JOHANNES MULLER 525 



Spallauzani, Treviranus and others were dealing what we may call 

 only the first of a long series of death Mows to the hydra-headed 

 theory of spontaneous generation, which was not eventually disposed 

 of until the excellent work of Pasteur, over half a century later, and 

 even now is often found lingering in popular scientific lore. 



A consideration of these foregoing facts demonstrates to us that 

 the greater number of these exact researches had been carried on in 

 France and England. When now we turn with special interest to Ger- 

 many, we find that her scientific thought had been fermenting in that 

 powerful intellectual narcotic, the Naturphilosophie, which, under the 

 great influence of Hegel at Heidelberg and Berlin, was stupefying 

 every branch of accurate scientific research throughout Germany. Of 

 the tendency of this movement to avoid the deductive method of 

 research and to build up a conception of nature upon theoretical and 

 speculative conclusions, we shall speak further. For the present, how- 

 ever, having gained some understanding of the condition of natural 

 science, especially physiology, previous to the period of Muller's 

 greatest activity, let us now consider more in detail Miiller's relation 

 to these movements, philosophical and otherwise. 



Miiller, as nearly every other investigator of his time, was a vital- 

 ist ; but, as Verworn has said, " Miiller's vitalism had an acceptable 

 form." Although to him vital force was different from the forces of 

 lifeless nature, its administration nevertheless followed certain phys- 

 ico-chemical laws. In this, Miiller's conception seems to be modeled 

 after the idea of Eeil, the leader, as we have said, of the most rational 

 form of the doctrine of vitalism in Germany. Miiller maintained his 

 position as a vitalist to the very end. He cherished to the last the 

 thought of the existence of a " life energy." We well know how the 

 activity of his pupils has apparently disproved forever this concep- 

 tion for natural science; and how it has led to the opposite extreme, 

 the rather one-sided materialism of the present day. 



When we turn to consider Miiller's relation to the Natar philoso- 

 phic, we recall how he contracted this spirit while he was at Bonn, 

 and how he was rescued, at least from its extreme influences, by 

 Rudolphi at Berlin. Throughout his Berlin period, Miiller devoted 

 much of his thought to freeing natural science from the influence of 

 the Naturphilosophie. The result was that not long after the death 

 of Hegel, in 1831, the dangerous play with mystical words became 

 gradually eliminated from the consideration of life phenomena. From 

 this time on. the problems of living substance were furthered, es- 

 pecially by Miiller, with the implements of comparative anatomy, of 

 physics and of chemistry. In bringing about this condition, and in 

 establishing the deductive scientific method as alone admissible in the 

 realm of natural science, we must look upon Miiller as a reformer 

 whose work has been of enduring benefit to science. The nature of 



