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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



THE LIBERTY OF SCIENCE IN THE MODERN STATE. 1 



By Professor RUDOLF VIECHOW, of Berlin University. 



WHEN the committee of arrangements hon- 

 ored me with an invitation to address 

 the meeting from this place, I asked myself 

 whether it was not best to discuss one special 

 topic of the recent development of our science 

 from a point of view originally proposed by my- 

 self, but more recently recalled to your minds by 

 Herr Klebs. I have, however, once more con- 

 cluded to treat a subject of general interest, prin- 

 cipally because, as I believe, the time has come 

 when some understanding must be reached be- 

 tween science as represented and studied by us, 

 on the one hand, and the general life of the com- 

 munity on the other ; and also because in the 

 history of the nations of Continental Europe the 

 time is even now coming on apace when the in- 

 tellectual destinies of nations must be determined, 

 perhaps for a long time to come, in the tribunals 

 of last resort. 



Not for the first time, gentlemen, am I able 

 at a meeting of German naturalists to point in 

 warning to almost dramatic occurrences in our 

 neighbor state. Again and again, at times when 

 this Association has met, I have had occasion to 

 refer to events which had just taken place be- 

 yond the Rhine ; and these, however remote they 

 may appear to be from our concernments, never- 

 theless, in the long-run, always touch upon the 

 same domain of controversy — namely, the role 

 of modern science in the modern state. To be 

 frank — and here we may, perhaps, be doubly so 

 — the question that is ever pressing upon us is 

 that of Ultramontanism and Orthodoxy. I con- 

 fess that it is with unfeigned alarm that I look 

 forward to the events of the next few years 

 among our neighbors. At the present moment 

 we here may look about us with some pride and 

 await the tide of events with a degree of calm- 

 ness. But to-day, when we are engaged in cele- 

 brating the fiftieth anniversary of this assembly, 

 it is surely opportune to call to mind what great 

 changes have taken place in Germany, and par- 

 ticularly in Munich, since the days when Oken 

 first assembled the German naturalists and physi- 

 cians. 



1 An address delivered at the Munich meeting of 

 the Gorman Association of Physicians and Naturalists. 

 Nature's translation, revised and corrected by J. 

 Fitzgerald, A. M. 



I propose only to refer very briefly to two 

 facts that, though well known, are still of suffi- 

 cient interest to be mentioned again. The first 

 is that, even when in 1822 the few members con- 

 stituting the first assembly of German naturalists 

 met at Leipsic, the holding of such a meeting 

 seemed so hazardous a thing that the sessions 

 were held in secret. It was not till 1861 — 

 39 years later — that the names of the mem- 

 bers who had been present from Austria could 

 be published. The second fact, which has direct 

 reference to the memory of Oken, is that this 

 esteemed and illustrious teacher, this ornament 

 of the Munich High-School, was fated to die in 

 exile in the same Swiss canton in which Ulrich 

 von Hutten ended his life of trouble and conflict. 

 Gentlemen, the bitter exile which oppressed 

 Oken's last years and caused him to languish 

 away far from the spot where he had expended 

 the best powers of his life, this exile will ever 

 remain as the signature of the period through 

 which we have victoriously passed. And so long 

 as there is an Association of German Naturalists, 

 it behooves us gratefully to remember that, down 

 to the day of his death, this man bore all the 

 signs of a martyr, and to look upon him as one 

 of those witnesses unto blood who have achieved 

 for us the freedom of science. 



Nowadays, gentlemen, it is easy to speak of 

 the liberty of science in Germany ; now we are 

 perfectly secure even here, where, only a few de- 

 cades back, the fear was great that a new change 

 of things might perhaps produce the extreme re- 

 verse, and we can without let or hinderance discuss 

 the highest and most difficult problems of life and 

 the hereafter. Surely the addresses which were 

 delivered at the first and second general meetings 

 are proof sufficient that Munich is now a place 

 which can bear to hear the representatives of 

 science in the most perfect liberty. I was not 

 able to listen to all these addresses, but I have 

 since read those of Profs. Haeckel and Nageli, 

 and I must say we cannot ask more than such 

 freedom of discussion. 



If it were only a question of rejoicing over 



this possession, I should indeed not have claimed 



your attention for the subject in hand. But, 



gentlemen, we have arrived at a point where it 



I becomes necessary to investigate whether we 



