LARGER PROBLEMS OF ANTHROPOLOGY 453 



relation between the thinker and his thought, between the human 

 mind and the rest of nature he perceived that "Man . . . 

 does and understands as much as his observations on the order 

 of nature . . . permit him, and neither knows nor is capable of 

 more." On this and kindred verities he built a foundation for all 

 the sciences, for the unwittingly-wandering elders as well as for 

 those yet unborn, even down to anthropology though this 

 part of the foundation lay unused for three centuries. Bacon's 

 influence on contemporary and later thought was steady, albeit 

 slow-felt; for his school was a normal by-product of the making 

 of Europe, and he was the exponent of principles themselves the 

 product of the world's most significant chapter in human develop- 

 ment. True, the next epoch was opened by a son of southern shores' 

 and a devotee of the oldest science, when Galileo (1564-1602) saw 

 the sun-centred order of the solar system; yet it was left to Eng- 

 lish Newton (1642-1727) to shape the epoch and systematize all 

 astronomy by a law of gravitation based on commonplace obser- 

 vation, while the third epoch of modern science came with Linne" 

 (1707-1778), like Bacon and Newton a product of the harsh north- 

 land and an exponent of practical experience, who led conscious 

 seeing down from the stars to the plants and animals of daily 

 knowledge. Of all the world's thinkers Linne" would seem second 

 only to Bacon in originality, if that quality be measured by grasp 

 of realities; and while his system was crude, especially in relation 

 to animals, his gift of phytology (or botany) enriched knowledge 

 and opened the way for the rest of the natural sciences. Linne 

 the Swede was soon followed by Hutton the Scot (1726-1797), 

 with a practical science of the rocks long contested by Werner 

 the German (1750-1817), under a theory smacking of Alexandria 

 and Athens; but the sturdy English quarry man, William Smith 

 (1769-1839), successfully supported his northern neighbor until his 

 countryman Lyell (1797-1875) came up to make geology a science. 

 The influence of these sons of woodland and wold extended rapidly 

 and widely, rooting readily in the fertile minds of their kinsmen, 

 while the printing-press spread the stimulus of their work over all 

 Europe and unified the knowledge of the nations. 



The next act attested the blending of the ancient and the mod- 

 ern, of Athenian and Anglian, of Aristotelian and Baconian, of 

 the southern and the northern; and the scene was the middle 

 ground of France. There Lavoisier (1743-1794) applied modern 

 practicalness to chemistry, and discovered the indestructibility 

 of matter; Lamarck (1744-1829) sought to amend the Linnean 

 system, yet pushed too far in advance of observation (and his 

 times) for full following; and the brothers Cuvier (1769-1838) so 

 improved on Linne" as to give form and substance to zoology, and 



