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THURSDAY, JULY 29, 1909. 



HO IF TO D/.iO.VOSE GEA7L-.S: .1 STUDY 

 Of Ht;.U.4iV ENERGETICS. 

 Grosse Manner. By Prof. Wilhelm Ostwald. (Leip- 

 zig : Aliademische Verlagsgesellschaft, 1909.) 

 THIS book is a study in comparative biography, 

 and may be said to point the way to a new- 

 field of investigation. Prof. Ostwald was prompted 

 to write it, as he tells us in his first sentence, by an 

 ingenuous question put to him by one of his Japanese 

 students as to how budding geniuses could be recog- 

 nised. Much money, his student went on to say, is 

 spent by various Governments in attempting to dis- 

 cover those people whose thorough education may be 

 expected to bring in a return of value to the State, and 

 the question how best to discover latent genius is an 

 eminently practical one. After cogitation, Prof. 

 Ostwald cartie to the conclusion that it is those 

 students who cannot be kept on the rails — that is, who 

 are not contented with methodical teaching — who have 

 within them the seeds of genius; and the writer's 

 experience would lead him to the same conclusion. 



But in order to lay a basis for such a deduction, 

 vague, to some extent, because derived only from 

 personal impressions, a careful comparison has been 

 made of the lives of six men, all of whom had 

 a great influence on the thought of their time. These 

 are : — Davy and Faraday ; Julius Robert Mayer, who 

 shares with Joule the honour of having shown the 

 equivalence of heat and work ; Liebig ; Gerhardt, who, 

 in his day, contributed to the revolution in chemical 

 thought ; and Helmholtz. 



These names belong to men of science, exclusively ; 

 the reason for the choice is perhaps to be found in 

 words penned by Liebig : — 



"The historv of the nations teaches us of the futile 

 efforts of powers, political and ecclesiastical, to main- 

 tain spiritual and bodily slavery over mankind ; future 

 history will deal with the conquest of liberty, gained 

 by the investigation of the reason of things, and of 

 truth; a conquest gained by weapons unstained with 

 blood, and on a field in which religion and morals take 

 part only as feeble allies." 



This, it may be remarked, is prophecy, and, as 

 such, is at present beyond criticism; it may, however, 

 be pointed out that to some of us, at least, the pros- 

 pects held out by the remarkable conquests over what 

 used to be called " the forces of nature " do not at 

 present point to a speedy millennium. However, the 

 retort is open that it is not the spread of the teachings 

 of science, but a disregard for such teachings, which 

 is the reason that our moral progress does not keep 

 pace with our material progress. 



Be that as it may. Prof. Ostwald has given, in 

 his masterly style, delightful sketches of the lives of 

 these undoubtedly distinguished men. The bio- 

 graphies differ somewhat from the usual " lives," in- 

 asmuch as the failings, as well as the virtues, of the 

 subjects have been touched on. No character is per- 

 fect, and, without ample knowledge, it is impossible 

 to attempt to draw just conclusions. 



One notable characteristic of men of genius is that 

 NO. 2074, VOL. Si] 



it is rare for them to have come from -either a high 

 or a low grade of society. Exceptions are confined 

 practically to England and France, as witness Boyle, 

 Cavendish, and Lavoisier; Faraday might perhaps be 

 instanced as an example — almost the sole example — of 

 the second class. 



.\nother characteristic is the very early age at which 

 such men develop. Goethe was twenty-four years old 

 when he electrified the German nation by his " Sorrows 

 of Werther"; Schiller was twenty-two when he pub- 

 lished "The Robbers"; Newton had invented the 

 calculus, discovered the law of gravitation, and had 

 completed his analysis of light before his twenty- 

 fifth year ; Linnreus had evolved his sexual system of 

 plants at the age of twenty-four; and the list might 

 be extended indefinitely, to Carnot, Clausius, Scheele, 

 Berzelius, Vesalius, the reformer of the science of 

 anatomy, the physiologists Ludwig, Helmholtz, and 

 Du Bois Reymond, to, last, though not least, Kelvin. 

 Youths who make their mark at a later age, as 

 already remarked, show a distaste for the formal in- 

 struction which is still given in the public schools 

 of Germany and England. In this connection it is 

 interesting to note the saying of a writer on English 

 public schools, himself once a distinguished head- 

 master, th-3t, while a classical or mathematical master 

 does not fall off, indeed improves, with age, inas- 

 much as he perfects himself in methods of teaching- 

 practically unprogressive branches of learning, the 

 science masters cannot but deteriorate, unless they 

 keep abreast with the progress of science by increas- 

 ing its bounds by their own efforts. Prof. Ostwald 

 takes a strong view of the inutility of the training 

 to be acquired from a linguistic, especially a classical, 

 education, and believes that the usual duration of 

 school life is far too great. In this the writer heartily 

 concurs. 



" Had Kelvin or Leibnitz been so unfortunate as to 

 have come into the world in our days, and in Germany, 

 their early development would have been of no avail ; 

 they would have sat on the school benches till their 

 eighteenth year— an age at which they had gained 

 a prominent position in science." 



The temperaments of the men whose lives are 

 chronicled may be divided under two heads, " Klas- 

 siker," or " phlegmatic," to quote an old classifica- 

 tion, and " Romantiker," or "sanguine." To the 

 former class belonged Faraday, Mayer, and Helm- 

 holtz; to the latter Davy, Liebig, and Gerhardt. 

 These temperaments correspond to the rate of reaction 

 to external stimulus. The romantic type is eager, 

 alert, impatient, and impulsive ; the classic type pains- 

 taking, conscientious to a fault, self-criticising, and 

 accurate. It is remarked on as curious that most men 

 who have achieved greatness belong to one or other 

 of these classes ; it would appear that average minds, 

 who occupy a mean position, being neither very im- 

 pulsive nor very critical, have not the qualities which 

 raise them above their fellows. 



The " yield " of such minds, to use an expression 

 borrowed from chemical manufacture, depends, ac- 

 cording to Ostwald, on their " economic coefficient."" 

 To transform one kind of energy into another implies 

 the "degradation" of a portion; this is the second 



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