'R AVENSCAR HATED HIS COUSIN John Comstock, ruined him, bought his house, and tore it down,' Hooke said, as if he'd been backed into a corner and forced to admit it, 'but learned from him all the same! Why did John Comstock back the Royal Society in its early days? Because he was curious as to Natural Philosophy? Perhaps. Because Wilkins talked him into it? In part. But it cannot have escaped your notice that most of our experiments in those days – "