Abstract

Joseph Glanvill is well known for his enthusiastic support of the early Royal Society. Even before Thomas Sprat's History of the Royal Society of London appeared in full, Glanvill had set a philosophic background for the new science in his Vanity of dogmatizing , had attacked the outdatedness of contemporary Aristotelians in a revised edition of Vanity called Scepsis scientifica , had praised the Society at length in a flowery address in Scepsis, and had defended the programme of the Society in his private correspondence. If propaganda and enthusiastic support were needed for the growth of science in Restoration England, no one seems to have done more to supply these ingredients during the early years of the Royal Society's existence than the colourful rector of Bath and Frome