DOGMATIC METHODS OF TEACHING. 67 



then, with chemistry from our schools ! The chemist 

 must only describe the properties of the different 

 elements and those combinations which can be put 

 before the pupil as ascertained facts founded in experi- 

 ment, " the highest means of proof." Everything that 

 goes beyond this is mischievous, particularly every 

 suggestion as to the essence and chemical constituents 

 of bodies ; matters as to which, in the nature of 

 things, we can only form uncertain hypotheses. For 

 as all chemistry, viewed as a system of doctrine, rests 

 solely on such hypotheses, it may be indeed a subject 

 of investigation but not of teaching. 



Having thus convinced ourselves that chemistry as 

 well as physics, those " exact sciences," those " mechani- 

 cal " bases of all other sciences, rest on mere unproved 

 hypotheses, and so must not be taught, we may make 

 short work of the other faculties. For they collectively 

 are more or less historical sciences and dispense wholly 

 or in part with even those half-exact, fundamental prin- 

 ciples on which physics and chemistry are based. In 

 the first place, there is that grand, historical, natural 

 science, geology; the great doctrine of the structure 

 and composition, the origin and development of our 

 globe. According to Virchow this too must be limited 

 to the description of ascertained facts, such as the struc- 

 ture of mountain masses, the character of the fossils 



