ology in his scheme of a universal language. Sydenham introduced a
careful observation of nature and facts which changed the whole face of
medicine. The physiological researches of Willis first threw light upon
the structure of the brain. Woodward was the founder of mineralogy. In
his edition of Willoughby's "Ornithology," and in his own "History of
Fishes," John Ray was the first to raise zoology to the rank of a
science; and the first scientific classification of animals was
attempted in his "Synopsis of Quadrupeds." Modern botany began with
Ray's "History of Plants," and the researches of an Oxford professor,
Robert Morrison; while Grew divided with Malpighi the credit of founding
the study of vegetable physiology.

But great as some of these names undoubtedly are they are lost in the
lustre of Isaac Newton. Newton was born at Woolsthorpe in Lincolnshire
on Christmas Day, 1642, the memorable year which saw the outbreak of the
Civil War. In the year of the Restoration he entered Cambridge, where
the teaching of Isaac Barrow quickened his genius for mathematics, and
where the method of Descartes had superseded the older modes of study.
From the close of his Cambridge career his life became a series of great
physical discoveries. At twenty-three he facilitated the calculation of
planetary movements by his theory of Fluxions. The optical discoveries
to which he was led by his experiments with the prism, and which he
partly disclosed in the lectures which he delivered as Mathematical
Professor at Cambridge, were embodied in the theory of light which he
laid before the Royal Society on becoming a Fellow of it. His discovery
of the law of gravitation had been made as early as 1666; but the
erroneous estimate which was then generally received of the earth's
diameter prevented him from disclosing it for sixteen years; and it was
not till 1687, on the eve of the Revolution, that the "Principia"
revealed to the world his new theory of the Universe.

[Sidenote: The Latitudinarian Theology.]

It is impossible to do more than indicate in such a summary as we have
given the wonderful activity of directly scientific thought which
distinguished the age of the Restoration. But the sceptical and
experimental temper of mind which this activity disclosed was telling at
the same time upon every phase of the world around it. We see the
attempt to bring religious speculation into harmony with the conclusions
of reason and experience in th