Abstract
The Earl of Rochester's epitaph on Charles II runs:—Here lies our sovereign Lord the King,Whose word no man relies on,Who never said a foolish thingNor never did a wise one.But surely the founding of the Royal Society was an act of some wisdom? It set the example for the French Academy, and Paris set the fashion for the courts of Europe. Philosophy was recognised in high places, and the cult of orderly thought encouraged. How important this fashion of an age of reason proved to be we know from every aspect of the eighteenth century history : in the musical works of the classicists just as much as in British business enterprise. There was a belief in the virtues of rationalisation amounting almost to a religion.
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