Hales (1727I 733) discussed the rotting of wounds, cankers, &c., but much had to be done with the microscope before any real progress was possible, and it is easily intelligible that until the theory of nutrition of the higher plants had been founded by the work of Ingenhouss, Priestley and De Saussure, the way was not even prepared for accurate knowledge of cryptogamic parasites and the diseases they induce.
Alexander of Hales was the oracle of the Franciscans, while the rival order rejoiced in Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas.
The 18th century witnessed striking developments in pneumatic chemistry, or the chemistry of gases, which had been begun by van Helmont, Mayow, Hales and Boyle.
John Hales (1584-1656); Edmund Calamy (1600-1666); the Cambridge Platonist, Benjamin Whichcote (1609-1685); Richard Baxter (1615-1691); the puritan John Owen (1616-1683); the philosophical Ralph Cudworth (1617-1688); Archbishop Leighton (1611-1684) - each of these holds an eminent position in the records of pulpit eloquence, but all were outshone by the gorgeous oratory and art of Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667), who is the most illustrious writer of sermons whom the British race has produced.
This opinion, defended by Bonaventura, Alexander of Hales, Scotus and others, soon became and is now generally accepted.
