Characteristics of the Period.
The first French republic and the first French empire were associated with a great outburst of scientific energy. French mathematics, astronomy, and physics were pre-eminent. England suffered from isolation during the continental war, but Davy, Young, the Herschels, Watt (now past his prime), Dalton, and William Smith supported the scientific reputation of their country. In Germany this was the age of Goethe and Schiller; Alexander von Humboldt was prominent among the scientific men of Prussia. The forty years' peace, during which reaction prevailed in many parts of Europe, was in England and America a time of steady growth and progress.