110 



SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



18. 



Condorcet. 



school of Voltaire and the Encyclopaedists, whilst the 

 work of destruction had been performed by the followers 

 of Eousseau. No one has expressed himself on the value 

 of scientific study and knowledge in a clearer or more 

 far-seeing manner than Condorcet. In his ' Eeport and 

 Project of a Decree on the General Organisation of Public 

 Instruction,' which he presented to the National Assembly 

 in the name of the Committee of Public Instruction, 

 he says : l " Many motives have brought about the kind 

 of preference which is accorded to the mathematical and 

 physical sciences. Firstly, for men who do not devote 

 themselves to long meditations, who do not fathom any 

 kind of knowledge even the elementary study of these 

 sciences is the surest means of developing their intel- 

 lectual faculties, of teaching them to reason rightly and 

 to analyse their ideas. 2 ... It is because in the natural 

 sciences the ideas are more simple, more rigorously cir- 

 cumscribed, it is because their language is more perfect, 

 &c., &c. . . . These sciences offer a remedy for prejudice, 

 for smallness of mind a remedy, if not more certain, 

 at least more universal, than philosophy itself. 3 . . . Those 



1 It was presented on the 20th 

 and 21st April 1792. See Hippeau, 

 l e serie, pp. 185-288. It was 

 printed by order of the Convention, 

 Paris, Imprimerie nationale, 1793. 



2 Ibid., p. 203. 



3 Ibid., p. 204. It is interesting 

 to see how in all these reports the 

 exact sciences are placed in the fore- 

 ground. See, for instance, what 

 Gilbert Romrne says of the teaching 

 of the proposed institute: " Les 

 sciences mathematiques et phys- 

 iques, morales et politiques, 1'agri- 

 culture et les arts mecaniques, la 

 litterature et les beaux-arts, com- 



poseront 1'enseignement des insti- 

 tuts ou Ton pourra suivre, dans 

 leurs e'le'ments, I'e'chelle entiere des 

 connaissances humaines " (vol. i. p. 

 322). " Les lycees seront 1'ecole des 

 gens instruits ; ils embrasseront les 

 sciences, les arts et les lettres dans 

 toute leur etendue." One is forcibly 

 reminded that the most perfect 

 realisation of this arrangement of 

 studies is to be found a century 

 later in the provincial science col- 

 leges of this country. The prefer- 

 ence, however, is now given to 

 science mainly for ultilitarian rea- 

 sons : the difference is shown by 



