89 



r century 



CHAPTER I. 



THE SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT IN FRANCE. 



IT will be generally admitted that the scientific spirit is 



J Ou 



a prominent feature of the thought of our century as century lltm " c 

 compared with other ages. Some may indeed be in- 

 clined to look upon science as the main characteristic 

 of this age. The century may thus be called with some 

 propriety the scientific century, as the last was called the 

 philosophical century, or as the sixteenth was termed the 

 century of the Reformation and the fifteenth the century 

 of the Eenaissance. It is therefore natural that we should 

 begin our study of the thought of the age with an ex- 

 amination of this side of modern culture. 



It is not necessary to define what I mean by science. 1 



1 The use of the word science sedly started for the culture of 



and its adjective scientific has what we now call science viz., 



varied considerably in the English the Royal Society for the Improve- 



laiiguage. We must wait for Dr 1 ment of Natural Knowledge, and 



Murray's great work to give us a 

 history of the word. I venture to 

 assert that it acquired its present 

 definite meaning about the time of 

 the formation of the British Asso- 

 ciation for the Advancement of 



the Royal Institution did not use 

 the word officially in their charter 

 or title, although it is used fre- 

 quently in the documents and cor- 

 respondence connected with the 

 foundation of the younger, and 



Science (1831). The two other occasionally in those referring to 

 great organisations which profes- the older Society. The Royal So- 



