This account is plain enough: it differs from the story told by Sprat in this point only, that Sprat omits reference to the first meetings in London between 1645 and 1648, and to the meetings in Oxford at Dr Petty's lodgings. The causes of these omissions are not far to seek. Sprat was a youth of seventeen in 1651, the year of his admission into Wadham: it is difficult to believe that he was present at the gatherings of men many years his senior in Dr Petty's lodgings, or knew as much as Wallis did of the infancy of the Royal Society. No Oxford man is to be entirely trusted when writing about his own College, and Sprat laudably claimed for Wadham the honour of being the cradle of the great association. In his history of the Royal Society, published in 1667, he gives a full account of its growth and objects, though not of its beginnings. "It was some space," he writes, "after the end of the Civil Wars at Oxford, in Dr Wilkins, his lodgings, in Wadham College, which was then the place of resort for virtuous and learned men, that the first meetings were held which laid the foundation of all this that followed. The University had at this time many members of its own who had begun a free way of reasoning; and was also frequented by some gentlemen of philosophical minds, whom the misfortunes of the kingdom, and the security and ease of a retirement among Gownsmen had drawn thither. Their first purpose was no more than only the satisfaction of breathing a freer air, and of conversing in quiet one with another, without being engaged in the passions and madness of that dismal Age. And from the Institution of that Assembly, it had been enough if no other advantage had come but this: that by this means there was a race of young men provided, against the next Age, whose minds, receiving from them their first impressions of sober and general knowledge, were invincibly armed against the enchantments of Enthusiasm. But what is more, I may venture to affirm that it was in good measure by the influence which these Gentlemen had over the rest, that the University itself, or at least any part of its Discipline or Order was saved from ruine. For such a candid and impassionate company as that was, and for such a gloomy season, what could have been a fitter subject to pitch upon than Natural Philosophy? To have been always tossing about some Theological question would have been to have made that their private diversion the excess of which they themselves disliked in the public. To have been eternally musing on Civil business and distresses of their Country was too melancholy a reflection. It was Nature alone which could pleasantly entertain them in that estate."