2 INTRODUCTION 



by the elaborate sorting and compiling machinery of 

 modern scholarship. 



The French people under all their forms of govern- 

 ment monarchical, imperial, or republican have al- 

 ways shown cordial appreciation of intellectual achieve- 

 ments, and particularly of scientific investigation in 

 philology, history, physical science, biology, sociology, 

 and law. They place high among their national heroes 

 their great scholars, writers, artists, and scientists. This 

 popular appreciation has given vitality and enduring 

 national influence to French scholarship in a great va- 

 riety of fields. 



All French masters in science and literature have had 

 the advantage, in expounding and communicating the 

 fruits of their labors, of expressing themselves in the 

 French language, which lends itself to elegance and 

 clearness, and to nice discrimination and perfect accuracy 

 in statement. It is well-nigh impossible for teacher or 

 expounder to be clumsy, obscure, or disorderly in the 

 French language. Indeed, many of the most profound 

 French philosophers and investigators have also exhibited 

 a high degree of literary skill. A French style may be 

 exaggerated, redundant, or diffuse, but it never fails to 

 be clear. The French language, therefore, has been of 

 great advantage to the French masters of thought, and 

 through them to all the students who follow them 

 native or foreign. 



To an unexampled degree the spirit of liberty has 

 animated all the French leaders and schools of thought 

 for two centuries. For them intellectual inquiry has been 

 free. This is true not only in the field of social and political 

 ideas and the philosophy of government, but also in the 

 institutions intended to promote the development of 

 science, literature, and art. The French Academies of 

 Science and Letters all illustrate it, and so do the noble 



