172 



SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



system has the merit of having elaborated the widest con- 

 ception of science, of having fixed the highest and most 

 general scientific standards. Opposed to science is that 

 which is unscientific, dilettante, popular ; that which is 

 not a vocation, but a handicraft ; that which grows and 

 lives outside of the great university system, including in 

 this the innumerable learned schools which form its base, 

 and the academy which forms its summit. 



What France and England have elaborated and termed 



""^^nce"""^ Science, is called in Germany Exact Science ; but it is 



actsclenccV' opposcd to the German ideal of science to hold that the 



exact method is the only method which deserves to be 



called scientific.^ 



11. 



In Fiance 



^ This is perhaps not quite cor- 

 rect. No doubt the term " exact 

 Sciences " is used frequently during 

 the last half - century to denote 

 the mathematical and experimen- 

 tal sciences ; very much in the 

 same sense as we see them de- 

 fined by Cuvier in the beginning 

 of the century, and described as 

 the ground covered by the labours 

 of the "Academic des Sciences." 

 There exists, however, in Germany 

 another school of thought, very 

 influential throughout this cen- 

 tury, and one that has exerted 

 a very wide and wholesome influ- 

 ence, which stands in no connec- 

 tion whatever with the mathema- 

 tical sciences, though it applies the 

 word " exact" to its methods and re- 

 searches. This is the school which 

 maintains that the real introduc- 

 tion to the study of antiquity lies 

 in a knowledge of the ancient, pre- 

 eminently the classical, languages, 

 as exact and precise as any mathe- 

 matical knowledge could be, and sees 

 in an acquisition of such precise 

 knowledge the training necessary 

 for success in philological and his- 



torical research, just as famili- 

 arity with mathematical formuhe 

 and measuring instruments has long 

 been considered quite indispensable 

 training to success in the natural 

 sciences. Of this view Gottfried 

 Hermann may be considered as 

 a somewhat one - sided, Friedrich 

 Ritschl as a more profound and 

 far - seeing, but equally energetic 

 representative. It is Ritschl who 

 was the most influential. Without 

 at present entering into the con- 

 troversies which existed between 

 what were termed the ' ' Sprach- 

 philologen " and the " Sach-philo- 

 logen," I desire here to refer to 

 the fact that such very different re- 

 presentatives of thought as Fichte, 

 Weber, and Ritschl, than whom no 

 men could be more dissimilar in 

 cast of mind, all find their ideal 

 expressed in the word Wisscnschaft. 

 I have quoted Fichte, the specu- 

 lative generaliser, and Weber, the 

 exact mathematical physicist. I 

 will add what Ritschl, the critical 

 philologist, says. He trusted, as 

 his biographer reports, " in the 

 indestructible magnetic force of 



