290 EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. PT. Ill- 



were born before the year 1800, yet their works belong 

 chiefly to the nineteenth century. Before going farther, 

 therefore, we must now look back and see how far science 

 has travelled since our summary of the seventeenth 

 century. 



Biology, or the science of life, had made great progress. 

 It had been enriched by the study of organic chemistry, 

 founded by Boerhaave, by which we learn the elements of 

 which living bodies are composed ; by a more complete 

 knowledge of anatomy, or the structure of the body in all 

 its most minute parts, as Haller studied and represented 

 them in his anatomical works ; and by a knowledge of 

 comparative anatomy, as taught by John Hunter, or the 

 comparison of each organ as it appears in different beingSj 

 from the lowest animal up to man. But even now the chief 

 point remains to be mentioned, for all these are of little use 

 without the study of physiology, or the science of living 

 beings, in which we must not only learn the great facts of 

 the working of our own bodies and those of animals, but 

 must take into account the strange freaks of nature taught 

 us by the experiments of Bonnet and Spallanzanl In the 

 history of the nineteenth century we shall have to consider 

 some of these facts, and see how Cuvier, Lamarck, and 

 Darwin have carried out the study of physiology to great 

 results in our own day. But we have still more to include 

 under Biology. After learning the nature of living beings, 

 we must have some order of arrangement by which we can 

 distinguish them. Here we come to the work of Linnaeus, 

 one of the grandest men of the eighteenth century. While 

 Buffon was popularising natural history, we find the great 

 Swede patiently working out all the minute characters and 

 general features of animals and plants, and reducing the 

 whole kingdom of life into such beautiful order, that after 



