250 TRANSLATIONS AND SELECTED ARTICLES. 
Without going to make so distant a search, we sce that every one 
has more or less the habit of forming opinions in an indirect way. 
Tt is thus we judge the character of a man, by his language, by his 
writing, by his dress. The proverb has consecrated it: ‘‘ The dress 
makes the monk,’’ 
It is in the main, by the same proceeding that the jurist-arives at 
moral proof, and that the savant, or we should rather say the 
student, for the savant is but a perpetual student, works out his doc- 
trine. He commences by observation, which he combines with ex- 
periment, when it is possible for him to interpose by modifying the 
circumstances under which the observed phenomena occur, and he 
classifies, he makes co-ordinate, he compares his first results, the 
better to seize their bearings, and at last, going back from effects 
to causes, he arrives at the discovery of the grand principles, the 
Jaws which govern nature. Observation, with experiment when 
possible, comparison, and at last inference, by these is science con- 
stituted. 
One of the most beautiful examples of the application of this pro- 
cess, has been presented by Geology, that science which has been 
able' to remake the history of our globe anterior to the existence 
of the human species. But why should we stop at the moment, 
when, for the first time, an intelligent being appeared on this earth, 
peopled until then bv animal creations, endowed only with instinct ? 
Ts not man also an element of nature, and does not he also belong 
to the great plan of creation? We shall be told; that for the human 
epoch, we have the transmission of recollections by written docu- 
ments, that is to say, by history so termed, and by oral recital, that 
is by tradition. But before the invention of writing, what constt- 
‘tuted history; and before the development of language, in what 
consisted tradition ? The origin of writing is not so obscure: that 
is to say, the starting point of history proper does not date from 
very far back. The origin of spoken language goes back naturally 
much further. But the study of languages shows that they slowly 
and gradually developed. themselves, coming from a very rudimentary 
condition, corresponding necessarily to an equally rudimentary state 
of thought. 
When did tradition begin to form itself, when did history proper 
take its birth? It is difficult to decide. For Southern Europe, 
dated and registered history goes back several centuries before the 
