226 



CHAPTEK III. 



THE SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT IN ENGLAND. 



1. The history of science in France and Germany during 



Scientific ' JO 



organisation the first half of the present century is identical with the 



abroad. ^ "^ 



history of two great organisations, the Paris Institute and 

 the German Universities. It is to them that we owe 

 nearly all the great scientific work in the two countries : 

 to the former we owe the foundation of the modern 

 methods of scientific work during the last period of the 

 eighteenth and the early years of the nineteenth cen- 

 tury ; to the latter we owe pre-eminently the diffusion 

 and widespread application of those methods.^ We now 

 turn to the country which, in advance of France and Ger- 



^ In respect of this I cannot suffi- 

 ciently i-ecommend M. Maury's 

 volume on ' L'aucienne Academic 

 des Sciences,' which is as eloquent 

 a testimonial to the scientific 

 labours of eminent Frenchmen 

 during the eighteenth century as 

 the companion volume on ' L'an- 

 cienne Academic des Inscriptions 

 et Belles Lettres' is a proof of 

 the absence of philological studies 

 during that period. The recent 

 publication of Lexis' work, ' Die 

 deutschen Universitiiten,' is just 

 as eloquent a testimonial to the 



laboui's of the German universities 

 during this century. The first im- 

 pression we get from the perusal of 

 these two works is that for a long 

 period France almost monopolised 

 the exact sciences, just as later, 

 for a similar period, Germany 

 almost monopolised classical re- 

 search, the science of antiquity. 

 And yet the former was probably 

 as much indebted to the English- 

 man Newton as the latter was to 

 the Frenchman Joseph Scaliger for 

 the character each acquired during 

 the two periods I refer to. 



