THE PRUSSIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 171 



including comments on his writings and such annotations by present- 

 day scholars as have seemed necessary. It was through Wolff, one of 

 the members of the academy, who died in 1824, that German scholars 

 were made acquainted with the treasures of Grecian archeology. In 

 the second decade of the century, great as was the ambition of many 

 of its leaders, the academy was by no means what it now is. At its 

 regular sessions rarely more than one half its members were present. 

 Only 8 out of 29 or 30 who might have had the privilege heard Schleier- 

 macher's remarkable essay on 'Various Methods of Translation.' The 

 philosophical class, of which Schleiermacher was the head, contained 

 only two members in addition to himself, Savigny and the younger 

 Ancillon. It was the historical class which led the academy. To it 

 belonged William von Humboldt, Ideler, Niebuhr, Buttmann, Boeckh 

 and Bekker. In the decade following the fall of Napoleon the works 

 of Savigny, the Grimm brothers, Lachmann, Bopp, Diez, Carl Bitter, 

 Kiebuhr, the Humboldts, Eichorn, Creutzer, Gottfried and Hermann 

 appeared. Many of them were epoch-making. Schleiermacher repre- 

 sented philosophy, philology and theology, as well as ethics, in his 

 writings and in his instructions as a professor in the university. 

 Boeckh represented philology, history and economics, while Niebuhr 

 made it plain in his Eoman History how history should be studied and 

 written. Savigny indicated in his writings on law how closely united 

 it is with history and philosophy. 



It was in 1815 that Boeckh proposed and secured the adoption of 

 a plan for the publication of all accessible Greek and Latin inscriptions. 

 He thought the work might occupy four years and cost about $450. 

 It is not yet entirely complete and has cost more than $45,000. Boeckh 

 gave his personal attention to Grecian antiquities and with the aid of 

 a commission appointed by the academy, by correspondence with socie- 

 ties in Corfu, Thessaly and Athens, and by searching the libraries of 

 Europe, gathered material for a work which he soon discovered would 

 be far more extensive, valuable and costly than he had originally antici- 

 pated. Bekker came to his aid and was made his permanent assistant 

 in 1817. He had spent the years 1810-12 in Paris, copying manu- 

 scripts, and in 1815-16 had been employed with Professor Goeschen in 

 Verona in copying the 'Gaius,' discovered by Mebuhr while serving 

 as ambassador in Eome, a work which has proved to be of importance 

 for the science of law. In 1817 Bekker was entrusted with the prep- 

 aration of the writings of Aristotle, which was subsequently made to 

 include the comments and everything else which could throw light 

 upon their meaning or their importance. Professor Brandis was chosen 

 as his assistant. This edition, now under the care of Professor Diels, 

 is approaching completion and is of inestimable value to all who prize 

 learning and painstaking accuracy. Mr. Diels entered the academy in 

 1882 and is still one of its most important members. Bekker devoted 



