It showed that the time had come when, instead of guessing what might be, men were at last beginning to resolved to know what actually is.  In 1684 an English mathematician and philosopher demonstrated the unity of the universe by proving that the same law which governs the falling of an apple also governs the movements of the planets in their orbits.  He published his great work on this subject a few years later.

It was with reference to that wonderful discovery of the all-pervading power of gravitation, which shapes and holds in its control the drop of dew before our eyes, and the farthest star shining in the heavens, that the poet Pope suggested the epitaph which should be graven on the tomb of the great thinker in Westminster Abbey: 

“Nature and Nature’s laws lay hid in night;
God said, `Let Newton be!’ and all was light.”

482.  Chief Political Reforms; Abolition of Feudal Dues, 1660; the Habeas Corpus Act, 1679.

As the age did not stand still with respect to progress in knowledge, so it was not wholly unsuccessful in political progress.  A great reform inaugurated in the outset of Charles’s reign was the abolition, 1660, of the King’s right to feudal dues and service, by which he was accustomed to extort as much as possible from his subjects[1] (S150), and the substitution of a fixed yearly allowance, raised by tax, of 1,200,000 pounds on beer and liquor.[2] This change may be considered to have practically abolished the feudal system in England, so far as the Crown is concerned, though the law still retains some remnants of that system with respect to the relation of landlord and tenant.[3]

[1] See Blackstone’s “Commentaries,” II, 76. [2] This tax should have been levied on the landed proprietors who had been subject to the feudal dues, but they managed to put it on beer and spirits; this compelled the body of the people to bear the burden for them. [3] See Summary of Constitutional History in the Appendix, p. xviii, S20.

The second great reform measure was the Habeas Corpus Act,[4] 1679, which provided that no subject should be detained in prison except by due process of law, thus putting an end to the arbitrary confinement of men for months, and years even, without conviction of guilt or even form of trial.

[4] Habeas Corpus (1679) (you may have the body):  This writ is addressed by the judge to him who detains another in custody, commanding him to bring him into court and show why he is restrained of his liberty.  The right of Habeas Corpus was contained in germ in the Great Charter (S199, Article 2); and see Summary of Constitutional History in the Appendix, p. xix, S21, and p. xxxii.

483.  Death of Charles.

The reign came suddenly to an end (1685).  Evelyn, one of the courtiers of the day, tells us in his “Diary” that he was present at the palace of Whitehall on Sunday morning, the last of January of that year.  There he saw the King sitting in the grand banqueting room, chatting gayly with three famous court beauties,—­his special favorites,—­while a crowd of richly dressed nobles were gathered around a gambling table heaped with gold.  Six days after, as he expresses it, all was “in the dust.”