"Just so. Hooke was let down, of course, but as we drove home he conceived a refinement of the experiment, which has never been carried out. But the point of the story is that our colloquium at Epsom succeeded at much, but failed in that, its most ambitious effort. Did it mean the end of Natural Philosophy? No. The end of Hooke’s career, or Wilkins’s, or mine? By no means. On the contrary, it led straight on to a flourishing of all those things. Which has led me to mistrust apocalyptic readings of Science or of Society. I have not been quick to learn that lesson, either. For example, I phant’sied that the Glorious Revolution would change all, but now I see that Cavaliers and Roundheads have only been replaced by Tories and Whigs, and the war goes on."