The Shift from Mechanistic to Living Science in the 18th Century

In the 18th century, a shift from mechanistic to living science led to a new way of understanding nature. This transition was marked by rebel thinkers like Alexander von Humboldt and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who emphasized the importance of observation, imagination, and feeling in scientific inquiry. They rejected the purely rational and objective approach, incorporating subjective experiences and emotions into their study of organisms and ecology.