20 IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE 



England, hath been much cultivated in Italy, France, 

 Germany, and other parts abroad, as well as with us in 

 England." 



The learned Dr. Wallis, writing in 1696, narrates, in 

 these words, what happened half a century before, or 

 about 1645. The associates met at Oxford, in the 

 rooms of Dr. Wilkins, who was destined to become a 

 bishop; and subsequently coming together in London, 

 they attracted the notice of the king. And it is a 

 strange evidence of the taste for knowledge which the 

 most obviously worthless of the Stuarts shared with his 

 father and grandfather, that Charles the Second was 

 not content with saying witty things about his phil- 

 osophers, but did wise things with regard to them. 8 

 For he not only bestowed upon them such attention as 

 he could spare from his poodles and his mistresses, but, 

 being in his usual state of impecuniosity, begged for 

 them of the Duke of Ormond; and, that step being 

 without effect, gave them Chelsea College, a charter, 

 and a mace: crowning his favours in the best way they 

 could be crowned, by burdening them no further with 

 royal patronage or state interference. 



inductive method. Huxley, however, thought differently. He 

 condemned Bacon's method as "hopelessly impracticable" and 

 added that "the 'anticipation of nature' by the invention of 

 hypotheses based on incomplete inductions, which he specially 

 condemns, has proved itself to be a most efficient, indeed an 

 indispensable, instrument of scientific progress." The Progress 

 of Science, Methods and Results, Collected Essays. 1:47. Hux- 

 ley's theory of the method of scientific investigation is given in 

 the next selection. 



8 The Earl of Rochester is said to have written the following 

 lines on the door of Charles II's bedchamber: 



"Here lies our sovereign lord the 'king, 



Whose word no man relies on; 

 He never says a foolish thing 



Nor never does a wise one." 



