Schrotter gave them to
the young man whom he and Wilhelm had supported in his studies out
of the Dorfling legacy. The recipient was clever and shrewd, and
justified the confidences his patrons had placed in his future. He
found that the first volume of the "History of Human Ignorance,"
testing of the early ideas of mankind and their psychological
reasons, was completely ready for the press; and all the notes and
literary sources for the two following volumes only needed putting
together to bring the work up to the end of the eighteenth century,
and the experiments of Lavoisier, from which the indestructibility
of matter was deduced.
The first volume appeared in the autumn. On the title page he gave
his own name as the author, but did not omit, as a man of honor, to
mention in the preface that in compiling the work he had availed
himself of "the preparatory notes of the late Dr. Wilhelm Eynhardt,
an eminent scholar, lost all too early to the scientific word by a
tragic death." In the ensuing editions which followed rapidly upon
the first, the book meeting with great success, this preface was
omitted as unnecessary. The second volume appeared in the following
year; the third--very prudently--not till two years later.
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