110 SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



school of Voltaire and the Encyclopaedists, whilst the 

 work of destruction had been performed by the followers 

 of Rousseau. No one has expressed himself on the value 

 of scientific study and knowledge in a clearer or more 

 is. far-seeing manner than Condorcet. In his 'Report and 



Condorcet. 



Project of a Decree on the General Organisation of Public 

 Instruction,' which he presented to the National Assembly 

 in the name of the Committee of Public Instruction, 

 he says : l " Many motives have brought about the kind 

 of preference which is accorded to the mathematical and 

 physical sciences. Firstly, for men who do not devote 

 themselves to long meditations, who do not fathom any 

 kind of knowledge even the elementary study of these 

 sciences is the surest means of developing their intel- 

 lectual faculties, of teaching them to reason rightly and 

 to analyse their ideas. 2 ... It is because in the natural 

 sciences the ideas are more simple, more rigorously cir- 

 cumscribed, it is because their language is more perfect, 

 &c., &c. . . . These sciences offer a remedy for prejudice, 

 for smallness of mind a remedy, if not more certain, 

 at least more universal, than philosophy itself. 3 . . . Those 



1 It was presented on the 20th j poseront I'enseignemeut des insti- 

 and 21st April 1792. See Hippeau, tuts ou Ton pourra suivre, dans 

 l e se"rie, pp. 185-288. It was print- | leurs e"le"ments, 1'^chelle entiere des 

 ed by order of the Convention, Paris, | connaissances humaines " (vol. i. p. 

 Imprimerie uationale, 1793. j 322). " Les lyce"es seront I'&ole des 



2 Ibid., p. 203. gens instruits ; Us embrasseront les 



3 Ibid., p. 204. It is interesting j sciences, les arts et les lettres dans 

 to see how in all these reports the i touteleur e"tendue." One is forcibly 

 exact sciences are placed in the fore- ! reminded that the most perfect 

 ground. See, for instance, what | realisation of this arrangement of 



Gilbert Romme says of the teaching 

 of the proposed instituts : " Les 

 sciences mathe'matiques et phys- 

 iques, morales et politiques, 1'agri- 

 culture et les arts me'camques, la 



studies is to be found a century 

 later in the provincial science col- 

 leges of this country. The prefer- 

 ence, however, is now given to 

 science mainly for utilitarian rea- 



littdrature et les beaux-arts, com- sons : the difference is shown by 



