174 



SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



12. 



Reception 

 of Exact 

 Science in 

 Germany. 



beginning of this century, as it is summed up in their 

 works and in the Memoirs of the Institute. "WHiat 

 reception did it find in Germany ? How has it thriven 

 under the German university system ? These are the 

 questions which interest us at present. 



The general recognition of the purely scientific studies 

 conducted on a large scale by the French Academy of 

 Science, as an integral portion of the German university 

 syllabus, belongs to the beginning of the present century. 

 During the first forty years of the century complaints 

 were continually heard that some of the most important 

 sciences were not worthily represented.^ 



The eighteenth 



^ Oue of the latest instances of 

 such complaint is to be found in 

 J. Liebig's paper " On the state f)f 

 Chemistry in Austria" ('Aimalen 

 der Pharmacie,' 1838, vol. xxv. p. 

 339). This was followed by the 

 highly interesting pamphlet ' On 

 the state of Chemistrj' in Prussia ' 

 (Braunschweig, 1840). According 

 to the eminent author, chemistry 

 was the science which was the latest 

 to attain a worthy domicile and an 

 independent footing in the great 

 universities of Germany. Mathe- 

 matical physics liad a centre at 

 Konigsberg, physiology had been 

 established as an independent sci- 

 ence at Berlin through the appoint- 

 n^ent of Johannes Miiller in 1833, 

 chemistry was still only taught in 

 Prussia in connection with other 

 branches of science, with medicine, 

 with technology, with mineralogy. 

 There were no chemical laboratories 

 to be found in Prussia. Men like 

 Rose, Rammelsberg, Mitscherlich, 

 received none or only the scantiest 

 support in their practical courses of 

 chemistry. It is interesting to note 

 how Liebig, whilst pointing to the 

 enormous importance which chem- 

 istry possesses from an economic 



and political point of view by reason 

 of its working great changes and 

 revolutions, industrial and other, 

 insists on the necessity of teach- 

 ing chemistry scientifically, and not 

 with an immediate jiractical bias. 

 In this respect he is as much a 

 representative of the scientific 

 spirit in the wider sense as the 

 great men mentioned in the note 

 to p. 171. The following passage 

 (p. 39) may still be read with in- 

 terest and profit : " I have found 

 among all who frequent this labora- 

 tory [Giessen] for teclmical pur- 

 poses a prominent inclination to 

 occupy themselves with applied 

 chemistry. They usually follow 

 hesitatingly and with some suspi- 

 cion my advice to leave alone all 

 this time-absorbing drudgery, and 

 simply to become acquainted with 

 the necessary waj's and means of 

 solving purelj' scientific questions. 

 By following this advice their minds 

 learn easilj' and quickly how to find 

 the best means ; they themselves 

 adapt them to circumstances and 

 modify them : all operations, all 

 analyses, which serve to ascertain 

 a certain state, which must be 

 made in order to find the conditions 



