Philosophy, as an abstract science, independently of its immediate application to subjects of real life, has never found more than a few votaries among the Poles.  In the beginning of the seventeenth century, Aristotle was translated into Polish by Petryci.  For nearly two hundred years, the teachers of philosophy in the Polish universities stopped at Aristotle; and a few commentaries on his Ethics and Politics composed the whole philosophical literature of Poland.  In the first years of our own century, Jaronski and Szianiawski made an attempt to introduce the philosophy of Kant; but although the cause appeared to be in the best hands, they met with little success.  Galuchowski, a German philosophical writer of merit, is a Pole by birth;[60] as also Trentovski and Cieszkowski, followers of Hegel, who prefer the German for their organ.[61]

For the study of polite literature and the Slavic languages during this period, Warsaw was the principal seat; for philology and the exact sciences, the university of Wilna.  This learned institution had taken special pains in respect to the necessary elementary books for the study of the classical languages; and was distinguished by its able professors Groddek, Bobrowski, and Zukowski.  The former, a scholar of high reputation, in addition to several philological works, translated Buttman’s Greek Grammar into Polish; the latter published also a Greek and a Hebrew Grammar.  In the oriental languages Senkowski at St. Petersburgh is distinguished; and count Rzewuski at Vienna had great desert in connection with the periodical work, Fundgruben des Orients.

In consequence of the grand-duke Constantine’s predilection for mathematics, an undue share of attention, after the erection of a kingdom of Poland under his administration, was paid in schools to the exact or empirical sciences; undue we call it, because on account of its excess, the moral and literary pursuits of the pupils were necessarily neglected.  Mathematics, during this whole period, were taught by several eminent men; by John Sniadecki, who is at the same time considered as a model in respect to style and language; by Poezobut, Zaborowski, Czech, Rogalinski, and others.  In the same departments the names of Twardowski, Polinski, and Konkowski, must be honourably mentioned.  Count Sierakowski wrote a classical work on architecture; and the learned Polish Jew Stern is celebrated over all Europe as the inventor of arithmetical and agricultural machines.  Count Chodkiewicz and Andrew Sniadecki are distinguished chemists.  Natural philosophy, although less studied, had able professors in H. Osinski and Bystrzycki; natural history, more particularly botany and zoology, in Kluk and Jundzill.  Medicine, until the middle of the last century, was in Poland exclusively in the hands of foreigners, especially Germans and French [62] since then several gifted Poles have devoted themselves to this science, although they have not yet formed a national school.  Lafontaine, body physician of the last king, Dziarkowski, Perzyna, Malcz, and others, must be mentioned here.  The university of Wilna was the most celebrated school for medical science.