Imprimatur Tho. Tomkyns RR mo in Christo Patriac Domino D no Gilberto Divinâ Providentiâ Archiepisc Cant. à Sacr. Dom. PLUS ULTRA OR THE Progress and Advancement OF KNOWLEDGE Since the Days of ARISTOTLE In an ACCOUNT of some of the most Remarkable LATE IMPROVEMENTS OF Practical Useful Learning To Encourage PHILOSOPHICAL ENDEAVOURS OCCASIONED By a Conference with one of the NOTIONAL Way By Ios. GLANVILL LONDON Printed for Iames Collins at the Kings-Head in Westminster-Hall 1668. TO THE Right Reverned Father in GOD WILLIAM Lord Bishop of Bathe and Wells MY LORD T Is a common and vain pretence in Dedications That the Name of the Great Person is prefixed to keep off Censure And if it would do so in earnest the Author might secure himself upon easie terms and those that write Books need not complain so much of the Tongues of the Envious and the Ignorant But the worst on 't is they that use the Courtship intend it for no other and know that they are no more secure under the Title of their Patron than a Man in Battle is behind a Target made with a Paper-Picture of St. George But my Lord though I contemn those silly Romantick kinds of Flatteries yet I have a real need of your Lordship's Name which without this Vanity I may use in my defence since the Angry Gentleman that gave occasion to the following Discourse hath usurp'd it to give colour to his Reproaches What are the Particulars I have told your Lordship and have mentioned them in some of the nearest ensuing Leaves And since the Man of Disputations hath accused me for an Infidel and framed a Story concerning your Lordship to confirm it I think it not sufficient to confute the Charge but must also shame the Legend which no doubt your Name here prefixt and the Assurance you were pleased to give me that it was not true will do effectually It becomes not me my Lord to suggest any Reflections to kindle your displeasure for this Invention to which certainly your Lordship owes no great Acknowledgments But to decline all things that look like Envy or Revenge I humbly implore on his behalf your Pardon of the Forgery and on my own your Permission to deal with this Disputer This perhaps some may judge a bold Offer in one that pretends not great Matters to undertake the Man of Gath but I have no dread of the formidable bulk of his Name and Arms and some think Most of the famed Giants were indeed but Men of ordinary stature For the Reputation of a great Disputant which my Assailant hath in this Country it signifies no more with me than that of a good Cudgel-player or Master of Fence and what this Doughty Man 's Art and Force is I have seen so much as instructs me that there is no great reason to apprehend mighty Dangers from his Puissance My Lord I have no contempt of any Mans Parts or Person that keeps himself within the bounds of Modesty and Civility but for those that are confident imperious abusive and assuming I confess 't is hard for me to speak of them with much Complement or respect And having taken the boldness to say all this some perhaps may expect that I should have the Duty and Justice to say a great deal more and that I should celebrate your Lordship after the manner of Dedications But I began with reproving one of those usual Vanities and shall not end in the practice of another Those Epistolary Praises are mostly intended for little and go for nothing For Flattery and Poetick Youth have strainâ—d them to such a ridiculous height that Wise men judge of them by the same measures as they do the Courtships of Common Amours I dare not therefore offer your Gravity and Wisdom such vulgarâ— and obnoxious Trifles but instead of those Fooleries I give your Lordship the serious assurance of my affectionate Duty with the most grateful acknowledgment of your Favours And that your aged Head may be Crowned with all the Blessings of a long Time and after that with the full Glories of an happy Eternity shall ever be the Prayer of My Lord Your Lordships obliged and dutiful Servant Jos. GLANVILL THE PREFACE TO THE REVEREND CLERGY OF THE Diocess of B. and W. FATHERS and BRETHREN THE Respect I owe you and the Relation the following Discourse hath to a Reverend Man of your Number make me reckon my self obliged in point of Civility and Decorum to give you an Account of this Engagement Not that I think so meanly of YOU or of my Cause as to endeavour to bribe or flatter You into any partiality of judgment in my favour which no doubt You would disclaim and I hope I shall not need But I judge an Information in some Particulars may be necessary to a free and unprejudiced Examination of the things contained in these Papers And I begin with the desire That you would consider me as a Person that contemns all Wranglings and vehemencies of Dispute and there is somewhat of Hell in all Wars Especially I dislike and lament all Publick Controversies among those of the Sacred Function by which great disrepute and reproach have been brought both upon Them and It besides the other numerous Mischiefs they have done Religion and the Peace of Men. And in those Differences in which eager Theologues have been engaged I have much pitied the meanness and disorders of their Spirits in the disingenuity and violence of their Assaults â—â—on one anothers Reputations in â—â—hich the Question was not concernâ— but the Cause of each much disâ—â—ved by their respective abuses By â—hich Premisals You may perhaps â—â—ink that I am drawing up a Charge against my own Discourse which relates a Controversie and one with a Divine that some possibly may judge too not to savour in the menage of it of so much Candour and modest Sweetness as I seem to recommend The Answer of this will be the first business of this PREFACE Therefore for the publishing the matter of a Dispute and that which was privately begun I have to say That the Grave Man gave me occasion enough of Displeasure and Complaint by the dreadful and most injurious Censure of Atheism charged upon me for saying no moâ—â— than that The Scripture not writ after the way of 〈◊〉 Methods and that God 〈◊〉 those Holy Oracles did appâ—â— himself much to the Imaginâ—tion of the Prophets Tâ—â— former of which Sayings is so evideâ—â— to one that considers the Inspireâ— Writings that it will no doubt reâ—â— dily be granted by Wise men of aâ—â— denominations in Religion and should much wonder it is by anâ— one made a question but that we arâ— fallen into an Age in which nâ— Truth and Evidence can secure anâ—â— thing from the Captiousness of Disâ—puters For the other I have thâ— Suffrage of all that ever pretended to understand any thing of the Prophetick Spirit as I could at large make appear if I thought any needed information
Advancements Of these I have given some Instances in the more remarkable Particulars For I intend not a full and accurate History of all the late Improvements of Science but so much as may serve my aim of confuting the fond Saying of my Antagonist and exciting of Philosophical Endeavours In which I confess I had a principal eye upon the ROYAL SOCIETY and the Noble Purposes of that Illustrious Assembly which I look upon as the great ferment of useful and generous Knowledge and have said enough I think to justifie that Apprehension in the following Sheetsâ— And because some pious men are afraid of an Institution they have heard but imperfectly of and are jealous of what they have not had opportunities to understand I have therefore given a succinct Account of the Reason Nature and Designs of that Establishment for the information of such as have not met with their Excellent HISTORY Besides which I think fit to add here That WE of the CLERGIE have no reason to apprehend danger from that Constitution since so many Pious Learned and Excellent Persons of our Order are Members of that Body And for the prevention of those panick causeless Terrours I shall take the boldness here to name some of those Venerable and Worthy Ecclesiasticks I find therefore in their Catalogue The Most Reverend the Lords Archbishops of CANTERBURIE and YORK The Right Reverend the Lords Bishops of ELY LONDON ROCHESTER SARUM WINTON and those other Reverend Doctors Dr. Iohn Wilkins Dean of RIPPON Dr. Edward Cotton Archdeacon of CORNWALL Dr. RALPH BATHURST President of Trin. Coll. OXON Dr. Iohn Pearson Margaret Professour of CAMBRIDGE Dr. Iohn Wallis Professor of Geometry in OXFORD Dr. William Holder Dr. Henry More Dr. Iohn Pell and I reserve for your nearer notice an excellent Person of your Neighbourhood and Number Dr. Iohn Beale who in an Age that usually cools and sinks as to the more active Designs doth yet retain the vigour and vivacity of sprightly youth with the judgement of the ripest years and is unwearied in the noblest Activities and most generous Prosecutions And now I hope that there is none of you guilty of so great an immodesty and irreverence as to judge those Designs to have an evil Aspect upon Religion which are subscribed and promoted by so many great and grave Divines of such known Piety and Iudgment And the mention of those Celebrated Names may serve to remove another groundless suspicion which some have entertained viz. That the Universities are undermined by this new Philosophick Society For whoever phancieth or suggests that casts a black Character upon the sagacity and faithfulness of those Reverend Men who all have been Eminent Members of one or other of those Schools of Learning and most of them do still retain a Relation to those ancient and venerable Bodies But to supersede further Discourse about this here I owe some things else to my self which is to answer the Objection of my opposing the great Name of ARISTOTLE Concerning it I have said Some things in this Book and more in others For the present therefore I shall content my self to suggest That I am very ready to give chearful Acknowledgements to his Rhetorick History of Animals and Mechanicks and could wish that these were more studied by his devoted Admirers But for the notional and disputing parts of his Philosophy it hath deeply troubled me when I have considered how much they have taken up that Time and those Endeavours which should have been imployed in surveying the Works of GOD that magnifie and discover their Author from which only the true Philosophy is to be obtained And the zeal I have for the Glory of the Almighty discovered in his Creatures hath inspired me with some smartness and severity against those Heathen Notions which have so unhappily diverted Learned men from the study of Gods GREAT BOOK UNIVERSAL NATURE and consequently robb'd Him of that Honour and those Acclamations that are due to him for those admirable Results of his Wisdom and Goodness And now 't is high time to draw up to the last Requests I have to You which are That you would please to do me that right deliberately to weigh my following accounts which though I have designed to express with all imaginable perspicuity and clearness yet I cannot expect that they should presently enter into Minds that most ordinarily converse with another sort of Matters upon an hasty and careless perusal I say therefore I appeal to the reflecting and considerate thoughts of attentive and judicious men But for the hair-brain'd half-witted Censurers that only tell the Leaves of Books and pass Definitive Sentences at a venture I except against their Verdicts and contemn them You see upon the whole that I have dealt openly with my Antagonist and have said all to himself and the Publick and more than ever I did on any private occasion Though I believe that he that hath endeavoured skulkingly and by envious Arts to traduce me would be ashamed to own that in the face of the light and mine which he hath reported in corners Whether he intends to answer my Relations and Reflections or sit down in a grave silence I cannot tell If he doth the former I look that he should shew either that there are no such Instances of Improvement in Knowledge since Aristotle as I have reckoned or That they are no Advantage for the Increase of SCIENCE If he proves either of these his Return will be an Answer and I shall admire his Wit in an eternal respect and silence But if he offers any thing else for a Reply I appeal to you whether it be like to be to purpose or whether I shall have any need to trouble my self to rejoyn to an impertinence But on the other hand if his Sageness resolve to sit down and gravely to say nothing in Return which 't is like his Wisdom will counsel him to be best I expect from such an Ingenuity as his that he should fall again to his little arts of Calumny and deal with my Book as he hath with my Person assault it behind with dirt and hard-names and confute it with a Pish or a great word or two among his private Admirers This no doubt will be the easiest way of Answering and those that have got great Reputation by Artifice Chance Uapouring or the Ignorance of those they converse with have commonly the prudence not to put it to the hazard of publick Tryals I do not say this is the Case of the Reverend Disputer let those that know judge However 't is my Antagonist being of long standing in these Parts is like to have the wind here and whether his Reply be publique or not I reckon he will blow the DUST upon me but if I have the SUN as I hope I shall have no reason to regret his Advantage The Truth is I desire to conflict in an open Champaigne where there may be less danger of guile treachery and ambush But
as a company of men whose only aim is to set up some new Theories and Notions in Philosophy whereas indeed Their first and chief Imployment is carefully to seek and faithfully to report how things are de facto and They continually declare against the establishment of Theories and Speculative Doctrines which they note as one of the most considerable miscarriages in the Philosophy of the Schools And their business is not to Dispute but Work So that those others also that look on them as pursuing phancyful Designs are as wide and unjust in their ill-contriv'd Censure Since Their Aims are to free Philosophy from the vain Images and Compositions of Phansie by making it palpable and bringing it down to the plain objects of the Senses For those are the Faculties which they employ and appeal to and complain that Knowledge hath too long hover'd in the clouds of Imagination So that methinks this ignorant Reproach is as if those that doated on the Tales of the Fabulous Age should clamour against Herodotus and Thucydides as idle Romancers For the main intendment of this Society is to erect a well-grounded Natural History which takes off the heats of wanton Phansie hinders its extravagant excursions and ties it down to sober Realities But this Sir I only touch en passant and though I am not close upon the main thing I intend yet I cannot forbear taking notice of an insulting Objection that we hear frequently in this Question What have they Done To this I could answer in short as I have once already suggested more than all the Philosophers of the Notional way since Aristotle opened his Shop in Greece Which Saying may perhaps look to some like a fond and bold Sentence but whoever compares the Repository of this society with all the Volumes of Disputers will find it neither immodest nor unjust And their History hath given us Instances sufficient of their Experiments Observations and Instruments to justifie a bolder Affirmation But I insist not on this The thing I would have you observe is That those who make the captious Question do not comprehend the vastness of the Work of this Assembly or have some phantastical Imaginations of it They consider not the Design is laid as low as the profoundest Depths of Nature and reacheth as high as the uppermost Story of the Vniverse That it extends to all the Varieties of the great World and aims at the benefit of universal Mankind For could they expect that such mighty Projects as these should ripen in a moment Can a Cedar shoot up out of the Earth like a blade of Grass or an Elephant grow to the vastness of his bulk as soon as a little Insect can be form'd of a drop of Dew No The true knowledge of general Nature like Nature it self in its noblest composures must proceed slowly by degrees almost insensible and what one Age can do in so immense and Undertaking as that wherein all the generations of Men are concerned can be little more than to remove the Rubbish lay in Materials and put things in order for the Building Our work is to overcome prejudices to throw aside what is useless and yields no advantage for Knowledge or for Life To perswade men that there is worthier Imployment for them than tying knots in bulrushes and that they may be better accommodated in a well-built House than in a Castle in the Air. We must seek and gather observe and examine and lay up in Bank for the Ages that come after This is the business of the Experimental Philosophers and in these Designs a progress hath been made sufficient to satisfie sober expectations But for those that look they should give them the Great Elixir the Perpetual Motion the way to make Glass malleable and Man immortal or they will object that the Philosophers have done nothing for such I say their impertinent Taunts are no more to be regarded than the little chat of Ideots and Children CHAP. XIII An Account of what hath been done by the Illustrious Mr. Boyle for the promotion of Useful Knowledge BUt Sir I think I am fallen into things of which the Ingenious Historian hath somewhere given better accounts and therefore I draw off though before I quite take leave of this Head of my Discourse I think fit yet further to shew the injustice of the Reproach of having done nothing as 't is applied to the Royal Society by a single Instance in one of their Members who alone hath done enough to oblige all Mankind and to erect an eternal Monument to his Memory So that had this great Person lived in those days when men Godded their Benefactors he could not have miss'd one of the first places among their deified Mortals And you will be convinc'd that this is not vainly said when I have told you I mean the Illustrious Mr. BOYLE a Person by whose proper Merits that noble Name is as much adorned as by all the splendid Titles that it wears And that this Honourable Gentleman hath done such things for the benefit of the World and increase of Knowledge you will see if you converse with him in his excellent Writings where you will find the greatest strength and the gentilest smoothness the most generous Knowledge and the sweetest Modesty the noblest Discoveries and the sincerest Relations the greatest Self-denial and the greatest Love of Men the profoundest insight into Philosophy and Nature and the most devout affectionate Sense of God and of Religion And in saying all this I do not fear the Envy that great praise excites for that cannot be so impudent to deny the justice of this acknowledgment But Sir I consider the commendation of this incomparable Person was not the thing I undertook but a succinct and general representation of his Philosophical Performances And to that I now address my self without more Preface I. In his Book of the AIR we have a great improvement of the Magdeburg Experiment of emptying Glass Vessels by exsuction of the Air to far greater degrees of evacuation ease and conveniences for use as also an advance of that other famous one of Torricellius performed by the New Engine of which I have said some things above and call'd the AIR-PVMP By this Instrument as I have already intimated the Nature Spring Expansion Pressure and Weight of the Air the decrease of its force when dilated the Doctrine of a Vacuum the Height of the Atmosphere the Theories of Respiration Sounds Fluidity Gravity Heat Flame the Magnet and several other useful and luciferous Matters are estimated illustrated and explain'd And 2. The great Doctrine of the Weight and Spring of the Air is solidly vindicated and further asserted by the Illustrious Author in another BOOK against HOBS and LINVS 3. In his PHYSIOLOGICAL and EXPERIMENTAL ESSAYS he nobly encourageth and perswades the making of Experiments and collecting Observations and gives the necessary Cautions that are to be used in such Designs He imparts a very considerable luciferous Experiment
and the manner of their conservation in Individuals of the number of the Praedicaments and what Being is in this and what in another of the inherence and propagation of Accidents the real essence of Relations the nature of Vbi and Quando and a thousand other Logical tricks about Shuffling and ordering Propositions and forms of Syllogism In Physiology he can discourse of the nakedness of First Matter the eduction of Forms out of its bosom shew that the want of a Being is a Principle of it how forms of Elements are refracted in mix'd Bodies Dispute subtilly about the Primum incipiens in Motion the instantaneousness of Generation the Maximum quod sic and the Minimum quod non and infinite more of such wonderful useful significant Speculations And in the Metaphysicks I acknowledge him in the words of the incomparable Droll He knows what 's what and that 's as high As Metaphysick Wit can fly These and other such profundities are some of the main things of that Philosophy to which our Disputer is so zealous a Votary But for the Mechanick that attempts material and intelligible Accounts of things and is in its grounds much ancienter than that of Aristotle which he admires for the Experimental Methods and late Improvements of useful Knowledge as for these I say I had no reason to judge by his Discourse that he had any acquantance with them nor doth he as far as I can perceive pretend it But having it seems concluded That nothing more was to be known than he knew when he disputed in the Schools he hath sate down ever since and hugg'd himself in his own Omniscience and Infallibility without caring to be informed what the inquisitive World hath been doing in this late Age of Inquiry And if it be any thing more than what he hath understood in his Circle of Disputations 't is phantastical and unprofitable and not worthy his care or notice which is very prudently concluded For if it should be otherwise the Disputer would lose the credit of his Superlative Learning CHAP. XVII Of the Peripatetick Philosophy and Aristotle as he concerns the Universites ANd on this occasion Sir I observe the incompetency of their judgements who are Enemies to the Real Experimental Philosophy in that they do not as I intimated at all or very little understand what they condemn This I have some reason to say since in the whole compass of my Acquaintance which is not very narrow I profess I know not one who opposeth the Modern way that is not almost totally unacquainted with it And on the other side upon the most careful turn of my thoughts among my Philosophick Friends I cannot light on one of all those that are for the Free and Experimental Procedure but who have been very well instructed in the Peripatetick Doctrines which they have deserted and most of them much better than those who are yet zealous contenders for them And for my own part I must confess that in my younger and Talkative Age I was much delighted with those subtilities that exercise the Brain in the niceties of Notion and Distinctions and afford a great deal of idle Imployment for the Tongue in the Combates of Disputation In which I acknowledge I was none of the most backward but being highly pleased with those engagements I found as much diversion in them as in my dearest Recreations Yea and in this Recital methinks I feel a kind of sweet relish upon my mind of those past complacencies But after I had spent some vears in those Notional Studies perhaps with as good success as some others I began to think CVIBONO and to consider what these things would signifie in the World of Action and Business I say I thought but I could find no encouragement to proceed from the Answer my thoughts made me I ask'd my self what accounts I could give of the Works of God by my philosophy more than those that have none and found that I could amaze and astonish Ignorance with Distinctions and words of Art but not satifie ingenious Inquiry by any considerable and material Resolutions I consider'd I had got nothing all this while but a certain readiness in talking and that about things which I could not use abroad without being Pedantick and ridiculous I perceived that that Philosophy aimed at no more than the instructing men in Notion and Dispute That its Design was mean and its Principles at the best uncertain and precarious That they did not agree among themselves nor at all with Nature I examined the best Records I could meet with about the Author of those current Hypotheses but could not be assured that Aristotle was he I saw many Reasons to believe that most of the Books that bear his Name are none of his and those that are most strongly presumed to be so are mightily altered and correupted by Time Ignorance Carelesness and Design I perceived that the Commentators and late Disputers had exceedingly disguised and changed the Sense of those very Writings and made up a Philosophy that was quite another thing from that which those Books contain So that by these means I was by degrees taken off from the implicit Veneration I had for that Learning upon the account of the great Name of Aristotle which it wore And in the process of my Inquiries I lighted upon several excellent Authors who said and proved very evil things of that Philosopher himself As That he was impious in his Life and many of his Doctrines a Persecutor of the most venerable Sages and corrupter of the Wisdom of the Ancients That he was of no such superlative account in the wisest Times but much opposed and slighted by the First Fathers That he grew into his Magisterial Authority by chance in Times of blackest Ignorance and held an unjust Empire over the free-born Minds of Men who since they are enlightned by the Rays of the glorious Gospel have less reason to bow down to the Dictates of an Idolater and an Heathen I say I found these things and many more urged against the School-Philosopher by men of great Learning and Name Nor could I ever light on any thing in his most devoted Admirers that tended to the answering or disproof of any of those grand Accusations most of which seemed to me to have too much evidence to be easily disabled not to mention how many Reasons I saw my self for the worst of those Characters in the Books that are ascribed to him if really they are his These things then I ponder'd and in the heat of my Thoughts and a youthful Indigntion I drew up the charge and gave in the full of those bold Accounts to the publick in a Letter about Aristotle which perhaps you will not do amiss to consider Thus the great impediment was removed and the prejudcie of Education overcome when I thought further That useful Knowledge was to be look'd for in God's great Book the Vniverse and among those generous Men that had converst
give here and more I have to say in another place And now I had ended your trouble but that upon the cast of my thoughts back I have considered that my main business being the Recommendation and Advancement of the Modern Vseful Knowledge I need make an Apology to the generous Friends of that way and particularly the ROYAL SOCIETY for my Discourse of Them and those their great Designs in a Treatise that contains matter of difference and contest which are so fundamentally contrary to their Spirit and Endeavours and it may perhaps be feared that some will take occasion hence to look on the Neoterick Philosophers as but a new sort of Disputers To which I say That for my publick appearance in a Controversie I have already given such an Account as may I hope satisfie the Candid and Ingenious of the necessity that inforced it and for the apprehension of raising mean and injurious thoughts of the Practical Philosophers by defending them in a Book of Difference I hope it is causeless since I have from first to last represented their Aims and Designs as things very different yea perfectly opposite to that Spirit and Genius and I shall now for a close assure you again That there is nothing tends more to the undermining and supplanting the humour of Disputing than the Experimental and Free Philosophy For this inlargeth the Mind and gives it a prospect of the vastness of things and the imperfections of our Knowledge the Difficulties that are to be incountred in the search of Truth and our liableness to deception the stumbles of Confidence the prejudices of Education the shortness of our Senses the precipitancy of our Vnderstandings and the malign influence of our Affections I say the Free and Real Philosophy makes men deeply sensible of the infirmities of humane Intellect and our manifold hazards of mistaking and so renders them wary and modest diffident of the certainty of their Conceptions and averse to the boldness of peremptory asserting So that the Philosopher thinks much and examines many things separates the Certainties from the Plausibilities that which is presumed from that which is prov'd the Images of Sense Phansie and Education from the Dictates of genuine and impartial Reason Thus he doth before he Assents or Denies and then he takes with him also a Sense of his own Fallibility and Defects and never concludes but upon resolution to alter his mind upon contrary evidence Thus he conceives warily and he speaks with as much caution and reserve in the humble Forms of So I think and In my opinion and Perhaps 't is so with great difference to opposite Perswasion candour to dissenters and calmness in contradictions with readiness and desire to learn and great delight in the Discoveries of Truth and Detections of his own Mistakes When he argues he gives his Reasons without passion and shines without flaming discourses without wrangling and differs without dividing He catcheth not at the Infirmities of his Opposite but lays hold of his Strength and weighs the substance without blowing the dust in his eyes He entertains what he finds reasonable and suspends his judgment when he doth not clearly understand This is the Spirit with which men are inspired by the Philosophy I recommend It makes them so just as to allow that liberty of judgment to others which themselves desire and so prevents all imperious Dictates and Imposings all captious Quarrels and Notional Wars And that this is the Philosophick Genius may be shewn in a grand Instance the ROYAL SOCIETY which is the Great Body of Practical Philosophers In this Assembly though it be made up of all kinds of Dispositions Professions and Opinions yet hath Philosophy so rarely temper'd the Constitution that those that attend there never see the least inclination to any unhandsom opposition or uncivil reflexion no bold obtrusions or confident sayings The forbearing such Rudenesses is indeed a Law of that Society and their Designs and Methods of Inquiry naturally form men into the modest temper and secure them from the danger of the quarrelsome Genius This is palpable evidence of the sweet humour and ingenious Tendencies of the Free Philosophy and I believe 't will be hard to shew such another Example in any so great a Body of differing Inclinations and Apprehensions Thus the Experimental Learning rectifies the grand abuse which the Notional Knowledge hath so long foster'd and promoted to the hinderance of Science the disturbance of the World and the prejudice of the Christian Faith And there is no doubt but as it hath altered and reformed the Genius in matters of natural Research and Inquiry so it will in its progress dispose mens Spirits to more calmness and modesty charity and prudence in the Differences of Religion and even silence Disputes there For the free sensible Knowledge tends to the altering the Crasis of mens minds and so cures the Disease at the root and true Philosophy is a Specifick against Disputes and Divisions Thus I might run out into a large Discourse on this Subject but I have said enough for my present purpose and I doubt too much for your patience and therefore I shut up with the assurance of my being SIR Your faithful Friend and Servant JOS. GLANVâ—ILL ERRATA PAge 26. line 6. for Philophy read Philosophy p. 30. l. 11. for Elipsis r. Ellipsis Id. l. 19. p. 33. l. 18. for adserted r. affected p. 39. l. 5. r. Anaximenes p. 43. l. 16. r. one Id. l. 24. r. Christophorus p. 65. l. 26. r. Vegetables p. 133. l. 24. r. 2 Cor. xii THE CONTENTS CHAP. I. The INTRODUCTION page 1. CHAP. II. The ways of Improving Vseful Knowledge proposed The Advantages this Age hath from the great Advancements of Chymistry and Anatomy p. 9. CHAP. III. Another great Advantage of late Times from the Improvements of Mathematicks particularly of Arithmetick Algebra and Geometry discourst by Instances p. 19. CHAP. IV. Improvements in Geometry by Des Cartes Vieta and Dr. Wallis p. 31. CHAP. V. The late Improvements of Astronomy p. 38. CHAP. VI. Improvements of Opticks and Geography p. 46. CHAP. VII That Useful Knowledge is to be aided by Instruments Modern Instances of such Of the Telescope Microscope and Thermometer p. 51. CHAP. VIII Of the Barometer and Air-Pump and what Advantages we have and may further expect from these Instruments p. 59. CHAP. IX The Credit of Optick-Glasses vindicated against a Disputing Man who is afraid to believe his Eyes against Aristotle p. 65. CHAP. X. Our Advantages for Knowledge from Modern Improvements of Natural History p. 71. CHAP. XI The Advantages of late Ages for spreading and communicating Knowledge Three great Instances of it in Printing the Compass and the Royal Society p. 75. CHAP. XII Of the ROYAL SOCIETY The Reasons of the Institution and their Designs An Answer to the Question What have they done p. 83. CHAP. XIII An Account of what hath beeen done by the Illustrious Mr. Boyle for the promotion of Useful Knowledge p. 92. CHAP. XIV A further Account of what that Gentleman of Honour hath by him not yet publish'd for the Advantage and Improvement of Real Knowledge The Reasons we have to hope great Things from the Royal Society p. 102. CHAP. XV. The Absurdity of making Comparison between the Advantages Aristotle had for Knowledge and those of later Ages p. 110. CHAP. XVI The Reasons of some Mens Superstitious Adherence to the Notional way and of the Disputer that gave occasion to this Discourse p. 115. CHAP. XVII Of the Peripatick Philosophy and Aristotle as he concerns the Universities p. 122. CHAP. XVIII Some things else debated by the Author with the Disputer about the Prophets and the Scriptures The Imagination was ordinarily the immediate Subject of Prophetick Influx p. 128. The CONCLUSION Containing Observations about the Censure of Atheism applied to Philosophical Men and the Author's Apology to the ROYAL SOCIETY and other generous Philosophers p. 137. Books newly Printed for James Collins at the Kings-Head in Westminster Hall ABlow at Modern Sadducism in some Philosophical Considerations about witchcraft To which is added The Relation of the Fam'd Disturbance by the Drummer in the House of Mr. Iohn Mompesson With some Reflections on Drollery and Atheism By a Member of the Royal Society 8 o. A Loyal Tear drop'd on the Vault of our late Martyr'd Sovereign in an Anniversary Sermon on the Day of his Murther 4 o. Two Discourses of Toleration By Dr. Perrinchief In Answer to two Discourses of Mr. Corbet's 4 o. A Discourse of Subterraneal Treasure 12 o. The Practice of Serious Godliness Affectionately recommended and directed in some Religious Counsels of a Pious Mother to her dear Daughter 12 o. The Triumphs of Rome over Despised Protestancy 8 o. A Sermon preached before the Peers in the Abby-Church at Westminster Octob. 10. 1666. being the Fast-day for the late Fire By Seth Lord Bishop of Exon. 4 o. Ex Aed Lamb. Maii 2. 1668.