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LEARNED SOCIETIES AND UNIVERSITIES. 385
circular course of life and the intimate interdependence of
the three kingdoms of nature; but he laid, at the same
time, undue, stress upon such subjects as the rationalistic
enlightenment of the people and their right to self-government
These theories no doubt contributed largely to lead on
the mighty revolutions which, at the end of the eighteenth
; century, shook France to its foundations and affected the
whole of Europe, and make it, to some degree, apparent
why many looked upon materialism as the source of
irreligion and the foe of monarchy.
THE LEARNED SOCIETIES AND UNIVERSITIES
IN THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH
CENTURIES.
THE development of the scientific spirit was es
advanced in the 17th century, as it had been in the 16th,
by the foundation of learned societies and of universities.
In Italy Prince FEDERIGO CESI established in 1603 the
Accademia dei Lincei, so called because its members
required for their investigations the eyes of lynxes and
because the coat of arms of the society bore a lynx on it;
while in 1657 under the patronage of the Medici princes
there arose in Florence the Accademia del Cimento which
gave forth that experiment should be its particular charge.
.Learned societies were formed after this pattern in other
countries also. In Germany, Schweinfurt was the centre of
a society of doctors and natural philosophers which in
1672 was raised to an academy by the Emperor LEOPOLD.
In Paris the Academie des Sciences came into existence
about the year 1666 and in 1793 was converted into the
Ihstitut National. The Royal Society was also founded
in London in the year 1666: its Transactions have
appeared in almost unbroken succession up to the present
day, and form for the history of science one of the most
C C