THE SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT IN FRANCE. 



Ill 



who follow their course, see the coming of an epoch 

 when the practical usefulness of their application will 

 reach greater dimensions than were ever hoped for, when 

 the progress of the physical sciences must produce a 

 fortunate revolution in the arts. And lastly, we have 

 yielded to the general tendency of men's minds, which 

 in Europe seem to incline towards these sciences with 

 an ever-increasing ardour. . . . Literature has its limits, 

 the sciences of observation and calculation have none. 

 Below a certain degree of talent, the taste for literary 

 occupations produces either ridiculous pride or a mean 

 jealousy towards such talents as one cannot attain. In 

 the sciences, on the contrary, it is not with the opinion 

 of men but with nature that we have to engage in a 

 contest, the triumph of which is nearly always certain, 

 where every victory predicts a new one." 1 



" It is," says Lakanal, in his report on the " Ecoles cen- 

 trales," 16th December 1794, "of great importance for 

 the nation to assure itself that the mathematical sciences 

 are cultivated and deepened, for they give the habit 

 of accuracy : without them astronomy and navigation 

 have no' guide ; architecture, both civil and naval, has 

 no rule ; the sciences of artillery and of fortification have 

 no foundation." 2 Gradually, under the pressure of exter- 



19. 



Lakanal. 



the importance then attached to 

 mathematics as a training of the 

 intellect in precise thinking ; now- 

 adays it is the mechanical side that 

 is favoured, and this is only too 

 often destructive of the truly scien- 

 tific and exact spirit. 



1 Hippeau, loc. cit., p. 258. Cf. 

 p. 261 : " Hatons-nous . . . de por- 

 ter dans les sciences morales la 



philosophic et la methode des scien- 

 ces physiques " (Condorcet). 



2 Hippeau, vol. i. p. 432. It is in- 

 teresting to see how the study and 

 teaching of the sciences in course of 

 the second half of the last century 

 in France undergo a development. 

 The literary interest predominates 

 in Fontenelle. Buffon and Voltaire 

 add to it the philosophical and 



