European Natural Science

Abstract

After the development, in the mid-19th century, by J. Kant of his cosmogonical hypothesis, its further elaboration by P. Laplace and the revolution in chemistry at the close of the 18th century, natural science entered into a period when fresh theories and hypotheses flung the doors wide open for study into the evolution of nature and the universality of links between all its phenomena. The first three decades of the 19th century, however, were still dominated by the then prevalent mechanical notions of nature. The supramechanical branches of science were yet to take root. On the whole, however, a leadership change in natural science occurred precisely at the dawn of the 19th century: the leader up to the end of the 18th century was mechanics which was, at the beginning of the following century, to be succeeded by a set of natural sciences including physics chemistry, biology, geology and astronomy.