532 MEMOIR OF KIKCimOFF. 



I'aradoxical as it may seem, it was uot impossible, without ever hav- 

 ing uuderstood Kirchhoif, to write his lectures as a first-rate book by 

 raeaus of the notes alone. It is to this quality of Kirchhoff's dialectics 

 (absolute clearness and self comprehension), that he owed a large part of 

 his success as a teacher. During nine years Kirchhoff' was able to de- 

 liver his lectures at Berlin without interruption. But it became more 

 and more apparent to us, his hearers, wliat exertion they required from 

 him and how he was obliged to gather his last strength in order to keep 

 himself on his feet. Nevertheless he was always punctual to the minute, 

 and the excellence of his lectures remained unimpaired. At last (1884) 

 he was prohibited lecturing by the physicians; he took up however 

 this favorite occupation of his once again for a short time. It became 

 apparent however that palsy made him unable to move, and Kirchhoff 

 was reduced entirely to his own home, to the rolling chair, and to the 

 care of his family. In the last two years of his life one would see him 

 always cheerful and amiable, sitting in his arm-chair and preserving a 

 vivid interest in all problems. Never, not even once, did a complaint 

 escape his lips, though he must have been well aware of the decline of 

 his forces. Death, which came unawares during his sleep, delivered him 

 from worse suffering. 



We lost in him a perfect example of the true German investigator. To 

 search after truth in its purest shape and to give it utterance with 

 almost an abstract self forgetfulness,- was the religion and the purpose 

 of his life. He loved and furthered science only for her own sake ; 

 every embellishment exceeding the limits of what was logically proved, 

 would appear to him as a i)rofauation, — any admixture of personal mo- 

 tives, or grasping at honors or lucre, would seem to him worthy of 

 blame. And in life as well as in science, he carried out what he con- 

 sidered his duty as a man, a citizen, or functionary, with a logical rigor 

 divested of all personal motives. But the knowledge of good alone does 

 not make a man a good one, not even the will or the power to execute 

 it. It was only Kirchhoff's kindness of heart and hunumeness, whicli if 

 not demonstrative and warm in the expression of feelings, were the more 

 pure and genuine, that made of him a true friend, a self-forgetful co- 

 worker, the teacher ready to help, the judge ready to acknowledge the 

 merits of others ; in short, a man that all of us loved. I have a fine 

 instance lying before me of how friendly and obliging he was, even 

 toward the humblest of his fellow-men. A iioor workman — many would 

 have taken him to be insane — applies in a letter to Kirchhoff, for an 

 explanation of pessimistic doubts that torture him. "No physician, no 

 priest, or any other nmterialistic egotist can help me, but only a man of 

 a truly scientific educational training, an investigator and thinker him- 

 self, who does not consider himself too much above any of his fellow- 

 men, placed below him by birth and circumstances, to communicate his 

 conviction free of any compromise. When people tell me I am a work- 

 man and must uot trouble myself about such mattters, T answer that not 



