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A61158
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The history of the Royal-Society of London for the improving of natural knowledge by Tho. Sprat.
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Sprat, Thomas, 1635-1713.; Cowley, Abraham, 1618-1667. To the Royal Society.
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1667
(1667)
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Wing S5032; ESTC R16577
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253,666
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459
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Society in their Philosophical Studies and Indeavours full Power and Authority is granted unto them to require take and receive from time to time dead bodies of Persons executed and the same to anatomize to all intents and purposes and in as ample manner and form as the Colledge of Physitians and Company of Chirurgions of London by what names soever the said two Corporations are or may be called have had and made use of or may have and use the said Bodies And for the improvement of such Experiments Arts and Sciences as the Society may be imploy'd in full Power and Authority is granted unto them from time to time by Letters under the hand of the President in the presence of the Council to hold Correspondence and Intelligence with any Strangers whether private Persons or Collegiate Societies or Corporations without any Interruption or Molestation whatsoever Provided that this Indulgence or Grant be extended to no further use than the particular Benefit and Interest of the Society in Matters Philosophical Mathematical and Mechanical Full Power and Authority is also granted on the behalf of the Society to the Council to erect and build one or more Colledges within London or ten miles thereof of what form or quality soever for Habitation Assembling or Meeting of the President Council and Fellows about any affairs and businesses of the Society And if any abuses or differences shall ever hereafter arise and happen about the Government or Affairs of the Society whence the Constitution Progress and Improvement or Businesses thereof may suffer or be hindred In such cases His Majesty Assignes and Authorizes His right Trusty and right Well-beloved Cosen and Counsellor Edward Earl of Clarendon Lord High Chancellor of England by himself during his life and after his decease the Lord Arch-bishop of Canterbury the Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England the Lord High Treasurer of England the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal the Lord Bishop of London and the two principal Secretaries of State for the time being or any four or more of them to compose and redress any such differences or abuses And lastly His Majesty straightly charges and commands all Iustices Mayors Aldermen Sheriffs Bayliffs Constables and all other Officers Ministers and Subjects whatsoever from time to time to be aiding and assisting unto the said President Council and Fellows of the Royal Society in and about all things according to the true intention of His Letters Patents This is the Legal Ratification which the Royal Society has receiv'd And in this place I am to render their publick thanks to the Right Honourable the Earl of Clarendon Lord Chancellor of England to Sir Ieffery Palmer Atturny General and to Sir Heneage Finch Sollicitor General who by their cheerful concurrence and free promotion of this Confirmation have wip'd away the aspersion that has been scandalously cast on the Profession of the Law that it is an Enemy to Learning and the Civil Arts. To shew the falsehood of this reproach I might instance in many Iudges and Counsellors of all Ages who have been the ornaments of the Sciences as well as of the Bar and Courts of Iustice. But it is enough to declare that my Lord Bacon was a Lawyer and that these eminent Officers of the Law have compleated this foundation of the Royal Society which was a work well becoming the largeness of his Wit to devise and the greatness of their Prudence to establish According to the intention of these Letters Patents their Council has ever since been annually renew'd their President their Treasurer their Secretaries chosen The chief employments of the Council have been to manage their Political affairs to regulate disorders to make addresses and applications in their behalf to guard their Priviledges to disperse correspondents but Principally to form the Body of their Statutes which I will here insert An Abstract of the Statutes of the Royal Society WHatever Statute shall be made or repeal'd the making or repealing of it shall be voted twice and at two several meetings of the Council This Obligation shall be subscrib'd by every Fellow or his election shall be void WE who have hereto subscrib'd do promise each for himself that we will indeavour to promote the good of the Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge and to pursue the ends for which the same was founded that we will be present at the Meetings of the Society as often as conveniently we can especially at the anniversary Elections and upon extraordinary occasions and that we will observe the Statutes and Orders of the said Society Provided that whenever any of us shall signifie to the President under his hand that he desires to withdraw from the Society he shall be free from this Obligation for the future Every Fellow shall pay his admission money and afterwards contribution towards the defraying of the charges of Observations and Experiments c. The ordinary meetings of the Royal Society shall be held once a week where none shall be present besides the Fellows without the leave of the Society under the degree of a Baron in one of His Majesties three Kingdoms or of His Majesties Privie Council or unless he be an eminent Forreigner and these only without the leave of the President The business of their weekly Meetings shall be To order take account consider and discourse of Philosophical Experiments and Observations to read hear and discourse upon Letters Reports and other Papers containing Philosophical matters as also to view and discourse upon the productions and rarities of Nature and Art and to consider what to deduce from them or how they may be improv'd for use or discovery The Experiments that be made at the charge of the Society Two Curators at least shall be appointed for the Inspection of those which cannot be perform'd before the Society by them the bare report of matter of Fact shall be stated and return'd The Election of Fellows shall be made by way of Ballet and their Admission by a solemn Declaration made by the President of their Election The Election of the Council and Officers shall be made once a year Eleven of the present Council shall be continued by Lot for the next year and ten new Ones chosen in like manner Out of this new Council shall be elected a President Treasurer and two Secretaries in the same way The President shall preside in all meetings regulate all debates of the Society and Council state and put Questions call for Reports and Accounts from Committees Curators and others summon all extraordinary meetings upon urgent occasions and see to the execution of the Statutes The Vice-President shall have the same power in the absence of the President The Treasurer or his Deputy shall receive and keep Accounts of all money due to the Society and disburse all money payable by the Society He shall pay small sums by order of the President under his hand but those
little to be suspected for making men pervers and ungovernable that it is the best praeservative against disobedience One of the principal Causes of this is a misguided Conscience and opposing the pretended Dictates of God against the Commands of the Sovereign This I have already shewn that these labors will moderat and reform by abolishing or restraining the fury of Enthusiasm Another is idle poverty which drives men into fulleness melancholy discontent and at last into resistance of lawful Authority To this Experiments will afford a certain cure they will take away all pretence of idleness by a constant cours of pleasant indeavors they will employ men about profitable Works as well as delightful by the pleasure of their Discoveries they will wear off the roughness and sweeten the humorous peevishness of mind whereby many are sowr'd into Rebellion But the most fruitful Parent of Sedition is Pride and a lofty conceit of mens own wisdom whereby they presently imagine themselves sufficient to direct and censure all the actions of their Governors And here that is true in Civil affairs which I have already quoted out of my Lord Bacon concerning Divine A litle Knowledge is subject to make men headstrong insolent and untractable but a great deal has a quite contrary effect inclining them to be submissive to their Betters and obedient to the Sovereign Power The Science that is acquir'd by Disputation teaches men to cavil well and to find fault with accurate subtilty it gives them a fearless confidence of their own judgments it leads them from contending in sport to oppositions in earnest it makes them believe that every thing is to be handled for and against in the State as well as in the Schools But the unfeign'd and laborious Philosophy gives no countenance to the vain dotages of privat Politicians that bends its Disciples to regard the benefit of mankind and not the disquiet that by the moderation it prescribes to our thoughts about Natural Things will also take away all sharpness and violence about Civil The Work of that is so vast that it cannot be perform'd without the assistance of the Prince It will not therefore undermine his Authority whose aid it implores that prescribes a better way to bestow our time than in contending about litle differences in which both the Conquerors and the Conquer'd have always reason to repent of their success That shews us the difficulty of ord'ring the very motions of senseless and irrational things and therefore how much harder it is to rule the restless minds of men That teaches men humility and acquaints them with their own errors and so removes all overweening haughtiness of mind and swelling imaginations that they are better able to manage Kingdoms than those who possess them This without question is the chief root of all the uneasiness of Subjects to their Princes The World would be better govern'd if so many did not praesume that they are fit to sustain the cares of Government Transgression of the Law is Idolatry The reason of mens contemning all Iurisdiction and Power proceeds from their Idolizing their own Wit They make their own Prudence omnipotent they suppose themselves infallible they set up their own Opinions and worship them But this vain Idolatry will inevitably fall before Experimental Knowledge which as it is an enemy to all manner of fals superstitions so especially to that of mens adoring themselves and their own Fancies I have now at last brought my Reader by a tedious compass to the end of our Journey And here I desire him to look back and to make a reflection on the matters of which I have treated In the first part of my Discours I have alleg'd the Causes by which these Studies were suppress'd in all former Ages which have bin Interest of Sects the violence of Disputations the plausible Arts of Speech the Religious Controversies the Dogmatical Opinions the poverty of the Vndertakers and the want of a continual race of Experimenters In the Second I have shew'd by what steps the Royal Society arose what it has propos'd to attempt what cours it has taken to make its Observations universal and perpetual what assistance has bin afforded it to that purpose and about what particulars it has bin conversant In the Third I have try'd to free it from the false scandals of Ignorance and the praejudices of several ways of life and to prove that its effects will more immediatly refer to our own Country My Reader now beholds an Assembly setled of many eminent men of all Qualities who have ingag'd to bestow their labors on a design so public and so free from all suspicion of mean or private Interest What foundation they have within themselves for defraying the expence of their Trials and Intelligence may be ghess'd by their Number which at this present amounts very neer to Two Hundred as appears by this following Catalogue which I have rang'd Alphabetically The King's Majesty Founder and Patron His Royal Highness the Duke of York His Highness Prince Rupert His Highness Ferdinand Albert Duke of Brunswick and Lunenbourgh The Duke of Albermarle the Earl of Alesbury the Earl of Argill the Lord Ashley the Lord Annesley Mr. Ashmole Sr. Robert Atkins Mr. Austin Mons. Auzout Mr. Awbrey The Duke of Buckingham the Lord George Berkeley the Lord Brereton Mr. Bagnal Mr. Bains Mr. William Balle Mr. Isaac Barrow Dr. George Bate Dr. Bathurst Dr. Beal Mons. Beaufort de Fresars Sr. Iohn Birkinhead Mr. Blunt Mr. Boyl Mr. Brook Dr. Bruce Mons. Bullialdus Mr. Burnet Sr. Edward Byshe The Lord Arch-Bishop of Canterbury the Earl of Clarendon Lord Chancellor of England the Earl of Carlile the Earl of Craford and Lindsay the Lord Cavendish the Lord Clifford Mr. Carkess Mr. Carteret Dr. Charleton Sr. Winstone Churchill Sr. Iohn Clayton Sr. Clifford Clifton Mr. George Cock Sr. Richard Corbet Dr. Cotton Dr. Cox Mr. Thomas Cox Mr. Daniel Cox Mr. Creed Mr. Crispe Sr. Iohn Cutler The Marquess of Dorchester the Earl of Devonshire the Earl of Dorset Mons. Vital de Damas Sr. George Ent Mr. Ellise Mr. Iohn Evelyn Sr. Francis Fane Mons. le Febvre Sr. Iohn Finch Mr. Henry Ford Sr. Bernhard Gascoigne Mr. Ioseph Glanvile Dr. Glisson Mr William Godolphin Mr. Graunt The Lord Hatton Mr. Haak Mr. William Hammond Mr. William Harrington Sr. Edward Harley Sr. Robert Harley Mr. Harley Dr. Henshaw Mons. Hevelius Mr. Abraham Hill Mr. Hoar Dr. Holder Mr. Hook Mr. Charles Howard Mons. Huygens Mr. Richard Iones the Earl of Kincardin Sr. Andrew King Mr. Edmund King the Earl of Lindsey the Lord Bishop of London Mr. Lake Sr. Ellis Leighton Mr. Iames Long Sr. Iohn Lowther Mr. Lowther Mons. Hugues de Lyonne The Earl of Manchester Mons. Nicolas Mercator Dr. More Dr. Iasper Needham Dr. Needham Mr. Thomas Neile Mr. William Neile Mr. Nelthorp Mr. Newburgh Sr. Thomas Nott the Earl of Peterburgh Mr. Packer Mr. Samuel Parker Sr. Robert Paston Dr. Iohn Pearson Dr. Pell Sr. William Persall