7. Some twenty years before the outbreak of the plague, a few calm and thoughtful students banded themselves together for the purpose, as they phrased it, of "improving natural knowledge." The ends they proposed to attain cannot be stated more clearly than in the words of one of the founders of the organiza- 55 tion: "Our business was (precluding matters of theology and state affairs) to discourse and consider of philosophical enquiries, and such as related thereunto :-as Physick, Anatomy, Geometry, Astronomy, Navigation, Staticks, Magneticks, Chymicks, Mechanicks, and Natural Experiments; with the state of these 60 studies and their cultivation at home and abroad. We then discoursed of the circulation of the blood, the valves in the veins, the vena lactea, the lymphatic vessels, the Copernican hypothesis, the nature of comets and new stars, the satellites of Jupiter, the oval shape (as it then appeared) of Saturn, the spots on the 65 sun and its turning on its own axis, the inequalities and selenography of the moon, the several phases of Venus and Mercury, the improvement of telescopes and grinding of glasses for that purpose, the weight of air, the possibility or impossibility of vacuities and nature's abhorrence thereof, the Torricellian experi- 70 ment in quicksilver, the descent of heavy bodies and the degree of acceleration therein, with divers other things of like nature, some of which were then but new discoveries, and others not so generally known and embraced as now they are; with other things appertaining to what hath been called the New Philos- 75 phy, which, from the times of Galileo at Florence, and Sir Francis Bacon (Lord Verulam) in England, hath been much cultivated in Italy, France, Germany, and other parts abroad, as well as with us in England." The learned Dr. Wallis, writing in 1696, narrates, in these words, what happened half a century be- 80 fore, or about 1645. The associates met at Oxford, in the rooms of Dr. Wilkins, who was destined to become a bishop; and sub LITERARY ANALYSIS.—51-54. Some... knowledge. What kind of sentence rhetorically? Change into the direct order. 58-60. as Physick... Experiments. The author is here citing, verbatim et literatim, the language used by Dr. Wallis in setting forth the aims and procedure of the Royal Society: pupils will give the modern orthography and forms of words. The whole paragraph deserves careful study as outlining the state of science in the middle of the 17th century. sequently coming together in London, they attracted the notice of the king. ... 8. Thus it was that the half-dozen young men, studious of the 85 "New Philosophy," who met in one another's lodgings in Oxford or in London, in the middle of the seventeenth century, grew in numerical and in real strength, until, in its latter part, the "Royal Society for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge" had already become famous, and had acquired a claim 90 upon the veneration of Englishmen, which it has ever since retained, as the principal focus* of scientific activity in our islands, and the chief champion of the cause it was formed to support. 9. It was by the aid of the Royal Society that Newton published his Principia. If all the books in the world except the s Philosophical Transactions were destroyed, it is safe to say that the foundations of physical science would remain unshaken, and that the vast intellectual progress of the last two centuries would be largely, though incompletely, recorded. Nor have any signs of halting or of decrepitude* manifested themselves in our own 100 times. As in Dr. Wallis's days, so in these, "our business is, precluding theology and state affairs, to discourse and consider of philosophical enquiries." But our Mathematick" is one which Newton would have to go to school to learn; our 66 Staticks, Mechanicks, Magneticks, Chymicks, and Natural Experi- 105 ments" constitute a mass of physical and chemical knowledge, a glimpse at which would compensate Galileo for the doings of a score of inquisitorial cardinals; our "Physick” and “Anatomy" have embraced such infinite varieties of being, have laid open such new worlds in time and space, have grappled, not un- 110 66 LITERARY ANALYSIS.-89. Royal Society, etc. Note that the designation of the "Royal Society" suggests the title of Huxley's essay. 92. focus. Etymology? 94, 95. Newton... Principia. Write a short biographical sketch of Newton, and state briefly the subject of the Principia. 95-99. If... recorded. What kind of sentence grammatically? Rhetorically? On what is the metaphor in "foundations... unshaken" based? 104. would have to go, etc. What inference do you draw from this respecting the advance of mathematics? 107, 108. Galileo... cardinals. Explain the historical allusion. successfully, with such complex problems, that the eyes of Vesalius and of Harvey might be dazzled by the sight of the tree that has grown out of their grain of mustard seed. . . . 10. We have learned that pestilences will only take up their abode among those who have prepared unswept and ungarnished 115 residences for them. Their cities must have narrow, unwatered streets, foul with accumulated garbage.* Their houses must be ill-drained, ill-lighted, ill-ventilated. Their subjects must be illwashed, ill-fed, ill-clothed. The London of 1665 was such a city. The cities of the East, where plague has an enduring dwelling, 120 are such cities. We, in later times, have learned somewhat of Nature, and partly obey her. Because of this partial improvement of our natural knowledge and of that fractional obedience, we have no plague; because that knowledge is still very imperfect and that obedience yet incomplete, typhus* is our companion 125 and cholera our visitor. But it is not presumptuous to express the belief that, when our knowledge is more complete and our obedience the expression of our knowledge, London will count her centuries of freedom from typhus and cholera, as she now gratefully reckons her two hundred years of ignorance of that plague which swooped upon her thrice in the first half of the seventeenth century. 130 11. Surely, there is nothing in these explanations which is not. fully borne out by the facts? Surely, the principles involved in them are now admitted among the fixed beliefs of all thinking 135 LITERARY ANALYSIS.-111, 112. of Vesalius. Who was Vesalius, and what contribution to anatomy did he make? Who was Harvey, and what great truth did he demonstrate? 112, 113. tree that has grown, etc. What is the allusion? 115. unswept, etc. What is the allusion? 116. Their cities. Explain. 117. garbage. Etymology? 122-126. Because... visitor. Separate into two sentences.-Etymology of "cholera?" 128. London will count, etc. 29, 4.) 133-140. Surely... them? What form of metonymy is this? (See Def. To what type, grammatically considered, do these sentences belong? What is the effect of the use of the interrogative form? Change to the declarative form, and note if equal effectiveness would be attained. men? Surely, it is true that our countrymen are less subject to fire, famine, pestilence, and all the evils which result from a want of command over and due anticipation of the course of Nature, than were the countrymen of Milton; and health, wealth, and well-being are more abundant with us than with them? But no 140 less certainly is the difference due to the improvement of our knowledge of Nature, and the extent to which that improved knowledge has been incorporated with the household words of nen, and has supplied the springs of their daily actions. 12. Granting for a moment, then, the truth of that which the 145 depreciators of natural knowledge are so fond of urging, that its improvement can only add to the resources of our material civilization; admitting it to be possible that the founders of the Royal Society themselves looked for no other reward than this, I cannot confess that I was guilty of exaggeration* when I hinted 150 that to him who had the gift of distinguishing between prominent events and important events, the origin of a combined effort on the part of mankind to improve natural knowledge might have loomed larger than the Plague and have outshone the glare of the Fire; as a something fraught with a wealth of beneficence 155 to mankind, in comparison with which the damage done by those ghastly evils would shrink into insignificance. 13. It is very certain that, for every victim slain by the Plague, hundreds of mankind exist, and find a fair share of happiness in the world, by the aid of the spinning-jenny. And the Great Fire, 160 at its worst, could not have burned the supply of coal, the daily working of which, in the bowels of the earth, made possible by the steam-pump, gives rise to an amount of wealth to which the millions lost in old London are but as an old song. 14. But spinning-jenny and steam-pump are, after all, but 165 LITERARY ANALYSIS.-144. has supplied. What is the figure of speech? (See Def. 20.) 145-157. Granting... Insignificance. To what class rhetorically does this fine sentence belong? (See Def. 58.)—Etymology of "exaggeration” (150)? —What do you take to be the distinction between “prominent events and important events" (151, 152)? 154. and have outshone, etc. What is the figure of speech? (See Def. 20.) 160. spinning-jenny. Etymology? Who invented this machine? Give a brief sketch of his life. toys, possessing an accidental value; and natural knowledge creates multitudes of more subtle* contrivances, the praises of which do not happen to be sung because they are not directly convertible into instruments for creating wealth. . . . 15. I cannot but think that the foundations of all natural 170 knowledge were laid when the reason of man first came face to face with the facts of Nature: when the savage first learned that the fingers of one hand are fewer than those of both; that it is shorter to cross a stream than to head it; that a stone stops where it is unless it be moved, and that it drops from the hand 175 which lets it go; that light and heat come and go with the sun; that sticks burn away in a fire; that plants and animals grow and die; that if he struck his fellow-savage a blow, he would make him angry, and perhaps get a blow in return; while if he offered him a fruit, he would please him, and perhaps receive a 180 fish in exchange. When men had acquired this much knowledge, the outlines, rude though they were, of mathematics, of physics, of chemistry, of biology, of moral, economical, and political science, were sketched. Nor did the germ of religion fail when science began to bud. Listen to words which, though new, 185 are yet three thousand years old: "... When in heaven the stars about the moon 190 If the half-savage Greek could share our feelings thus far, it is irrational to doubt that he went further, to find, as we do, that upon that brief gladness there follows a certain sorrow,-the 195 little light of awakened human intelligence shines so mere a spark amidst the abyss of the unknown and unknowable; seems LITERARY ANALYSIS.-170-181. I... exchange. What kind of sentence grammatically? 182-184. outlines... sketched. What figure is here implied? (See Def. 20.) 184, 185. germ... bud. founded? What is the figure? On what is the metaphor 195. that brief gladness. What "brief gladness?" |