s; our "Physick" and "Anatomy" have embraced
such infinite varieties of beings, have laid open such new worlds in
time and space, have grappled, not unsuccessfully, with such complex
problems, that the eyes of Vesalius [33] and of Harvey [34] might be
dazzled by the sight of the tree that has grown out of their grain of
mustard seed.

The fact is perhaps rather too much, than too little, forced upon one's
notice, nowadays, that all this marvellous intellectual growth has a no
less wonderful expression in practical life; and that, in this respect,
if in no other, the movement symbolised by the progress of the Royal
Society stands without a parallel in the history of mankind.

A series of volumes as bulky as the "Transactions of the Royal Society"
might possibly be filled with the subtle speculations [35] of the
Schoolmen;[36] not improbably, the obtaining a mastery over the products
of mediaeval thought might necessitate an even greater expenditure of
time and of energy than the acquirement of the "New Philosophy"; but
though such work engrossed the best intellects of Europe for a longer
time than has elapsed since the great fire, its effects were "writ in
water,"[37] so far as our social state is concerned.

On the other hand, if the noble first President of the Royal Society
could revisit the upper air and once more gladden his eyes with a sight
of the familiar mace, he would find himself in the midst of a material
civilisation more different from that of his day, than that of the
seventeenth was from that of the first century. And if Lord Brouncker's
[38] 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 undefiled.

It may not be too great a flight of imagination to conceive our noble
revenant [39] 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 wou