Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 16.djvu/635

Rh M O H M O H G07 MOHL, JULES (1800-1876), Orientalist, was born at Stuttgart 25th October 1800, and educated for the Lutheran Church at Tubingen ; but his inclinations carried him from theology through Hebrew to Oriental studies, and in 1823 he betook himself to Paris, at that time under De Sacy the great European school of Eastern letters. He soon ac quired reputation, and from 1826 to 1833 was nominally professor at Tubingen, with permission to continue his studies in France, but he never entered on the duties of this office, Paris having become his second home. In 1826 he was charged by the French Government with the preparation of an edition of the Shdh Ndmeh, the first volume of which appeared in 1838, while the seventh and last was left unfinished at his death; in 1844 he was nominated to the Institut, and in 1847 he became pro fessor of Persian at the College de France. But his know ledge and interest extended to all departments of Oriental learning, and this catholicity of taste, united to a singular impartiality of judgment and breadth of view, gave him a quite remarkable personal influence on the course of East ern learning in France. The chief sphere of this influence was the Societe Asiatique, which he served for many years as secretary-adjunct, as secretary, and finally as president. His annual reports on Oriental science, presented to the society from 1840 to 1867, and collected after his death (4th January 1876, at Paris) under the title Vingt-sept Ansdes jStvdea Orientates (Paris, 1879), are an admirable history of the progress of Eastern learning during these years, and justify the high esteem in which he was held by scholars. MOHLER, JOHANN ADAM (1796-1838), Roman Catholic theologian, was born at the village of Igersheim in Wiir- temberg on 6th May 1796, and, after studying philosophy and theology in the Lyceum at Ellwangen, entered the Wilhelmstift in the university of Tubingen in 1817. Ordained to the priesthood in 1819, he was appointed to a curacy at Riedlingen, but speedily returned as &quot; repetent &quot; to Tubingen, where he became privat-docent in 1822, ex traordinary professor of theology in 1826, and ordinary in 1828. The controversies excited by his Symbolik (1832) proved so unpleasant that in 1835 he accepted a call to the university of Munich. In 1838 he was appointed to the deanery of Wiirzburg, but died shortly afterwards (12th April 1838). Mohler wrote Die Einheit in dcr Kirchc (Tubingen, 1825) ; Athanasius dcr Grosse u. d. Kirchc seiner Zcit im Kampfe m. d. Arianismus (2 vols., Mainz, 1827) ; Symbolik, odcr Darstcllung dcr dof/matischen Geycnsatzc dcr Katholikcn u. Protcstanten nach ihrcn iiffcntliclicn Bckcnntnissschriften (Mainz, 1832 ; 8th ed., 1871-72 ; Eng. transl. by J. B. Robertson, 1843) ; and Ncue Untersuchungcn dcr Lchrgcgcnsdtzc zwischcn den Katholikcn u. Protestantcn (1834). His Gesammclt.c Schriftcn u. Aufsiitze were edited by Dollinger in 1839 ; his Patrologic by Reithmayr, also in 1839 ; and & Biographic by Worner was published at Ratisbon in 1866. It is with the Symbolik that his name is chiefly associated ; the interest excited by it in Protestant circles is shown by the fact that within two years of its appearance it had elicited three replies of considerable importance, those namely of Baur, Marheineke, and Nitzsch. But, although characterized by abundant learning and acuteness, as well as by considerable breadth of spiritual sympathy, and thus a stimula tive and suggestive work, it cannot be said to have been accepted by Catholics themselves as embodying an accurate objective view of the actual doctrine of their church. The liberal school of thought of which Mohler was a prominent exponent was dis couraged in official circles, while Protestants, on the other hand, complain that the author has failed to grasp the vast significance of the Reformation as a great movement in the spiritual history of mankind, while expending needless pains on an exposition of the doctrinal shortcomings, inconsistencies, and contradictions of the individuals vho were its leaders. MOHR, KARL FRIEDRICH (1806-1879), a philosopher whose greatest claims to scientific distinction are as yet, though indubitable, only partially admitted, was the son of a well-to-do druggist in Coblentz, and was born 4th November 1806. Being a delicate child, he received much of his early education at home, in great part in his father s laboratory. To this may be traced much of the skill he showed in devising instruments and methods of analysis which are still in common use in chemical and pharmaceu tical laboratories. At the age of 21 he studied chemistry under Gmelin, and, after five years spent in Heidelberg, Berlin, and Bonn, returned with the degree of Ph.D. to join his father s establishment. On the death of his father in 1840 he succeeded to the business, retiring from it for scien tific leisure in 1857. Serious pecuniary losses led him at the age of 57 to become a privat-docent in Bonn, where he was soon after appointed, by the direct influence of the emperor, extraordinary professor of pharmacy. In pri vate and domestic life he was a man of singularly winning manners, intensely fond of music and poetry, for the latter of which he showed wonderful memory. But his uncom promising spirit perhaps we might even in some cases say his wrongheadedness in matters of scientific and theo logical authority had raised such a host of enemies that even royal influence could not secure his further advance ment. Although he stood at the very head of the scien tific pharmacists of Germany, his name was deliberately omitted from the list of the commission entrusted with the preparation of the Pharmacopoeia Germanica. Yet in that work many of his ideas and processes were incor porated by the very men who had previously denounced them. He died in October 1879. Mohr s best-known work is his Lchrbuch dcr chcmisch-analytisclicti, Titrirmctlwdc (1855), which has already run through many editions, and which was specially commended by Liebig. His improvements in methods of chemical analysis occupy a long series of papers extending over some fifty years. He also published a number of physical papers on subjects such as Hail, St. Elmo s Fire, Ground-ice, &c., and a curious notice of the earliest mention of Ozone. He shows that Homer, on four different occasions, mentions the sul phurous smell produced by lightning, and employs the very word from which the name of Ozone was long afterwards coined. In 1866 appeared his Gcschichte dcr Erdc, cine Geologic auf neucr Grundlagc, which has obtained a wide circulation. But he will be remembered in future times mainly on account of a paper, Uebcr die Natur der Warmc, published in 1837, which unfortunately has not yet appeared in full in an English translation. The history of this paper is remarkable. It was refused admission into Poggcndorff s Annalcn, and was then sent to Baumgartner of Vienna, in whose Zcitschrift filr Physik, &c. , it was at once published. As no proof-sheets reached Mohr, he concluded that his paper had been lost or rejected, and contented himself with publishing a short analysis in the Annalcn dcr Pharmacic, of which he was an editor. This analysis, it is only fair to say, though probably prepared by the author himself, gives a very inadequate idea of the scope and merit of the paper. In 1864 Dr. Akin unearthed the paper from the forgotten pages of the Zeitsclirift, and the author was enabled to reprint it, with notes, while the recent discussions as to the history of Conservation of Energy were still being carried on. Along with it he issued a number of other papers of greatly inferior merit. Unless some still earlier author should be discovered, there can be no doubt that Mohr is to be recognized as the first to enunciate in its generality what we now call &quot;conservation of energy. &quot; The thesis of his paper must be stated in his own words, &quot;Besides the 54 known chemical elements, there is in the physical world one agent only, and this is called Kraft (energy). 1 It may appear, according to circumstances, as motion, chemical affinity, cohesion, electricity, light, and magnetism ; and from any ^one of these forms it can be transformed into any of the others.&quot; Even now, after nearly half a century of rapid advance in science, it would be difficult to improve this statement except by inserting, as regards transformation of energy, some such guarding expression as &quot;in whole or in part.&quot; But if Mohr had inserted this, he might have had claims to the &quot; dissipation of energy &quot;also. Mohr s starting-point appears to have been the discovery (by Forbes) of the polarization of radiant heat. He goes through the whole of the then range of physics, pointing out the explanation of each experimental result as a transformation of energy, mentioning even the electric currents produced by electro-magnetic induction as a transformation of tin- energy required to draw the coil from the magnet one of the earlier methods used by Joule for quantitative determinations. His nu merical results, based on data quoted from various books, are, it is 1 It is to be remembered that even the most accurate authorities in Germany as, for instance, Von Helmholtz in his Essay of 1847 usej till quite recently the word Kraft in the sense of Energy.