208 



SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



30. 

 Influence of 

 Berzelius 

 on German 

 science. 



Berzelius exerted on German science through his teach- 

 ing and his writings. From him emanated that great 

 perfection of the purely experimental methods which 

 in his own hands, as well as in those of Wohler, Mit- 

 scherlich, Magnus, and others, led to an accumulation 

 of detailed knowledge in chemistry of unforeseen im- 

 portance and magnitude. His own annual reports, as 

 well as Gmelin's celebrated handbook of chemistry, are 

 monuments of this unparalleled industry. 



Others, like Liebig, Johannes Miiller, Lucas Schcinlein, 

 freed themselves under the influence of French science,^ 

 or by their own deeper insight, from the sway of the 

 false and misleading philosophy to which they had at 

 one time listened. A third section started from philo- 

 sophical premisses, but from premisses opposed to the 

 doctrines of Schelling and Hegel. 

 I The school of Fries,^ in which Schleiden was the most 



^ English science had an import- 

 ant but less marked influence on 

 the development of naturalistic and 

 medical studies in Germany. So 

 far as the latter especially are con- 

 cerned, see Billroth, ' Ueber das 

 Lehren und Lernen der medici- 

 nischen Wissenschaften an den 

 Universitjiten der deutschen Na- 

 tion,' Wien, 1876, p. 33. He 

 roughly divides the medical schools 

 of Germany into two groups, both 

 descending from Boerhaave : the 

 one, the modern Berlin school of 

 Miiller, Schcinlein, Romberg, and 

 Virchow, through Haller, Reil, 

 Hufeland, and Roschlaub ; the 

 other, the modern Vienna school 

 of Oppolzer, Rokitansky, and Bill- 

 roth, through Gerhard von Swiet- 

 en, De Haen, StoU, Frank, Pur- 

 kinje, and Skoda. Of French 

 names which had great influence 



he gives Broussais, Corvisart, Bayle, 

 Cruveilhier, and Lacnnec ; of Eng- 

 lish, John Hunter, Matthew Bailie, 

 and Astley Cooper. He gives also 

 the name of Immanuel Kant as 

 an important influence in the de- 

 velopment of the German schools of 

 medicine. 



2 Jacob Fries (1773-1843) pro- 

 fessor at Heidelberg and Jena, led 

 the critical philosophy of Kant into 

 the channels of psychology and an- 

 thropology. During the heyday of 

 transcendental philosophy, the phil- 

 osophy of Fries, like that of the 

 Scotch school, was regarded with 

 contempt by Hegel, and even by 

 Herbart, the opponent of Hegel. It 

 succeeded, however, in the end in 

 influencing a considerable number 

 of philosophical minds, who carried 

 philosophical thought into the in- 

 ductive sciences. Besides the psy- 



