very branch of knowledge. That was possible then; it
would be impossible now.

In the famous series of obituary discourses which he delivered on
savants who were members of the Academy, Fontenelle probably
thought that he was contributing to the realisation of this ideal of
"solidarity," for they amounted to a chronicle of scientific progress in
every department. They are free from technicalities and extraordinarily
lucid, and they appealed not only to men of science, but to those of the
educated public who possessed some scientific curiosity. This brings us
to another important role of Fontenelle--the role of interpreter of
the world of science to the world outside. It is closely related to our
subject.

For the popularisation of science, which was to be one of the features
of the nineteenth century, was in fact a condition of the success of the
idea of Progress. That idea could not insinuate itself into the public
mind and become a living force in civilised societies until the meaning
and value of science had been generally grasped, and the results of
scientific discovery had been more or less diffused. The achievements of
physical science did more than anything else to convert the imaginations
of men to the general doctrine of Progress.

Before the later part of the seventeenth century, the remarkable
physical discoveries of recent date had hardly escaped beyond academic
circles. But an interest in these subjects began to become the fashion
in the later years of Louis XIV. Science was talked in the salons;
ladies studied mechanics and anatomy. Moliere's play, Les Femmes
savantes, which appeared in 1672, is one of the first indications. In
1686 Fontenelle published his Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds,
in which a savant explains the new astronomy to a lady in the park of
a country house. [Footnote: The Marquise of the Plurality of Worlds
is supposed to be Madame de la Mesangere, who lived near Rouen,
Fontenelle's birthplace. He was a friend and a frequent visitor at her
chateau. See Maigron, Fontenelle, p. 42. The English translation of 1688
was by Glanvill. A new translation was published at Dublin as late as
1761.] It is the first book--at least the first that has any claim to be
remembered--in the literature of popular science, and it is one of
the most striking. It met with the success which it deserved. It was
reprinted again and again, and it was almost immediately translated into
English.

The sign