206 



SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



29. 



Alexander 

 von Hum- 

 boldt. 



tinction to the philosophical view, and another which 

 elaborated what it termed exclusively the critical meth- 

 ods, 1 not without a certain suspicion regarding those who 

 showed a desire to roam into outlying fields which did 

 not permit of equally strict discipline and treatment. So 

 far as this refers to the purely historical sciences, I 

 shall revert to the subject when I come to treat of the 

 principles which underlie and guide this line of studies. 

 At present I am concerned with the growth and dif- 

 fusion of the exact scientific spirit and its methods. 



No one did more to spread the ideas and methods of 

 French science in Germany than Alexander von Hum- 

 boldt. He himself had done original scientific work 2 be- 



these extensive fields were after- 

 wards found not so much in philo- 

 sophical canons as in a love of detail 

 and observation, and in the exercise 

 of an unbiassed criticism of facts 

 and records. For the relations of 

 philosophy to history in respect of 

 this, see Wegele, ' Geschichte der 

 deutschen Historiographie,' Miin- 

 chen, 1885, 5th book, p. 975, &c. 

 Equally important are Gervinus, 

 ' Grundziige der Historik,' Leipzig, 

 1837 ; the ' Nekrolog auf Schlosser,' 

 Leipzig, 1862, including the whole 

 literature which it provoked ; and 

 0. Lorenz, ' Die Gesehichtswissen- 

 schaft,' Berlin, 1886, especially the 

 first chapter. 



1 On the Critical school of phil- 

 ology, and the wider and narrower 

 sense in which the aims and meth- 

 ods of the science of antiquity were 

 defined, see Bursiau, 'Geschichte der 

 classischen Philologie in Deutsch- 

 land," Miinchen und Leipzig, 1883, 

 p. 665, &c. ; also 0. Ribbeck, ' Fried- 

 rich Ritschl,' Leipzig, 1879 and 

 1880. Further, the essays on Bockh, 

 K. 0. Miiller, and Georg Curtius in 

 the third volume of Ernst Curtius, 



' Alterthum und Gegenwart,' Berlin, 

 1889 ; and, finally, the chapter on 

 " Klassische Philologie " by Wila- 

 mowitz-Mollendorf in Lexis, ' Die 

 deutschen Universitaten, ' vol. i. p. 

 457, &c. 



2 Alexander von Humboldt (1769- 

 1859) published in 1797, shortly after 

 Galvani's great discovery, his ' Ver- 

 suche iiber die gereizte Muskel- und 

 Nervenfaser.' In the history of sci- 

 ence his name will live as that of 

 the man who organised that " scien- 

 tific conspiracy of nations " which is 

 peculiar to our century, and with- 

 out which the study of geography, 

 meteorology, astronomy, the phe- 

 nomena of tides and magnetic dis- 

 turbances called by him magnetic 

 storms could not effectually be 

 carried on. The fact also that on 

 his return from his great travels he 

 became next to Napoleon Bona- 

 parte the most famous man in 

 Europe, did more than anything 

 else to raise the natural sciences in 

 the popular mind to that eminence 

 which earlier belonged to polite 

 literature. 



