[5] Vol. i., pp. 53-56.
The chief work which this undoubtedly great mind accomplished was the organisation of the scientific spirit as it appeared in his time. Renan hardly does justice to him in his sarcastic remark in his Souvenirs d’Enfance et de Jeunesse. “I felt quite irritated at the idea of Auguste Comte being dignified with the title of a great man for having expressed in bad French what all scientific minds had seen for the last two hundred years as clearly as he had done.” His work merits more than dismissal in such a tone, and we may here note, as the essence of the spirit which he tried to express, his definition of the positive or scientific attitude to the universe given at the commencement of his celebrated Cours de Philosophie positive. There, in defining the positive stage, Comte speaks of it as that period in which “the human spirit, recognising the impossibility of obtaining absolute conceptions, abandons the search for the origin and the goal of the universe and the inner causes of things, to set itself the task merely of discovering, by reasoning and by experience combined, the effective laws of phenomena—that is to say, their invariable relations of succession and of similarity.”[[6]] This positive spirit Comte strove to express rather than to originate, for it was already there in the sciences. Undoubtedly his work made it more prominent, more clear, and so we have to note an interaction between positivism in the sciences and in philosophy.
[6] Leçon i.
It is equally important for our purpose to notice that the period was one rich in scientific thought. The work of Lavoisier and Bichat, both of whom as contemporaries of Maine de Biran, belong to the former century, was now bearing fruit. Lavoisier’s influence had been great over chemistry, which he established on a modern basis, by formulating the important theory of the conservation of mass and by clearing away false and fan- tastic conceptions regarding combustion.[[7]] Bichat, the great anatomist and physiologist, died in 1802, but the publication of his works in a completed form was not accomplished until 1854. The work and influence of the Académie des Sciences are noteworthy features of French culture at this time. There stands out prominently the highly important work of Cuvier in anatomy, zoology and palæontology.[[8]] The nineteenth century was a period of great scientists and of great scientific theories. Leverrier, applying himself to the problem of the motions of Uranus, found a solution in the hypothesis of another planet, Neptune, which was actually discovered from his calculations in 1846. This was a notable victory for logical and scientific method. In 1809 Lamarck had outlined, prior to Spencer or Darwin, the scheme of the evolutionary theory (Transformism).[[9]] Spencer’s work, which appeared from 1850 onwards, has always commanded respect and attention in France even among its critics.[[10]] Interest increased upon the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species in 1859, and its translation into French in 1862. These dates coincide with the rise of the Société d’Anthropologie de Paris, founded by Broca in the same year that Darwin’s book appeared. Another translation from Darwin’s work followed in 1872, Descendance de l’Homme, which aroused further interest in the evolutionary theory. At the same time the work of men such as Pasteur, Bertrand, Berthelot and Bernard gave an impetus and a power to science. Poincare belongs rather to the twentieth century. Pasteur (1822-1895) showed mankind how science could cure its ills by patient labour and careful investigation, and earned the world’s gratitude for his noble work. His various Discours and his volume, Le Budget de la Science (1868), show his faith in this progressive power of science. In Bertrand (1822-1900), his contemporary who held the position of Professor of Mathematics at the College de France, a similar attitude appears.
[7] Lavoisier perished at the guillotine in 1794, and his death was a tragic loss to science.
[8] Cuvier’s Anatomie comparée appeared in the years 1800-1805, following his Histoire naturelle (1798-1799). Later came his Rapport sur les Sciences naturelles (1810) and his work Le Regne animal (1816).He died in 1832. We may note that Cuvier opposed the speculative evolutionary doctrines of Lamarck, with whom he indulged in controversy.
[9] In his work, Philosophie zoologique, ou Exposition des Considérations relatives a l’Histoire naturelle des Animaux, 2 vols Paris, Dentu, 1809.
[10] His Social Statics was published in 1850, and his Psychology five years later. His life work, The Synthetic Philosophy, extends over the period 1860-1896.
One of the foremost scientific minds, however, was Claude Bernard (1813-1878), a friend of Renan, who held the Chair of Medicine at the College de France, and was, in addition, the Professor of Physiology at the Faculté des Sciences at the Sorbonne. Science, Bernard maintained, concerns itself only with phenomena and their laws. He endeavoured in his celebrated Introduction à l’Etude de la Médécine expérimentale, published in 1865, to establish the science of physiology upon a sound basis, having respect only to fact, not owning homage to theories of a metaphysical character or to the authority of persons or creeds. He desired to obtain by such a rigorous and precise method, objectivity. “The experimental method is,” he insists, “the really scientific method, which proclaims the freedom of the human spirit and its intelligence. It not only shakes off the yoke of metaphysics and of theology, in addition it refuses to admit personal considerations and subjective standpoints.”[[11]]
[11] Introduction à l’Etude de la Médécine expérimentale, chap. ii, sect. 4.