1 8 IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE 



Divine judgment, than the fire was the work of any 

 political, or of any religious, sect; but that they were 

 themselves the authors of both plague and fire, and that 

 they must look to themselves to prevent the recurrence 

 of calamities, to all appearance so peculiarly beyond the 

 reach of human control so evidently the result of the 

 wrath of God, or of the craft and subtlety of an enemy. 

 And one may picture to one's self how harmoniously the 

 holy cursing of the Puritan of that day would have 

 chimed in with the unholy cursing and the crackling wit 

 of the Rochesters 2 and Sedleys, 2 and with the revilings 

 of the political fanatics, if my imaginary plain dealer 

 had gone on to say that, if the return of such misfor- 

 tunes were ever rendered impossible, it would not be 

 in virtue of the victory of the faith of Laud, 3 or of 

 that of Milton; 4 and, as little, by the triumph of re- 

 publicanism, as by that of monarchy. But that the 

 one thing needful for compassing this end was, that the 

 people of England should second the efforts of an in- 

 significant corporation, the establishment of which, a 

 few years before the epoch of the great plague and the 

 great fire, had been as little noticed, as they were 

 conspicuous. 



Some twenty years before the outbreak of the plague 

 a few calm and thoughtful students banded themselves 

 together for the purpose, as they phrased it, of "im- 

 proving natural knowledge." The ends they proposed 



2 John Wilmot, second Earl of Rochester, and Sir Charles 

 Sedley were profligate wits and dramatists of the reign of 

 Charles II. 



3 William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, was a vigorous 

 opponent of Puritanism. He was impeached by the Long Par- 

 liament and beheaded in 1645, four years before his master, 

 Charles I. 



4 John Milton, the poet, was Cromwell's Latin secretary and a 

 staunch defender of the Puritan faith. 



