60 THE NEW SCIENCE AND ENGLISH LITERATURE 



query which the new philosophers heard many times; "What has 

 been produced for the Use, Benefit, or Pleasure of Mankind, by 

 all the airy Speculations?""^ 



The whole discussion show^s, on the part of the writer, merely 

 a superficial knowledge of the scientific activities of the day. 

 Newton's Discoveries had already been published, yet the new 

 worlds of the telescope and the microscope were veiled to Temple. 

 Besides, while all but two of the vagaries he mentioned — the Phil- 

 osopher's Stone and the Universal Medicine — had been discussed 

 by the Royal Society, they were treated merely as speculations until 

 demonstration was possible. Temple showed no appreciation of 

 the famous group of men who were doing such important things, 

 even while he wrote. All in all his discussion is unfair, prejudiced 

 and superficial. 



William Wotton, a Fellow of the Royal Society, took up its 

 defense in a vigorous reply to Temple. He explained the aims and 

 methods of the scientists, and gave an account of the discoveries 

 and the inventions they had made. To him the future was bright 

 for scientific progress, because "the Royal Society has weathered 

 the rude Attacks of such sort of Adversaries as Stubbe, who en- 

 deavored to have it thought. That studying of Natural Philosophy 

 and Mathematicks, was a ready Method to introduce Scepticism 

 at least, if not Atheism, into the World; Yet the sly Insinuations 

 of the Men of Wit, that no great Things have ever, or are ever like 

 to be performed by the Men of Gresham, and that every Man 

 w'hom they call a Virtuoso, must needs be Sir Nicholas Gimcrack ;^*' 

 together wdth the public ridiculing of all those who spend their 

 Time and Fortune in seeking after what some call useless Natural 

 Rarities ".^^^ As to the men themselves, he thinks "those excellent 

 Men do highly deserve Commendation for those seemingly useless 

 Labours, and the more since they run the hazard of being laughed 

 at by Men of Wit and Satyr, who always have their End, if they 

 make their Readers sport, whether the thing which they expose, 

 deserves to be ridiculed or not".^^^ 



»*«fi'om« Thoughts, pt. Ill, p. 281. 

 »*» Shadwell's The Virtuoso. 

 "0 Wotton'8 Reflections, p. 419. 

 •"^Wotton's Reflections-, p. 274-5. 



