PHYSICAL SCIENCES TO SCIENCE IN GENERAL. 219 



science, tlie rash projects of man arc, indeed, apt to astonisli and fii^liteu 

 us, like tlie chorns in Antigone, wlien it exclaims, 



" Much is surijrisiug, but uonglit iiioic surprising than man."' 

 Wbo can overlook the whole, keep the connecting threads in his hand 

 and find his way throngh the labyrinth. The immediate and natural 

 consequence is that everj^ investigator is forced to choose a field of 

 labor constantl.5^ becoming more circumscribed, and to confine himself 

 to a bnt imperfect acquaintance with the rest. We are now inclined to 

 laugh when we hear that in the seventeenth century Kepler was called 

 to Griitz to discharge the duties of the chair of mathematics and moral 

 science, or that at the beginning of the eighteenth century Boerhave 

 held at the same time the professorshi[>s of botany, chemistry, and clin- 

 ical medicine, which, of course, included also pharmacy. Now, wc need 

 at least four and in many universities even seven or eight teachers for 

 all these branches. The same is the case in other departments of 

 science. 



I have the more reason to consider the connection between the dilfer- 

 eut sciences here, because I confine myself to the circle of natural sciences, 

 which have latterly been accused of pursuing a course isolated from other 

 sciences, correlated through mutual philological and historical studies, 

 and of having become estranged from them. This indeed has long- 

 been perceptible, and seems to have been developed, or rather brought 

 to notice, under the inlluence of the philosophy of Ilegel. At the end of the 

 last century, under the philosophy of Kant, such a separation had not 

 been pronounced. His philosophy was on equal footing with the nat- 

 ural sciences, as KanVs own labors in natural science demonstrate, 

 especially his cosmogonic hypotheses, based on Newton's law of gravi- 

 tation, which was later generally received under the name of the theory 

 of Laplace. Kant's critical philosophy was calculated only to investigate 

 the sources and basis of our knowledge, and to create a standard for the 

 intellectual labors of the different sciences. A law found a j^yiori by 

 pure thought, could, according to his doctrine, become onl^^ a rule for a 

 method of thinking, and could not have any positive or real significance. 

 The i)hilosophy of identity was bolder. It proceeded from the hypothesis 

 that the real world, that nature, and the life of man, were the result of the 

 thoughts of a creative mind, which mind was similar to that of man. 

 Accordingly, the human mind might undertake, even without the guid- 

 ance of external experience, to think over again the thoughts of the 

 Creator, and to find them again, through its own inner activity. In this 

 sense the philosophy of identity endeavored to construct a i^-iori the 

 material results of the other sciences. This might succeed more or less 

 easily with respect to religion, law, political economy, language, art, 

 history, and, in short, in all sciences which are developed cliielly from a 

 l^sychological basis, and which are therefore classified under the name 

 of mental sciences. The state, the church, art and language, have for 

 their object the satisfaction of certain spiritual and mental wants of 



