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mental research, in all branches of physics and natural history, was played by the Royal Society, that illustrious body which, originating in the meetings of a few learned and ingenious men at each other's houses, was incorporated by Charles II., in 1662, into the Society to the labors of which human knowledge owes so much.

Among the founders of this corporation one of the most active was DR. JOHN WILKINS (1614-1672), Bishop of Chester, a most energetic and ingenious man, whose vivacious inventiveness sometimes bordered upon extravagance, but who rendered great services, both in his writings and his conversation, to the cause of science. He was essentially a projector, and at a period when the first wonderful results of the employment of the experimental method had made even the calmest minds in some degree lose their balance, and become unable to distinguish between what was practicable and what was visionary, we can hardly feel surprised that the ardor of his genius should have carried him beyond the bounds of good sense, so far as to seriously propose, among other Utopian schemes, a plan by which it would be possible to fly to the moon. Wilkins was a theological writer and a preacher of high reputation; but his name is now chiefly associated with his projects and inventions, and in particular with the prominent part he took, together with Boyle and others, in the organization of the Royal Society. He married the sister of Oliver Cromwell, and his stepdaughter was married to Tillotson.

§ 10. The progress of physical science had been very rapid before this time. The labors of WILLIAM GILBERT (1540-1603), whose researches in magnetism laid the foundation for all future investigations in that science, and the immortal discovery of WILLIAM HARVEY (15781658), the first demonstrator of the circulation of the blood, belong to an earlier period; but the concentration of the labors of many separate investigators upon one special branch of research was a result mainly to be attributed to the institution of our great scientific corporation. As a proof of this I may mention the contemporary, or nearly contemporary labors of Newton in optics, astronomy, and celestial mechanics, and those of Flamsteed, Halley, and others, in the combined departments of careful observation and the application of new and convenient mathematical formulas to the practical solution of problems in astronomy and navigation; while Boyle, embracing a wide extent and vast variety of research, particularly devoted himself to the investigation of chemical and pneumatic science; and Ray, Derham, Willoughby, and Sydenham brought valuable contributions to physiology, natural history, and medicine. Most of these great men, independently of their purely scientific writings, which, as in the case of the immortal Principia of the most illustrious among them, were in Latin, contributed in

The chief works of Wilkins are:- -1. Discovery of a New World: or a discourse tending to prove that it is probable that there may be another habitable World in the Moon; with a discourse concerning the possibility of a passage thither. Published in 1638. 2. An Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language, printed by order of the Royal Society in 1668.

a greater or less proportion to the vernacular literature of their country. Thus Newton wrote, in English, upon the Prophecies, and other subjects connected with biblical knowledge; and Boyle enjoyed a high reputation for his moral and religious writings. It is remarkable and consoling to see with what unanimous consent these illustrious philosophers, all men of extraordinary acumen and caution, and all accustomed, from the nature of their pursuits, to take nothing for granted, to weigh and balance evidence with the severest exactness, agreed in the intensity of their religious convictions. Those habits of physical investigation, which are so often ignorantly accused of being unfavorable to the habit of belief, seem to have led the most powerful and inquiring minds only the more irresistibly to a firm conviction of the truths of revealed religion.

§ 11. SIR ISAAC Newton (1642–1727) was born in 1642, of a respectable but not opulent family, at Woolsthorpe in Lincolnshire. From his earliest boyhood he showed the greatest taste and aptitude for mechanical invention, and entering the University of Cambridge, in 1660, he made such rapid progress in mathematical studies that in nine years Barrow resigned in his favor the Lucasian professorship. The greater part of Newton's life was passed within the quiet walls of Trinity, of which College he is the most glorious ornament; and it was here that he elaborated those admirable discoveries and demonstrations in Mechanics, Astronomy, and Optics which have placed his name in the very foremost rank of the benefactors of mankind. He sat in more than one parliament as member for his university; but he appears to have been of too reserved and retiring a character to take an active part in political discussion: he was appointed Master of the Mint in 1695, and presided over that establishment at the critical period of Montagu's bold recall and reissue of the specie. It is delightful to see with what simplicity and readiness this illustrious philosopher abandoned all those sublime researches in which he stands almost alone among mankind, and devoted all his energy and attention to the public duties that had been committed to his charge. He even writes with a kind of pettish querulousness to upbraid friends who had consulted him about "mathematical things," as he calls them, when he was entirely occupied with the public service. In 1703 he was made president of the Royal Society, and knighted two years afterwards by Queen Anne. He died in 1727. His character, the only defects of which appear to have been a somewhat cold and suspicious temper, was the type of those virtues which ought to distinguish the scholar, the philosopher, and the patriot. His modesty was as great as his genius, and he invariably ascribed the attainment of his discoveries rather to patient attention than to any unusual capacity of intellect. His English writings, which are chiefly discourses upon the prophecies and chronology of the Scriptures, are composed in a manly, plain, and unaffected style, and breathe an intense spirit of piety, though his opinions seem to have in some measure inclined towards the Unitarian type of theology. His glory, however, will always mainly rest upon his purely scientific works,

the chief of which are so well known that it is almost superfluous to enumerate them-the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica and the invaluable treatise on Optics, of which latter science he may be said to have first laid the foundation.

§ 12. JOHN RAY (1628–1705), together with Derham and Willoughby, combined the descriptive department of Natural History with moral and religious eloquence of a high order: they seem never to be weary of proclaiming the wisdom and goodness of that Providence whose works they had so attentively studied. Ray was the first who elevated Natural History to the rank of a science. Robert Boyle (1627–1691) was an able writer as well as a distinguished philosopher. “No Englishman of the seventeenth century, after Lord Bacon," observes Mr. Hallam, "raised to himself so high a reputation in experimental philosophy as Robert Boyle: it has even been remarked that he was born in the year of Bacon's death, as the person destined by nature to succeed him a eulogy which would be extravagant if it implied any parallel between the genius of the two, but hardly so if we look on Boyle as the most faithful, the most patient, the most successful disciple who carried forward the experimental philosophy of Bacon. His works occupy six large volumes in quarto. They may be divided into theological or metaphysical and physical or experimental. The metaphysical treatises to use that word in a large sense — of Boyle, or rather those concerning Natural Theology, are very perspicuous, very free from system, and such as bespeak an independent lover of truth. His Disquisition on Final Causes was a well-timed vindication of that palmary argument against the paradox of the Cartesians, who had denied the validity of an inference from the manifest adaptation of means to ends in the universe to an intelligent Providence. Boyle takes a more philosophic view of the principle of final causes than had been found in many theologians, who weakened the argument itself by the presumptuous hypothesis that man was the sole object of Providence in the creation. His greater knowledge of physiology led him to perceive that there are both animal and what he calls cosmical ends in which man has no concern."

One of the most extraordinary writers of this period at least in a purely literary sense was THOMAS BURNET (1635-1715), Master of the Charter-house, author of the eloquent and poetic declamation Talluris Theoria Sacra, giving a hypothetical account of the causes which produced the various irregularities and undulations which we see in the earth's surface. These he attributes to the action of fire and water, and in language of indescribable picturesqueness he first describes the convulsions and cataclysms which have given to our earth its present form, and then goes on to picture the final destruction that is awaiting our globe in the mysterious abysses of the future. The geological and physical theories of Burnet are fantastic in the extreme; but the pictures which he has drawn of the devastation caused by the great unbridled powers of Nature are grand and magnificent, and give Burnet a claim to be placed among the most eloquent and poetical of prose

writers. In richness of fancy and melody of language he is no unworthy rival of Jeremy Taylor, with whose noble description of the final destruction of the earth Burnet's sublime painting will bear a comparison.

§ 13. This writer must not be confounded with GILBERT BURNET (1643-1715), born in Edinburgh, in 1643, and who was one of the most active politicians and divines during the period embracing the reigns of Charles II., James II., and the accession of William of Orange. By birth and personal predilections he occupies a middle space between the extreme Episcopalian and Presbyterian parties, and though a man of ardent and busy character, he was possessed of rare tolerance and candor. He was much celebrated for his talents as an extempore preacher, and was the author of a very large number of theological and political writings. Among these his History of the Reformation is still considered as one of the most valuable accounts of that important revolution. The first volume of this was published in 1679, and the work was afterwards completed by the author. He also gave to the world an account of the Life and Death of the witty and infamous Rochester, whose last moments he attended as a religious adviser, and whom his pious arguments recalled to a sense of repentance. He at one time enjoyed the favor of Charles II., but soon forfeited it by the boldness of his remonstrances against the profligacy of the king and by his defence of Lord William Russell, whose execution was one of the great political crimes of that reign. Burnet also published an Exposition of the XXXIX Articles. On falling into disgrace at court he travelled on the Continent, and afterwards attached himself closely to the service of William of Orange at the Hague, where he became the religious adviser of the Princess Mary, afterwards Queen. At the Revolution Burnet accompanied the deliverer on his expedition to England, took a very active part in controversy and political negotiation, and was raised to the Bishopric of Salisbury, in which function he gave a noble example of the zeal, tolerance, and humanity which ought to be the chief virtues of a Christian pastor. He died in 1715, leaving the MS. of his most important work, the History of My Own Times, which he directed to be published after the lapse of six years. This work, consisting of Memoirs of the important transactions of which Burnet had been contemporary, is of a similar nature and not inferior value to Clarendon's, which represents the events of English history from a nearly opposite point of view. Burnet is minute, familiar, and gossiping, but lively and trustworthy in the main as to facts; and no one who desires to make acquaintance with a very critical and agitated period of our annals can dispense with the materials he has accumulated. It is from him that we learn the true greatness and energy of William's character, and the milder virtues of his queen; and the very ardor of Burnet's predilections gives a vivacity and a value to his pictures of men and things.

NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

thought by our metaphysicians to want precision and logical reasoning; and upon the whole we must rank him, in philosophical acumen, far below Hobbes, Malebranche, and Locke, but also far above any mere Aristotelians or retailers of Scotus and Aquinas." He was, however, most unfairly accused of favoring the atheists, because he fairly stated their arguments. He left an only daughter, who married Sir Francis Masham, and who is

(A.)-OTHER THEOLOGICAL WRITERS. HENRY MORE (1614–1687), known by the name of the Platonist, spent his whole life at Cambridge engaged in metaphysical and philosophical studies. He is a writer of genius and power, but he adopted the mystical views not only of the later Platonists, but even of the cabalistic writers. His most important works are The Mystery of Godliness, The Mystery of Iniquity, and A Discourse on the Immor-known as the friend of Locke (see p. 251). tality of the Soul. He also wrote a volume of Philosophical Poems.

RALPH CUDWORTH (1617-1688), a contemporary of More at Cambridge, and Regius Professor of Divinity at that University, is a writer of still greater power than More. In 1678 Cudworth published the first part of his great work, entitled The True Intellectual System of the Universe. "Cudworth," observes Mr. Hallam, "was one of those whom Hobbes had roused by the atheistic and immoral theories of the Leviathan; nor did any antagonist perhaps of that philosopher bring a more vigorous understanding to the combat. This understanding was not so much obstructed in its own exercise by a vast erudition, as it is sometimes concealed by it from the reader. Cudworth has passed more for a recorder of ancient philosophy, than for one who might stand in a respectable class among philosophers; and his work, though long, being unfinished, as well as full of digression, its object has not been fully apprehended. This object was to establish the liberty of human actions against the fatalists. Of these he lays it down that there are three kinds: the first atheistic; the second admitting a Deity, but one acting necessarily and without moral perfections; the third granting the moral attributes of God, but asserting all human actions to be governed by necessary laws which he has ordained. The first book of the Intellectual System, which alone is extant, relates wholly to the proof of the existence of a Deity against the atheistic fatalists, his moral nature being rarely or never touched; so that the greater and more interesting part of the work, for the sake of which the author projected it, is wholly wanting, unless we take for fragments of it some writings of the author preserved in the British Museum. Cudworth is too credulous and uncritical about ancient writings, defending all as❘ genuine, even where his own age had been sceptical. His terminology is stiff and pedantic, as is the case with all our older metaphysicians, abounding in words which the English language has not recognized. He is full of the ancients, but rarely quotes the schoolmen. Hobbes is the adversary with whom he most grapples; the materialism, the resolving all ideas into sensation, the low morality of that writer, were obnoxious to the animadversion of so strenuous an advocate of a more elevated philosophy. In some respects Cudworth has, as I conceive, much the advantage; in others, he will generally be

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RICHARD CUMBERLAND (1632-1718), made Bishop of Peterborough by William III., is best known by his Latin work, De Legibus Naturæ Disquisitio Philosophica, published in 1672, in opposition to the philosophical principles of Hobbes. Cumberland was also the author of an Essay on Jewish Weights and Measures.

ROBERT LEIGHTON (1613-1684), Archbishop of Glasgow, whose commentary on the First Epistle of St. Peter may be regarded as a classic, both for profoundness of thought and felicity of expression. Attention has been drawn to it in modern times by Coleridge in his "Aids to Reflection."

THEOPHILUS GALE (1628-1678), Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, but ejected at the Restoration, is known by a learned work, called The Court of the Gentiles, published between 1669 and 1677, in which he attempts to prove that all heathen philosophy was borrowed from the Scriptures, or at least from the Jews.

GEORGE BULL (1634-1710), Bishop of St. David's, a great opponent of the Augustinian theology, and still regarded as one of the pillars of the Anglican Church. In his Harmonia Apostolica, published in 1669, he maintains that we are to interpret St. Paul by St. James, and not St. James by St. Paul, because St. James was the latest authority. Another of Bull's celebrated works was the Defensio Fidei Nicenæ published in 1685, for which he received the thanks of an assembly of the French clergy, through the influence of Bossuet.

JOHN OWEN (1616-1683), Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford under Cromwell, and one of the most eminent of the Independent divines, published a large number of theological works, of which An Exposition on the Epistle to the Hebrews is the best known. Owen's style is dull, heavy, and confused.

JOHN HOWE (1630-1705), chaplain to Cromwell, and also an eminent Independent divine, wrote various theological works, the style of which is far superior to Owen's.

JOHN FLAVEL (1627-1691), a Nonconformist divine at Dartmouth, whose theological writings are chiefly devotional, characterized by much fervor, and of the Calvinistic theology. They are still popular with persons of that school.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714), son of Philip Henry, and like his father an eminent Nonconformist divine. He is best known by his Commentary

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