THE SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT IN GERMANY. 



215 



Lastly, the German man of science was a philosopher. 36. 



^ _ _ _ ir r Combina- 



Whatever his aversion might be to special philosophical *'9" ^^ , 



t: r r science and 



doctrines, he had generally come vmder the influence of P^^iiosophy. 

 some philosophical school, the teaching of which he desired 

 either to uphold or to combat. Sooner or later, con- 

 sciously or unconsciously, he had to make clear to him- 

 self and to his disciples the underlying principles which 

 he thought the right ones, to defend them against attacks 

 from others, or to modify them, as progressing research 

 made it necessary. If the historical sciences had bene- 

 fited most by the philosophy of Schelling and Hegel, 

 which attempted to give new and constructive views 

 on the intellectual and ethical manifestations of the 

 human or the general soul, the mathematical and phy- 



whose favourite lectures were those 

 on " encyclopEedia " of philology. 

 Something similar existed, and 

 exists still, in theology, law, and 

 what are called " Staatswissen- 

 schaften." All these terms are 

 supposed to embrace a variety of 

 studies which are organically com- 

 bined in one whole, forming a cycle. 

 In philosophy proper Hegel, and 

 later Lotze, delivered well-known 

 and largely attended lectures under 

 the title of EncyclopEedia. This is 

 a remnant of the encyclopaedic or 

 organic treatment of knowledge 

 sketched out by Bacon, and pro- 

 posed as a basis for their celebrated 

 work by Diderot and D'Alembert 

 (see ante, p. 35 and note). The 

 encyclopaedia, as a learned diction- 

 ary, we have seen, has since become 

 merely a synopsis. How different 

 from this was the truly encyclo- 

 paedic treatment given by men like 

 Bockh can be seen from his cor- 

 respondence with K. 0. Mliller, 

 where he scolds his younger friend 

 for undertaking to write the article 



" Topography of Athens " for " such 

 a cursed publication as an encyclo- 

 paedia," whereas he himself was 

 regularly lecturing on ' ' encyclo- 

 paedia of philology," in which he 

 took in earnest the idea of classi- 

 cal philology as " the historical 

 science of the life of the ancient 

 peoples " (see Curtius, ' Alterthum 

 und Gegenwart,' vol. iii. p. 138, &c.) 

 Now although the exact sciences 

 when they became domiciled in the 

 German universities did not in 

 general copy this institution, yet 

 the historical and philosophical 

 survey, giving method and unity 

 to a large circle of studies, has been 

 upheld by many among the fore- 

 most men of science, especially in 

 the medical faculty. Of these I 

 only mention Joh. Miiller (see Du 

 Bois-Reymond, ' Reden,' vol. ii. pp. 

 195, 279) and his pupil and follower 

 Jacob Henle, who in his lectures 

 on anthropology took a philosophi- 

 cal survey of the whole subject of 

 the medical studies (see 'Jacob 

 Henle' by Merkel, p. 271, &c.) 



