In this attitude they were aided by their subject and method. Search for scientific truth by laboratory procedure does not favor dogmatism. The early meetings were taken up with experiments and discussions. The Fellows recognized that the mental powers are raised to a higher degree in company than in solitude. They welcomed diversity of view and the common-sense judgment of the onlooker. As in the Civil War the private citizen had held his own with the professional soldier, so here the contribution of the amateur to the discussion was not to be despised. They had been taught to shun all forms of narrowness and intolerance. They wished to avoid the pedantry of the mere scholar, and the allied states of mind to which all individuals are liable; they valued the concurring testimony of the well-informed assembly. In the investigation of truth by the experimental method they even arrived at the view that "true experimenting has this one thing inseparable from it, never to be a fixed and settled art, and never to be limited by constant rules." In its incipience at least it is evident that the Royal Society was filled with the spirit of tolerance and coöperation, and was singularly free from the spirit of envy and faction.
Not least important of the joint labors of the Society were its publications, which established contacts and stimulated research throughout the scientific world. Besides the _Philosophical Transactions_, which, since their first appearance in 1665, are the most important source of information concerning the development of modern science, the Royal Society printed many important works, among which the following will indicate its early achievements:--
Hooke, Robert, _Micrographia: or some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies made by Magnifying Glasses_. 1665.
Graunt, John, _Natural and Political Observations ... made upon the Bills of Mortality, with reference to the Government, Religion, Trade, Growth, Air, Diseases, and the several changes of the City_. 3d edition, 1665.
Sprat, Thomas, _The History of the Royal Society of London, for the Improving of Natural Knowledge_. 1667.
Malpighi, Marcello, _Dissertatio epistolica de Bombyce; Societati Regiæ Londini dicata_. 1669. (On the silkworm.)