Seventeenth-century advances in biology included the establishment of scientific societies for the dissemination of ideas and progress in the development of the microscope, through which scientists discovered a hitherto invisible world that had far-reaching effects on biology.

Systematizing and classifying, however, dominated biology throughout much of the 17th century, and it was during that time that the importance of the comparative study of living organisms, including humans, was realized.

During the 18th century the long-held idea that living organisms could originate from nonliving matter (spontaneous generation) began to crumble, but it was not until after the mid-19th century that it was finally disproved by the French chemist and microbiologist Louis Pasteur, who demonstrated the self-replicating ability of microorganisms.

Biological expeditions added to the growing body of knowledge of plant and animal forms and led to the 19th-century development of the theory of evolution. The 19th century was one of great progress in biology: in addition to the formulation of the theory of evolution, the cell theory was established, the foundations for modern embryology were laid, and the laws of heredity were discovered.