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 these, "our business is, precluding theology and state
affairs, to discourse and consider of philosophical enquiries." But
our "Mathematick" is one which Newton would have to go to school to
learn; our "Staticks, Mechanicks, Magneticks, Chymicks, and Natural
Experiments" constitute a mass of physical and chemical knowledge, a
glimpse at which would compensate Galileo for the doings of a score of
inquisitorial cardinals; our "Physick" and "Anatomy" have embraced such
infinite varieties of being, have laid open such new worlds in time and
space, have grappled, not unsuccessfully, with such complex problems,
that the eyes of Vesalius and of Harvey 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