154 SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



who have succeeded in permanently inscribing their 



names in the annals of science beside those of its true 



and great representatives. Some of the glory of Laplace 



40. and Cuvier falls upon him. Except for this Napoleon has 



His scienti- 



mahlrderi- scarce ty a place in the history of thought. In it those 

 who were Napoleon's servants are rulers and lawgivers ; 

 it is they who enlighten our century. They were the first 

 great exponents of the scientific spirit, nursed under the 

 influence of the academic system. This was peculiarly 

 a product of the French mind and culture. It is well 

 to recall in the words of Cuvier what the scientific spirit 

 is. At the end of the report which he presented in the 

 year 1808 he says : l " These are the principal physical 

 discoveries which have lighted up our period, and which 

 open the century of Napoleon. What hopes do they not 

 raise ! how much does not the general spirit signify, 

 which has brought them about, and which promises so 

 much more for the future ! All those hypotheses, all 

 those suppositions, more or less ingenious, which had 

 still so much sway in the first half of the last century, 

 are now discarded by true men of science : they do not 

 even procure for their authors a passing renown. Experi- 

 ments alone, experiments that are precise, made with 

 weights, measures, and calculation, by comparison of all 

 substances employed and all substances obtained : this 

 to-day is the only legitimate way of reasoning and 

 demonstration. Thus, though the natural sciences escape 

 the application of the calculus, they glory in being subject 

 to the mathematical spirit, and by the wise course which 

 they have invariably adopted, they do not expose them- 



1 'Rapport,' &c., p. 389. 



