the 18th century is fun bc a bunch of guys are trying to make science, but the only material they have to work with was written by the clerical class and straight up wizards.
So you get people like Francis Bacon being like “these Renaissance occultists were charlatans and fabulists. Astrology is real though.”
Newton: “I will simply test every alchemical manual in a laboratory setting one by one. Eventually we will figure out what works. Also I think we can make a human nervous system out of braided gold.”