THE SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT IN GERMANY. 



169 



single word in the English language. Expressions such 

 as " student of science " or " science tripos " have a mean- 

 ing in English, but they would have none if translated 

 into German. In each case the word Wissenschaft would 

 require a qualification. An " Academie des Sciences " 

 could not according to German usage exist separately 

 beside an " Acade"mie franqaise " or an " Academie des 

 Inscriptions," for it would include them. 1 Scientific 

 treatment in England means the exact experimental or 

 mathematical treatment of a subject: no one ever calls 

 Bentley 2 or Gibbon 3 a great scientific writer, though in 



1 The two older academies in 

 Paris, the " Academie des Sciences " 

 and the " Academie des Inscriptions 

 et Belles Lettres," covered very 

 nearly the same ground as the 

 modern Berlin " Academie der Wis- 

 senschaften und Kiinste," which 

 is divided into two classes, the 

 ' ' mathematisch - naturwissenschaf t- 

 liche" and the "philosophisch-his- 

 torische Classe," the two sides 

 being equally comprised under the 

 term Wissenschaften. A similar 

 division exists in the learned so- 

 cieties of Vienna, Leipsic, Munich, 

 and Gottingen. 



2 Richard Bentley (1662-1742), 

 popularly known in England mainly 

 through his Boyle Lectures, his 

 controversy about the Epistles of 

 Phalaris, and his thirty years' feud 

 as Master of Trinity College, Cam- 

 bridge, with the dons of his col- 

 lege, but hardly known "as the 

 first, perhaps the only, Englishman 

 who can be ranked with the great 

 heroes of classical learning" (Mark 

 Pattison, 'Ency. Brit.'), was from 

 the first recognised as a consum- 

 mate genius by the scholars of Ger- 

 many, by Grscvius and Spanheim, 

 who welcomed him as "novum 

 et lucidum Britannise sidus," as 

 " splendidissimum Britannire lu- 



men." The many beginnings which 

 he had laid for subsequent critical 

 research among the ancient classical 

 authors were taken up abroad by 

 men like Heyne, Reiz, F. A. Wolf, 

 Gottfried Hermann, and Friedrich 

 Ritschl, in whose hands they have 

 developed into a special school of 

 philology, counting probably over 

 a hundred representatives, many of 

 whom have openly avowed their in- 

 debtedness to Bentley. (See Kochly, 

 ' Gottfried Hermann,' Heidelberg, 

 1874, pp. 115 sqq., 142, 189. Rib- 

 beck, 'Friedr. Wilh. Ritschl,' 2 

 vols., Leipzig, 1879 and 1881, vol. 

 i. p. 229 ; vol. ii. pp. Ill, 176, &c., 

 418, 429.) 



3 Gibbon (1737-94) gave a new 

 impetus to the study of the history 

 of Roman law through the cele- 

 brated 44th chapter of his ' Decline 

 and Fall of the Roman Empire.' 

 It was translated by Professor 

 Hugo of Gottingen and Professor 

 Warnkonig of Liege, and has been 

 used as the text-book on Civil Law 

 in some of the foreign universities. 

 See Smith's edition of Gibbon's 

 History with the Notes of Milman 

 and Guizot, chap, xliv., note. 

 Herder, Savigny, and Niebuhr 

 stand all under the immediate in- 

 fluence of Gibbon, and Lessing saw 



