

 had forced upon him the realization of the narrow bounds of man's 

 real knowledge. "And when I look back upon the Main Subject 

 of these papers, it appears so vast to my Thoughts, that me-thinks 

 I have drawn but a cockle-shell of water from the ocean; What- 

 ever I look upon, within the Amplitude of Heaven and Earth, is 

 evidence of Human Ignorance: For all things are a great Dark- 

 ness to us, and we are to ourselves; the plainest things are ob- 

 scure, as the most confessedly mysterious ; and the plants we tread 

 on are as much above us as the Stars and Heavens"."^ If this man 

 had been a poet, he would have entered into the great inheritance 

 of new material promised by Bishop Sprat. As it was, Glanvil 

 used the new imagery much after the manner of Lord Bacon, and 

 enriched his pages with new and vivid similitudes. 



A second controversy, that grew out of the breaking up of the 

 old system and that found literary expression, centres in the 

 Sacred Theory of Thomas Burnet. It was a corollary to the re- 

 construction of natural history that an inquiry should be made into 

 the harmony between the accepted notion of the beginning of the 

 world and the experiences through which it passed, and the new- 

 found scientific principles. A man of literary genius was required 

 to give expression to the inquiry. Thomas Burnet was called 



"" Stephens, Leslie, History of English Thought, vol. I, p. 15. 

 ^'^^ Essay I, p. 20. 

 ^^» Essay III, p. 24. 



