28o EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. pt. hi. 



chemist Cavendish obtained nearly the same result from 

 quite a different experiment made with a pendulum. This, 

 which is called the * Cavendish experiment,' is too difficult to 

 explain here. In our own times, Sir Henry James, Sir 

 Edward Sabine, and others, have repeated these observations 

 and found them to be correct. 



Summary of the Science of the Eighteenth Century. — 



This sketch of the advance of astronomy brings us to the 

 end of the science of the eighteenth century ; for although 

 the greater number of the eminent scientific men of our day 

 were bom 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 Com- 

 parison of each organ as it appears in different beings, from 

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

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

 out the study of physiology, or the science of living beings, 

 in which we must not only learn the great facts of the work- 

 ing of our own bodies zn6. those of animals, but must take 

 into account the strange freaks of nature taught us by the 

 experiments of Bonnet and Spallanzani. In the history of 

 the nineteenth century we shall have to consider some of 





