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quent changes), the human mind, having worn out all the social plications that the old philosophy admitted of, began to turn, though with a very confused instinct of its course, towards the final supremacy of a radically different, and even opposite philosophy, which must be the basis of a new organization. This great philosophical evolution has continued to depend more and more on the scientific development which first undermined the theological system, and transmuted its spirit into the metaphysical, in preparation for a further progress. The close connection of the two evolutions,the scientific and the philosophical,―need not prevent our treating of them separately; and in that separate treatment we must take the scientific first, as the philosophical movement would remain unintelligible without it. Our survey may be very brief, as my first volume exhibits the historical filiation of the chief scientific conceptions, as well as their gradual influence, at once positive and negative, upon the philosophical education of society. This leaves me nothing to do but to co-ordinate in a general way the historical views which were before isolated,-being careful, moreover, to discard all that might degenerate into a concrete or special history of science or philosophy.

The scientific progression was necessarily connected with the New birth beginnings of natural philosophy in ancient Greece; of science. but it is habitually treated of as directly issuing from the medieval period, both because of its revival after a long retardation, and on account of the more and more decisive characteristics that it presented. Those differences must not, however, make us forget the connection between the discoveries of the Keplers and Newtons, and those of Hipparchus, Archimedes, and their ancient fellowship.

I have shown before that the sharp division between natural and moral philosophy permitted the simpler of the two to be so far independent of the more complex, as that it must be freely rising in the metaphysical scale while the other lingered in the last phase of the theological. Accordingly, natural philosophy remained external to the final organization of Catholic monotheism, which, when compelled to take it in and incorporate it, at once became liable to perversion through that compromise which, under the name of scholasticism, made theology dependent on metaphysics,—as we shall see presently. This last modification of the theological spirit was highly favourable to science, which remained thenceforward under the general protection of the dominant doctrines, till its anti-theological character was fully developed. But even before the distinct formation of scholasticism, Catholicism was favourable to natural philosophy by beginning to incorporate it with social life,—its doctrine doing for science in this way what its organization did for art. We have seen that the passage from polytheism to monotheism was favourable to the scientific spirit, and to its influence on human

RELATION OF SCIENCE TO MONOTHEISM.

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opinion in general. So transient was the monotheistic philosophy, that, far from interdicting the special study of nature, Relation to like polytheism, it rather encouraged its contemplation, Monotheism. that providential arrangements might be admired in detail. Polytheism had connected every leading phenomenon with such particular and precise explanations, that every act of physical analysis stirred up a corresponding religious difficulty; and even when this incompatibility drove inquirers to a more or less explicit monotheism, the spirit of investigation remained shackled by reasonable fears of popular opposition, aggravated by the confusion between religion and polity: so that scientific progress had always been external to ancient society, notwithstanding occasional social encouragements. Monotheism, on the contrary, reducing the whole case to that of vague and uniform divine intervention, was willing that explorers should study the details of phenomena, and even disclose their secondary laws, which were at first regarded as so many manifestations of supreme wisdom. This was a point of extreme importance, as a connection was thus established between all the parts of nascent science. Thus it was that monotheism, which owed its existence to the first stirrings of the scientific spirit, was itself indispensable to its further progress, both in regard to its improvement and its propagation. We find the same action in the Arabian form of monotheism, though less marked; but the early promise of scientific cultivation in Mohammedanism was soon surpassed by Catholicism, which was better furnished for the work by its superior organization, and which aided the progress of knowledge, especially by restricting immediate supernatural intervention to the utmost, and substituting rational explanations for miracles, prophecies, visions, etc., which had come down from polytheism, and were too readily entertained by Islamism. Scientific activity was encouraged also by the institution of a speculative life under Catholicism, by its encouraging certain popular habits of rational discussion, by its adoption of the principle of capacity for office in the place of the hereditary principle, and by the facilities it afforded to the intellectual life. Thus, from the second phase of the medieval period, Charlemagne, and afterwards Alfred, were earnest in stimulating and propagating the study of science; and before the termination of that phase, the learned Gerbert, become Pope, used his power for the general establishment of the new mode of arithmetical notation, which had been ripening for three centuries, but did not come into common use till it was called for by the needs of industrial life. The system of education, ecclesiastical and lay, of that time bears witness to the estimation in which scientific culture was held, the best minds being carried beyond the literature and metaphysics of the multitude of pupils into mathematical and astronomical studies. It was only during the last of the three phases, however, that Catholicism was the best promoter of science.

The Byzantine monotheism performed the service during the first phase, when the great western invasions were going forward; and the Arabian during the second, when the Christian world was absorbed by political cares, spiritual and temporal. Then, for three centuries, Arabian students improved upon ancient mathematical and astronomical knowledge, gave us algebra, extended trigonometry, and thus met the growing needs of celestial geometry. When Catholicism had wrought out its polity, and scholasticism ensued, the metaphysical spirit had finally gained the ascendency over the theological, and prepared the way for the positive by permitting the study of the external world to supersede that of isolated Man. The solemn sanction attached to the name of Aristotle was at once a sign of the change and a condition of its continuance, as nothing short of such an authority could restrain the extravagances natural, to a philosophy so obtained and so cultivated. We have seen that this revolution caused the decay of the Catholic philosophy. Its converse action was to stimulate scientific progress by incorporating it for the first time with social interests through the dominant philosophy, with which it was now closely connected, and which it was destined to cast out four or five centuries afterwards. That new scientific progression has gone on, from that day to this. It began with the cultivation of Greek and Arabian learning, and created Chemistry, at once in the east and in the west; and this fundamental investigation of nature was a step of the highest importance,-chemistry being, as we know, the link between inorganic and organic science. We see how great was the ardour of the most eminent thinkers by the prematurity of some of their efforts, to which we owe, however, amidst their failures, some valuable suggestions; as, for instance, those conjectures of Albertus Magnus which planted the germs of sound cerebral physiology. As for the agreement of the new impulse with the general state of minds, it is proved by the unremitting eagerness which drew crowds of auditors to the lessons of the great European universities, during the third phase of the Middle Age period,-it being certain that the development of natural philosophy had quite as great a share in the interest as the metaphysical controversies of the time. In those days the different sciences were too restricted and too little explored to admit of the speciality of study which, after having been a great benefit, has become a great embarrassment. Under a system of scholastic entities, connected together by the general entity called Nature, an intellectual harmony, scientific and logical, existed which could find no parallel but under the old polytheism, and which can exist again only when our rudimentary positive philosophy shall have become a true organization. The artificial union of theology and science, by a metaphysical bond, could not last; but it had its advantages, as all such efforts have; and they showed themselves especially in the encyclopedical direction

of abstract speculation. The monk Roger Bacon, for instance, wrote a treatise containing so vast a variety of views on different orders of phenomena, that most of our scientific men, so scornful about the Middle Ages, are certainly incapable, not only of writing, but even of reading it.

Astrology.

This scientific arrangement, precarious and imperfect, but the best that the times admitted, was effected chiefly through two general conceptions which served as a basis for astrology and alchemy. Nothing can be more erroneous than the superficial popular classification of these with the occult sciences, as they are called, whereby retrograde superstitions are confounded with progressive conceptions. Magic is a relic of polytheistic, or even fetich superstition; whereas, astrology and alchemy are merely a too bold extension of the positive spirit, before the theological philosophy was got rid of. That the two classes have been confounded is owing to religious vindictiveness, and is a natural consequence of the antipathy between science and theology.-No doubt medieval astrology exhibits strong traces of theological influence in its supposition that the universe was made for Man,-a notion which gave way only on the discovery of the earth's motion: but, apart from that, it is evident that the doctrine rested upon the subordination of all phenomena to invariable natural laws. Its original title of judicial astrology conveyed this. No scientific analysis existed at that time which could assign to astronomical phenomena their true position in general physics; and there was therefore no principle which could restrain the ideal exaggeration attributed to celestial influences. In such a state of things, it was certainly right that human reason, resting upon the only phenomena whose laws were ascertained, should endeavour to refer to them all other phenomena, even human and social. This was the rational scientific course; and its universality and persistence till the seventeenth century prove its agreement with the corresponding situation. If we look at its action upon the general education of the human mind, we shall find that it was most serviceable in disseminating everywhere a first notion of the subordination of all phenomena to invariable laws, by which rational prevision became possible. The general conception of alchemy could not but be less philosophical, from the more complex and less advanced state of the corresponding studies, which were then barely proposed; but its primary rationality is unquestionable. We have seen, in our survey of chemistry, that phenomena of composition and decomposition could not be even perceived while, as under the old philosophy, but one principle was admitted, and that speculations of that order were necessarily based on Aristotle's doctrine of four elements. Now, these elements were common to almost all substances, real and artificial; so that, while that doctrine prevailed, the famous transmutation of metals could not appear more chi

Alchemy.

merical than the transformations daily effected by modern chemists among vegetable and animal substances, through the identity of their constituent principles. The absurdity of the bold hopes of alchemy could not appear till the discoveries of less than a century ago furnished the demonstration. Alchemy rendered the same service with astrology in spreading the conception of the subjection of all phenomena to invariable natural laws: for, whatever may have been the influence of the theological spirit on the hopes of the alchemists, their perseverance shows their conviction of this truth. The vague expectation of some sort of miracle might help to sustain their courage under perpetual disappointment: but it must have been some conviction of the permanence of natural laws which induced them to pursue their object by other means than prayer and fasting and religious expedients of that kind. I hope this brief notice may conduce to a tardy rendering of justice to these two great series of labours, which contributed so largely and so long to the development of human reason, notwithstanding all the errors involved in the process. The successors of the astrologers and alchemists not only found science instituted by their perseverance, but the more difficult task achieved, the establishment of the principle of invariable natural laws. No influence less active and profound than theirs could have effected the popular admission of this truth; and we are reaping the fruits of it while we forget the hands that planted. The moral influence of these great provisional conceptions was not less favourable than the intellectual; for astrology engendered a high idea of human wisdom from its power of prevision under natural laws: and alchemy roused a noble sense of human power, before depressed by theological notions, by inspiring bold hopes from our intervention in phenomena which admitted of modification.

First modern phase of progress.

Such was the origin of modern scientific progress, which I have described up to the time when the industrial evolution called upon it for aid in daily labour, and the æsthetic evolution prepared the popular mind for science by rousing the speculative activity of Man. From this point, having examined the period which is beset with injurious prejudices, we can proceed rapidly to review the progressive course of science, during the five last centuries.

Happily, it was already too closely connected with social interests to be endangered by the struggles between popes and kings. It was not rendered secure by such great practical applications as now connect it with broad industrial interests: nor could it depend, like Art, on personal sympathies easily excited; for the scientific faculties of Man are weak; and the leaders of the time were quite satisfied with theological, or at least with metaphysical explanations. Royal lovers of science, like Charlemagne and Frederick the Great, are rare; while princely patrons of Art, like Francis I. and Louis XIV.,