176 THE NEW SCIENCE AND ENGLISH LITERATURE 



There is no further representation of the new science in the 

 prose literature of the period. A few echoes of the deistic con- 

 troversy were still faintly reverberating, in which spiteful allu- 

 sions were made indirectly to the new scientific knowledge of na- 

 ture. But Joseph Butler's Analogy (1736) had taken all the 

 point out of, if it had not really ended, that dispute which was 

 ever only remotely connected with the new science.^-" A single 

 illustration will serve to show the type of criticism and will indicate 

 also the general attitude of indifference toward scientific investi- 

 gations. "The zeal for this sort of Gibberish (science)", wrote 

 Julius Bates sarcastically (1774), "is greatly abated of late, and 

 tho' it is now upwards of twenty years that the Dagon of Modern 

 Philosophers, Sir Isaac Newton, has lain with his face upon the 



ground before the Ark of God, Scripture Philosophy 



yet there is not one of the whole society who hath the courage to 

 attempt to raise him up. And so let him lye".^-^ 



It is a striking literary phenomenon that the scientific dis- 

 coveries produced no great masterpiece. Several reasons for this 

 fact readily suggest themselves ; the zest of discovery had doubtless 

 somewhat abated in the early years of the eighteenth century, cer- 

 tainly experiments had lost much of their novelty, and literary prose 

 was more and more occupied with other things, such as satiric and 

 journalistic essays, human philosophy, theology, and the novel.^-- 

 Perhaps the most potent reason of all is the fact that no great new 

 discoveries came to reward the scientific labors. Natural science 

 came gradually to be accepted as a legitimate field for intellectual 

 activity and ceased to call attention to itself. That satiric ex- 

 ploitation of it was passing away is a good indication of its rise 

 into a position of dignity and honor. Dr. Johnson accepts the 

 new science as a matter of course and evinces some surprise at 

 the earlier attitude. "Some verse in the last collection, shew him 

 (Butler) to have been among those who ridiculed the institution of 

 the Royal Society, of w^hich the enemies were for some time very 

 numerous and very acrimonious; for what reason is hard to con- 

 ceive, since the philosophers professed not to advance doctrines but 



"o Cf. The Boyle Lectures of Bentley and Clarke. 



'" Bates, Julius, The Philosophical Principles of Moses Asserted, p. 2. 



^^ Gosse, Edmund, History of 18th Century Literature , p. 378. 



