Scientific thought and victorian fiction

It is no gainsaying the truth that science has since time immemorial been influencing man's thought and literature immensely in various ways. Right from the sixteenth century and even from the earlier ages, when science surreptitiously stamped its first impact on literature, to the nineteenth century and beyond, while science was steadily endeavouring to reach its ne plus ultra, human thinking has tremendously been vitalized, "even to the extent of a volte face," by scientific achievements. But its impact during the sixteenth century "onward up to the present" is more clearly discernible than during the fifteenth century and earlier periods. Literature in all its branches, especially the fiction, is more influenced by science during the Victorian era than during the preceding ages, and "with the involvement of history of religion, metaphysics, ethics, traditional orthodoxies, mechanical and industrial civilization, ", to a significant extent, during this epoch, the fictional and poetical recalcitrance alike succumbs to scientific curiosity and temper as reverently as "an innocent tyro used to do to an old pedagogue.". Consequently, the Victorian fiction, especially of the sixties, seventies and eighties, has a direct scientific bearing on tone and temperament, "leaving ample traces of a marked drift in theme, technique and diction from the preceding ages".