Page:History of the Royal Society.djvu/414

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
388
The HISTORY of

been raised from Subjects before untouch'd (though they also have given us very many) but from the most studied and most familiar Things, that have been always in Mens Hands and Eyes. For this I shall only instance in Printing, in the Circulation of the Blood, in Mr. Boyle's Engine for the sucking out of Air, in the making of Guns, in the Microscopical Glasses, and in the Pendulum Clocks of Hugenius. What might we have believ'd to be perfect, if not the Art of Mens Communicating their Thoughts one to another? What was nearer to them than their Blood, by which their Life subsists? And what more ready to be found out than its Motion? In what Subject had the Wit of Artificers been more shewn, than in the variety of Clocks and Watches? What Thing was more in Mens View than Glass, through which, in these Countries, the very Light itself is admitted, whereby we discern all Things else? What more natural to us than the Air we breath, with which we form every word to express other Things? What was more studied than the Art of Fighting? What little Stratagem, or Fortification, or Weapon, could one have thought to have been conceal'd from the Greeks and Romans, who were so curious in the Discipline of War? And yet in all these the most obvious Things, the greatest Changes have been made by late Discoveries; which cannot but convince us, that many more are still to come from Things that are as common, if we shall not be wanting to ourselves.

§.XXX. Mechanics improveable by the spreading of Civility. And this we have good reason to trust will be effected, if this Mechanic Genius, which now prevails in these Parts of Christendom, shall happen to spread wider amongst ourselves, and other Civil Nations;

or