ABSTRACT
The seventeenth century has been called the period of great systems of thought, during which all the knowledge that the Renaissance brought to light was summarized and classified. Order and system were, in fact, what this epoch strove to create in every sphere of life; in government the power was concentrated in the hands of despotic princes who by a rigorous exercise of power overcame all opposition on the part of their subjects and created ordered forms of administration instead of the universal unrest of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance; in the religious sphere the different denominations combined into stable churches which prohibited any divergence from the strictly formulated dogmas which they set up. Such a period was bound to be devoted to strictly delimited systems even in the scientific field, and indeed many such systems of different trends of thought, but all definitely formulated, more dogmatic than critical, based upon speculation rather than upon observation, saw the light of day during this epoch. Some of these which highly influenced the development of biological science deserve further mention.
