King Charles II, the founder and patron of the Royal Society, in its second charter of 1663, bade the Fellows apply their studies ‘to the advantage of the human race’. Encouraged by the presence of Moray and Bruce, both with industrial and business interests, and of William Petty, the founder of economic statistics, Charles was no doubt hoping for some practical results from their work. When he teased them ‘for spending time in weighing only air,’ he may well have had a material motive in his mind. Invention and Experiment In their early meetings they often discussed industrial problems, and they had committees on Mechanical Inventions and on Histories of Trade. In Robert Hooke their Curator of Experiments, they had one of the most prolific investigators and inventors of all time, remembered today as the founder of meteorology, for Hooke’s Law, for his universal or Hooke’s joint, the first dividing engine, the spiral gear, and the balance spring of watches. The interest of the Fellows in astronomy was due in no small part to their concern with the problems of navigation. John Wilkins, the Jules Verne of his generation, who presided at the founding meeting, wrote about the possibility of journeys to the moon and in his Mathematical Magick he discussed the flying Chariot’ and ‘an Ark for submarine Navigations’. So there was justification for the King’s optimism.