LUDWIG AND MODERN PHYSIOLOGY. 13 



sciences which was to be of such inestimable value to him 

 afterwards. 



There is reason, however, to believe that, as so often 

 happens, Ludwig's scientific progress was much more in- 

 fluenced by his contemporaries than by his seniors. In 

 1847, as we learn on the one hand from du Bois-Reymond, 

 on the other from Ludwig himself, he visited Berlin for the 

 first time. This visit was an important one both for him- 

 self and for the future of Science, for he there met three 

 men of his own age, Helmholtz, du Bois-Reymond and 

 Brticke, who were destined to become his life-friends, all of 

 whom lived nearly as long as Ludwig himself, and attained 

 to the highest distinction. They all were full of the same 

 enthusiasm. As Ludwig said when speaking of this visit : 

 " We four imagined that we should constitute Physiology 

 on a chemico-physical foundation, and give it equal scientific 

 rank with Physics, but the task turned out to be much more 

 difficult than we anticipated ". These three young men, 

 who were devoted disciples of the great Anatomist, had the 

 advantage over their master in the better insight which 

 their training had given them into the fundamental prin- 

 ciples of scientific research. They had already gathered 

 around themselves a so-called "physical " school of Physio- 

 logy, and welcomed Ludwig on his arrival from Marburg 

 as one who had of his own initiative undertaken in his own 

 University das Befremngswerk aus dcm Vitalismus. 



The determination to refer all vital phenomena to their 

 physical or chemical counterparts or analogues, which, as I 

 have said, was the dominant motive in Ludwio's char- 

 acter, was combined with another quality of mind which if 

 not equally influential was even more obviously displayed in 

 his mode of thinking and working. His first aim, even 

 before he sought for any explanation of a structure or of 

 a process, was to possess himself, by all means of observa- 

 tion at his disposal, of a complete objective conception of 

 all its relations. He regarded the faculty of vivid sensual 

 realisation (lebendige sinnliche Anschanung) as of special 

 value to the investigator of natural phenomena, and did his 

 best to cultivate it in those who worked with him in the 



