IDEALISM IN GERMANY 



the advantage of undisturbed study and seclu- 

 sion, did as much, if not more, for the evolution 

 of human understanding as the scientists and 

 philosophers of those industrially and politically 

 more advanced countries. 



Of course, the list of the scientific accomplish- 

 ments of those two countries is not exhausted by 

 the enumeration of the few facts previously men- 

 tioned as mile-stones in the road of evolutionary 

 theories. Many other significant advances might 

 be mentioned. To name but a few, the work of 

 Hooke and Grew for the elaboration of the cell- 

 theory, the discovery of the function of the sta- 

 mens of flowers by Millington, and the attempts 

 at classification made by Ray, the forerunner of 

 Linnaeus, were among the minor steps in a for- 

 ward direction. Priestley's studies on the absorp- 

 tion of carbon-dioxide and the evolution of oxy- 

 gen by plants were rendered epoch-making by 

 the deeper research of Lavoisier, who subverted 

 the entire phlogistic theory of chemistry by show- 

 ing the actual function of oxygen. But the sig- 

 nificance of these discoveries for the progress of 

 science was not appreciated in those times, not 

 even by their authors. Their relation to philoso- 

 phy was still less suspected. 



This is especially true of an invention, which 



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