CHAPTER III 



SCIENCE IN GERMANY IN THE EIGHTEENTH AND 

 EARLY PART OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURIES 



THE adequate recognition of the work of a great 

 man, in any sphere of intellectual activity, 

 depends much on a correct appreciation of the streams 

 of tendency apparent in the time before he appeared. 

 We must endeavour to discover the lines along which 

 thought was progressing, and to see, not from our 

 standpoint, but from theirs, the questions which were 

 then agitating the minds of men. This will enable 

 us to estimate, on the one hand, the influence of the 

 time upon the man, and the share that other men's 

 thoughts had in moulding his character and directing 

 his mental energies ; and, on the other hand, the extent 

 to which he reacted on the conditions surrounding 

 him, and the contributions he made to human know- 

 ledge. Men of science, in particular, must be dealt 

 with in this way. The state of education, especially in 

 the universities, the facilities for scientific work, the 

 current of scientific opinion, must all be studied before 

 we can fairly judge as to what the man was, and as to 

 what work he accomplished. One result from such 

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