394 ON THE SCOPE AND INFLUENCE OF THE 



Bishop Sprat, that when some of those ingenious men who 

 afterwards assisted in forming the Royal Society, began, about 

 the end of the Civil War, to establish a weekly meeting at 

 Oxford for philosophical discussion, they found, that the new 

 spirit of " free inquiry" had already made considerable pro- 

 gress among the members of the University*. 



When one of Bacon's friends asked him, Whether he thought 

 the Churchmen likely to oppose his intended reformation of 

 philosophy, his answer was — " I have no occasion to meet 

 " them in my way, except it be, as they will needs confede- 

 " rate with Aristotle, who, you know, is intemperately 

 " magnified by the School-Divines f ." We are told by Os- 

 born, a contemporary observer, that the " School-Divines" did 

 endeavour to cry down his philosophical writings, by represent- 

 ing them as favouring atheism |. This was their usual mode 

 of warfare when the established tenets of the Schools were at- 

 tacked by any formidable opponent. The Aristotelians of all 



descriptions, 



* Sprat's History of the Royal Society, p. 53 ; also p. 329. This spirit 



appears to have made still greater progress at Cambridge. Glanvill, who 

 became a student of Exeter College, Oxford, in 1652, " lamented," says 

 Anthony Wood, " that his friends did not send him to Cambridge ; because, 

 he used to say, that the new philosophy, and the art of philosophizing, were 

 more cultivated there, than here at Oxford." — Athen. Oxon. vol. ii. p. 662. 



n After the way of free-thinking," says Baker, " had been laid open by 



Lord Bacon, it was soon after greedily followed.^ See his Refections on Learn- 

 ing This work was first published in 1699. The author, who was a Fellow of 

 St John's College, Cambridge, was deeply read in the history of that University. 

 His extensive collections upon that subject are deposited in the British Mu- 

 seum. 



+ Bacon's Letters to Sir Toby Matthew, in his Works, vol. iii. p. 247, 257. 



t Introduction to Osbcrn's Miscellany of Essays, Paradoxes, and Discourses. 



