ABSTRACT
In the sphere of Technology, the seventeenth century had comparatively few inventions to its credit. Technology made great advances in nearly all its branches. An important contribution to the further development of technology consisted in the improved manufacture of machine tools. Industrial chemistry made a start with the large-scale manufacture of sulphuric acid and alkali. The wonderful progress which science made in the course of the seventeenth century helped enormously to justify new attitudes, and to encourage their adoption also in relation to other problems than those of science, technology, and philosophy. To understand the eighteenth century, something more is required than a knowledge of its achievements in science and technology. The eighteenth century witnessed an unprecedented spread of knowledge beyond the narrow circles of the learned. A whole army of writers made it their mission to popularize knowledge, including scientific knowledge, in order to advance the cause of enlightenment.
