36 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



to determine how far such external influences, peculiar to different 

 countries, have had effect, during the past two centuries, on the de- 

 velopment of the sciences by producing the men most eminent in 

 them. 



M. de Candolle takes as the criterion, in the selection of men to be 

 subjects of his review, the judgment of the principal learned societies 

 of Europe as expressed toward scientific men severally not of their 

 own nations. He thus avoids possible errors of his own judgment, 

 and those which might originate in the prejudices of any other persons 

 by whose judgment he could be guided. The opinions expressed by 

 those societies in the manner indicated are impartial, if any opinions 

 can be. They may not be wholly just as to individuals, for not all the 

 most deserving have received the notice of foreign societies, but, as 

 averages, they are probably as fair as possible. The Royal Society of 

 London is accustomed to name fifty foreign members from among the 

 distinguished in all branches of science. The French Academy of 

 Sciences confers the title of Foreign Associate on eight scientific men 

 not of France, and has usually, also, on its general list of correspond- 

 ents from forty to seventy foreigners. The societies of Germany and 

 Italy likewise confer suffrages among those men whom they consider 

 to have done the most for science in other countries than their own. 

 Taking the lists of the foreign members of these societies as they stand 

 at stated periods from 1666, when Huygens was elected a foreign asso- 

 ciate of the French Academy of Sciences, down to the present, we 

 have a large catalogue of names which the scientific world has united, 

 as it were, to pronounce its greatest. 



The first conclusion drawn from the analysis of the lists is that of 

 the greater importance that has been attained during the last hundred 

 years by the natural as distinguished from the mathematical and 

 physical sciences. Another fact to be learned from them is the grow- 

 ing tendency to devotion to special branches. The Greek philosophers 

 and those of the middle ages were interested in all branches. In the 

 days of Leibnitz and Newton, two or three designations were needed 

 to describe a philosopher's pursuits, as "astronomer and physicist," 

 or "mathematician, astronomer, and physicist," and it might some- 

 times be necessary to add " linguist " or " poet." But science has now 

 become too large for this. Single branches must absorb the whole 

 attention of those who would be proficient in them. And the impossi- 

 bility of rising in science while following a lucrative profession or 

 pursuing a hobby is becoming daily more evident. In this may lie one 

 of the reasons why Roman Catholic ecclesiastics appear to have given 

 up scientific pursuits. The lists, till the end of the eighteenth century, 

 included many names of Jesuits, monks, and abbes. In the present cent- 

 ury we have only the Abbe Hatiy and Father Secchi. The difference 

 is also in part due to the changed condition of the clergy. The clerical 

 names on the lists of the last centuries were chiefly taken from the 



