THE SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT IN GERMANY. 



205 



for the first time connected into a great organisation by 

 the French Academy of Sciences. 



The opposition in which the new school of exact and 

 detailed research stood to the representatives of the broad 

 philosophical view gave rise to a great many currents 

 of thought ; for neither the former nor the latter pre- 

 sented a united front. Among those who advocated the 

 exact methods of research there was a section which 

 clung more exclusively to the empirical side, and culti- 

 vated the descriptive and experimental sciences ; whereas 

 others, whom we may call the French school of science, 

 developed the mathematical methods, not without a cer- 

 tain ill-disguised contempt for pure empiricism. 1 On 

 the side of classical and philosophical studies there was 

 a section which cultivated the historical 2 in contradis- 



28. 



Conflict be- 

 tween the 

 scientific 

 and the 

 philosophi- 

 cal views. 



1 On the relations of mathemati- 

 cal and experimental physics, and 

 the different opinions which existed 

 during the first half of the century, 

 see Helmholtz's popular addresses 

 in many places, but especially the 

 discourse on Gustav Magnus (1802- 

 70), who may be regarded as a 

 representative of the experimental 

 school in Germany. In the opin- 

 ion of this school, which cultivated 

 the borderland of physics and chem- 

 istry, of organic and inorganic phe- 

 nomena, or investigated the less 

 known phenomena of frictional elec- 

 tricity (Riess) or the complicated 

 phenomena of meteorology (Dove), 

 a danger existed that mathematical 

 theories and elaborate calculations 

 might lead to an estrangement from 

 nature and observation, similar to 

 that which speculative philosophy 

 had created before. Helmholtz him- 

 self was met by this sentiment when 

 he published his great memoir, 



' Ueber die Erhaltung der Kraft,' 

 in 1847 ; Poggendorf's physical 

 periodical would not receive it, 

 and Jacobi, the mathematician, 

 was the only one who showed any 

 interest in it. See Helmholtz, 

 ' Wissenschaftliche Abhandlungen,' 

 vol. i. p. 73; 'Reden,' vol. ii. p. 

 46. 



2 As the philosophy of Schelling 

 promoted a study of nature, and in 

 doing so prepared its own downfall, 

 so the philosophy of Hegel led to a 

 study of history, and thus to the 

 proof of the insufficiency of its own 

 generalisations. Many valuable be- 

 ginnings of historical research eman- 

 ated also from the Romantic school 

 of literature. In all these instances 

 philosophical interests led beyond 

 the abstract logical and metaphysical 

 treatment into the broad and fertile 

 plains of actual life, be it that of 

 nature or of art or of. history. But 

 the true methods of research in 



