IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE 23 



seventeenth was from that of the first century. And 

 if Lord Brouncker's native sagacity had not deserted his 

 ghost, he would need no long reflection to discover that 

 all these great ships, these railways, these telegraphs, 

 these factories, these printing-presses, without which the 

 whole fabric of modern English society would collapse 

 into a mass of stagnant and starving pauperism, that 

 all these pillars of our State are but the ripples and the 

 bubbles upon the surface of that great spiritual stream, 

 the springs of which, only he and his fellows were 

 privileged to see; and seeing, to recognise as that which 

 it behoved them above all things to keep pure and un- 

 defiled. 



It may not be too great a flight of imagination to 

 conceive our noble revenant not forgetful of the great 

 troubles of his own day, and anxious to know how often 

 London had been burned down since his time, and how 

 often the plague had carried off its thousands. He would 

 have to learn that, although London contains tenfold the 

 inflammable matter that it did in 1666; though, not 

 content with filling our rooms with woodwork and light 

 draperies, we must needs lead inflammable and explosive 

 gases into every corner of our streets and houses, we 

 never allow even a street to burn down. And if he 

 asked how this had come about, we should have to ex- 

 plain that the improvement of natural knowledge has 

 furnished us with dozens of machines for throwing water 

 upon fires, any one of which would have furnished the 

 ingenious Mr. Hooke, the first "curator and experi- 

 menter" of the Royal Society, with ample materials for 

 discourse before half a dozen meetings of that body; 

 and that, to say truth, except for the progress of natural 

 knowledge, we should not have been able to make even 

 the tools by which these machines are constructed. And, 

 further, it would be necessary to add, that although 



