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F. F. ROGET_, ON ERNEST NAVILLE^S LIFE. 



been bom to Naville in many places of the world. His sense 

 of political justice rested on the abstract and ideal truths 

 which he held should pervade the institutions of States, and 

 which proceeded from the same ordaining forces he saw at work 

 in science and philosophy. In a stronghold of Protestantism, 

 such as Geneva was till 1846, and still is in the eyes of the 

 world, he had many opportunities in which to show to the 

 Roman Catholic Church his sovereiofn sense of rii^hteous 

 justice. 



I beg now to bestow the remainder of my time upon a 

 general review of the contents and subjects of Naville's books — 

 which are many more than are mentioned here — his philosophy 

 and Christian discourses. 



The psychology of Maine de Biran dominated the early 

 pi'ogress of Naville in philosophy. He found another mainstay 

 in a profound acquaintance with the method of physical science. 

 The researches which Naville instituted in this subject are 

 probably the most original part in all his work. The processes 

 or procedure of the mind in scientific enquiry he transferred to 

 philosophy. Stimulated by the vigorous scientific achievements 

 which then made Geneva as famous as, for instance, Edinburgh 

 in its day, he had an example before him set by living men. 

 He was fortunate in their personal advice, even in the criticism 

 of such authorities in physical science as De la Eive, De Candolie 

 and Pictet. Under this guidance he tried hard to master 

 the inwardness of modern physical science by studying the 

 history of its beginnings, by scrutinising the leading principles 

 of its founders, from Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo to Newton, 

 without neglecting the contributions of his contemporaries. 

 From these studies he had acquired in the scientific domains a 

 most uncommon learning, and an exceptional standing. 



It is rare indeed that scientific men have a philosophic 

 mastery over their craft and are able, either to connect their 

 special department with others, or to view it in relation to the 

 laws of the mind and the universal findings of reason. As near 

 his end as 1908, Ernest Naville's reputation was still so unique 

 in the matter of the relation of science to philosophy, tliat the 

 Academic des Sciences morales et politiques (Paris) asked for a 

 memoire from him on the essence of matter, which the old man 

 sent, being unable to go and read it himself. The fruit of his 

 researches upon scientific method was to supply him with a 

 clear and well grounded conviction that in every scientific 

 process of mind, hypothesis is a principal structural element and 

 hence flowed for him a general conception of science which 



