THE LEGACY OF GERMANY : IV. SCIENCE
By Dr. CHARLES SINGER
0 F the many definitions of science perhaps the most satisfactory is " The search for those conclusions on which universal assent is attainable." Scientific con- clusions are not matters of taste, nor do they depend on personal judgement. In their perfected form and within their own sphere scientific conclusions are apprehended as inevitable by all suitably prepared minds. Thus there is strictly no such thing as a " national science " though, for various reasons, some peoples have more opportunity than others to study the matter of certain sciences.
The German scientific contribution, therefore, is merely a total made up of conclusions reached by groups of men who have enjoyed a certain culture of which a significant outward sign is the German language. Now a salient feature of German cultural history is the lateness of its scientific development. The great scientific movement of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, starting from Italy, spread to France, the Alpine zone, England, and the Low Countries, affecting the German area but little. Few Germans can be named who were early in the scientfic field, and there was no important early school of scientific thought in a German environment. The real German scientific contribution began at the very end of the eighteenth, and did not reach its full proportions until after the middle of the nineteenth, century. The first important native school of scientific thought is the mathematical, astronomical and physical movement linked with the great names of Gauss (1777-1855), Bessel (1784-1846), and W. E. Weber (1804- 1891) and associated largely with the university of Gottingen.
Both the laggard arrival and the rapid development of the German scientific contribution are intelligible in the light of the history of the universities and of the technical industries of Germany. German learning and German scientific technique have throughout been in the hands of university professors. The great amateur, so characteristic a figure in the science of our country, has been almost absent from the German scene. On the other hand an important role in the development of science in Germany has been played by the doctoral dissertation, unknown in England before this generation. Until the nineteenth century was well advanced German custom demanded that disserta- tions, like lectures, should be in Latin. When this tradition, with its associated turgid absurdities, was once over- come, the system, with its demand for an original contri- bution from every doctorate, developed in such a way as to provide the professors with what was, in effect, a large staff of highly trained but unpaid assistants. Moreover German universities were always under State control, and German university officers have always more or less directly depended upon the State for their appointments, their emoluments and their security of tenure. Given full State support it was relatively easy for a professor to introduce a high degree of organisation into research.
It is neither institutes nor organisations that make dis- coveries. Creative discoverers are of their own kind and beyond all valuation. Considering the number of those in Europe who use the German tongue, and considering the high state of their material culture, Germany has been dis- tinctly less successful than several countries in producing creative work of the first rank. Most of the significant ad- vances in Germany in the last 60-70 years have been related to highly skilled • co-operative efforts. There are phases in the development of the sciences in which a high degree of organisation, ample funds, a staff of unrestricted numbers, and a practical direction of studies are specially favourable. Such a phase was traversed in Germany for certain sciences between about 186o and 192o and coincided in time with industrialisation of the country. The rise of industrialism and the development of great scientific institutes were of mutual assistance. Especially was this the case between 1882 and 1907, when the extremely able Friedrich Althoff reigned tyrannically in the Prussian Ministry of Education.
In the later nineteenth century private benefaction in England, France and America had not yet enabled science to be organised on anything like the scale that we see today. Moreover, Western universities avoided industrial contacts and commonly depreciated the sciences. Thus the relative advantages of the German universities became overwhelm- ing for certain scientific disciplines. Great scientific depart- ments, very ably officered and with numerous highly trained and well disciplined staffs, directed a concentrated attention on certain specific problems to a degree quite unknown out- side Germany. All this fitted the system of State-directed industrialisation under the Prussian hegemony, but it was also wisely directed—largely under Althoff—into non-indus- trial fields.
Attention can be drawn to only a very few of the scientific movements that arose in Germany. They must be chosen almost at random. Liebig (1803-1873) did much to prepare the way for the new era. He laid the foundation of the whole discipline of chemical instruction by the construction at Giessen of one of the first university laboratories whence emanated an immense amount of work, much of great com- mercial significance. Bunsen and Kirchoff in the 'sixties laid at Heidelberg the effective foundations of spectroscopy, which have influenced every science from brewing to astronomy. Optical technique was very greatly improved by the in- ventions and discoveries of Abbe (1840-1908) with the firm of Zeiss and the University of Jena behind him. Bacterio- logy and the study ,of immunity rose to the dignity of sciences under such leaders as Robert Koch (1843-1910), Behring (1854-1917) and Ehrlich (1854-1915), who all had charge of large institutes. The huge development of the synthetic chemical industry began with the patents of Caro, Graebe and Lieberman in 1869, and almost drove Britain from the market in certain highly important commercial and industrial fields, leading ultimately to the formation of the familiar LG., the largest of all industrial organisations. The investigation of ether-waves, which began at Berlin with Heinrich Hertz (1857-1894) in the laboratory of Helmholtz, has developed into many departments such as that of wire- less, Roentgen radiology, &c. There has been a remark- able efflorescence of mathematical physics, especially at Gottingen and Berlin, linked with the names of Planck and Einstein. Standing apart from these, outside the German zone and, as an exception, independent of State aid, there developed at Vienna the school of Freud which by its direct action and, as some think, even more by its indirect reactions, has changed completely the outlook on the work- ings of the human mind.
It would be disingenuous to omit reference here to a peculiar feature in the German contribution, namely the large share due to men of Jewish origin. In the later part of the eighteenth century and under the pioneer leadership of the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786) German Jews, who had been forced to live a life apart for more than a thousand years, abandoned their mediaeval culture and education and eagerly adopted that of their Christian neigh- bours. One result was a continuous process of " assimila- tion." In spite of this, and until the advent of the Republic in 1919, it remained very difficult or impossible for those of Jewish origin to obtain State appointments or important university posts. Nevertheless in the great half-century of German science Jews contributed to the German output out of all proportion to their one per cent. of the population. Thus of the important names we have listed—no one of which could be omitted from even the briefest account—a quarter are of Jewish origin. A rough test of the situation is provided by the Nobel prizes, a series of valuable annual awards by an independent Swedish committee which are regarded by men of science as perhaps the highest honour. Nearly forty Nobel awards have gone to German men of science, and one quarter of these to men classified as Jews by the new laws. Among all living men the two who have most influenced thought are probably Einstein and Freud. It is unavoidable to remind the reader that both are exiles from Germany The reasons for this anomaly cannot be discussed here, but their existence can hardly be ignored in any estimate of German scientific achievement.
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