Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 29.djvu/53

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DE CANDOLLE ON MEN OF SCIENCE.
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and Italy, when they were divided up into many small states. Then, when the fugitives have escaped into the other states, they can generally get along with the language and customs, which will not be far removed from their own. But, in a very large country, not only is it hard to escape, but if one expatriates himself he will be exposed to the annoyance of finding himself among populations speaking a different language, and having other habits than his own.

Of twenty conditions which M. de Candolle lays down as favorable and the opposite of them as decidedly unfavorable to the progress of science, Switzerland has all, and no unfavorable opposites; Turkey all the unfavorable ones, and no favorable ones; the United States all but four favorable, and the exceptions—want of a wealthy class, want of a leisurely class devoting themselves to scientific enjoyments, lack of museums, etc., and non-proximity of civilized countries—are neither grave nor characteristic, but only temporary.

Above all the conditions enumerated, and controlling them, is the superior condition, primarily requisite, that every individual shall be secured in the ability to do what he judges fit, provided he does no harm to another. The idea is commonly expressed by the two terms, security and liberty; but, in fact, there can be no security without liberty, nor liberty without security. The terms complement one another. The favorable conditions appear as a whole to have accumulated in their most obvious form in a triangular space comprehended between Central Italy, Scotland, and Sweden, with a projection extending across the ocean to New England. This peculiar shaping is the result of historical causes, the chief of which are the three decisive movements for European civilization of the Renaissance, which originated in Tuscany; the Reformation, which started in Germany; and political liberty, which has been laboriously and slowly developed in England. Other very important factors or superior conditions are, that the race shall be European, or of European origin; that a long selection shall have prepared a considerable number of families for intellectual labors; that the climate shall not be one of depressing heat, and that the geographical situation shall not be too far removed from centers of intellectual culture.

If we inquire what have been the most important scientific discoveries—that is, those which have not been mere applications, but which have opened new fields of research—made during the last forty years, we shall find among them those of spectral analysis, the transformation of forces, the ancient extension of the glaciers, the antiquity of man and prehistoric studies, evolution and natural selection, alternating generations, and deep-sea explorations. These have all originated in Scandinavia, Central Germany, Switzerland, Northern France, or England, or in the countries which have been found to occupy the first places in the academical lists. If we extend the inquiry to fifty or sixty years back, we shall find the case substantially the same. The