CARL LUDWIG. 325 



has its source and spring in this principle. It will there- 

 fore hardly be deemed mere chance that he surpassed as 

 a deviser of ingenious methods. What KirchhofT did for 

 mechanics Ludwig did for physiology. Unlike as the two 

 men were in the outward form of expression, an unlikeness 

 made still greater by the difference of the problems to 

 which the two men devoted themselves, yet that difference 

 between them was largely superficial, for they were so essen- 

 tially alike in their conception as to how an exact science 

 shall be treated. The sensation caused by Kirchhoff's intro- 

 duction to mechanics is well-known history ; and how foreign 

 and secretly unsympathetic the task appeared to many minds 

 —to describe, perfectly and in the simplest manner, the 

 movements occurring in nature. To have introduced this 

 same conception into physiology long before KirchhofT pub- 

 lished his celebrated work — or successfully worked it out — is 

 Ludwig's significant achievement. The daring of it was the 

 daring of genius, and formed a link of close though deep 

 relationship between the two contemporary investigators. 

 Physiology owes to Ludwig no small number of discoveries 

 of the highest importance; yet as a discoverer Ludwig's 

 position is not unique ; our century has been a most splendid 

 era for discoveries in physiology. It is the method of in- 

 vestigation, the manner in which the complicated phenomena 

 of animal life were treated by Ludwig and his school that 

 struck so brilliant light in the dim field previously covered 

 by a cloud of speculations. 



Ludwig like many other great savants had as a writer 

 much of the artist in him. The addresses and the more 

 popular lectures which he delivered occasionally are real 

 masterpieces of composition and poetic imagery. This 

 same gift of poetic imagination, this same remarkable talent 

 for stating facts in a figurative and symbolic manner, guided 

 his pen, when he — as he very often did himself — wrote the 

 papers embodying the results of the researches of his pupils. 

 The real attitude of Ludwig's mind as an investigator, the 

 sober and matter-of-fact spirit in which he grasped the 

 problems of animal life, has therefore sometimes been 

 obscured by his artistic nature. Ludwig treated physiology 



