PERIOD I. 



1530-1660 



Characteristics of the Period. 



THIS is the time of the revival of science ; the revival 

 of learning had set in about two centuries earlier. 

 Europe was now repeatedly devastated by religious wars- 

 (the revolt of the Netherlands, the wars of the League 

 in France, the Thirty Years' war, the civil war in 

 England). Learning was still mainly classical and 

 scholastic ; nearly every writer whom we shall have 

 occasion to name had been educated at a university, 

 and was able to read and write Latin. Two great 

 extensions of knowledge helped to widen the thoughts 

 of men. It became known for the first time that our 

 planet is an insignificant member of a great solar 

 system, and that Christendom is both in extent and 

 population but a small fraction of the habitable globe. 



The Revival of Botany. 



Botany was among the first of the sciences to revive. 

 Its comparatively early start was due to close associa- 

 tion with the lucrative profession of medicine. Medicine 

 itself was slow to shake off the unscientific tradition of 

 the Middle Ages, and its backwardness favoured, as it 

 happened, the progress of botany. In the sixteenth 

 century the physician was above all things the pre- 

 scriber of drugs, and since nine-tenths of the drugs 

 were got from plants, botanical knowledge was reckoned 

 as one of his chief qualifications. All physicians 



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