PART III. 



THE RENASCENCE OF SCIENCE. 



A. D. 1600 ONWARDS. 



" Though science, like Nature, may be driven out with a fork, 

 ecclesiastical or other, yet she surely comes back again." — 

 Huxley, Prologue to Collected Essays, vol. v. 



The exercise of a more tolerant spirit, to which 

 reference has been made, had its limits. It is true 

 that Dr. South, a famous divine, denounced the 

 Royal Society (founded 1645) ^s an irreligious body; 

 although a Dr. Wallis, one of the first members, espe- 

 cially declared that " matters of theology " were 

 " precluded ": the business being " to discourse and 

 consider of philosophical inquiries and such as re- 

 lated thereunto; as Physick, Anatomy, Geometry, 

 Astronomy, Navigation, Staticks, Magneticks, Chym- 

 icks,and Natural Experiments ; with the state of these 

 studies, and their cultivation at home and abroad." 

 Regardless of South and such as agreed with him, 

 Torricelli worked at hydrodynamics, and discovered 

 the principle of the barometer; Boyle inquired into 

 the law of the compressibility of gases; Malpighi 

 examined minute life-forms and the structure of or- 

 gans under the microscope; Ray and Willughby 

 classified plants and animals; Newton theorized on 



99 



