ROYAL SOCIETY (of London), consists of a number of persons associated together for the purpose of promoting mathematical and physical science. At its formation the more particular object of the members was to assist each other in extending their knowledge of natural and experimental philosophy.
Philosophical societies for the cultivation or advancement of par ticular branches of human knowledge existed, both on the Continent and in this country, before the end of the 16th century. In Italy, the Florentine Academy and the Academia della Cruses had been founded with the view of improving the language and literature of that country. France had its Academy of Painting and Sculpture, and its Royal Academy of Inscriptions ; and the Antiquarian Society in England was founded in 1572.
England appears to have led the way to the formation of a body of men who sought by mutual co-operation to advance the new philosophy, as it was called ; for Dr. AVallis, in an account of his own life, relates that in 1645, which must therefore have been while the civil war was raging in the country, several persons who then resided in London, at the suggestion of a Mr. Hank, a native of Germany, joined themselves into a club, in which. purposely excluding politics and theology, they agreed to communicate to each other the results of their researches in chemistry, medicine, geometry, astronomy, mechanics, magnetism, navigation, and experimental philosophy in general. Among those who first mot for this worthy purpose were Drs. Wilkins, Wallis, Goddard, Ent, and Glisson, and Messrs. Bask and Forster (the pro fessor of astronomy at Gresham College); and the place of their meeting was generally at Dr. Goddanl'm lodgings, but they occasionally assembled in Gresham College or in its neighbourhood. This is sup posed to be the club which Mr. Boyle, in a letter (1646), designates the invisible or philosophical society.
Before the year 1651, Drs. Wilkins, Wallis, and Goddard, having obtained appointments at Oxford, went to reside in that city, where, being joined by Drs. Seth Ward, Bathurst, Petty, and Willis (the last an eminent physician), and Mr. hooks, they constituted themselves a
society similar to that which they had left in London. They met at first at Dr. Petty's lodgings, which were in the house of an apothecary, where they had access to such drugs as they wished to examine ; and as often as any of the members had occasion to visit the metropolis, they did not fail to attend the meetings of their former associates. When Dr. Petty went to Ireland iu 1652, the meetings at Oxford appear to have been for a time emmended ; for that gentleman, writing from Dublin to Mr. Boyle, in the beginning of 1658, expresses his gratifica tion that the club was revived ; and in the same year the members met either at the apartments of Dr. Wilkins, in Wadhani College, or at the lodgings of Mr. Boyle : the Oxford society continued to exist till 1690, when the meetings terminated. It appears, however, that, in the beginning of 1659, all of them, except Mr. Boyle, who con tinued to reside at Oxford till 1668, came to London, where they rejoined the friends who had remained there, and where the united clubs were almost immediately strengthened by the accession of several new members. At that time the lectures on astronomy and geometry in Oresham College were delivered, the former by Mr. Christopher Wren, on every Wednesday, and the latter by Mr. Rooke (who Lad been appointed in 1652), on every Thursday ; and these gentlemen, together with Viscount Brouncker, N r. Brereton (after wards Lord Brereton), Sir Paul Neile, Mr. John Evelyn, Mr. MI, Dr. Croons, and others, besides the Oxford members, used after the lectures to assemble for philosophical conversation in an adjoining room. This state of things did not, however, continue long, for dur ing the same year, in consequence of the troubles which ensued on the resignation of the Protectorship by Richard Cromwell, the apart ments which had been occupied for scientific purposes were converted into quarters for soldiers, and the members of the society were obliged to disperse.