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Talented writers of that generation popularized hard-to-understand scientific achievements for the educated elite. The most famous and influential popularizer was a versatile French man of letters, Bernard de Fontenelle en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Le_Bovier_de_Fontenelle Fonttenelle particularly invented the technique of making highly complicated scientific finding understandable to broad nonscientific audience. He set out to make science witty and entertaining, as easy to read as novel. This was a tall order, but Fontenelle largely succeeded.

His most famous work, ‘Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds’ of 1686, passagenproject.com/Conversations%20on%20the%20plurality%20of%20worlds%20%20Bernard%20le%20Bovier%20de%20Fontenelle.pdf begins with two elegant figures walking in the gathering shadow of a large park. One is woman, a sophisticated aristocrat, and the other is her friend, perhaps even her lover. They gaze at stars, and their talk turns to a passionate discussion of … astronomy! He confides that “each star may well be a different world.” She is intrigued by his novel idea: “Teach me about these stars of yours”. And he does, gently but persistently stressing how error is going way to truth. At one point he explains:

There came on the scene a certain German one Copernicus, who made short work of all those various circles, all those solid skies, which the ancients had pictured to themselves. The former he abolished, the latter he broke into pieces. Fired with the noble zeal of a true astronomer, he took the earth and spun it very far away from the center of the universe, where it had been installed, and in that center he put the sun, which has a far better title to the honor.”

Rather than tremble in despair in the face of these revelations, Fontenelle’s lady rejoices in the adevance of knowledge. Fortenelle thus went beyond entertainment to instruction, suggesting that the human mind was capable of making great progress. ` Page -582