1842.] Noologists and Cosmologists. "COSMOLOGY. 161 "Ut mundum noscas, moles et vita notandæ Mensura et motus primum, mox corpora et omne 66 NOOLOGY. "Ad mentem referas quæ menti aut gentibus insunt; The whole extends to one hundred and forty-four lines, which leave no doubt of Ampère's classical scholarship. They express the two chief divisions of human knowledge, and their immediate subdivisions. If, in the times of the scholastics, such a mnemotechnical index of the sciences had existed, scholars would doubtless have generally learned it by heart. But the old French philosopher died without the consolation of seeing any great taste in the public for his poetical production. The cause of the little success of Ampère's classification lies perhaps in the circumstance that men of study are actually formed into two corps, with the words noology and cosmology on their respective banners. At least it is the case in France, though less so every day; but it is much more on account of the great inequality in number of the students in the two faculties, which are characterized by the names science and letters. The school of natural philosophers is a powerful body of men, who devote themselves to their pursuits with an ardor and perseverance which is unsurpassed, while there is scarcely any such thing as a school of noologists or mental philosophers. Even the philosophers who, like Guizot and Villemain, actually belong to the faculty of letters, are metaphysicians more in name than in reality. Guizot's History of Civilization shows that he treats the subject as one in which observation is to furnish the elements of the science. In his eyes there are laws which regulate man and human society, as well as there are laws regulating the motions of the planetary system; there are exterior circumstances which produce, modify, and rule the actions of nations, as there are circumstances which favor or prevent the development of the egg into a bird. "What method," says he, (Civilization in France,)" prevails in our times in the intellectual order in the investigation of truth, whatever may be its objects? A method of severity, prudence and reserve; the scientific method, the philosophical method. It observes carefully the facts, and ventures but slowly to generalize, progressively, as the facts become known. This method evidently governs in the 'sciences which relate to the material world; through it they arrived at their advancement and glory. It tends, in our times, to penetrate more and more into the sciences of the moral world, into political science, history, and philosophy. Every where the scientific method gains in grasp and strength; every where the necessity is felt of taking facts for foundation and rule," etc. This passage shows how little there can remain of the distinction of the former two classes of mental and natural philosophers in France. What there does remain is merely nominal; in reality there is but one school of philosophers; this is the school of positive philosophers, which has continued growing since the last century, and found at last a worthy teacher, within a few years, in M. Achille Comte. But of him presently. For the present it will suffice to have stated that such a school exists in France; that it is in a period of rapid growth, while all remnants of the catholic and metaphysical schools are not less rapidly disappearing. A glance at the institutions of public instruction renders this fact evident. We need only mention the names of the most important schools of positive learning in Paris, - Ecole Polytechnique; Ecole de Medecine; Faculté des Sciences; Jardin des Plantes; Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers; Collège de France, and Ecole Normale, where thousands of students are prepared for the cultivation of sciences. The Faculté des Lettres makes but a small figure among this multitude of scientific institutions. This shows evidently that Ampère's classification came too late for his countrymen ; it would be a great mistake to think that it came too soon; very seldom is any man in his old age found in advance of his times. The division of sciences into noological and cosmological, had existed before these names were proposed by the old professor, and while he attempted to classify them for the future, he merely made public a classification of a former period. His synoptical table is the monument of a state of things gone by, or at least expiring. 1842.] Influence of Paris upon Science. 163 The following extract from the thirteenth page of the book before us, explains our reasons for having dwelt so long upon Ampère's work on the classification of sciences: "The distinguished philosopher Ampère, in his essay on the classification of sciences, has given a natural classification of human knowledge,' devised in 1830 and published in 1834. As this classification bears a closer resemblance than any of the preceding to that here proposed, it becomes proper to state that the classification of knowledge adopted in this work was actually completed before the writer had seen Ampère's work, or learned its contents." Whatever may be the opinion to the contrary, of those who are governed by a most excusable partiality for England, or by their enthusiasm for the literary productions of German writers, or the philological researches of German scholars, France, or rather Paris, exercises immediately a much more powerful and far-reaching influence on the learned world, than any other nation. Whoever has seen the thousands of young men from all parts of the civilized world who hurry through the narrow streets of the quartier Latin of the great French capital, or walk in the magnificent garden of plants, will find no difficulty in acceding to what we advance. Nowhere is the student more exclusively living in a scientific atmosphere than on the left bank of the Seine. There may be individual foreigners at other universities of Europe, but in Paris there are still foreign nations. Nowhere do there meet from all lands more men of science, both practical and theoretical, than here. Nowhere are new ideas more rapidly introduced, exchanged and propagated. Wherever a discovery may have been made, if it be made public, it will be known at Paris sooner than any where else. It is not because Paris is the sun of the intellectual world, but the mirror which concentrates its rays, and reflects them in all directions, that it exercises a necessary influence over all the scientific republic. The German, the Englishman, the Italian, or the American, in leaving his modest residence in the neighborhood of the magnificent Pantheon, in returning to his own country cannot at once lay aside the ideas which have forced themselves into his mind during the years of his scholastic life. If he afterwards becomes distinguished, it is by further developing the opinions which he brought away with him. As birds disperse certain seeds over the surface of a continent, or transport them from island to island, so men carry over mountains and seas the seeds of new ideas, and preserve them from becoming lost. It is not with the sciences as with politics, or religion and literature. The former are the same wherever they find followers, while the latter present themselves under as many different forms as there are different climates and languages; these alone are national- those are cosmopolite. Whatever difference there may be between a French original novel, and a romance translated into French from the German, there is none between two works of science of these two nations, as soon as they are clothed in the same language. The causes which preserve nationality of character are therefore inefficient with regard to sciences; all civilized nations gladly adopt all improvements which are made in them. These considerations show that we may look to France to learn the actual state of science; and nowhere can we find this fact more plainly shown than in the work already alluded to, and to which we shall soon return after having added a few words on the classification of our author. "In this system all human knowledge is primarily divided into four great provinces: 1. Psychonomy, including the laws of mind, or intellectual sciences; 2. Ethnology, or the study of nations, geographically and historically; 3. Physiconomy, or the laws of the material world; and, 4. Technology, or the study of the arts which relate to material objects. These four provinces are next subdivided each into four departments, and each department embraces a group of several branches of knowledge closely related to each other. In arranging the departments and branches among themselves, four leading principles have, it is believed, been constantly kept in view as guides to a natural method. They are, the order of dependence, the order of time, the order of place, and the order of resemblance." "With these preliminary remarks," the author proceeds "to resolve the four provinces of human knowledge into their appropriate departments." In the first province we find the following arrangement: glossology, rhetoric, logic, phrenics, ethics, education, law and political philosophy, political economy, and finally, theology. Would our limits allow, much might be said of this classification, but we must refer the reader to the work itself for more particular details. It appears a little too much like one of those curiosity collections above mentioned; for, in these 1842.] His Classification unphilosophical. 165 also, things are arranged with regard to the order of time, the order of place, and the order of resemblance. The deficiency of a leading principle, or philosophical method, will be evident to any one. That the science of education, for instance, should be placed almost at the head of the classification, is indeed extraordinary in our times. To be sure, it is customary to teach children to speak and read, and to educate them from the moment their mind appears capable of receiving impressions; but no one ever thought of teaching them how to educate at that age. To make known the principles according to which man should be educated, that is to say, prepared for his life in the present and future world, before we know any thing of man, of mankind, of the world, or of God, with no other preparation than a stock of words without meaning, is a mode of proceeding which no one can approve. This example is enough to show that the classification is unphilosophical. We should feel inclined to think that the author's object was more to bring the different branches of human knowledge under a few general denominations, without claim to method. But even in that case it would not satisfy us completely; we should still find some difficulty in discovering how far logic and grammar, or rhetoric, is more a mental science than mathematics. What is pure mathematics but the science of reasoning in another dress? Is there any thing in mathematics, in the geometry of Euclid, in analytical geometry, in algebra, or in the calculus, more material than in the construction of a syllogism? Is not every mathematical demonstration, every solution of a problem, a mere mental operation? Why is political economy represented as a mental science? To so consider it is not to pay a high compliment to mental sciences, as this one of their branches which could have been cultivated since mind exists, is as yet so little advanced, that in its application there is scarcely a single generally adopted principle. All sciences are mental: it is the application of the mind to the phenomena of the physical or moral world, which makes science; the mind of the natural philosopher who discovers a law of nature, is not less active than that of the legislator who frames a civil law. Speaking of political sciences, Sismondi says:-" No wonder, then, that social sciences are so little advanced, that their principles are so uncertain, that they do not present a single question which |
