Bio-warfare In Middle-earth

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Um, Hooke (1635-1703) and van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723) were men of the 17th century, not the 18th.

certainly from a scientific standpoint, I would say the Chinese and the Muslims were far ahead of the West prior to the Enlightenment, or at least the late Renaissance. I don't even think the point is debatable.

It seems to be very fashionable these days in a sort of postcolonial self-deprecation to portray the "barbarous West" relative to the glories of the Islamic world as if at the time of the First Crusade. But the fact is, Islamic intellectual progression in almost all fields had been stagnant since the 13th Century while Europe leaped ahead-... yes, even during the High Middle Ages ("Renaissance" is a term which has meaning in art history, but in little else).

As for dating the Enlightenment? I would say for a round number the nine decades from 1637, the publication of Descartes' Theory of Geometry and Discourse on Method, to 1727, the death of Newton. Although there were still ripples in the 18th-century pond, no real waves appeared until the Scottish Renaissance at the end of the century. One might push back as far as 1609 (Kepler), since he advanced a mathematical astronomy (which also, happily, was essentially correct for the first time).