226 



CHAPTEE III. 



THE SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT IN ENGLAND. 



1. 



Scientific 



THE history of science in France and Germany during 

 organisation the first half of the present century is identical with the 



abroad. * 



history of two great organisations, the Paris Institute and 

 the German Universities. It is to them that we owe 

 nearly all the great scientific work in the two countries : 

 to the former we owe the foundation of the modern 

 methods of scientific work during the last period of the 

 eighteenth and the early years of the nineteenth cen- 

 tury ; to the latter we owe pre-eminently the diffusion 

 and widespread application of those methods. 1 We now 

 turn to the country which, in advance of France and Ger- 



1 In respect of this I cannot suf- 

 ficiently recommend M. Maury's 

 volume on ' L'ancienne Academic 

 des Sciences,' which is as eloquent 

 a testimonial to the scientific 

 labours of eminent Frenchmen 

 during the eighteenth century as 

 the companion volume on ' L'an- 

 cienne Academic des Inscriptions 

 et Belles Lettres ' is a proof of 

 the absence of philological studies 

 during that period. The recent 

 publication of Lexis' work, 'Die 

 deutschen Universitaten,' is just 

 as eloquent a testimonial to the 



labours of the German universities 

 during this century. The first im- 

 pression we get from the perusal of 

 these two works is that for a long 

 period France almost monopolised 

 the exact sciences, just as later, 

 for a similar period, Germany 

 almost monopolised classical re- 

 search, the science of antiquity. 

 And yet the former was probably 

 as much indebted to the English- 

 man Newton as the latter was to 

 the Frenchman Joseph Scaliger for 

 the character each acquired during 

 the two periods I refer to. 



