scepticism which he displayed respecting popular belief was forced on him by the pressure of the age.

In or about 1633, when the throne was still occupied by a superstitious prince; when the Church of England was at the height of her apparent power; and when men were incessantly persecuted for their religious opinions, this same Sir Thomas Browne wrote his Religio Medici,53 in which we find all the qualities of his later work, except the scepticism. Indeed, in the Religio Medici, there is shown a credulity that must have secured the sympathy of those classes which were then dominant. Of all the prejudices which at that time were deemed an essential part of the popular creed, there was not one which Browne ventured to deny. He announces his belief in the philosopher's stone; in spirits, and tutelary angels ;55 and in palmistry.56 He not only peremptorily affirms the reality of witches, but he says that those who deny their existence are not merely infidels, but atheists.57 He carefully tells us that he reckons his nativity, not from his birth, but from his baptism; for before he was baptized, he could not be said to exist. To these touches of wisdom, he moreover adds, that the more improbable any proposition is, the greater his willingness to assent to it; but that when a thing is actually impossible, he is on that very account prepared to believe it.59

Such were the opinions put forth by Sir Thomas Browne in the first of the two great works he presented to the world. But in his Inquiries into Vulgar Errors, there is displayed a spirit so entirely different, that if it were not for the most decisive evidence, we could hardly believe it to be written by the same man. The truth, however, is, that during the twelve years which elapsed between the two works, there was completed that vast social and intellectual revolution, of which the overthrow of the

53 The precise date is unknown; but Mr. Wilkin supposes that it was written "between the years 1633 and 1635." Preface to Religio Medici, in Browne's Works, vol. ii. p. iv.

54 Ibid. vol. ii. p. 58.

65 Ibid. vol. ii. p. 47.

56 Or, as he calls it, "chiromancy." Ibid. vol. ii. p. 89.

57

"For my part, I have ever believed, and do now know, that there are witches. They that doubt of these, do not only deny them, but spirits; and are obliquely, and upon consequence, a sort, not of infidels, but atheists." Ibid. vol. ii. pp. 43, 44. 58 "From this I do compute or calculate my nativity." Ibid. vol. ii. p. 64. 59 Religio Medici, sec. ix. in Browne's Works, vol. ii. pp. 13, 14; unfortunately too long to extract. This is the "credo quia impossibile est," originally one of Tertullian's absurdities, and once quoted in the House of Lords by the Duke of Argyle as "the ancient religious maxim." Parl. Hist. vol. xi. p. 802. Compare the sarcastic remark on this maxim in the Essay concerning Human Understanding, book iv. ch. xviii. Locke's Works, vol. ii. p. 271. It was the spirit embodied in this sentence which supplied Celsus with some formidable arguments against the Fathers. Neander's Hist. of the Church, vol. i. pp. 227, 228.

church and the execution of the king were but minor incidents. We know from the literature, from the private correspondence, and from the public acts of that time, how impossible it was, even for the strongest minds, to escape the effects of the general intoxication. No wonder, then, that Browne, who certainly was inferior to several of his contemporaries, should have been affected by a movement which they were unable to resist. It would have been strange, indeed, if he alone had remained uninfluenced by that sceptical spirit, which, because it had been arbitrarily repressed, had now broken all bounds, and in the reaction soon swept away those institutions which vainly attempted to stop its course.

It is in this point of view that a comparison of the two works becomes highly interesting, and, indeed, very important. In this, his later production, we hear no more about believing things because they are impossible; but we are told of "the two great pillars of truth, experience and solid reason." We are also reminded that one main cause of error is "adherence unto authority;" that another is, "neglect of inquiry ;" and, strange to say, that a third is "credulity." All this was not very consistent with the old theological spirit; and we need not, therefore, be surprised that Browne not only exposes some of the innumerable blunders of the Fathers, but after speaking of errors in general, curtly adds: "Many others there are, which we resign unto divinity, and perhaps deserve not controversy.'

64

7965

The difference between these two works is no bad measure of the rapidity of that vast movement which, in the middle of the seventeenth century, was seen in every branch of practical and speculative life. After the death of Bacon, one of the most distinguished Englishmen was certainly Boyle, who, if compared with his contemporaries, may be said to rank immediately below Newton, though, of course, very inferior to him as an original thinker. With the additions he made to our knowledge, we are not immediately concerned; but it may be mentioned, that he was the first who instituted exact experiments into the rela

Inquiries into Vulgar and Common Errors, book iii. chap. xxviii. in Browne's Works, vol. ii. p. 534.

1 Ibid. book i. chap. vii. vol. ii. p. 225.

63 "A supinity, or neglect of inquiry." Ibid. book i. chap. v. vol. ii. p 211. 63 A third cause of common errors is the credulity of men.'

vol. ii. p. 208.

326.

65

See two amusing instances in vol. ii. pp. 267, 438.

Book i. chap. v.

Vulgar and Common Errors, book vii. chap. xi. in Browne's Works, vol. iii. p.

6 Monk (Life of Bentley, vol. i. p. 37) says, that Boyle's discoveries "have placed his name in a rank second only to that of Newton;" and this, I believe, is true, notwithstanding the immense superiority of Newton.

67

tion between colour and heat; and by this means, not only ascertained some very important facts, but laid a foundation for that union between optics and thermotics, which, though not yet completed, now merely waits for some great philosopher to strike out a generalization large enough to cover both, and thus fuse the two sciences into a single study. It is also to Boyle, more than to any other Englishman, that we owe the science of hydrostatics, in the state in which we now possess it. He is the original discoverer of that beautiful law, so fertile in valuable results, according to which the elasticity of air varies as its density. And, in the opinion of one of the most eminent modern naturalists, it was Boyle who opened up those chemical inquiries, which went on accumulating until, a century later, they supplied the means by which Lavoisier and his contemporaries fixed the real basis of chemistry, and enabled it for the first time to take its proper stand among those sciences that deal with the external world.7°

69

The application of these discoveries to the happiness of Man, and particularly to what may be called the material interests of

67 Compare Powell on Radiant Heat (Brit. Assoc. vol. i.), p. 287, with Lloyd's Report on Physical Optics, 1834, p. 338. For the remarks on colours, see Boyle's Works, vol. ii. pp. 1-40; and for the account of his experiments, pp. 41-80; and a slight notice in Brewster's Life of Newton, vol. i. pp. 155, 156, 236. It is, I think, not generally known, that Power is said to be indebted to Boyle for originating some of his experiments on colours. See a letter from Hooke in Boyle's Works, vol. v. p. 533.

68 Dr. Whewell (Bridgewater Treatise, p. 266) well observes, that Boyle and Pascal are to hydrostatics what Galileo is to mechanics, and Copernicus, Kepler, and Newton to astronomy. See also on Boyle as the founder of Hydrostatics, Thomson's Hist. of the Royal Society, pp. 397, 398; and his Hist. of Chemistry, vol. i. p. 204.

69 This was discovered by Boyle about 1650, and confirmed by Mariotte in 1676. See Whewell's Hist. of the Inductive Sciences, vol. ii. pp. 557, 588; Thomson's Hist. of Chemistry, vol. i. p. 215; Turner's Chemistry, vol. i. pp. 41, 200; Brande's Chemistry, vol. i. p. 363. This law has been empirically verified by the French Institute, and found to hold good for a pressure even of twenty-seven atmospheres. See Challis on the Mathematical Theory of Fluids, in Sixth Report of Brit. Assoc. p. 226; and Herschel's Nat. Philos, p. 231. Although Boyle preceded Mariotte by a quarter of a century, the discovery is rather unfairly called the law of Boyle and Mariotte; while foreign writers, refining on this, frequently omit the name of Boyle altogether, and term it the law of Mariotte! See, for instance, Liebig's Letters on Chemistry, p. 126; Monteil, Divers Etats, vol. viii. p. 122; Kaemtz's Meteorology, p. 236;*Comte, Philos. Pos. vol. i. pp. 583, 645, vol. ii. pp. 484, 615; Pouillet, Elémens de Physique, vol. i. p. 339, vol. ii. pp. 58, 183.

70

"L'un des créateurs de la physique expérimentale, l'illustre Robert Boyle, avait aussi reconnu, dès le milieu du dix-septième siècle, une grande partie des faits qui servent aujourd'hui de base à cette chimie nouvelle." Cuvier, Progrès des Sciences, vol. i. p. 30. The "aussi" refers to Rey. See also Cuvier, Hist. des Sciences Naturelles, part ii. pp. 322, 346-349. A still more recent writer says, that Boyle "stood, in fact, on the very brink of the pneumatic chemistry of Priestley; he had in his hand the key to the great discovery of Lavoisier." Johnston on Dimorphous Bodies, in Reports of Brit. Assoc. vol. vi. p. 163. See further respecting Boyle, Robin et Verdeil, Chimie Anatomique, Paris, 1853, vol. i. pp. 576, 577, 579, vol. ii. p. 24; and Sprengel, Hist. de la Médecine, vol. iv. p. 177.

civilization, will be traced in another part of this work; but what I now wish to observe, is the way in which such investigations harmonized with the movement I am attempting to describe. In the whole of his physical inquiries, Boyle constantly insists upon two fundamental principles: namely, the importance of individual experiments, and the comparative unimportance of the facts which, on these subjects, antiquity has handed down. These are the two great keys to his method; they are the views which he inherited from Bacon, and they are also the views which have been held by every man who, during the last two centuries, has added any thing of moment to the stock of human knowledge. First to doubt, then to inquire, and then to discover, has been the process universally followed by our great teachers. So strongly did Boyle feel this, that though he was an eminently religious man,73 he gave to the most popular of his scientific works the title of The Sceptical Chemist; meaning to intimate, that until men were sceptical concerning the chemistry of their own time, it would be impossible that they should advance far in the career which lay before them. Nor can we fail to observe, that this remarkable work, in which such havoc was made with old notions, was published in 1661,7+

72

"This disregard of ancient authority appears so constantly in his works, that it is difficult to choose among innumerable passages which might be quoted. I will select one, which strikes me as well expressed, and is certainly very characteristic. In his Free Inquiry into the vulgarly received Notion of Nature, he says (Boyle's Works, vol. iv. p. 359), "For I am wont to judge of opinions as of coins: I consider much less, in any one that I am to receive, whose inscription it bears, than what metal it is made of. It is indifferent enough to me whether it was stamped many years or ages since, or came but yesterday from the mint." In other places he speaks of the "schoolmen" and "gownmen" with a contempt not much inferior to that expressed by Locke himself.

"In his Considerations touching Experimental Essays, he says (Boyle's Works, vol. i. p. 197), "Perhaps you will wonder, Pyrophilus, that in almost every one of the following essays I should speak so doubtingly, and use so often perhaps, it seems, it is not improbable, and such other expressions as argue a diffidence of the truth of the opinions I incline to," &c. Indeed, this spirit is seen at every turn. Thus his Essay on Crystals, which, considering the then state of knowledge, is a remarkable production, is entitled "Doubts and Experiments touching the curious Figures of Salts." Works, vol. ii. p. 488. It is, therefore, with good reason that M. Humboldt terms him 66 the cautious and doubting Robert Boyle." Humboldt's Cosmos, vol. ii. p. 730.

"On the sincere Christianity of Boyle, compare Burnet's Lives and Characters, edit. Jebb, 1833, pp. 351-360; Life of Ken, by a Layman, vol. i. pp. 32, 33; Whewell's Bridgewater Treatise, p. 273. He made several attempts to reconcile the scientific method with the defence of established religious opinions. See one of the best instances of this, in Boyle's Works, vol. v. pp. 38, 39.

74

The Sceptical Chemist is in Boyle's Works, vol. i. pp. 290-371. It went through two editions in the author's lifetime, an unusual success for a book of that kind. Boyle's Works, vol. i. p. 375, vol. iv. p. 89, vol. v. p. 345. I find, from a letter written in 1696 (Fairfax Correspondence, vol. iv. p. 844), that Boyle's works were then becoming scarce, and that there was an intention of reprinting the whole of them. In regard to the Sceptical Chemist, it was so popular, that it attracted the attention of Monconys, a French traveller, who visited London in 1663, and from whom we learn that it was to be bought for four shillings, "pour quatre chelins."

the year after the accession of Charles II., in whose reign the spread of incredulity was indeed rapid, since it was seen not only among the intellectual classes, but even among the nobles and personal friends of the king. It is true, that in that rank of society, it assumed an offensive and degenerate form. But the movement must have been one of no common energy, which, in so early a stage, could thus penetrate the recesses of the palace, and excite the minds of the courtiers; a lazy and feeble race, who from the frivolity of their habits are, under ordinary circumstances, predisposed to superstition, and prepared to believe whatever the wisdom of their fathers has bequeathed to them.

In every thing this tendency was now seen. Every thing marked a growing determination to subordinate old notions to new inquiries. At the very moment when Boyle was prosecuting his labours, Charles II. incorporated the Royal Society, which was formed with the avowed object of increasing knowledge by direct experiment.75 And it is well worthy of remark, that the charter now first granted to this celebrated institution declares that its object is the extension of natural knowledge, as opposed to that which is supernatural.76

It is easy to imagine with what terror and disgust these things were viewed by those inordinate admirers of antiquity, who, solely occupied in venerating past ages, are unable either to respect the present or hope for the future. These great obstructors of mankind played, in the seventeenth century, the

Voyages de Monconys, vol. iii. p. 67, edit. 1695; a book containing some very curious facts respecting London in the reign of Charles II.; but, so far as I am aware, not quoted by any English historian. In Sprengel's Hist. de la Médecine, vol. v. pp. 78-9, there is a summary of the views advocated in the Sceptical Chemist, respecting which Sprengel says, "Ce fut cependant aussi en Angleterre que s'élevèrent les premiers doutes sur l'exactitude des explications chimiques."

75"From the nature and constitution of the Royal Society, the objects of their attention were necessarily unlimited. The physical sciences, however, or those which are promoted by experiment, were their declared objects; and experiment was the method which they professed to follow in accomplishing their purpose." Thomson's Hist. of the Royal Society, p. 6. When the society was first instituted, experiments were so unusual, that there was a difficulty of finding the necessary workmen in London. See a curious passage in Weld's Hist. of the Royal Society, 1848, vol. ii. p. 88.

76 Dr. Paris (Life of Sir H. Davy, 1831, vol. ii. p. 178) says, "The charter of the Royal Society states, that it was established for the improvement of natural science. This epithet natural was originally intended to imply a meaning, of which very few persons, I believe, are aware. At the period of the establishment of the society, the arts of witchcraft and divination were very extensively encouraged; and the word natural was therefore introduced in contradistinction to supernatural.” The charters granted by Charles II. are printed in Weld's Hist. of the Royal Society, vol. ii. pp. 481-521. Evelyn (Diary, 13 Aug. 1662, vol. ii. p. 195) mentions, that the object of the Royal Society was "natural knowledge." See also Aubrey's Letters and Lives, vol. ii. p. 358; Pulteney's Hist. of Botany, vol. ii. pp. 97, 98; and on the distinction thus established in the popular mind between natural and supernatural, compare Boyle's Works, vol. ii. p. 455, vol. iv. pp. 288, 359.