220 



SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



spirit of research with the critical methods acquired in 

 the school of philosophy, and the exhaustive survey of 

 a large array of facts acquired through historical and 

 classical studies, before the significance of this brilliant 

 apergu became evident ; before the underlying ideas could 

 become useful guides of research and progress. " Tantae 

 molis erat Eomanam condere gentem." 



Though the reform of the biological^ sciences, and their 

 application to pathological inquiries, are probably the 

 greatest achievement which the methods of exact re- 

 search, in conjunction with the philosophical spirit, can 

 boast of in Germany in the centviry, the same habit 



avoir tout fait lorsqu'il lui reste 

 tout a faire." This was said at 

 the end of the last century, and 

 fifty years later Du Bois-Reymond 

 {loc. cit.) could complain that the 

 truth contained in these words was 

 not yet generally admitted, in spite 

 of the labours of Berzelius, Schwann, 

 Schleiden, and Lotze. Compare 

 also A. von Humboldt's own con- 

 fessions on this jioint in his 'An- 

 sichten der Natur,' vol. ii. p. 309, 

 &c., edition of 1849. 



^ I must remind the reader here 

 that though I use the word biolo- 

 gical as denoting the more recent 

 point of view from which all pheno- 

 mena of the living world are being 

 groujjed and comprehended, and 

 though the word seems to have 

 been first used by a German, never- 

 theless the arrangement of studies 

 at the German universities has 

 hardly yet recognised the essen- 

 tial unity of all biological sciences. 

 They are unfortunately still divided 

 between the philosophical and the 

 medical faculties. It is indeed an 

 anomaly, hardly consistent with 

 the philosophical and encyclopajdic 



character of German research, that 

 palaiontology, botany, zoology, and 

 anthropology should belong to the 

 philosophical, whereas anatomy, 

 physiology, and pathology are 

 placed in the medical faculty. 

 Eminent biologists and anthropo- 

 logists, such as Schleiden, Lotze, 

 Helmholtz, and Wundt, have ac- 

 cordingly belonged to both facul- 

 ties. To place biological studies 

 on the right footing would re- 

 quire a mind similar to that of 

 F. A. Wolf, who evolved out of 

 the vaguer idea of humaniora the 

 clearer notion of a " science of an- 

 tiquity," and who accordingly was 

 able to convert the training-school 

 of teachers, the seminary, into a 

 nursery of students of antiquity. 

 Whether a similar reform in the 

 purely scientific interests of the 

 "science of life," which is now 

 mostly cultivated for the benefit 

 of the medical practitioner, can be 

 effected in this age, when practical 

 aims are gradually taking the place 

 of scientific ideas, is another ques- 

 tion. 



