April 14, 1922] 



SCIENCE 



407 



Nature, printed in 1475, and the Garten der 

 Gesundheit, especially since the Garten der 

 Gesundlieit of 1485 is of higher quality, and 

 some of its illustrations represent the earliest 

 printed pictures of animals and plants drawn 

 from nature. The publication of these sketches 

 in 1485 'forms an important landmark in the 

 history of botanical illustration, and marks 

 perhaps the greatest single step ever made in 

 that art.' They were unequaled until the pub- 

 lication of the herbals of Brunfels and of 

 Fuchs half a centui-y later. The Hortus Sani- 

 tatis was more widely distributed, and since it 

 was a larger and later production, generallj' it 

 has been assumed that it contained the best 

 pictures of the period — but this is wi-ong. The 

 much rarer Garten der Gesundheit of 1485 

 (often confused with the Hortus Sanitatis) is 

 the only member of that family of books which 

 has escellent pictures drawn from nature. 



"As a publisher's venture in the early days 

 of printing, the preface of the Hortus Sanitatis 

 contains a clever appeal to the commercial 

 instinct, saying, that by help of the informa- 

 tion contained in the book, people 'with quite 

 small expense to themselves will be able to 

 compound helpful remedies and perfect medi- 

 cines' without the necessity of doctors and 

 apothecaries. Another feature of the book, 

 however, had greater influence on the thought 

 of the time: through its 1,066 pictures and 

 descriptions attention was directed to the pro- 

 du.ctions of nature and information was 

 spread regarding plants, animals and minerals. 

 Almost the whole structure of modern science 

 rests on such humble beginnings." 



Dr. G. S. Brett, of the department of phil- 

 osophy, University of Toronto, presented an 

 unusually interesting paper in that it gives 

 the philosopher's point of view in the history 

 of science, "The Theory of History in Relation 

 to the History of Science." Dr. Brett also 

 discussed the idea of the history of science and 

 the difficulties that lie in the way of making 

 history of science a branch of academic instruc- 

 tion. 



This paper was presented as a contribution 

 to the problems of method. Reference was 

 made to the status of the Section and to recent 

 discussions on the subject, especially to the 

 paper by Professor E. H. Johnson, contributed 



to Science December 16, 1921. The writer 

 argues that the difficulty of finding a place for 

 history of science in a curriculum was partly 

 due to a want of clear ideas on the nature of 

 the subject. This point was further explained 

 by a sketch of the development of historiogra- 

 phy, which was shown to be dependent on a 

 variety of interests. The early tendency to 

 comprehensive records gave place to a more 

 restricted aim which virtually made history 

 equivalent to political annals. The idea of 

 progress brought to light the idea of continuous 

 historical development, and led to a philosophy 

 of history which attempted to organize the 

 facts as proof of the theory. This failed be- 

 cause the actual historical sequence did not con- 

 form to the theories, as for example the 

 attempts of the Romantic school to demon- 

 strate a rational solution. After tracing the 

 tendency in modern historical work to break 

 new ground in the history of literature, the 

 history of general types, such as "federation" 

 or "liberty," and even the "history of histori- 

 ans," the writer argued that a specified type of 

 history was required for the history of science. 

 In its essential feature, this would not be 

 identical with biograi^hieal work on men of 

 science, or with the type of work which nat- 

 urally forms the background of any particular 

 study. While monographs on these subjects 

 are indispensable preliminaries, a good history 

 of science must coordinate the achievements 

 with the total conditions, social and intellectual, 

 which culminate in them. It was argued that 

 in this field there is a unique opportunity for 

 studying the cumulative growth of culture, and 

 for exhibiting the way in which ideas persist 

 and are transformed. The lack of a sufficient 

 literature, neither sporadic nor biased by na- 

 tional interests nor disproportionate in the 

 treatment of topics, makes the subject difficult 

 to teach. It was also the best proof that the 

 nature of the subject was not properly under- 

 stood. 



In the absence of the next speaker and the 

 secretary, the following paper was read by 

 title only: "Historical Basis for the Scientific 

 Stagnation of the Middle Ages," by Dr. Harry 

 E. Barnes, of the department of the history of 

 thought and culture, Clark University, Worces- 

 ter, Massachusetts. 



