Abstract
IT is extremely important that every student of science should as far as possible make himself familiar with the history of discovery in the various subjects in which he is interested. He can hope to understand thoroughly the present position of any department of science only if he understands the stages of development through which it has passed. And by far the most effective way in which this knowledge can be attained is by the study of the memoirs in which the great masters of research have recorded their discoveries and described the methods by which their results have been reached. These documents bring the student into contact with the finest intellects which have been devoted to original inquiry; and he will be surprised to find how much freshness is often given to an old doctrine when it is apprehended precisely in the way in which it presented itself to the investigator by whom it was first brought to light. Judged from the point of view of later thinkers, the achievements of even the most illustrious workers belonging to past times may be in some ways found wanting; but the mistakes of great men, when properly understood, may sometimes be almost as instructive as those of their conclusions which have stood the test of the closest and most prolonged examination.
Ostwald's Klassiker der Exacten Wissenschaften.
(Leipzig: Verlag von Wilhelm Engelmann.)
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Ostwald's Klassiker der Exacten Wissenschaften. Nature 46, 391 (1892). https://doi.org/10.1038/046391a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/046391a0