gnition. In a
republican or constitutional government, politics are the
all-engrossing topics of a people's thought, the never-ending theme
of conversation;--in purely despotic states, such discussions are
prohibited, and the contemplation of such subjects confined to a few
restless or patriotic spirits. It must also be ever the policy of
absolute monarchs to open channels for the public mind, which may
divert it from political considerations. Take America and Austria as
existing instances of this contrast: in the former, the universality
of political conversation is an object of remark to all travellers; in
the latter, even books which touch at all on political matters are
rigidly excluded. These are among the causes which strike us as most
prominent, but whose effects obtain only when despotism is not so
gross as to be an incubus upon the whole moral and intellectual
energies of a people.

We should lose sight of the objects proposed in these pages, and also
transgress our assigned limits, were we to enter into detail upon the
present state of science in Europe, or trace the causes which have
influenced her progress in each state. This would form a sufficient
thesis for a separate essay; but we will not pass over this branch of
our subject, without venturing to express an opinion on the delicate
and embarrassing question as to what rank each nation holds as a
promoter of physical science.

In experimental and theoretical Physics, we should be inclined to
place the German nations in the first rank; in pure and applied
mathematics, France. The former nations far excel all others in the
independence and impartiality with which they view scientific results;
researches of any value, from whatever part of the world they emanate,
instantly find a place in their periodicals; and they generally
estimate more justly the relative value of different discoveries than
any other European nation; the aesthetical power which enables them to
seize and appreciate what is beautiful in art, gives them perception
and discrimination in science; but they are not great as originators.
The French, notwithstanding the high pitch at which they have
undoubtedly arrived in mathematical investigation, not withstanding
the general accuracy of their experimental researches, have more of
the pedantry of science; their papers are too professional--too much
_selon les regles_; there are too many minutiae; the reader is tempted
to exclaim with Jacques