SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES 189 



to do him justice in this respect and to give him the place due to him in the 

 history of scientific research. 



As will have been realized from the above, the theoretical speculations 

 to which reference has been made here led, on the whole, to poor results. 

 The general theories of life and its manifestations which were formed at the 

 period under discussion received a decidedly dogmatic stamp and became as 

 numerous as those who formulated them. 



On those lines, therefore, it was impossible in the long run to achieve 

 any satisfactory results. Simultaneously with these efforts, however, there 

 appeared others which succeeded bettet in satisfying humanity's craving for 

 knowledge, and which during the immediately succeeding period won a 

 very large number of adherents — those works which comprised a systematic 

 description and classification of living creatures on earth. To these, then, we 

 shall now proceed. 



