THE SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT IN ENGLAND. 299 



a systematic exploration of the heavens and the earth, 

 the inanimate and the living world, could be undertaken. 

 At the same time, the methods of measurement and cal- 

 culation were submitted to closer study ; new sciences 

 were created by the application of these methods; and 

 problems were attacked for the first time, with which, 

 at the end of the century, the scientific world is still 

 occupied. It was in France also that the discoveries of 

 the laboratory were first applied so as to contribute to 

 the revolution of arts and industries. In all its different 

 expressions in the production of works of classical per- 

 fection in substance and in form, in its application to the 

 problems of life and society, and in its influence on gen- 

 eral literature we find the scientific spirit, as we know 

 it, fully established in France in the beginning of the 

 century. About three decades later we find this spirit 

 domiciled in Germany, the study of the exact sciences 

 having been gradually accepted at the German univer- 

 sities as an integral part of the university cycle. It there 

 met the philosophical and classical spirit, which had or- 

 ganised the German university system and the teaching 

 of the higher schools, and had revolutionised historical, 

 especially philological, studies. What might have been 

 wanting at times in French science, historical complete- 

 ness and philosophical criticism, was added in Germany. 

 Germany has in the course of this century not only be- 

 come the country where the most faithful and exhaustive 

 record is kept of the scientific labours of the whole world, 

 but it has also become the country where mainly those 

 problems have been attacked which lie on the border- 

 land of natural science and philosophy, the problems of 



