THE SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT IN FRANCE. 



91 



by which science is translated into German, requires a 

 qualification in order to cover approximately the same 

 ground. These verbal differences point to differences of 2. 



Difference of 



thought. Only since Continental ideas and influences continental 

 have gained ground in this country has the word science SStoace. 01 

 gradually taken the place of that which used to be 

 termed natural philosophy or simply philosophy. One 

 reason why science forms such a prominent feature in 

 the culture of this age is the fact that only within the 

 last hundred years has scientific research approached the 

 more intricate phenomena and the more hidden forces 

 and conditions which make up and govern our everyday 

 life. The great inventions of the sixteenth, seventeenth, ' 

 and eighteenth centuries were made without special 

 scientific knowledge, and frequently by persons who 

 possessed skill rather than learning. They greatly in- 

 fluenced science and promoted knowledge, but they were 

 brought about more by accident or by the practical re- 

 quirements of the age than by the power of an unusual 



insight acquired by study. 1 But in the course of the last \ 



.. j 



tion in Dr Whewell's ' Writings and 

 Correspondence ' by Todhunter (2 

 vols., London, 1876). I believe the 

 word philosophy has lost the specific 

 meaning which it acquired in the 

 Baconian school, as much through 

 the influence of French science on 

 the one side as through that of 

 metaphysics on the other. The 

 latter emanated from Scotland and 

 from Germany through Coleridge. 

 It reinstated the word philosophy 

 in its original sense. 



1 Examples are plentiful. Not to 

 speak of gunpowder and printing, 

 which came earlier, we have later 

 nearly all the great improvements 



connected with the manufacture of 

 textiles, the fly-shuttle, the self- 

 acting mule, the power-loom, the 

 spinning - roller, invented by men 

 of little or no scientific education. 

 The same is the case with the 

 older metallurgical processes, the 

 refining of copper and the intro- 

 duction of cast-iron. Watt was 

 one of the first who brought a 

 trained intellect to his mechan- 

 ical work. The Royal Society was 

 started with the distinct purpose 

 of cultivating such knowledge as 

 has " a tendency to use " ; the 

 Royal Institution still more so. It 

 is, however, still doubtful, view- 



