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 significance of the Plurality of Worlds is indeed much greater
than that of a pioneer work in popularisation and a model in the art
of making technical subjects interesting. We must remember that at
this time the belief that the sun revolves round the earth still
prevailed. Only the few knew better. The cosmic revolution which is
associated with the names of Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo was
slow in producing its effects. It was rejected by Bacon; and the