P r e f a c e .

The text begins mid-word, likely completing "beurtheilet" (judges) or "verachtet" (despises) from the previous page. ...judges without knowing them, and meanwhile not infrequently plunders them in the most shameless way, making a grand show of their loot as if they were new inventions—who knows how boastfully—and then, out of "gratitude," cannot disparage them shamefully enough. When a young boy, who has perhaps once attended a few electrical experiments, witnessed gas separations: "Luftscheidungen," an early chemical term for the analysis or isolation of different types of air or gases., or perhaps even imitated something in that field himself, sees nothing beyond the tip of his nose out of sheer wisdom and Enlightenment; when he despises what his teacher has not said and believes everything to be deep, deep beneath him if it does not quite fit the new Shibboleth: "Shibolet," a Hebrew term used here to describe a password or a trendy intellectual slogan used to identify members of a "superior" group. as well as he does—then one forgives him for his shortsightedness and exuberance; but when a man of intellect, out of timidity, or because it is the fashion, and often quite against his own conviction, slavishly chimes in with this same tone, what is one to say then? And should one also take it for oracular pronouncements when one reads in a history of Chemistry, for example, about the Egyptians:

"The chemical science of the ancient Egyptians, so highly extolled by some, is mainly limited to the preparation of infusions and decoctions, pressings, mixtures, and some glass and smelting work; and that they furthermore