Mahakpy- — The Origins of Learn rd Academies in Modern Europe. 433 



of drugs, and also this larger fact that there is no mention or thought of any 

 existing university — and there were many — whether in praise or blamei 

 The feeling which often does make itself heard is this : we will not submit 

 to the AristoteKan theories of nature ; we will search them out for ourselves. 



To carry out these ideas, four young men propose in their lAnceography the 

 following magnificent programme : — The Academy was to establish Houses 

 called Lyceums, in the four quarters of the world, provided each with its own 

 revenue, where the members should lead a common life ; each should possess 

 a museum, a library, a printing-house, observatories, machines, botanical 

 gardens, laboratories— everything that pertains to research. From each of 

 them every new observation or discovery was to be communicated to the 

 rest. The main purpose of the Institution is thus described : " The Order 

 or Academy of the Lynxes is a class or college of students, who, having 

 established for themselves suitable rules, and having joined in mutual and 

 friendly counsels, shall apply themselves with seriousness and diligence to 

 the sciences. Their end is not merely, by living together in rectitude and 

 piety, to acquire knowledge and wisdom, but to publish what they discover 

 to all men with voice and pen peaceably, and without annoying anybody." 

 This last clause seems the most chimerical of all. How could such a society 

 fail to offend those who thought themselves the authorized expounders of all 

 human learning ? 



There is no rule affecting the secular clergy as members : but the regular 

 were not received ; it is even ordained that those who join an Order after 

 their election shall give away their ring to some new member. This ring 

 held an emerald with a lynx's head engraved upon it, because it was thought 

 an animal (then still found in the wild parts of Italy) of such acute vision 

 that it saw through the surface into the inner parts of any object on which 

 it fixed its gaze. Cesi was even disposed to require of his associates 

 celibacy, for there is no greater obstacle to a life of research than the mollis 

 et effeminata requies of marriage. The motto on the ring was Sagacius ista 

 (more sagacious than this (lynx)). The first four members, after the fashion 

 of those days in all the academies, took strange names — Celivago, Tardigrado, 

 Edissato, Illuminato. 



The 17th August, the day of their foundation in 1603, was to be kept by 

 every Lynx throughout the world as a day of feasting, hospitality, and joy, 

 in remembrance of the founders— a thing which reminds us of Epicurus and 

 the directions he gave his sect. 



On the other hand, it is well to quote the original document regarding 

 the attitude of the Lynxes towards the established religion : — 



" Let it be the anxious care of the Lynxes to live devoted to all Christian 



