CHAPTER III 



The New Science and Comedy 



The new science did not escape the writers of comedy, who were 

 constantly looking for some fresh, unexplored interest. It was, 

 in truth, these "Wits and Railleurs" whom the virtuosi feared 

 most of all, because their ridicule was more difficult to combat 

 than the serious, but definite, opposition of others. The play- 

 writers, moreover, were not careful, nor, indeed, were they de- 

 sirous, to discriminate between true science and pseudo-science. 

 Satirists do not look for the strong points in a new movement, but 

 for its weaknesses. Almost inevitably, therefore, the new phil- 

 osophy would be held responsible for all the absurd things done in 

 its name ; experimental science must support the follies and chican- 

 ery of pseudo-science and superstition. In this occult science there 

 was a legitimate field for satire, because the whole basis was false 

 and the professors of it were charlatans and imposters. The comic 

 spirit had, in fact, entered the field of occult science long before the 

 organization of the Royal Society. In 1610, Ben Jonson had 

 held up Subtle, the alchemist, to public ridicule, and had made 

 men ashamed to profess this "humour" seriously. But the new 

 philosophy, also, was opposed to such false pretentions ; and, while 

 alchemy continued,^ with declining power, through the seventeenth 

 century, the new demand of experimental science for natural 

 causes tended to destroy the foolish hopes of turning the baser 

 metals into gold and to discourage the absurd search for the phil- 

 osopher's stone.- Subtle, in The Alchemist, could not, therefore, be 

 classed among the new Baconian philosophers, and Ben Jonson 's 

 satire was not pertinent in the Restoration period.^ 



With astonishing pertinacity the belief in witchcraft and sor- 

 cery held a place in the minds of men and found defenders even 

 among the new philosophers. Bacon had early attempted to 

 give scientific explanation of it;* Boyle confessed his faith in it;** 



'Of. Ashmole's Theatrum Chymicum ; also, chap. I, p. 21. 

 ' Boyle, Sir Robert, Sceptical Chymist. 



^ The Alchemist was revived in 1663, Pepys saw it in 1664, August 3d. It re- 

 appeared as The Empiric in 1672. 



* Traill, H. D., Social England, vol. IV, p. 87. 



* Boyle, VsefuUness of Experimental Philosophy, p. 238. 



