PERIOD IV. 

 1790-1858 



Characteristics of the Period. 



THE first French republic and the first French empire 

 were associated with a great outburst of scientific 

 energy. French mathematics, astronomy, and physics 

 were pre-eminent. England suffered from isolation 

 during the continental war, but Davy, Young, the 

 Herschels, Watt (now past his prime), Dalton, and 

 William Smith supported the scientific reputation of 

 their country. In Germany this was the age of Goethe 

 and Schiller ; Alexander von Humboldt was prominent 

 among the scientific men of Prussia. The forty years' 

 peace, during which reaction prevailed in many parts 

 of Europe, was in England and America a time of 

 steady growth and progress. 



Sprengel and the Fertilisation of Flowers. 



Conrad Sprengel, an unsuccessful schoolmaster who 

 lived in a Berlin attic and got his bread by teaching 

 languages or whatever else his pupils wished to learn, 

 wrote a book which marks an epoch in the study of 

 adaptations. This was his Secret of Nature Discovered, 

 which appeared in 1793. Half a century passed before 

 its merit was recognised by any influential naturalist ; 

 even then the recognition was private, and never 

 reached the author, who had died long before. There 

 was no striking of medals, no jubilee-celebration, 



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