406 ON THE SCOPE AND INFLUENCE OF THE 



no bad consequences either to religion, or to the existing se- 

 minaries of knowledge. Glanvill was obliged to enter into 

 a serious refutation of an assertion, that " Aristotle had had 

 " more advantages for knowledge than the Royal Society, ei- 

 " ther had, or could have *." The panegyrics which these 

 writers bestowed upon the Institution, and upon Lord Bacon 

 as its Master, appear to have filled the followers of Aristotle 

 with a still more envenomed hate to both. The most forward 

 of their champions was Dr Henry Stubbe, who, after study- 

 ing at Oxford, had served for some time in Scotland with the 

 Army of the Parliament ; but having on the Restoration made 

 his peace with the Government, he was appointed King's 

 Physician for the Island of Jamaica, from whence he had late- 

 ly returned, to practise in his own country. He was, according 

 to Anthony Wood, " the most noted Latinist and Grecian of 

 " his age, and a singular Mathematician ;" but he seems to 

 have been as deficient in judgment as he was violent in temper ; 

 which last defect, his biographer in great simplicity ascribes to 

 his " carrot-coloured hair f ." His publications against the Royal 

 Society, and the whole body of experimentalists, were nume- 



* " I desire the reader to know, that after Mr Joseph Glanvill had writ- 

 ten certain things against Aristotle, it was the desire of some scholars, that 

 Robert Crosse, a noted philosopher after the ancient way, should be brought 

 acquainted with him. In 1667, Glanvill was therefore conducted to his 

 house, where Crosse did in a sufficient manner vindicate Aristotle ; and did 

 plentifully declaim against the proceedings of the Royal Society. Glanvill 

 being surprised, he did not then much oppose him ; but afterwards he did, to the 

 purpose; especially against this hypothesis of Crosse, that Aristotle had more 

 advantages for knowledge than the Royal Society, or all the present age had or could 

 have, because he did totam peragrare Asiam." — Athena Oxoiiienses, vol ii. p. 753. 

 See the accdunt which Glanvill himself gives of this conference, Plus Ultra^ 

 p. 4, 5. 



f Wood's Athen. Oxon. vol. ii p. 562, 563. 



