106 THE NEW SCIENCE AND ENGLISH LITERATURE 



Nicholas repents; Dr. Boliardo sees "there is nothing in this Phil- 

 osophy"; Carlos is "made a man" out of a pedant by discarding 

 learning; Valeria flings away Philosophy for a lover; Sophronia 

 finds "there's no Philosophy against Love, — Solon for that". Here 

 are good demonstrative reasons why philosophy is worthless. 

 Once these men and women were blinded with this scientific humor, 

 but now they see with the eyes of commonsense. 



"So I think these excellent men do highly deserve Commenda- 

 tion for these 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".^^^ 

 Wotton has here expressed accurately the attitude of the writers 

 of comedy who "exposed" the scientific humor. There is no dis- 

 crimination between the good and the bad, between true worth and 

 pretense. A part of this attitude was due to the spirit of the age 

 which was to "expose" everything that was exposable; the wits 

 were no respecters of persons. Another part was due to the gen- 

 eral lack of understanding of what was actually being done. Such 

 opponents of the Royal Society as Dr. Henry Stubbe would not 

 hesitate to create the wrong impression of the scientific work, if 

 only they could make their point. Hobbes expended a vast deal 

 of energy combating his "man of straw". The very fact that 

 Sprat and Boyle and Glanvil and Wotton took pains to explain at 

 great length the nature and possible value of the Royal Society's 

 work show^s a wide-spread misunderstanding. "I observe the in- 

 competency of their Judgments, who are enemies to the Real Ex- 

 perimental Philosophy, in that they do not (as I intimated) at all, 

 or very little, understand what they condemn. This I have some 

 reason to say, since in the whole compass of my Acquaintances, 

 which is not very narrow, I profess I know not one who opposeth 

 the Modem Way, that is not almost totally unacquainted with 

 it".^" 



A third part of the attitude grew out of a wilful and conscious 

 misrepresentation of facts. Shadwell deliberately garbled his quo- 

 tations from the Philosophical Transactions. Sir Nicholas's dis- 



**! Wotton, William, Reflections, etc. pp. 274-5. 



'^2 Glanvil, Joseph, Essay III, p. 53 and Glanvil, Joseph, Essay III. pp. 274-5. 



