A MANUSCRIPT charting the birth of modern science that was lost for centuries has been rediscovered at the bottom of a cupboard.

The 520-page document, an account of meetings and debates at the Royal Society from 1661 to 1691, was written by Robert Hooke, one of the foremost 17th-century scientists and a bitter enemy of Sir Isaac Newton. It is described as the “discovery of a generation”.

It has been put up for auction at Bonhams in London and a fundraising campaign to save it for the nation has been started by the Royal Society.

Felix Pryor, of Bonhams, said: “This is, for historians of science, the equivalent of finding one of the original gospels.”

Hooke was the first scientist to establish the principles of combustion; he invented the universal joint used in car driveshafts today and the compound microscope; he discovered that plants have cells and he created Hooke’s Law, which defines elasticity.

The manuscript was uncovered by auctioneers who were valuing objects at a house in Hampshire. As they were leaving they were called back when the couple remembered the manuscript. They assumed it was a copy and were stunned when told that it was Hooke’s original and estimated to be worth more than £1 million.

Lisa Jardine, Centenary Professor of Renaissance Studies at Queen Mary, University of London, and a biographer of Hooke, said: “It is the most exciting Royal Society related discovery for a generation. These documents contain crucial new evidence concerning Hooke’s feud with those in charge of the early Royal Society.”

Modern science, founded on verification by experiment, was in its infancy in the 17th century and Hooke (1635-1703) was at the forefront as the Royal Society’s first Curator of Experiments. The Royal Society, the world’s oldest scientific institution, was established in 1660 and in his manuscript Hooke defined its aim as: “To be Directed by the Great Schoolmistress of Reason, Experience. And not to be ruled by groundlesse fantcys & conceipts.”

In 1677 he was was made secretary with the task of compiling minutes. Among the topics recorded in the lost volume are Newton’s theories on gravity and the movements of planets, experiments by Hooke that verified the discovery of microbes, and his report revealing that plants have cells.

Hooke’s minutes also reveal his antagonism towards contemporaries, especially Newton. Relations between the two scientists became so strained that Newton refused to attend the Royal Society for a decade.

Newton is known universally as the scientist who first understood gravity. Hooke has been largely forgotten by historians and one of his gripes was that his contribution to the development of Newton’s theories went unrecognised.

The manuscript will be auctioned next month.

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