So slow was the growth at first that the sixteenth century may
scarcely have recognized the inauguration of a new era. Torricelli
and Benedetti were of the third generation after Leonardo, and
Galileo, the first to make a substantial advance upon his theory,
was born more than a century after him. Only two or three men
appeared in a generation who, working alone, could make real
progress in discovery, and even these could do little in leavening
the minds of their fellowmen with the new ideas.
Up to the middle of the seventeenth century an agent which all
experience since that time shows to be necessary to the most
productive intellectual activity was wanting. This was the
attrition of like minds, making suggestions to one another,
criticising, comparing, and reasoning. This element was introduced
by the organization of the Royal Society of London and the Academy
of Sciences of Paris.
The members of these two bodies seem like ingenious youth suddenly
thrown into a new world of interesting objects, the purposes and
relations of which they had to discover. The novelty of the
situation is strikingly shown in the questions which occupied the
minds of the incipient investigators. One natural result of
British maritime enterprise was that the aspirations of the
Fellows of the Royal Society were not confined to any continent or
hemisphere.
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