It would be superfluous to praise this noble and pathetic passage. It shows the weariness of political and religious controversy which oppressed men's minds; the discouragement, almost hopelessness, which made the Restoration welcome, and Puritanism odious, for a time at least, to the majority of Englishmen. The word Enthusiasm is of strange significance; then and for more than a hundred years later it connoted extravagance and fanaticism. Worthy of notice also are Sprat's words to the effect that the influence of Wilkins and his friends was on the side of discipline and order in the University, and saved it from "ruine." They ought to please and encourage, perhaps instruct, the modern apostles of science who are with us now. From a comparison of Wallis' and Sprat's accounts, it is clear that the dispute, if dispute there be, whether Wadham or London was the cradle of the Royal Society, can be settled more easily than most contested claims of this kind. The facts are ascertained: the question turns on the meaning of the words "founder" and "foundation." The first meetings of the Philosophical Club, which became the Royal Society, were unquestionably held in London, and were continued there, at the Bull's Head Tavern in Cheapside, after Wilkins had removed to Oxford in 1648, and gathered round him there the members of a new philosophical society, which may be called, if that name be preferred, an offshoot from the parent stem: the two clubs co-existed till the Restoration, when most of the Oxford philosophers migrated or returned to London, and were incorporated into one society which received its name and charter from Charles II. in July 1662. Metaphors do not always illustrate, but the facts may be stated thus: the Royal Society was born in London or cradled there; the infant did not thrive, and was put out to nurse at Oxford where it waxed and prospered: it was a proper child of three years old when (on Petty's leaving Oxford in 1651) it found a settled home in the Warden's lodgings in Wadham for eight years; grown and strengthened, the boy was brought back to his birthplace, and was recognised and named. In this sense it may be said that the Royal Society was founded by Wilkins in Wadham: that College was its early home, and Wilkins was the most prominent and active man in the Philosophical Club.