nce of Hakewill's book
much had happened in the world of ideas, and when we take up Glanvill's
Plus ultra, or the Progress and Advancement of Knowledge since the days
of Aristotle, [Footnote: The title is evidently suggested by a passage
in Bacon quoted above, p. 55.] we breathe a different atmosphere. It was
published in 1668, and its purpose was to defend the recently founded
Royal Society which was attacked on the ground that it was inimical
to the interests of religion and sound learning. For the Aristotelian
tradition was still strongly entrenched in the English Church and
Universities, notwithstanding the influence of Bacon; and the Royal
Society, which realised "the romantic model" of Bacon's society
of experimenters, repudiated the scholastic principles and methods
associated with Aristotle's name.

Glanvill was one of those latitudinarian clergymen, so common in the
Anglican Church in the seventeenth century, who were convinced that
religious faith must accord with reason, and were unwilling to abate in
its favour any of reason's claims. He was under the influence of
Bacon, Descartes, and the Cambridge Platonists, and no one was more
enthusiastic than he in following the new scientific discoveries of his
time. Unfortunately for his reputation he had a weak side. Enlightened
though he was, he was a firm believer in witchcraft, and he is chiefly
remembered not as an admirer of Descartes and Bacon, and a champion
of the Royal Society, but as the author of Saducismus Triumphatus,
a monument of superstition, which probably contributed to check the
gradual growth of disbelief in witches and apparitions.

His Plus ultra is a review of modern improvements of useful knowledge.
It is confined to mathematics and science, in accordance with its
purpose of justifying the Royal Society; and the discoveries of the past
sixty years enable the author to present a far more imposing picture
of modern scientific progress than was possible for Bodin or Bacon.
[Footnote: Bacon indeed could have made out a more impressive picture of
the new age if he had studied mathematics and taken the pains to master
the evidence which was revolutionising astronomy. Glanvill had the
advantage of comprehending the importance of mathematics for the advance
of physical science.] He had absorbed Bacon's doctrine of utility. His
spirit is displayed in the remark that more gratitude is due to the
unknown inventor of the mariners' compass

"than to a