154 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



it could also only indirectly contribute to tlie blossoming of art. But 

 it became, in the pursuit of its work from the first, the most important 

 center of German knowledge as a whole. In reality the general en- 

 lightenment which had so often comforted the nation in its divisions, 

 still remained spread over Germany to its salvation. In some points 

 Berlin saw itself surpassed by small universities like that of Giessen. 

 Between these and Berlin there was, however, always the difference 

 that, while now and then some one or another small university would 

 blaze up like a variable star to the first magnitude in some branch or 

 another, to sink in a little while back into comparative obscurity, the 

 sum of the aggregated mental forces in the Berlin University and 

 Academy was the same, or rather increased, from the beginning. 



Almost simultaneously with the blossoming of the university, in 

 alliance with the national rising, and favored by the growth of the 

 city and its prosperity, there had also been developed here a real Ger- 

 man culture, and a perhaps not very productive but cleverly critical 

 society had collected whose influence on German intellectual life was 

 more perceptible because of the preponderance with which Berlin had 

 come out of the war for freedom. As far as the habitual influence of 

 so many older centers of learning and the independent spirit of the 

 Germans, hostile to centralization, permitted, Berlin henceforth main- 

 tained the rank of intelligence appropriate to it as the capital of the 

 state. That illustrious circle of writers, artists, and actively sym- 

 pathizing women is now inconceivable without the background of the 

 Berlin University ; without Schleiermacher and Frederick Augustus 

 Wolf, Savigny and Carl Ritter, Boeckh and Lachmann, Buttmann and 

 Bopp, Hegel and Gauss ; and in this sense we may say, that, through 

 the foundation of the university, William von Humboldt elevated 

 Berlin to be the intellectual capital of Germany. 



While the University of Berlin fully represented science in nearly 

 every direction, every mental phase of the nation was likewise reflected 

 in it. Here was fought out in jurisprudence the battle between the 

 historical and the philosophical schools ; here was seen, in theology, 

 dogmatic reaction to give way to rationalism. Here unrestrained 

 speculation continued to have its way for a long time, natural phi- 

 losophy blew its last party-colored bubbles, and Goethe's Farhenlehre 

 was taught ex cathedra. Here it was, also, that that host of men 

 arose who, in connection with many illustrious minds still adorning 

 the Fatherland, repaired the faults of philosophical error, and gave to 

 natural science an activity which was full of consequence for the 

 world as well as for Prussia and Germany, and which still continues. 

 Is it necessary to name them, when so many of them are looking down 

 upon us from these walls — Eilhard Mitscherlich, Heinrich and Gus- 

 tav Rose, Encke and Poggendorff, Weiss and Lichtenstein, Ehrenberg 

 and Johannes Miiller, Dove and Gustav Magnus, and besides them 

 the mathematicians, Lejeune-Dirichlet and Steiner, and later still 



