CH. xxnr. DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENCE. 189 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



SCIENCE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 



Great spread of Science in the Eighteenth Century Foundation of 

 Leyden University in 1574 Boerhaave, 1701 Organic Chemistry 

 Dr. Hales' Experiments on Plants Great Popularity of Boer- 

 haave's Chemical Lectures. 



WE have now arrived at the beginning of the eighteenth 

 century, only 179 years before our own day, when the dif- 

 ferent sciences which we have been tracing in their rise, like 

 little rills on the mountain sides, were beginning to swell 

 out into mighty streams, widening and spreading so rapidly 

 that it is in vain we strain our eyes to try and watch 

 them all The time had now come when any man who 

 wished to be a discoverer was obliged to devote his whole 

 life to one branch of science, following it out in all its in- 

 tricate windings. And so we find that about this time each 

 science begins to have a complete history of its own, with 

 its own eminent men, and its peculiar language growing 

 more and more technical, so as scarcely to be understood by 

 ordinary readers. 



For this reason most general .histories of Science stop at 

 this point and refer their readers to special works on the 

 different sciences. I do not, however, propose to do this ; 

 for though, owing to the great strides which were being 

 made, it will be impossible to give more than a few glimpses 

 of the work that was being done, still I think that if we 



