Aus der Werkstatt grosser Forscher Allgemeinverständliche erläuterte Abschnitte aus den Werken hervorragender Naturforscher aller Volker und Zeiten

Abstract

DR. DANNEMANN'S book represents an attempt to trace the gradual growth of scientific knowledge by a superficial examination of critical epochs in which some new discovery has been made available or some truth apparent. It seems a very desirable, as it is a very pleasant, task to survey the whole history of natural science, to recall the men whose genius and achievements have widened the outlook, and given force and direction to new researches. Such a study may be pleasantly impressive and momentarily stimulating, but while it lacks in thoroughness and precision its educational value must be small. A student of a particular department of science should know, it is true, the successive stages by which that subject has advanced, and the author is quite justified in intimating that the study of the original memoirs in which the great masters have developed their results, in the language in which they have expressed themselves, is eminently calculated to present the clearest insight into the processes that have been employed and the reason for the direction which progress has taken. It is a long cry from the ancient Greek to the modern physicist, from Aristotle to Pasteur, and by a few scanty references to the work of eminent men' in past centuries we do not get any continuous picture of the growth of any one science, be it physics or chemistry, zoology or botany, geology or astronomy, for all these and some others figure within the modest compass the author allows himself.

Aus der Werkstatt grosser Forscher.

Allgemeinverständliche erläuterte Abschnitte aus den Werken hervorragender Naturforscher aller Volker und Zeiten. By Dr. Friedrich Dannemann. Dritte Auflage. Pp. xii+430. (Leipzig: W. Engelmann, 1908.) Price 6 marks.