If all the books in the world, except the Philosophical
Transactions, [31] 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 [32] for the doings of a score
of inquisitorial cardinals; 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.
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