thousand Alexanders and Caesars, or to ten times the number
of Aristotles. And he really did more for the increase of knowledge
and the advantage of the world by this one experiment than the numerous
subtile disputers that have lived ever since the erection of the school
of talking."

Glanvill, however, in his complacency with what has already been
accomplished, is not misled into over-estimating its importance. He
knows that it is indeed little compared with the ideal of attainable
knowledge. The human design, to which it is the function of the Royal
Society to contribute, is laid as low, he says, as the profoundest
depths of nature, and reaches as high as the uppermost storey of the
universe, extends to all the varieties of the great world, and aims at
the benefit of universal mankind. Such a work can only proceed slowly,
by insensible degrees. It is an undertaking wherein all the generations
of men are concerned, and our own age can hope to do little more than
to remove useless rubbish, lay in materials, and put things in order for
the building. "We must seek and gather, observe and examine, and lay up
in bank for the ages that come after."

These lines on "the vastness of the work" suggest to the reader that
a vast future will be needed for its accomplishment. Glanvill does not
dwell on this, but he implies it. He is evidently unembarrassed by the
theological considerations which weighed so heavily on Hakewill. He does
not trouble himself with the question whether Anti-Christ has still to
appear. The difference in general outlook between these two clergymen is
an indication how the world had travelled in the course of forty years.

Another point in Glanvill's little book deserves attention. He takes
into his prospect the inhabitants of the Transatlantic world; they, too,
are to share in the benefits which shall result from the subjugation of
nature.

"By the gaining that mighty continent and the numerous fruitful isles
beyond the Atlantic, we have obtained a larger field of nature, and
have thereby an advantage for more phenomena, and more helps both for
knowledge and for life, which 'tis very like that future ages will make
better use of to such purposes than those hitherto have done; and that
science also may at last travel into those parts and enrich Peru with
a more precious treasure than that of its golden mines, is not
improbable."

Sprat, the Bishop of Rochester, in his interesting History of the Royal