320 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCIENCE 



comparative botany, and comparative geology and mineralogy, 

 eighteenth century science was now laying solid foundations for 

 the great generalizations of the nineteenth century. Compar- 

 ative physiology, even, was making a beginning, with the ex- 

 periments of Bonnet (1720-1793) upon the reproduction of lost 

 parts in the lower animals, and of Spallanzani (1729-1799) upon 

 spontaneous generation. To consideration of the labors of these 

 last we shall return. 



THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION. INVENTIONS. POWER. Far- 

 reaching in their consequences as were the French Revolution of 

 1793 and the American Revolution of 1776, it is the Industrial 

 Revolution, especially after 1770, with which the student of the 

 history of science has chiefly to deal. Before the Industrial Revolu- 

 tion, i.e. almost everywhere before 1760 or even 1770, whatever 

 machinery existed was run mostly by hand or foot, and was hence 

 easily operated in the separate homes of the workers. But within 

 the next thirty years the factory system had come, with coopera- 

 tive labor in or about some central power-plant, and with ma- 

 chinery driven by water power or steam. With this change, which 

 increased the output of the individual, and took work and workers 

 out of the home, a revolution began which is still affecting every 

 country and has modified the very structure of human society. 



The change was probably imminent in any event, for the use 

 of water power had begun before the introduction of steam; but 

 the perfection of the steam-engine by Watt, who as we have seen, 

 was powerfully aided by the scientific studies of his fellow country- 

 man, Black, on heat, steam, evaporation, and calorimetry, greatly 

 hastened, and soon made almost universal, the mighty change. 

 Henceforth machinery was to become the handmaid of toil, and 

 to bring with it not only factory industry in place of home indus- 

 try but, before long, improved means of transportation, effecting a 

 virtual shrinkage of the world and a far closer contact of mankind. 



Almost coinciding with the introduction of water power and 

 steam power, came a great burst of invention. The spinning 

 "jenny" and the "water frame" came almost hand in hand with 

 the " mule " and the " power loom ; " while, as if to meet these on the 



