THE SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT IN FRANCE. 119 



i.e., from the province of mechanics and astronomy- 

 two different roads lead into those extensive domains in 

 which, not simplicity and regularity, but endless variety 

 and complication, seem to be the order and the rule of 

 Life. Even a century ago the contrast must have been 

 striking between the ' Principia ' of Newton and the ' Ex- 

 position du Systeme du Monde ' of Laplace on the one 

 side, and the great array of volumes of Linnseus, Buffon, 

 Jussieu, Cuvier, and Lacepede on the other ; though these 

 after all embraced only a small portion of the living forms 

 of nature which they attempted to classify or to describe. 1 

 I have pointed out how the new and especially the 

 French methods of chemistry and crystallography con- 

 quered a large portion of intermediate ground, subjected 

 many tangled phenomena to exact treatment, and pushed 

 the mathematical method far into the dominion of natural 

 history. It is that other history, not natural, but human 

 and often unnatural, which presents the opposite extreme 

 of the great panorama of world-life. It is significant 

 that almost at the same time that mathematical reason- 

 ing found its way into natural history, conquering an ex- 

 tensive province of its vast territory, an entirely different 

 method was invented with the aim of dealing in a still 

 more vigorous manner with the phenomena of human 

 life and society. This was the science of statistics, and 



1 Cuvier gives some figures as to Linnrcus had counted in 1778 about 



the increase of the known species j 8000 species of plants. Cuvier in 



during his own lifetime. Lace"pede j 1824 estimates the, number as 



had described about 1200 or 1300 50,000 or more (see 'Eloges,' vol. iii. 



distinct species of fishes ; but when 

 Cuvier pronounced his Eloge in 

 1826, the Cabinet du Roi contained 

 already more than 5000 species 

 (' Eloges historiques,' vol. iii. p. 317). 



p. 469, &c., where he also gives some 

 idea of the numbers of known 

 species in the different classes of 

 animals). 



