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was directly united with the boldness and independence of the revolutionary movement. Thus it was in France that the full benefit of royal protection was found, and that science flourished most. In England, the men of science were dependent on private protection, while the exorbitant popular interest in industrial affairs discredited all speculative discovery which did not admit of a direct practical application: and at the same time, the anti-scientific tendencies of Protestantism began to show themselves, not only through the incorporation of Protestantism with the government, in which form they manifested the repugnance of theology to the spread of the positive spirit, but in the mournful individual case of Newton himself, whose old age was darkened by absurd theological vagaries. The exclusive nationality of England was mischievous to science by its active adoption of none but indigenous discoveries. This appears even in regard to the mathematical sciences, universal as they are; for there was a repugnance in England to the common introduction of analytical geometry, which is still too unfamiliar in the English schools, and an analogous prejudice against the employment of purely infinitesimal notations,-so justly preferred everywhere else: and this irrational exclusiveness is all the more repulsive from its contrast with the exaggerated admiration of France for the genius of Newton, for whose sake Descartes was somewhat ungratefully set aside, during the reaction against his Vortex doctrine in favour of the law of gravitation. His merits are even now insufficiently acknowledged, though his genius has never been rivalled but by Newton, Leibnitz, and Lagrange.

The scientific progress during the third phase followed two lines Relations of in the mathematical province, which remains the Discoveries. chief. The first relates to the Newtonian principle, and the gradual construction of celestial mechanics, whence were derived the various theories of rational mechanics. The other arose out of the Cartesian revolution, and, by the analytical stimulus given by Leibnitz, occasioned the development of mathematical analysis, and a great generalization and co-ordination of all geometrical and mechanical conceptions. In the first direction, Maclaurin and Clairaut gave us, in relation to the form of the planets, the general theory of the equilibrium of fluids, while Daniel Bernouilli constructed the theory of the tides. In relation to the precession of the equinoxes, D'Alembert and Euler completed the dynamics of solids by forming the difficult theory of the movement of rotation, while D'Alembert founded the analytical system of hydrodynamics, before suggested by Daniel Bernouilli: and Lagrange and Laplace followed with their theory of perturbations. On the other line, Euler was extending mathematical analysis, and regulating its intervention in geometry and mechanics;-an ever-memorable succession of abstract speculations, in which analysis discloses its vast fecundity, without degenerating, as it has done since, into a

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misleading verbiage. It was a curious retribution for the narrow nationality of England that, with the exception of Maclaurin, her men of science could take only a secondary part in the systematic elaboration of the Newtonian theory, which was developed and co-ordinated almost exclusively in France, Germany, and lastly, Italy, represented by Lagrange. In Physics, which had just produced barology and optics, there was now a scientific institution of thermology and electrology, which connect it immediately with chemistry. In thermology, Black made his luminous discovery of changes of state; and Franklin popularized electrology, and Coulomb gave it a certain degree of rationality. Pure astronomy had nearly merged in celestial geometry; so that, among many illustrious observers, we have only to notice one great name in this department, Bradley, whose researches on the aberration of light were certainly the finest contribution to this part of science since Kepler's day.

The chief originality of this phase was owing to the creation of real Chemistry, which underwent a provisional modification very like, in its effects, that of the vortices in relation to celestial mechanics. In this case it was Stahl's conception that fulfilled the provisional office, preceded by Boerhaave's too mechanical attempt, and furthering the more rational course of Bergmann and then of Scheele. Then ensued the experiments of Priestley and Cavendish, preparing the way for the decisive action of Lavoisier, who raised Chemistry to the rank of a true science, intermediate, both as to method and doctrine, between the inorganic and organic philosophy. There was now a preparatory movement even in regard to Biology. There were desultory attempts made under all the three divisions of taxonomy, anatomy, and physiology,-uncombined by any common principle, but disclosing the spirit of each. Linnæus followed Jussieu in the first department; Daubenton was making comparative analyses in the second, to be rationalized by the general views of Vicq-d'Azyr: and Haller and Spallanzani were accumulating material, and carrying on experiments in the third. Buffon, with his synthetic and concrete genius, at the same time pointed out the chief encyclopedical relations of the science of living bodies, and its moral and social importance, which were well illustrated also by Leroy and Bonnet. Nothing definitive could be done in this science, however, while the animal hierarchy was as yet hardly recognized in the dimmest way, and the elementary idea of the vital state was still thoroughly confused and uncertain but it is necessary to point out the first really scientific elaboration of organic philosophy.

On the whole, this epoch may, I think, be regarded as the best age of scientific speciality, embodied in academies, Stage of whose members had not yet lost sight of the funda- speciality. mental conception of Bacon and Descartes, which considered special

analysis to be simply a necessary preparation for general synthesis, -always kept in view by the scientific men of this period, however remote its realization might be. The dispersive tendency of labours of detail was as yet restrained by the impulse which induced scientific men, like artists, to aid the great philosophical movement, the anti-theological tendency of which was thoroughly congenial with the scientific instinct; and this adhesion of science to the movement gave it a most serviceable intellectual consistency. The negative philosophy, by its character of generality, repaid provisionally to science the advantage received from it: and the scientific men, like the artists, found in it, besides a social destination which incorporated them with the movement, a kind of temporary substitute for systematic direction. It is the undue protraction of this mental condition in our day which explains the deplorable aversion of both scientific men and artists to all general ideas.

The philoso

opment.

The philosophical progression has always depended on the scientific, from the point of their divergence;—that point phical devel- being the division in the Greek schools between natural philosophy, which had become metaphysical, and moral philosophy, which remained theological, as we have seen. There was, as I have also shown, a provisional fusion between the two philosophies during the scholastic period of the Middle Ages; and this union remained throughout the first phase of the period we are now surveying; so that we have only the two subsequent phases to review, during which the philosophical movement was more and more separated from the scientific. It is necessary to revert briefly to the latter point of departure, in order to ascertain the true nature of the transitory philosophy which, for the three last centuries, science has been destroying.

Scholasticism had realized the social triumph of the metaphysical spirit, by disguising its organic impotence through its incorporation with the Catholic constitution, the political properties Reason and faith. of which rendered an ample equivalent for the intelSecond phase. lectual assistance which it provisionally received from the metaphysical philosophy. When this philosophy extended from the inorganic world to Man, implanting its entities in his moral and social nature, monotheistic faith began to be irretrievably perverted by admitting the alliance of reason. No longer resting on a natural universal obedience to a direct and permanent revelation, the faith subjected itself to the protection of demonstrations, which must necessarily admit of permanent controversy, and even of refutation; such as those which, in strange incoherence, were already named Natural Theology. This historical title is a good exponent of the temporary fusion of reason and faith, which could end in nothing but the absorption of faith by reason: it represents the contradictory dualism established between the old notion of God

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and the new entity of Nature, which were the respective centres of the theological and metaphysical philosophies. The antagonism of the two conceptions was reconciled for the moment by the intervention of the positive instinct, which offered the hypothesis of a God creating invariable laws, which he bound himself never to alter, and confided to Nature for special and continuous application;-a fiction which is in close analogy with that of politicians about constitutional royalty. This supposition bears a characteristic metaphysical impress; and it made Nature the main object of contemplation and interest, reserving only a barren veneration for the majestic inertia of the supreme divinity, and therefore placing him at a remote distance from thought, which would naturally seek him less and less. Popular good sense never accepted this doctrine, which neutralized all theological ideas of arbitrary will and permanent action; and it is therefore no wonder that popular instinct urged the charge of atheism against so many learned assertors of Natural theology. At the present time, the case is so inverted, that that which was denounced by public reason as impiety is now considered to be religion par excellence; and it is laboriously cultivated by demonstrations which I have shown to be one of the chief causes of the mental destruction of monotheism. We thus see, how the scholastic compromise brought about only a thoroughly contradictory situation, which could have no stability, though it was provisionally necessary to scientific progress. The special discussion which best illustrates this general tendency is the controversy of the Realists and the Nominalists, which shows the superiority of medieval metaphysics, with its infusion of the positive spirit, over the ancient form of it. This debate was in fact, under its apparently idle names, the main struggle between the positive spirit and the metaphysical; and its stages mark the gain of the scientific philosophy upon the metaphysical, in the form of the growing triumph of Nominalism over Realism; for it was the very character of metaphysics to personify abstractions which could have a merely nominal existence outside of our intelligence. The Greek schools had certainly never proposed a controversy so lofty, nor one so decisive, either to break up the system of entities, or to suggest the relative nature of true philosophy. However this may be, it is clear that almost immediately after their combined victory over the monotheistic spirit, and therefore over the last remains of the religious system, the positive and the metaphysical spirit began that mutual divergence which could end only in the complete ascendency of the one over the other. The conflict could not take place immediately; for the metaphysical spirit was busy in supporting the temporal against the spiritual power, while the positive spirit was engaged in amassing astrological and alchemical observations. But when, during the second phase, the metaphysical spirit was enthroned by Protestantism, at the same time that the positive was making discoveries

which were as incompatible with the metaphysical as with the theological system, the state of things was changed. The story of the great astronomical movement of the sixteenth century, and many mournful instances of the fate of scientific men, prove how metaphysics had succeeded, under different forms, to the domination hitherto exercised by theology. But the logical evolution, properly so called, is the one which can be least effectually restrained, aided as it ever is by those who assume to impede it, and undervalued in its scope till it has proved that scope; and the struggle issued therefore, in the early part of the seventeenth century, in the irreversible decline of the system of entities, which was abrogated in regard to the general phenomena of the external world, and virtually therefore in regard to all the rest.

Bacon and

now

All civilized Europe, except Spain, took part in this vast controversy, which was to decide the future of the human race. Germany had brought on the crisis, in the preceding century, by the Protestant convulsion, and by the astronomical discoveries of Copernicus, Tycho-Brahe, and Kepler: but she was engrossed by political struggles. But England, France, and Italy each furnished a great warrior in this noble strife,-Bacon, Descartes, and Galileo, who will for ever be regarded as the founders of the positive philosophy, because each was aware of its true character, understood its conditions, and foresaw its final supremacy. Galileo's labours, which were purely scientific, wrought in this movement by freely extending science, and not by abstract philosophical precepts. The works of Bacon and Descartes were alike aimed against the old philosDescartes. ophy, and destined to form the new; and their differences are in remarkable agreement with the nature of each philosopher and with their respective environment. Both showed the necessity of abandoning the old mental system; both set forth the genuine attributes of the new system; and both declared the provisional character of the special analysis which they prescribed as the path of approach to the general synthesis which must hereafter be attained. Agreeing thus far, all else proved the extreme unlikeness between these great philosophers, occasioned by organization, education, and position. Bacon had more natural activity of mind, but less rationality, and in every way less eminence; his education was vague and desultory, and he grew up in an environment essentially practical, in which speculation was subordinated to its application; so that he gave only an imperfect representation of the scientific spirit, which, in his teachings, oscillates between empiricism and metaphysics, and especially with regard to the external world, which is the immutable basis of natural philosophy. Descartes, on the other hand, was as great a geometer as philosopher, and derived positivism from its true source, thus being able to lay down its.

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