89 



CHAPTER I. 



THE SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT IN FKANCE. 

 It will be generally admitted that the scientific spirit is i- 



^ '' ^ Our century 



a prominent feature of the thought of our century as gentu'^^*'^*' 

 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 Eeformation 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.^ 



^ The use of the word science 

 and its adjective scientific has 

 varied considerably in the English 

 language. We must wait for Dr 

 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 

 Science (1831). The two other 

 great organisations which profes- 



sedly started for the culture of 

 what we now call science viz., 

 the Royal Society for the Improve- 

 ment of Natural Knowledge, and 

 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 

 occasionally in those referring to 

 the older Society. The Royal So- 



