ore
been performed in any age by any nation. The spirit of Francis Bacon was
abroad, a spirit admirably compounded of audacity and sobriety. There
was a strong persuasion that the whole world was full of secrets of high
moment to the happiness of man, and that man had, by his Maker, been
entrusted with the key which, rightly used, would give access to
them. There was at the same time a conviction that in physics it was
impossible to arrive at the knowledge of general laws except by the
careful observation of particular facts. Deeply impressed with these
great truths, the professors of the new philosophy applied themselves
to their task, and, before a quarter of a century had expired, they had
given ample earnest of what has since been achieved. Already a reform
of agriculture had been commenced. New vegetables were cultivated. New
implements of husbandry were employed. New manures were applied to the
soil. [188] Evelyn had, under the formal sanction of the Royal Society,
given instruction to his countrymen in planting. Temple, in his
intervals of leisure, had tried many experiments in horticulture, and
had proved that many delicate fruits, the natives of more favoured
climates, might, with the help of art, be grown on English ground.
Medicine, which in France was still in abject bondage, and afforded an
inexhaustible subject of just ridicule to Moliere, had in England become
an experimental and progressive science, and every day made some
new advance in defiance of Hippocrates and Galen. The attention of
speculative men had been, for the first time, directed to the important
subject of sanitary police. The great plague of 1665 induced them to
consider with care the defective architecture, draining, and ventilation
of the capital. The great fire of 1666 afforded an opportunity for
effecting extensive improvements. The whole matter was diligently
examined by the Royal Society; and to the suggestions of that body must
be partly attributed the changes which, though far short of what the
public welfare required, yet made a wide difference between the new
and the old London, and probably put a final close to the ravages of
pestilence in our country. [189] At the same time one of the founders
of the Society, Sir William Petty, created the science of political
arithmetic, the humble but indispensable handmaid of political
philosophy. No kingdom of nature was left unexplored. To that period
belong the chemical discoveries of Boyl