ABSTRACT
The first half of the eighteenth century shows in general a lively development in the sphere of biology. The splendid progress made simultaneously in physics and chemistry created innumerable fresh problems also in the biological sciences; voyages of geographical exploration, which were made to hitherto unknown lands on the precedent of Humboldt, resulted in new material for investigation, which broadened existing ideas and broke down old systematical barriers — we need only mention such animals as the duck-billed platypus and the lung-fish in order to show clearly the importance of these discoveries — and, finally, the vast technical and economic progress of that epoch awakened an interest in the study of nature, which also proved of benefit to biology. Among the technical inventions that belong to this period may first of all be mentioned the improvement in the construction of the microscope, which alone has given mankind a knowledge of a whole series of hitherto unknown life-forms; the economic progress, again, rendered possible the instituting of collections such as earlier times had never dreamt of, as well as the carrying out of costly experiments on a large scale. As a result of all these circumstances, of which many keen scientists took full advantage, biology achieved more and more brilliant results as the years went by, with the consequent enhancement of its general cultural reputation — in spite of the indignant protests and the scornful rejection of the idealistic philosophers.
