53° POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



This failure of Miiller's to make a discovery of the first order can 

 not, with justice, however, be made to count against him. As DuBois 

 Eeymond has said, " The most important discoveries can, and often 

 do, play into the hands of insignificant investigators." " That Miiller 

 has no such discovery to his credit," continues DuBois Eeymond, " can 

 be called as little a failure as that a merchant, who becomes rich 

 through industry and perseverance, should never have been visited by 

 a great fortune." If, in the time when his productive strength stood 

 at its maximum, instead of loosing his great power against a group 

 of widely-extended activities, Miiller had undertaken a course in a 

 single definite direction, according to the view of Schiller, that strong 

 stimulus would have been lost to the development of physiology. 



Like Miiller, Haller also, though he manifested an all-comprehen- 

 sive knowledge of the field of physiology, failed in yielding an epoch- 

 making discovery. Between these two men, as we have already noted, 

 many points of similarity exist. But, notwithstanding the immense 

 value which Haller rendered to science by his collection and ordering 

 of the tag-ends of physiology up to his time (1775), his work as a 

 whole is excelled by that of Miiller with his over-weighing power 

 of judgment and the massive comprehension which took in the 

 whole realm of biological science. While Haller rendered an immense 

 service by uniting the facts of physiology into a certain order and 

 system, Miiller took that system as he found it, worked it over, did 

 away with every vestige of the false Naturphilosophie, deepened by 

 his own exhaustive researches every channel of it, and turned into those 

 channels the fresh spirit of a new physiology of comparative anatomy. 



We come now, in closing, to a consideration of Miiller's personality. 

 From his father Miiller inherited the strong and active body charac- 

 teristic of the Miiller line, which is traceable far back into German 

 history. We can picture him a man of medium height; in his youth 

 somewhat slim and of an elegant appearance; the breadth of his 

 shoulders in good keeping with the well-shaped head, which was always 

 held erect with a certain attitude of determination. Lithographs and 

 photographs, pencil, pen and brush drawings presenting Miiller's ap- 

 pearance at different times in life, have been given to the world; but, 

 as one of his biographers has said, no picture could accurately repeat, 

 now the sad, now the illuminating, splendor of that dusky counte- 

 nance, with the dark locks of hair and brilliantly glowing eyes. 



While we know that Miiller received his physical characteristics 

 from his father, it was from his mother that he appears to have inher- 

 ited his mental qualities. Among these we may distinguish chiefly 

 the strongly-developed sense of order and method, and the deep spirit 

 of enterprise and of indefatigable activity. To these were added a 

 thorough knowledge of men, a great gift of observation, a conscien- 

 tious punctuality, and a firmness of purpose together with a knowl- 



