48 NATURE AND LIFE. 



out the latent symmetry of living parts and examines fine 

 proportions in bodies, but also in his general doctrines as 

 to the world. He admits that all Nature is filled with 

 forces, lives, and souls, a feeling most eloquently uttered 

 in " Faust," in " Werther," in the " Poesies ; " and, still 

 more, he expressly approves of the " Monadology." In his 

 magnificent funeral discourse upon Wieland (1812), he 

 unfolds, in language that Leibnitz would not have refused 

 to adopt, all the details of that belief he resorts to in ex- 

 plaining the immortality of thought, that is, of conscious 

 monads. All that school distinctly supplies us with proof 

 of the influence philosophic teachings exert over the mind 

 of savants, and consequently over the advance of discov- 

 eries. We thus discern of what advantage it always is to 

 guide researches and experiments by the loftier hints of 

 speculative genius, and we perceive, too, the need there is 

 for the consideration by philosophers of objective reason- 

 ings. 



Our age has been too long neglectful of these impor- 

 tant lessons. We have seen its philosophy take leave of 

 science, to ally itself with literature and morals. While 

 science and philosophy, continuing closely united, were 

 destined, by the natural progress of things, to gain more 

 intimate mutual intelligence, their divorce has retarded the 

 moment of a reconcilement and good understanding, so 

 highly desirable. No doubt, very well-written books, full 

 of excellent thoughts, were still published among philo- 

 sophic schools; no doubt, grand discoveries were still 

 brought to light in the schools of science ; but doctrines 

 had vanished, and with them labored and fruitful meditation 

 had ceased to exist. Science, departing from high thought, 

 lost its dignity and contracted an empirical character. 

 Philosophy, by dint of ignoring experimental facts, lost it- 

 self in the chimerical. The Cartesian spirit, even more 

 perhaps than the spirit of Descartes, rose predominant, and 



