INTRODUCTION. xv. 



That Agricola occupied a very considerable place in the great awakening of 

 learning will be disputed by none except by those who place the development 

 of science in rank far below rehgion, politics, literature, and art. Of wider 

 importance than the details of his achievements in the mere confines of the 

 particular science to which he applied himself, is the fact that he was the first 

 to found any of the natural sciences upon research and observation, as opposed 

 to previous fruitless speculation. The wider interest of the members of the 

 medical profession in the development of their science than that of geologists 

 in theirs, has led to the aggrandizement of Paracelsus, a contem- 

 porary of Agricola, as the first in deductive science. Yet no comparative 

 study of the unparalleled egotistical ravings of this half-genius, half-alchemist, 

 with the modest sober logic and real research and observation of Agricola, 

 can leave a moment's doubt as to the incomparably greater position which 

 should be attributed to the latter as the pioneer in building the foundation 

 of science by deduction from observed phenomena. Science is the base upon 

 which is reared the civilization of to-day, and while we give daily credit to all 

 those who toil in the superstructure, let none forget those men who laid its 

 first foundation stones. One of the greatest of these was Georgius Agricola. 



