PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 595 
It shows very clearly that by this time the new discoveries were already being 
applied systematically to philosophical ends. And it illustrates a remarkable 
series of coincidences of discovery which in less than a generation were to have 
a profound effect on European thought. 
The treatise consists of a collection of studies of human societies—ournypévar 
moXtreiat, aS Aristotle used to call them—which professes to be complete. Its 
title-page, engraved by ‘ Ren. Elstracke,’ is of a cosmographic type which descends, 
for example, into the title-page of Heylin’s ‘ Microcosmus’ a generation later ; 
but which is seen here in its pristine glory. Four female figures, emblematic of 
Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, advance to do homage to James I., who sits 
enthroned, as he sits on Bodley’s Tower in Oxford ; and below are four posed 
warriors, in the weapons of their countries. America is represented by an obvious 
Aztec warrior in a peaked cap and coat of mail; but of the four women, America 
alone is nude: even Africa is partially draped in a mantle. The distinction 
is significant, for though EKurope, Asia, and Africa all contribute to the contents 
of the book, America provides no example of a constitution at all: if it had 
any human inhabitants, they were, for Edward Grimstone, in a ‘pre-social 
state.” 
A few examples will illustrate sufficiently Grimstone’s style and method, his 
attitude towards the new and the older learning, and his obvious debt to Bodin 
and to contemporary geographers. His preface censures alike the mere com- 
placent patriots “so farre in love with themselves as they esteeme nothing else, 
and think that whatsoever fortune hath set without the compasse of their power 
and government, should also be banished from their knowledge’ ; and the mere 
politicians who ‘ remain so tied to the consideration of their owne Commonweale 
as they affect nothing else, carrying themselves as parties of that imperfect 
bodie, whereas in their curiositie they should behave themselves as members 
of this world.’ ‘But there are others,’ he goes on—and here his lash fallson the 
rigidly classical humanists of his own day—‘ which lie grovelling in the dust 
of their studies, searching out with the sciences the actions and manners of the 
Ancient, not respecting the Moderne, and they seeme so toadmire the dead, as 
they have no care for the living.’ What the classicists lack, he goes on to explain, 
is the ‘Science or knowledge of the World,’ a good part of which knowledge ‘is 
comprehended in the discourse of this book.’ And so ‘although my chief 
desseigne was to deal onely with politicke and civile matters, yet to the end 
they might find all together, and not be forced to seeke for the description of 
countries whose custome I represent, I have made the corographie,’ which in 
the next generation Peter Heylin defines as the ‘exact description of some 
Kingdom, Countrie, or particular Province of the same.’ But after describing 
thus ‘all that the countrie yeields and the beasts that naturally live there and 
have their breeding,’ he adds ‘ yet all this were little . . . if I should not show 
you the man which dwells in evere countrie, and for whom all those things seem 
to have been made, first in his ancient posture, and with his old customes, either 
altogether or for the most part abolished, then in his modern habit . . . to the 
end that every man may judge which is the better of the two Estates, and make 
use of part of the one and part of the other, having carefully ballanced the most 
considerable particularities of both.’ He then explains that he must take 
account of their economics, their means of self-defence, and their religion, ‘ whereof 
I have discoursed, to show that it is the feare of some divinitie which maintaines 
people in their duties, makes them obedient to their princes, and diverts them 
much more from all bad desseignes than armes and souldiers which environ and 
threaten them. I do it also to show that whereas religion wants, of what sort 
soever it be, policie and order faile in like manner, and barbarisme, confusion, 
and rebellion, reign there in a manner continually, whereas they that seise on 
them should presently settle in their rude minds the apprehension of some power 
over all to dispose of things at pleasure.’ : 
Here there is certainly a remarkable anticipation of a well-known passage 
of the ‘Leviathan’; only the point of view is different, and the cynicism of 
Hobbes is well away. 
Grimstone was well aware that he stood at the opening of a new period of 
discovery. ‘I protest with trueth that if I have given any ranke or commenda- 
QQ 2 
