It was not on the continent only, that Raleigh and other English
statesmen were disposed to sustain this movement. It was not possible
as yet to bring the common mind openly to the heights of those great
doctrines of life and practice which the Wisdom of the Moderns also
embodies, but the new teachers of that age knew how to appreciate, as
the man of science only can fully appreciate, the worth of those
motives that were then beginning to agitate so portentously so large a
portion of the English people. The Elizabethan politicians nourished
and patronised in secret that growing faction. The scientific
politician hailed with secret delight, hailed as the partner of his
own enterprise, that new element of political power which the changing
time began to reveal here then, that power which was already beginning
to unclasp on the necks of the masses, the collar of the absolute
will--that was already proclaiming, in the stifled undertones of 'that
greater part which carries it,' another supremacy. They gave in secret
the right hand of a joyful fellowship to it. At home and abroad the
great soldier and statesman, who was the first founder of the Modern
Science, headed that faction. He fought its battles by land and sea;
he opened the New World to it, and sent it there to work out its
problem.
It was the first stage of an advancement that would not rest till it
found its true consummation. That infinity which was speaking in its
confused tones, as with the voice of many waters, was resolved into
music and triumphal marches in the ear of the Interpreter. It gave
token that the nobler nature had not died out under the rod of
tyranny; it gave token of the earnestness that would not be appeased
until the ends that were declared in it were found.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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