160 SCIENCE AND THE HUMAN MIND 



half of the eighteenth century, there has been a 

 general change to the vernacular in scientific literature. 

 Science thus became part of the general intellectual 

 development of each people. The change did much 

 to make possible the technical application of scientific 

 results and the industrial upheaval of the nineteenth 

 century. But it came at a period when a materialistic 

 view of science was in the ascendant, and the nations 

 of Christian Europe, as a whole, received as their first 

 impression of the new knowledge the idea that the 

 object of scientific enquiry is the creation of wealth 

 and the provision of practical benefits an attitude of 

 mind that is still widely prevalent in om\ midst and 

 that a mechanical explanation of existence is possible 

 or even has been accomplished. 



The popularization of science was a slow process. 

 At first, in the seventeenth century, the foundation 

 of the Royal Society of London and of similar societies 

 in other capitals gave a focus and meeting-place for the 

 men of science within reach. During the succeeding 

 century the great extension of interest in scientific 

 matters led to the foundation of various provincial 

 societies which had considerable influence in the spread 

 of the new knowledge. The Royal Society of Edin- 

 burgh, which still survives, was founded in 1783 on 

 the framework of an older Philosophical Society. The 

 Lunar Society flourished in the Midlands of England 

 at the close of the eighteenth century, and brought 

 together such men as Erasmus Darwin, S. J. Gait on, 

 and Priestley, who rode across country at each full 

 moon to the appointed rendezvous, to discuss the 

 scientific problems of the hour. These local societies 

 for the most part decayed when the facilities of railway 



