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November 28, 1660, a group of English thinkers gathered at Gresham College, London, to hear a lecture by the young astronomy professor and future architect of St. Paul's Cathedral, Christopher Wren. As they talked among themselves after Wren's lecture, they agreed to form a society dedicated, as their full, official name later stated, to "Improving Natural Knowledge."

These charter members of the Royal Society felt that by joining forces, they could better promote the "New Philosophy or Experimental Philosophy" that had been the cause célèbre of English philosopher Francis Bacon (1561-1626). Gentlemen and scholars all, they called themselves "natural philosophers" or "virtuosi"—that is, lovers of learning. The word "scientist," though we use it here for the sake of convenience, was not yet current. It would be some 170 years before that term entered the English language, paralleling the term "artist."

During the century following the Royal Society's founding, England held an unrivalled position of influence in the European scientific community. Men like Robert Boyle and, later, Isaac Newton were recognized as the pacesetters of science.

The society's founding coincided with the Restoration of the English monarchy, and it brought together a mixed group of both Puritans and Anglicans. These Christians of opposing political and religious views would join in drafting and ratifying a charter that bid all members of the society to pursue the study of nature "to the glory of God and the benefit of the human race."

The Puritans among them, though they did not invent the experimental method, drew upon their iconoclastic roots in pursuing that method wherever it led. During the Interregnum, Puritan scientists had already contributed notable scientific advances. As historian Dorothy Stimson has put it, the same independence that had led them to challenge the authority of the pope in the Catholic Church and of the bishops in the Anglican Church now spurred these Puritan scientists on in their researching and theorizing—even when their results clashed with the accepted theories of such authorities as Aristotle and Galen.

The society enshrined this commitment to intellectual independence in its motto, Nullius in Verba, or roughly, "not bound to take anyone's word."

The Royalist Anglicans in the society also put their distinctive religious and political stamp on their science. The new science embedded law in nature itself, and these men developed arguments from the lawfulness of the natural world in support of king, church, and economic institutions.

The ranks of the early Royal Society's "natural philosophers" included many men of substantial means who indulged in a popular hobby of the rich: collecting curiosities—some scientifically significant, but many not. One such collection, bestowed on the society in its early years by one of its fellows, included "a wind-gun, a burning-glass in a brass frame, a piece of petrified wood, a cocoa-nut, an ostrich's egg-shell, a strange bone with a rib in the middle," and "two papers of petrified grass."

More seriously, the society published a growing domestic and foreign correspondence "on Philosophical, Mathematical or Mechanical subjects," largely in its journal, the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. This publication quickly became a cheerleader for the scientific revolution, as the society's meetings became its showcase. Also, in 1662 the society appointed a "curator of experiments"—the multi-talented Robert Hooke was the first—to make sure that every meeting had at least one experiment. From air pumps to blood transfusion, society fellows had the opportunity to see the inductive method in action and record its results.

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