THE 



CANADIAN NATURALIST 



AND 



a|uattfrli( 3fourttiU of ^mw. 



THE THEORY OF ATOMS IN THE GENERAL 

 CONCEPTION OF THE UNIVERSE. 



Opeyiing Address by the President^ M. Wurtz, at the Meeting of the 



French. Association. 



Francis Bacoa conceived the idea of a society of men de- 

 voted to the culture of science. In his " New Atlantis," in which 

 he describes the organisation of this society and its influence 

 upon the destinies of a wisely governed people, he shows it rising 

 to the dignity of a State institution. The progress of civilisa- 

 tion by the search for truth, and truth discovered in the order of 

 nature by experiment and observation — such are the ends pro- 

 posed and the means made use of. Thus, in an age when the 

 syllogism was still supreme, and which was firmly held beneath 

 the scholastic yoke, the English Chancellor assigned to science 

 at once its true method and its mission in the world. 



The plan of Bacon embraced all branches of human knowledge. 

 The land was overrun by a multitude of observers, engaged, some 

 in studying the monuments of the past, the language, the man- 

 ners, the history of the nations; others in observing the confi- 

 guration and the productions of the soil, noting the superficial 

 structure of the globe and the traces of its revolutions, collect- 

 ing all the data concerning nature, the organisation and distribu- 

 tion of plants and animals. Other men, located in various re- 

 gions, cultivated the exact sciences. Towers were constructed for 

 the observation of stars and meteors ; vast edifices, arranged for 

 the study of physical and mechanical laws, contained machines 

 which supplied the deficiency of our forces, and instruments 

 Vol. VII. z ^-q, 7, 



