411 THE HISTORY OF BIOLOGY 



J. Miiller, is rejected in view of the equal finality prevailing in the inanimate 

 universe; the life-force's quality of resisting the chemical disintegration of 

 the organism — the basis of Stahl's and Bichat's systems — is likewise cast 

 aside in consideration of the fact that a force which without a struggle aban- 

 dons its material foundation is inconceivable, for force is in reality nothing 

 but a quality of matter; both belong to one another and together represent 

 an expression for natural phenomena, such as science imagines them to be. 

 Force and matter are ' ' von verscbiedenen Standptinkten aus auj gcnotnmene Ah- 

 stractionen der Dinge wte sie sind. Sie ergdnzen einander und sie setzen einander 

 voraus." From this he draws the bold conclusion that the difference between 

 organic and inorganic nature is of no importance whatever, and he finds ad- 

 ditional support for this assertion in the principle of the permanence of force 

 as formulated by Helmholtz. He maintains also that if the organism presents 

 phenomena which do not exist in inorganic nature, this may be due to the 

 fact that the elements intrinsic in them, though they may be provided with 

 the same qualities and none others, nevertheless enter into new connexions 

 with one another and therefore display new qualities. On these grounds phys- 

 iology should come entirely under organic physics and chemistry. His own 

 contribution to this plan consists in his investigations into electrical phe- 

 nomena in the animal kingdom. His most important discovery in this field 

 is the very fact that the muscles and nerves of animals during their state of 

 activity produce electric currents that can be observed and measured with 

 the aid of the usual apparatus of electro-physics. As a result of his study of 

 these currents he demonstrated in practice that phenomena which in the 

 most marked degree belonged to the manifestations of life may be dealt w4th 

 with quite as much exactitude as the ordinary physical phenomena, thereby 

 providing the most patent proofs of his theory of the physico-chemical qual- 

 ities of vital phenomena. He based his explanation of these electrical phe- 

 nomena, however, upon a theory that is untenable, a theory according to 

 which the muscles and nerves are composed of a kind of electrical molecules. 

 Generally speaking, it was a weak point in the physiologists of that era 

 that they overlooked the complex structural conditions of cells and tissues 

 and were thus tempted to deal with the phenomena of life more schemati- 

 cally than accords with the reality. 



Besides this limited but nevertheless important specialized research, Du 

 Bois-Reymond, as already mentioned, contributed a number of ideas on ques- 

 tions of general science; specially remarkable is his lecture " Uber die Gren- 

 Xen des Naturerkennens" (iSyi), wherein he seeks to establish the limits of 

 natural research and comes to the conclusion that, though biology might 

 eventually master the laws governing vital phenomena as completely as 

 the astronomers when they calculate the motions of the heavenly bodies, 

 yet science would never be able to determine what matter is or what con- 



