Design. And to accomplish this, they have endeavoured, to separate the Knowledge of Nature, from the Colours of Rhetorick, the Devices of Fancy, or the delightful Deceit of Fables. They have labour'd to enlarge it, from being confined to the Custody of a few, or from Servitude to private Interests. They have driven to preserve it from being over-press'd by a confus'd Heap of vain and useless Particulars; or from being streightned and bound too much up by general Doctrines. They have tried to put it into a Condition of perpetual Increasing; by settling an inviolable Correspondence between the Hand and the Brain. They have studied to make it not only an Enterprise of one Season, or of some lucky Opportunity; but a Business of Time; a steady, a lasting, a popular, an uninterrupted Work. They have attempted, to free it from the Artifice, and Humours, and Passions of Sects: to render it an Instrument, whereby Mankind may obtain a Dominion over Things, and not only over one another's Judgments: And lastly, they have begun to establish these Reformations in Philosophy, not so much, by any solemnity of Laws, or Ostentation of Ceremonies, as by solid Practice and Examples; not by a glorious Pomp of Words; but by the silent, effectual, and unanswerable Arguments of real Productions.
This will more fully appear, by what I am to say on these four Particulars, which shall make up this Part of my Relation, the Qualifications of their Members; the Manner of their Inquiry; their Weekly Assemblies and their Way of Registring.
Sect. VI. The Qualifications of the Members of the Royal Society.As for what belongs to the Members themselves that are to constitute the Society: It is to be noted,that
