SHEMITIC CIVILIZATION. 



113 



claims to the mastery of the world. The 

 Galileo of our day will not retract what he 

 knows to be the truth, on bended knee. 



You will permit me, in the performance 

 of my task, to descend to the smallest 

 details, and to be habitually technical ; and 

 Science, gentlemen, only attains its sacred 

 object, the discovery of truth, on condition 

 of being special and rigorous. Everyone 

 is not intended to be a chemist, physician, 

 philologist ; to shut himself up in his 

 laboratory, to follow up for years an ex- 

 periment, or a calculation; everyone, how- 

 ever, participates in the great philosophical 

 results of chemistry, medicine, and philology. 

 To present these results, divested of the pro- 

 cesses which have served to discover them, 

 is a useful thing which Science should not 

 forbid. But such is not the mission of the 

 College of France : all the most special and 

 most minute processes of Science should be 

 here laid bare. Laborious demonstrations, 

 patient analysis, excluding it is true no 

 general development, no legitimate digres- 



