ion therein,
with divers other things of like nature, some of which were then but new
discoveries, and others not so generally known and embraced as now they
are; with other things appertaining to what hath been called the New
Philosophy, which from the times of Galileo at Florence, and Sir Francis
Bacon (Lord Verulam) in 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 philosophers, but did wise things with
regard to them. 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.

Thus it was that the half-dozen young men, studious of the "New
Philosophy," who met in one another's lodgings in Oxford or in London,
in the middle of the seventeenth century, grew in numerical and in
real strength, until, in the latter part, the "Royal Society for the
improvement of Natural Knowledge" had already become famous, and had
acquired a claim upon the veneration of Englishmen, which it has ever
since retained, as the principal focus of scientific activity in our
islands, and the chief champion of the cause it was formed to support.

It was by the aid of the Royal Society that Newton published his
'Principia'. If all the books in the world, except the Philosophical
Transactions, were destroyed, it is safe to say that the foundations of
physical science would remain unshaken, and that the vast intellectual
progress of the last two centuries would be largely, though
incompletely, recorded. Nor have any signs of halting or of decrepitude
manifested themselves in our own times. As in Dr. Wallis's days, so
in th