94 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK 



Above all, by his attractive style and bold sugges- 

 tions he popularized the subjects and created an in- 

 terest in these matters and a spirit of inquiry which 

 spread throughout France and the rest of Europe. 



But notwithstanding the crude and uncritical na- 

 ture of the writings of the second half of the eight- 

 eenth century, resulting from the lack of that more 

 careful and detailed observation which characterizes 

 our day, there was during this period a widespread 

 interest in physical and natural science, and it led up 

 to that more exact study of nature which signal- 

 izes the nineteenth century. " More new truths 

 concerning the external world," says Buckle, "were 

 discovered in France during the latter half of the 

 eighteenth century than during all preceding periods 

 put together."* As Perkins f says: "Interest in 

 scientific study, as in political investigation, seemed 

 to rise suddenly from almost complete inactivity to 

 extraordinary development. In both departments 

 English thinkers had led the way, but if the impulse 

 to such investigations came from without, the work 

 done in France in every branch of scientific research 

 during the eighteenth century was excelled by no 

 other nation, and England alone could assert any 

 claim to results of equal importance. The researches 

 of Coulomb in electricity, of Buffon in geology, of 

 Lavoisier in chemistry, of Daubenton in comparative 

 anatomy, carried still farther by their illustrious suc- 

 cessors towards the close of the century, did much 

 to establish conceptions of the universe and its laws 



'''History of Civilization, i. p. 627. 

 \ France tinder Louis XV., p. 359. 



