180 



SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



14, 

 Scientific 

 periodicals 



Goethe ; ^ but they could hardl}- be encouraged and de- 

 veloped sufficiently withovit that strict training which is 

 acquired through the routine of the class-room, or under 

 the eye of a recognised authority. 



The want of academic union and organisation, and the 

 scattered situation of the many small centres of learning 

 and culture in Germany, led, however, to the early de- 

 velopment of those scientific periodicals which form such 

 a characteristic feature in German literature. They were 

 the medium for the exchange of ideas, and the collecting- 

 ground for researches, in an age when exact science was 

 not systematically taught at the Universities, and when 

 such researches otherwise would have run the risk of 

 being lost in obscurity or oblivion. 



At the end of the eighteenth century Germany, 



and almost the best of that valu- 

 able class of writers who have made 

 science and art familiar by repre- 

 senting them in their essential 

 spirit, unencumbered with techni- 

 cal details" ('Ency. Brit.,' vol. ix. 

 p. 419). Forster lived in the period 

 of transition from the thought of 

 the eighteenth century to that of 

 the nineteenth, and a study of his 

 Life, Works, and Correspondence is 

 a very good introduction to nearly 

 all the great problems which then, 

 especially on the Continent, trou- 

 bled the minds of the greatest men. 

 If he may be accused of want of 

 patriotism, he is certainly to be 

 admired for his freedom from na- 

 tional narrow-mindedness. 



^ It has taken nearly a century 

 before the real value of Goethe's 

 scientific ideas has been correctly 

 gauged. His non- academic sur- 

 roundings, his unscientific style, his 

 antagonism to Newton, his mission 

 as a poet supposed in those days 

 to be less realistic than we have 



since become accustomed to con- 

 sider it all these circumstances 

 contributed to the result that 

 Goethe's scientific writings were 

 not taken au gerieux by the natural- 

 ists of his age. Then came a period 

 when men of science began to sift 

 the wheat from the chaff; but even 

 they have only tardily recognised 

 that, more than in special dis- 

 coveries or suggestions, his great- 

 ness lies in that general conception 

 of Nature which was so foreign to 

 his age, and which nevertheless is 

 becoming more and more familiar 

 and necessary to ours. See espe- 

 cially Helmholtz's valuable essays 

 on Goethe as naturalist from the 

 years 1853 and 1892 (' Vortriige,' 

 vol. i. , and address delivered at the 

 meeting of the Goethe Society at 

 Weimar, 1892), and the remark- 

 able progress of his own views on 

 this subject contained therein. We 

 shall have ample opportunity of re- 

 verting to this subject. 



