[253] Some may be curious to have these monkish terms defined.
_Causes_ are distinguished by Aristotle into four kinds:--The
material cause, _ex qua_, out of which things are made;
the formal cause, _per quam_, by which a thing is that
which it is, and nothing else; the efficient cause, _a qua_,
by the agency of which anything is produced; and the final
cause, _propter quam_, the end for which it is produced. Such
are his notions in his Phys. 1. ii. c. iii., referred to by
Brucker and Formey in their Histories of Philosophy. Of the
Scholastic Metaphysics, _Sprat_, the historian of the Royal
Society, observes, "that the lovers of that cloudy knowledge
boast that it is an excellent instrument to refine and
make subtle the minds of men. But there may be _a greater
excess in the subtlety of men's wits_ than in their
_thickness_; as we see those threads, which are of too fine
a spinning, are found to be more useless than those which are
homespun and gross."--_History of the Royal Society_, p. 326.
In the history of human folly, often so closely connected with
that of human knowledge, some of the schoolmen (the
commentators on Aquinas and others) prided themselves, and
were even admired for their impenetrable obscurity! One of
them, and our countryman, is singularly commended by Cardan,
for that "only one of his arguments was enough to puzzle all
posterity; and that, when he had grown old, he wept because he
could not understand his own books." Baker, in his Reflections
upon Learning, who had examined this schoolman, declares that
his obscurity is such, as if he never meant to be understood.
The extravagances of the schoolmen are, however, not always
those of Aristotle. Pope, and the wits of that day, like these
early members of the Royal Society, decried Aristotle, who did
not probably fall in the way of their studies. His great
imperfections are in natural philosophy; but he still
preserves his eminence for his noble treatises of Ethics, and
Politics, and Poetics, notwithstanding the imperfect state in
which these have reached us. Dr. Copleston and Dr. Gillies
have given an energetic testimony to their perpetual value.
Pope, in satirising the University as a nest of dunces,
considered the followers of Aristotle as so many stalled oxen,
"_fat bulls of Basan_."
"A hundred head of Aristotle's friends."
DUNCIAD.
Swift has drawn an allegorical personage of Aristotle, by
which he describes the nature of his works. "He stooped much,
and made use of a staff; his visage was meagre, his hair lank
and thin, and his voice hollow;" descriptive of his abrupt
conciseness, his harsh style, the obscurities of his
dilapidated text, and the deficiency of feeling, which his
studied compression, his deep sagacity, and his analytical
genius, so frequently exhibit.
[254] Sprat makes an ingenious observation on the notion of those who
declared that "_the most learned ages are still the most
atheistical, and the ignorant the most devout_." He says this
had become almost proverbial, but he shows that piety is
little beholden to those who make this distinction. "The
Jewish law forbids us to offer up to God a sacrifice that has
a blemish; but these men bestow the most excellent of men on
the devil, and only assign to religion those men and those
times which have the greatest blemish of human nature, even a
defect in their knowledge and understanding."--_History of the
Royal Society_, p. 356.
[255] Science, at its birth, is as much the child of imagination as
curiosity; and, in rapture at the new instrument it has
discovered, it impatiently magnifies its power. To the
infant, all improvements are wonders; it chronicles even its
dreams, and has often described what it never has seen,
delightfully deceived; the cold insults of the cynics, the
wits, the dull, and the idle, maliciously mortify the
infant in its sports, till it returns to slow labour and
patient observation. It is rather curious, however, that
when science obtains a certain state of maturity, it is
liable to be attacked by the same fits of the marvellous
which affected its infancy;--and the following extract from
one of the enthusiastic _Virtuosi_ in the infancy of science,
rivals the visions of "the perfectibility of man" of which we
hear so much at this late period. Some, perhaps, may consider
these strong tendencies of the imagination, breaking out at
these different periods in the history of science, to
indicate results, of which the mind feels a consciousness,
which the philosopher should neither indulge nor check.
"Should these heroes go on (the Royal Society) as they
have happily begun, they will fill the world with wonders;
and posterity will find many things that are now but
_rumours_, verified into practical _realities_. It may be,
some ages hence, a _voyage_ to the southern unknown tracts,
yea, possibly the _Moon_, will not be more strange than one
to America. To them that come after us, it may be as
ordinary to _buy a pair of wings_ to fly into remotest
regions, as now _a pair of boots_ to ride a journey. And to
confer at the distance of the Indies, by _sympathetic
conveyances_, may be as usual to future times, as to us in a
literary correspondence. The restoration of _grey hairs to
juvenility_, and renewing the _exhausted marrow_, may at
length, be effected without a miracle; and the turning the
now-comparative _desert world_ into a _paradise_, may not
improbably be expected from late _agriculture_.
"Those that judge by the narrowness of former principles and
successes, will smile at these paradoxical expectations. But
the great inventions of latter ages, which altered the face of
all things, in their naked proposals and mere suppositions,
were to former times as ridiculous. To have talked of a new
earth to have been discovered, had been a romance to
antiquity; and to sail without sight of stars or shores, by
the guidance of a mineral, a story more absurd than the
flight of Daedalus. That men should speak after their tongues
were ashes, or communicate with each other in differing
hemispheres, before the invention of letters, could not but
have been thought a fiction. Antiquity would not have
believed the almost incredible force of our cannons, and
would as coldly have entertained the wonders of the
telescope."--GLANVILL, _Scepsis Scientifica_, p. 133.
[256] Evelyn, whose elegant mind, one would have imagined, had been
little susceptible of such vehement anger, in the preface
to his "Sylva," scolds at no common rate: "Well-meaning
people are led away by the noise of a few ignorant and
comical buffoons, who, with an insolence suitable to their
understanding, are still crying out, _What have the Society
done?_" He attributes all the opposition and ridicule the
Society encountered to a personage not usual to be introduced
into a philosophical controversy--"The Enemy of Mankind." But
it was well to denounce the devil himself, as the Society had
nearly lost the credit of fearing him. Evelyn insists that
"next to the propagation of our most holy faith," that of the
new philosophy was desirable both for the king and the
nation; "for," he adds, "it will survive the triumphs of
the proudest conquerors; since, when all their pomp and
noise is ended, they are those _little things in black_, whom
now in scorn they term philosophers and fops, to whom they
must be obliged for making their names outlast the pyramids,
whose founders are as unknown as the heads of the Nile." Why
Evelyn designates the philosophers as _little things in
black_, requires explanation. Did they affect a dress of
this colour in the reign of Charles II., or does he allude
to the dingy appearance of the chemists?
[257] It is not easy to credit the simplicity of these early
inquirers. In a Memorial in Sprat's History, entitled,
"Answers returned by Sir Philliberto Vernatti to certain
Inquiries sent by order of the Royal Society;" among some of
the most extraordinary questions and descriptions of
nonentities, which must have fatigued Sir Philliberto, who
then resided in Batavia, I find the present:--"Qy. 8. What
ground there may be for that relation concerning _horns
taking root, and growing about Goa_?" It seems the question
might as well have been asked at London, and answered by
some of the members themselves; for Sir Philliberto
gravely replied--"Inquiring about this, a friend laughed,
and told me it was a jeer put upon the Portuguese, because
the women of Goa are counted none of the chastest." Inquiries
of this nature, and often the most trivial objects set off
with a singular minuteness of description, tempted the laugh
of the scoffers. Their great adversary, Stubbe, ridiculing
their mode of giving instructions for inquiries, regrets
that the paper he received from them had been lost, otherwise
he would have published it. "The great Mr. Boyle, when he
brought it, tendered it with blushing and disorder," at the
simplicity of the Royal Society! And indeed the royal founder
himself, who, if he was something of a philosopher, was much
more of a wit, set the example. The Royal Society, on the day
of its creation, was the whetstone of the wit of their
patron. When Charles II. dined with the members on the
occasion of constituting them a Royal Society, towards the
close of the evening he expressed his satisfaction in being
the first English monarch who had laid a foundation for a
society who proposed that their sole studies should be
directed to the investigation of the arcana of nature; and
added with that peculiar gravity of countenance he usually
wore on such occasions, that among such learned men he now
hoped for a solution to a question which had long perplexed
him. The case he thus stated:--"Suppose two pails of water
were fixed in two different scales that were equally
poised, and which weighed equally alike, and that two live
bream, or small fish, were put into either of these pails, he
wanted to know the reason why that pail, with such addition,
should not weigh more than the other pail which stood
against it." Every one was ready to set at quiet the royal
curiosity; but it appeared that every one was giving a
different opinion. One, at length, offered so ridiculous a
solution, that another of the members could not refrain from
a loud laugh; when the King, turning to him, insisted that he
should give his sentiments as well as the rest. This he did
without hesitation, and told his majesty, in plain terms, that
he denied the fact! On which the King, in high mirth,
exclaimed--"Odds fish, brother, you are in the right!" The
jest was not ill designed. The story was often useful, to cool
the enthusiasm of the scientific visionary, who is apt
often to account for what never has existed.
[258] Pope was severe in his last book of the _Dunciad_ on the
students of insects, flowers, &c.; and R.O. Cambridge followed
out the idea of a mad virtuoso in his "Scribleriad," which he
has made up from the absurd or trifling parts of natural
history and philosophy. His hero is--
"A much-enduring man, whose curious soul
Bore him with ceaseless toil from pole to pole;
Insatiate endless knowledge to obtain,
Thro' woes by land, thro' dangers on the main."
He collects curiosities from all parts of the world; studies
occult and natural sciences; and is at last beatified by
electrical glories at a meeting of hermetical philosophers.
This poem is elucidated by notes, which point the allusions to
the works or doings of the old philosophers.--ED.
[259] Evelyn, who could himself be a wit occasionally, was, however,
much annoyed by the scorners. He applies to these wits a
passage in Nehemiah ii. 19, which describes those who laughed
at the _builders of Jerusalem_. "These are the Sanballats,
the Horonites, who disturb our men upon the wall; but _let
us rise up and build_!" He describes these Horonites of wit as
"magnificent fops, whose talents reach but to the adjusting of
their perukes." But the Royal Society was attacked from other
quarters, which ought to have assisted them. Evelyn, in his
valuable treatise on forest-trees, had inserted a new
project for making cider; and Stubbe insisted, that in
consequence "much cider had been spoiled within these three
years, by following the directions published by the
commands of the Royal Society." They afterwards announced
that they never considered themselves as answerable for
their own memoirs, which gave Stubbe occasion to boast that
he had forced them to deny what they had written. A passage
in Hobbes's "Considerations upon his Reputation, &c.," is as
remarkable for the force of its style as for that of sense,
and may be applicable to _some_ at this day, notwithstanding
the progress of science, and the importance attached to
their busy idleness.
"Every man that hath spare money can get furnaces, and buy
coals. Every man that hath spare money can be at the charge of
making great moulds, &c., and so may have the best and
greatest telescopes. They can get engines made, recipients
made, and try conclusions; but they are never the more
philosophers for all this. 'Tis laudable to bestow money on
curious or useful delights, but that is none of the praises of
a philosopher." p. 53.
[260] Glanvill was a learned man, but evidently superstitious,
particularly in all that related to witchcraft and apparitions;
the reality of both being insisted on by him in a series of
books which he published at various periods of his life, and
which he continually worked upon with new arguments and
instances, in spite of all criticism or opposition. He was a
member of the Royal Society, prebend of Worcester, and rector
of Bath, where he died, October 4, 1680.--ED.
[261] The ninth chapter in the "Plus Ultra," entitled "The Credit of
Optic Glasses vindicated against a disputing man, who is
afraid to believe his eyes against Aristotle," gives one of
the ludicrous incidents of this philosophical visit. The
disputer raised a whimsical objection against the science of
optics, insisting that the newly-invented glasses, the
telescope, the microscope, &c., were all deceitful and
fallacious; for, said the Aristotelian, "take two spectacles,
use them at the same time, and you will not see so well as
with one singly--_ergo_, your microscopes and telescopes are
impostors." How this was forced into a syllogism does not
appear; but still the conclusion ran, "We can see better
through one pair than two, therefore all perspectives are
fallacious!"
One proposition for sense,
And t'other for convenience,
will make a tolerable syllogism for a logician in despair. The
Aristotelian was, however, somewhat puzzled by a problem which
he had himself raised--"Why we cannot see with two pair of
spectacles better than with one singly?" for the man of axioms
observed, "_Vis unita fortior_," "United strength _is
stronger_." It is curious enough, in the present day, to
observe the sturdy Aristotelian denying these discoveries, and
the praises of optics, and "the new glasses," by Glanvill. "If
this philosopher," says the member of the Royal Society, "had
spared some of those thoughts to the profitable doctrine of
optics which he hath spent upon _genus_ and _species_, we had
never heard of this objection." And he replies to the paradox
which the Aristotelian had raised by "Why cannot he write
better with _two pens_ than with a _single one_, since _Vis
unita fortior_? When he hath answered this _Quaere_, he hath
resolved his own. The reason he gave why it should be so, is
the reason why 'tis not." Such are the squabbles of infantine
science, which cannot as yet discover causes, although it has
ascertained effects.
[262] This appears in chap. xviii. of the "Plus Ultra." With great
simplicity Glanvill relates:--"At this period of the
conference, the disputer lost all patience, and with sufficient
spite and rage told me 'that I was an atheist!--that he had
indeed desired my acquaintance, but would have no more on't,'
and so turned his back and went away, giving me time only to
answer that 'I had no great reason to lament the loss of an
acquaintance that could be so easily forfeited.'" The
following chapter vindicates the Royal Society from the
charge of atheism! to assure the world they were not to be
ranked "among the black conspirators against Heaven!" We see
the same objections again occurring in the modern system of
geology.
[263] This book was so scarce in 1757, that the writer in the
"Biographia Britannica" observes that this "small but elegant
treatise is still very much esteemed by the curious, being
become so scarce as not to be met with in other hands." Oldys,
in 1738, had, in his "British Librarian," selected this work
among the scarce and valuable books of which he has presented
us with so many useful analyses.
The history of books is often curious. At one period a book is
scarce and valuable, and at another is neither one nor the
other. This does not always depend on the caprice of the
public, or what may be called literary fashions. Glanvill's
"Plus Ultra" is probably now of easy occurrence; like a
prophecy fully completed, the uncertain event being verified,
the prophet has ceased to be remembered.
[264] His early history is given by Wood in his usual style. His
father had been a Lincolnshire parson, who was obliged to
leave his poor curacy because "anabaptistically inclined," and
fled to Ireland, whence his mother and her children were
obliged to return on the breaking out of the rebellion of
1641, and landed at Liverpool; afterward, says Wood, "they all
beated it on the hoof thence to London, where she, gaining a
comfortable subsistence by her needle, sent her son Henry,
being then ten years of age, to the collegiate school at
Westminster. At that time Mr. Richard Busbie was the chief
master, who finding the boy have pregnant parts to a miracle,
did much favour and encourage him. At length Sir Henry Vane,
junior (the same who was beheaded on Tower Hill, 1662), coming
casually into the school with Dr. Lambert Osbaldiston, he did,
at the master's motion, take a kindness to the said boy, and
gave him the liberty to resort to his house, and to fill that
belly which otherwise had no sustenance but what one penny
could purchase for his dinner: and as for his breakfast, he
had none, except he got it by making somebody's exercise. Soon
after, Sir Henry got him to be a king's scholar; and his
master perceiving him to be beyond his years in proficiency,
he gave him money to buy books, clothes, and his teaching for
nothing." Such was the humble beginning of a learned man, who
lived to be a formidable opponent to the whole body of the
Royal Society.--ED.
[265] When Sprat and Glanvill, and others, had threatened to write his
life, Stubbe draws this apology for it, while he shows how
much, in a time of revolutions, the Royal Society might want
one for themselves.
"I was so far from being daunted at those rumours and threats,
that I enlarged much this book thereupon, and resolved to
charge the enemy home when I saw how weak a resistance I
should meet with. I knew that recriminations were no answers.
I understood well that the passages of a life like mine, spent
in different places with much privacy and obscurity, was
unknown to them; that even those actions they would fix their
greatest calumnies upon, were such as that they understood not
the grounds, nor had they learning enough and skill to
condemn. I was at Westminster School when the late king was
beheaded. I never took covenant nor engagement. In sum, _I
served my patron_. I endeavoured to express my _gratitude_ to
him who had relieved me, being a _child_, and in great poverty
(the rebellion in Ireland having deprived my parents of all
means wherewith to educate me); who made me a king's scholar;
preferred me to Christchurch College, Oxon.; and who often
supplied me with money when my tender years gave him little
hopes of any return; and who protected me amidst the
_Presbyterians_, and _Independents_, and other _sects_. With
none thereof did I contract any relation or acquaintance; my
familiarity never engaged me with ten of that party; and my
genius and humour inclined me to fewer. I neither enriched,
nor otherwise advanced myself, during the late troubles; and
shared the common _odium_ and _dangers_, not _prosperity_,
with my _benefactor_. I believe no generous man, who hath the
least sense of bravery, will condemn me; and I profess I am
ashamed rather to have done so little, than that I have done
so much, for him that so frankly obliged a _stranger_ and a
_child_. When Gracchus was put to death for sedition, that
faithful friend and accomplice of his was dismissed, and
mentioned with honour by all posterity, who, when he was
impeached, _justified his treason_ by the avowing a
_friendship_ so great that, whatever Gracchus had commanded
him, he would not have declined it. And being further
questioned, whether he would have burned the capitol at his
bidding? he replied again, that he should have done it; but
Gracchus would not bid such a thing. They that knew me
heretofore, know I have a thousand times thus apologised for
myself; adding, that in _vassals_ and _slaves_, and persons
_transcendently obliged_, their fidelity exempted them from
all ignominy, though the principal _lords_, _masters_, and
_patrons_, might be accounted _traitors_. My youth and other
circumstances incapacitated me from rendering him any great
services; but _all that I did_, and _all that I writ_, had no
other aim than _his interest_; nor do I care how much any man
can inodiate my former writings, as long as they were
subservient to him.
"Having made this declaration, let them (or more able men
than they) write the life of a man who hath some virtues of
the most celebrated times, and hath preserved himself free
from the vices of these. My reply shall be a scornful
silence."--Preface to Stubbe's "Legends no Histories," 1670.
[266] His reasons for conformity on these important objects are given
with his usual simplicity. "I have at length removed all the
umbrages I ever lay under. I have joined myself to the Church
of England, not only upon account of its being _publicly
imposed_ (which in _things indifferent_ is no small
consideration, as I learned from the Scottish transactions at
Perth), but because it is _the least defining_, and
consequently _the most comprehensive and fitting to be
national_."
[267] He died at Bath in 1676, where he had gone in attendance upon
several of his patients from the neighbourhood of Warwick,
where he for a long time practised as a physician. His old
antagonist Glanvill was at that time rector of the Abbey
Church in which he was buried, and so became the preacher of
his funeral sermon. Wood says he "said no great matter of
him."--ED.
[268] Pope said to Spence, "It was Dryden who made Will's coffee-house
the great resort for the wits of his time. After his death
Addison transferred it to Button's, who had been a servant of
his." Will's coffee-house was at the corner of Bow-street,
Covent-garden, and Button's close by in Russell-street.--ED.
[269] "Some years after the king's restoration he took pet against the
Royal Society, (for which before he had a great veneration,)
and being encouraged by Dr. Jo. Fell, no admirer of that
society, became in his writings an inveterate enemy against it
for several pretended reasons: among which were, first, that
the members thereof intended to bring a contempt upon ancient
and solid learning, upon Aristotle, to undermine the
universities, and reduce them to nothing, or at least to be
very inconsiderable. Secondly, that at long running to destroy
the established religion, and involve the nation in popery,
and I know not what, &c. So dexterous was his pen, whether
_pro_ or _con_, that few or none could equal, answer, or come
near him. He was a person of most admirable parts, had a most
prodigious memory, though his enemies would not acknowledge
it, but said he read indexes; was the most noted Latinist and
Grecian of his age; and after he had been put upon it, was so
great an enemy to the _virtuosi_ of his time, I mean those of
the Royal Society, that, as he saith, they alarmed him with
dangers and troubles even to the hazard of his life and
fortunes."--_Wood._
[270] The aspersed passage in Glanvill is this: "The philosophers of
elder times, though their wits were excellent, yet the way
they took was not like to bring much advantage to knowledge,
or any of the uses of human life, being, for the most part,
that of _Notion_ and _Dispute_, which still runs round in a
labyrinth of talk, but advanceth nothing. _These methods_, in
so many centuries, _never brought the world so much practical
beneficial knowledge as could help towards the cure of a cut
finger_." Plus Ultra, p. 7.--Stubbe, with all the malice of a
wit, drew his inference, and turned the point unfairly against
his adversary!
I shall here observe how much some have to answer, in a
literary court of conscience, when they unfairly depreciate
the works of a contemporary; and how idly the literary
historian performs his task, whenever he adopts the character
of a writer from another who is his adversary. This may be
particularly shown in the present instance.
MORHOFF, in his _Polyhistor Litteraria_, censures the _Plus
Ultra_ of Glanvill, conceiving that he had treated with
contempt all ages and nations but his own. The German
bibliographer had never seen the book, but took its character
from Stubbe and Meric Casaubon. The design of the _Plus
Ultra_, however, differs little from the other works of
Glanvill, which Morhoff had seen, and has highly commended.
[271] The political reverie of Campanella was even suspected to cover
very opposite designs to those he seemed to be proposing to
the world. He attempted to turn men's minds from all inquiries
into politics and religion, to mere philosophical ones. He
wished that the passions of mankind might be so directed, as
to spend their force in philosophical discussions, and in
improvements in science. He therefore insisted on a uniformity
on those great subjects which have so long agitated modern
Europe; for the ancients seem to have had no wars merely for
religion, and perhaps none for modes of government. One may
discover an enlightened principle in the project; but the
character of Campanella was a jumble of sense, subtlety, and
wildness. He probably masked his real intentions. He appears
an advocate for the firm establishment of the papal despotism;
yet he aims to give an enlightened principle to regulate the
actions of mankind. The intentions of a visionary are
difficult to define. If he were really an advocate for
despotism, what occasioned an imprisonment for the greater
part of his days? Did he lay his project much deeper than the
surface of things? Did Campanella imagine that, if men were
allowed to philosophise with the utmost freedom, the despotism
of religion and politics would dissolve away in the weakness
of its quiescent state?
The project is a chimera--but, according to the projector, the
political and religious freedom of _England_ formed its
greatest obstacle. Part of his plan, therefore, includes the
means of weakening the Insular heretics by intestine
divisions--a mode not seldom practised by the continental
powers of France and Spain.
The political project of this fervid genius was, that his
"Prince," the Spanish king, should be the mightiest sovereign
in Europe. For this, he was first to prohibit all theological
controversies from the Transalpine schools, those of Germany,
&c. "A controversy," he observes, "always shows a kind of
victory, and may serve as an authority to a bad cause." He
would therefore admit of no commentaries on the Bible, to
prevent all diversity of opinion. He would have revived the
ancient philosophical sects, instead of the modern religious
sects.
The _Greek_ and the _Hebrew_ languages were not to be taught!
for the republican freedom of the ancient Jews and Grecians
had often proved destructive of monarchy. Hobbes, in the bold
scheme of his _Leviathan_, seems to have been aware of this
fatality. Campanella would substitute for these ancient
languages the study of the _Arabic_ tongue! The troublesome
Transalpine wits might then employ themselves in confuting the
Turks, rather than in vexing the Catholics; so closely did
sagacity and extravagance associate in the mind of this wild
genius. But _Mathematical_ and _Astronomical_ schools, and
other institutions for the encouragement of the _mechanical
arts_, and particularly those to which the northern genius is
most apt, as navigation, &c., were to occupy the studies of
the people, divert them from exciting fresh troubles, and
withdraw them from theological factions. Campanella thus would
make men great in science, having first made them slaves in
politics; a philosophical people were to be the subjects of
despots--not an impossible event!
His plan, remarkable enough, of _weakening the English_, I
give in his words:--"No better way can possibly be found than
by causing divisions and dissensions among them, and by
continually keeping up the same; which will furnish the
Spaniard and the French with advantageous opportunities. As
for their religion, which is a moderated Calvinism, that
cannot be so easily extinguished and rooted out there, unless
there were some schools set up in Flanders, where the English
have great commerce, by means of which there may be scattered
abroad the seeds of schism and division. These people being of
a nature which is still desirous of novelties and change, they
are easily wrought over to anything." These _schools_ were
tried at Douay in Flanders, and at Valladolid in Spain, and
other places. They became nests of rebellion for the English
Catholics; or for any one, who, being discontented with
government, was easily converted to any religion which aimed
to overturn the British Constitution. The _secret history_ of
the Roman Catholics in England remains yet to be told: they
indeed had their martyrs and their heroes; but the _public
effects_ appear in the frequent executions which occurred in
the reigns of Elizabeth and James.
Stubbe appears to have imagined that the ROYAL SOCIETY was
really formed on the principle of Campanella; to withdraw the
people from intermeddling with _politics_ and _religion_, by
engaging them merely in philosophical pursuits.--The reaction
of the public mind is an object not always sufficiently
indicated by historians. The vile hypocrisy and mutual
persecutions of the numerous fanatics occasioned very relaxed
and tolerant principles of religion at the Restoration; as,
the democratic fury having spent itself, too great an
indulgence was now allowed to monarchy. Stubbe was alarmed
that, should Popery be established, the crown of England would
become feudatory to foreign power, and embroil the nation in
the restitution of all the abbey lands, of which, at the
Reformation, the Church had so zealously been plundered. He
was still further alarmed that the _virtuosi_ would influence
the education of our youth to these purposes; "an evil," says
he, "which has been guarded against by our ancestors in
founding _free-schools_, by uniformity of instruction
cementing men's minds." We now smile at these terrors; perhaps
they were sometimes real. The absolute necessity of strict
conformity to the prevalent religion of Europe was avowed in
that unrivalled scheme of despotism, which menaced to efface
every trace of popular freedom, and the independence of
nations, under the dominion of Napoleon.
[272] To this threat of writing his life, we have already noticed the
noble apology he has drawn up for the versatility of his
opinions. See p. 347. At the moment of the Restoration it
was unwise for any of the parties to reproach another for
their opinions or their actions. In a national revolution,
most men are implicated in the general reproach; and Stubbe
said, on this occasion, that "he had observed worse faces in
the society than his own." Waller, and Sprat, and Cowley had
equally commemorated the protectorship of Cromwell and the
restoration of Charles. Our satirist insidiously congratulates
himself that "_he_ had never compared Oliver the regicide to
Moses, or his son to Joshua;" nor that he had ever written any
Pindaric ode, "dedicated to the happy memory of the most
renowned Prince Oliver, Lord Protector:" nothing to recommend
"the sacred urn" of that blessed spirit to the veneration of
posterity; as if
"His _fame_, like men, the elder it doth grow,
Will of itself turn _whiter_ too,
Without what needless art can do."
These lines were, I think, taken from Sprat himself! Stubbe
adds, it would be "imprudent in them to look beyond the act of
indemnity and oblivion, which was more necessary to the Royal
Society than to me, who joined with no party, &c."--_Preface
to "Legends no Histories."_
[273] He has described this intercourse of his enemies at court with
the king, where, when this punishment was suggested, "a
generous personage, altogether unknown to me, being present,
bravely and frankly interposed, saying, that 'whatever I was,
I was a Roman; that Englishmen were not so precipitously to be
condemned to so exemplary a punishment; that representing that
book to be a libel against the king was too remote a
consequence to be admitted of in a nation free-born, and
governed by laws, and tender of ill precedents.'" It was a
noble speech, in the relaxed politics of the court of Charles
II. He who made it deserved to have had his name more
explicitly told: he is designated as "that excellent
Englishman, the great ornament of this age, nation, and House
of Commons; he whose single worth balanceth much of the
debaucheries, follies, and impertinences of the kingdom."--_A
Reply unto the Letter written to Mr. Henry Stubbe, Oxford,
1671_, p. 20.
[274] Stubbe gives some curious information on this subject. Harvey
published his Treatise at Frankfort, 1628, but Caesalpinus's
work had appeared in 1593. Harvey adopted the notion, and more
fully and perspicuously proved it. I shall give what Stubbe
says. "Harvey, in his two Answers to Riolan, nowhere asserts
the invention so to himself, as to deny that he had the
intimation or notion from Caesalpinus; and his silence I take
for a tacit confession. His _ambition of glory_ made him
_willing to be thought the author of a paradox_ he had so
illustrated, and brought upon the stage, where _it lay
unregarded_, and in all probability buried in oblivion; yet
such was his modesty, as not to vindicate it to himself by
telling a lie."--STUBBE'S _Censure_, &c., p. 112.
I give this literary anecdote, as it enters into the history
of most discoveries, of which the _improvers_, rather than the
_inventors_, are usually the most known to the world. Bayle,
who wrote much later than Stubbe, asserts the same, and has
preserved the entire passage, art. _Caesalpinus_. It is said
Harvey is more expressly indebted to a passage in Servetus,
which Wotton has given in the preface to his "Reflections on
Ancient and Modern Learning," edition 1725. The notion was
probably then afloat, and each alike contributed to its
development. Thus it was disputed with Copernicus, whether his
great discovery of a fixed sun, and the earth wheeling round
that star, was his own; others had certainly observed it; yet
the invention was still Copernican: for that great genius
alone corrected, extended, and gave perfection to a hint, till
it expanded to a system.
So gradual have often been the great inventions of genius.
What others _conjectured_, and some _discovered_, Harvey
_demonstrated_. The fate of Harvey's discovery is a curious
instance of that patience and fortitude which genius must too
often exert in respect to itself. Though Harvey lived to his
eightieth year, he hardly witnessed his great discovery
established before he died; and it has been said, that he was
the only one of his contemporaries who lived to see it in some
repute. No physician adopted it; and when it got into vogue,
they then disputed whether he was the inventor! Sir William
Temple denied not only the discovery, but the doctrine of the
Circulation of the Blood. "Sense can hardly allow it; which,"
says he, "in this dispute must be satisfied as well as reason,
before mankind will concur."
[275] Stubbe has an eloquent passage, which describes the philosophy
of science. The new Experimental School had perhaps too wholly
rejected some virtues of the old one; the cultivation of the
human understanding, as well as the mere observation on the
facts that they collected; an error which has not been
entirely removed.
"That art of reasoning by which the prudent are discriminated
from fools, which methodiseth and facilitates our discourses,
which informs us of the validity of consequences and the
probability of arguments, and manifests the fallacies of
impostors; that art which gives life to solid eloquence, and
which renders Statesmen, Divines, Physicians, and Lawyers
accomplished; how is this cried down and vilified by the
ignoramuses of these days! What contempt is there raised upon
the disputative Ethics of Aristotle and the Stoics; and those
moral instructions, which have produced the Alexanders and the
Ptolemies, the Pompeys and the Ciceroes, are now slighted in
comparison of _day-labouring_! Did we live at Sparta, where
the daily employments were the exercises of substantial virtue
and gallantry, and _men_, like _setting dogs_, were rather
_bred up_ unto, than _taught_ reason and worth, it were a more
tolerable proposal (though the different policy of these times
would not admit of it); but this _working_, so recommended, is
but the _feeding of carp in the air_, &c. As for the study of
Politics, and all critical learning, these are either
pedantical, or tedious, to those who have _a shorter way of
studying men_."--_Preface to "Legends no Histories."_
[276] "Legends no Histories," p. 5.
[277] Dr. King was allied to the families of Clarendon and Rochester;
he took a degree as Doctor of Civil Law, and soon got into
great practice. "He afterwards went with the Earl of Pembroke,
Lord-Lieutenant, to Ireland, where he became Judge Advocate,
Sole Commissioner of the Prizes, Keeper of the Records,
Vicar-General to the Lord Primate of Ireland; was countenanced
by persons of the highest rank, and might have made a fortune.
But so far was he from heaping up riches, that he returned to
England with no other treasure than a few merry poems and
humorous essays, and returned to his student's place in Christ
Church."--_Enc. Brit._ He was assisted by Bolingbroke; but
when his patronage failed, Swift procured him the situation of
editor to "Barber's Gazette." He ultimately took to drinking;
Lintot the bookseller, told Pope, "I remember Dr. King could
write verses in a tavern three hours after he could not
speak." His last patron was Lord Clarendon, and he died in
apartments he had provided for him in London, Dec. 25, 1712,
and was buried in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey at the
expense of his lordship.--ED.
[278] Sloane describes Clark, the famous posture-master, "Phil.
Trans." No. 242, certainly with the wildest grammar, but with
many curious particulars; the gentleman in one of Dr. King's
Dialogues inquires the secretary's opinion of the causes of
this man's wonderful pliability of limbs; a question which
Sloane had thus solved, with colloquial ease: it depended upon
"bringing the body to it, by using himself to it."
In giving an account of "a child born without a brain"--"Had
it lived long enough," said King, "it would have made an
excellent publisher of Philosophical Transactions!"
Sloane presented the Royal Society with "a figure of a
Chinese, representing one of that nation using an ear-picker,
and expressing great satisfaction therein."--"Whatever
pleasure," said that learned physician, "the Chinese may take
in thus picking their ears, I am certain most people in these
parts, who have had their hearing impaired, have had such
misfortune first come to them by picking their ears too
much."--He is so _curious_, says King, that the secretary took
as much satisfaction in looking upon the ear-picker, as the
Chinese could do in picking their ears!
But "What drowning is"--that "Hanging is only apoplexy!" that
"Men cannot swallow when they are dead!" that "No fish die of
fevers!" that "Hogs s--t soap, and cows s--t fire!" that the
secretary had "Shells, called _Blackmoor's-teeth_, I suppose
from their _whiteness_!" and the learned RAY'S, that grave
naturalist, incredible description of "a very curious little
instrument!" I leave to the reader and Dr. King.
[279] Sir Hans Sloane was unhappily not insensible to these ludicrous
assaults, and in the preface to his "History of Jamaica,"
1707, a work so highly prized for its botanical researches,
absolutely anticipated this fatal facetiousness, for thus he
delivers himself:--"Those who strive to make ridiculous
anything of this kind, and think themselves great wits, but
are very ignorant, and understand nothing of the argument,
these, if one were afraid of them, and consulted his own ease,
might possibly hinder the publication of any such work, the
efforts to be expected from them, making possibly some
impression upon persons of equal dispositions; but considering
that I have the approbation of others, whose judgment,
knowledge, &c., I have great reason to value; and considering
that these sorts of men have been in all ages ready to do the
like, not only to ordinary persons and their equals, but even
to abuse their prince and blaspheme their Maker, I shall, as I
have ever since I seriously considered this matter, think of
and treat them with the greatest contempt."
[280] Dr. King's dispersed works have fortunately been collected by
Mr. Nichols, with ample illustrations, in three vols. 8vo,
1776. The "Useful Transactions in Philosophy and other sorts
of Learning," form a collection of ludicrous dissertations
of Antiquarianism, Natural Philosophy, Criticism, &c., where
his own peculiar humour combines with his curious reading. [In
this he burlesqued the proceedings of the Royal and
Antiquarian Societies with some degree of spirit and humour.
By turning vulgar lines into Greek, Latin, and Anglo-Saxon,
a learned air is given to some papers on childish subjects.
One learned doctor communicates to another "an Essay proving,
by arguments philosophical, that millers, falsely so reputed,
are not thieves, with an interesting argument that taylors
likewise are not so." A Welsh schoolmaster sends some
"natural observations" made in Wales, in direct imitation of
the "Philosophical Transactions" for 1707, and with humorous
love for genealogy, reckons that in his school, "since the
flood, there have been 466, and I am the 467th master: before
the flood, they living long, there were but two--Rice ap Evan
Dha the good, and Davie ap Shones Gonnah the naught, in
whose time the flood came." The first paper of the collection
is an evident jest on John Bagford and his gatherings for
the history of printing, now preserved among the manuscripts
of the British Museum. It purports to be "an Essay on the
invention of samplers, communicated by Mrs. Judith Bagford,
with an account of her collections for the same:" and
written in burlesque of a paper in the "Philosophical
Transactions" for April, 1697. It is a most elaborate
performance, deducing with mock-seriousness the origin of
samplers from the ancient tales of Arachne, who "set forth
the whole story of her wrongs in needlework, and sent it to
her sister;" and our author adds, with much humour, "it is
very remarkable that the memory of this story does at present
continue, for there are no samplers, which proceed in any
measure beyond the first rudiments, but have a tree and a
nightingale sitting on it." Such were the jests of the day
against the Royal philosophers.] He also invented _satirical
and humorous indexes_, not the least facetious parts of
his volumes. King had made notes on more than 20,000 books
and MSS., and his _Adversaria_, of which a portion has been
preserved, is not inferior in curiosity to the literary
journals of Gibbon, though it wants the investigating spirit
of the modern philosopher.