SKETCH OF JOHN B. STALLO. 



551 



an introduction to a more complete analysis of Hegel's system 

 than had. yet appeared in English. To all this was added a care- 

 fully digested summary of the physiophilosophy of Lorenz Ok-en, 

 a work then unknown to most English and American students, 

 although an authorized English translation of it appeared at about 

 the same time, published by the Royal Society, and its views were 

 already influencing the teachings of Richard Owen, of London, 

 then the great master in natural history. 



Speaking of this work in the preface to the " Concepts," the 

 author says that it was written when he " was under the spell of 

 Hegel's ontological reveries ; at a time when I was barely of age, 

 and still seriously affected with the metaphysical malady which 

 seems to be one of the unavoidable disorders of intellectual in- 

 fancy. The labor expended in writing it was not, perhaps, 

 wholly wasted, and there are things in it of which I am not 

 ashamed, even at this day ; but I sincerely regret its publication, 

 which is in some degree atoned for, I hope, by the contents of the 

 present volume." 



A personal friend of the author's describes the book as char- 

 acterized by an erroneous method, resulting from the passion for 

 freedom in thought and inquiry which was unconsciously its 

 impelling principle — a work composed "in his philosophic hey- 

 day, when he tried to turn his conceptions into corresponding 

 facts, to discover truth by creating it." 



The work has, nevertheless, left its mark in scientific litera- 

 ture. The direction given by it, both by Stallo's own outline of 

 philosophy and by his introduction to the thoughts of the great 

 German thinkers represented in it, was soon apparent in the writ- 

 ings of several of the new generation of students. In none, per- 

 haps, is this more clearly shown than in the writings of T. Sterry 

 Hunt, whose papers from 1852 bear frequent evidence to the great 

 influence of Stallo's teachings. It is worthy of note that Dr. 

 Hunt's recent work — " A New Basis for Chemistry " — is dedicated 

 to J. B. Stallo, " citizen, jurist, and philosopher," and that the 

 author says in his preface that the volume in question was at 

 that early period a source of inspiration to him. 



The results of Judge Stallo's riper thought were given in his 

 second and, so far, his greatest book, " The Concepts and Theories 

 of Modern Physics," a work which at once gave him a world- 

 wide reputation and placed him in the foremost rank among sci- 

 entific thinkers. The development of the views embodied in this 

 book can be traced, Ave think, in the author's occasional addresses 

 and his contributions to periodicals in the English and German 

 languages, of which we have only a few at hand ; but those few 

 present evident foreshadowings of what was afterward to be 

 given permanent form in the " Concepts.' 



