since "the eternity of the substantial involves the eternity of its effects." Yet, while she attacks Comte's errors in the sphere of sociology, she renders full justice to his Course of Positive Philosophy, which was often in advance of its time in respect to the exact sciences. Among other of Madame Royer's publications we may cite Zoroastre, son Epoque et sa Doctrine (Zoroaster, his Epoch and his Doctrine, two volumes, 1875); Les Ages Préhistoriques (The Prehistoric Ages, 1876); La Terre et ses Anciens Habitants (The Earth and its Ancient Inhabitants, 1891), a sort of summary of recent progress in paleontology, and of facts that may be derived from the study of living beings; and Les Variations séculaires des Saisons (Secular Variation of the Seasons, 1892), a little work in which the author endeavors to confirm by observation a theory that climatic variations are dependent, in the meteorological sense, on planetary movements. She showed, for example, that in the cold winter of 1879-80 the distribution of the planets around the sun was precisely that which should give the greatest degree of cold for our hemisphere.
We notice also her occasional contributions to different periodicals: to Le Temps, the Revue des Revues, the Journal des Économistes, etc. Her last two treatises were published in 1895: La Matière (or Matter), and L'Inconnaissable (or The Unknowable).
So great intellectual activity has given Madame Royer a first place among women as students of science. Hence, on March 10, 1897, her numerous admirers and friends offered her a jubilee banquet, under the chairmanship of M. Levasseur, member of the Institute of France. The toasts spoken to on this occasion retraced the brilliant career of the heroine of the feast; and, as the chairman justly declared, the occasion was "the glorification of woman's knowledge." Madame Clémence Royer is at present living a very retired life in the Maison de Retraite founded by the Duchess Galigani at Neuilly, near Paris, where she enjoys the rest earned by a half century of persevering labor. Her body is feeble, but her ample brow and her yet lively eyes seem still to have preserved the recollections of the struggles of other days.
