jS THE HISTORY OF CREATION. 



of development. As these naturalists are generally called 

 nature-philosophers (Naturphilosophen), and as this 

 ambiguous designation is correct in a certain sense, it 

 appears to me appropriate here to say a few words about 

 the correct estimate of the " Naturphilosophie." 



Although for many years in England the ideas of natural 

 science and philosophy have been looked upon as almost 

 equivalent, and as every truly scientific investigator of 

 nature is most justly called there a " natural philosopher," 

 yet in Germany for more than half a century natural science 

 has been kept strictly distinct from philosophy, and the union 

 of the two into a true philosophy of nature is recognized 

 only by the few. This misapprehension is owing to the 

 fantastic eccentricities of earlier German natural-philosophers, 

 such as Oken, Schelling, etc. ; they believed that they were 

 able to construct the laws of nature in their own heads, 

 without being obliged to take their stand upon the grounds 

 of actual experience. When the complete hollowness of 

 their assumptions had been demonstrated, naturalists, in 

 "the nation of thinkers," fell into the very opposite extreme, 

 believing that they would be able to reach the high aim of 

 science, that is, the knowledge of truth, by the mere experi- 

 ence of the senses, and without any philosophical activity of 

 thought. 



From that time, but especially since 1830, most natiu'alists 

 have shown a strong aversion to any general, philosophical 

 view of nature. The real aim of natural science was now 

 supposed to consist in the knowledge of details, and it was 

 believed that this would be attained in the study of biology, 

 when the forms and the phenomena of life, in all individual 

 organisms, had become accurately known, by the help of the 



