Force and matter : empirico-philosophical studies, intelligibly rendered with introduction written for the English edition / by Louis Büchner ; edited by J. Frederick Collingwood.

  • Büchner, Ludwig, 1824-1899.
Date:
1881
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Force and matter : empirico-philosophical studies, intelligibly rendered with introduction written for the English edition / by Louis Büchner ; edited by J. Frederick Collingwood. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    25/300 (page 13)
    Having premised this much, the author hopes that the reader will excuse him if he now undertakes to reply to some criticisms and some public attacks, of which this work, since its appearance, has been the object. Seizing upon some defects of style, expressions, and apparent contradictions, these opponents thought that they could refute views and inferences, the gist of which was, from want of scientific research, perfectly unintelligible to them. We were the less bound to break silence, from having, in our preface to the first edition, expressly declared that we should only notice such critics as meet us with facts. None of our opponents have attempted to do so; we merely hear the well-known phrases of philosophical intolerance, of religious fanaticism, and of gross ignorance. If, then, despite of our principle, we defend ourselves, we are induced to do so by the urgent desire of our publisher, and still more on account of the large number of our readers whose avocations may not enable them at first sight to detect the sophistry of our opponents. An author, it is true, should not be very sensitive; and, however severe and lacerating a criticism may be, he must needs submit to it. But the tone which some of ouir critics have assumed transgresses the limits of legitimate censure, and is more adapted to that pot- house of which Carl Gutzkow speaks in his DQTm,estiG Dialogues : self-defence becomes then a necessity. The attacks made upon the author and his work are too numerous to enable him to reply to all of them. We shall, therefore, confine ourselves to a few of the principal. Wg shall pass over the fierce denunciations of the Frankfurter Katholische Kirchenblatt (vol. xxvi. page 55), conducted by parish priest Beda Weber. The melancholy notoriety which that individual has