FOUNDING OF THE BERLIN UNIVERSITY. 693 



were founded, most of tlieiii on a much more magniticent scale. Under 

 Emperor William arose the palaces of the Physiologic and the Physical 

 Institute; the Chemical Institute was completely remodeled and an 

 additional building erected, together with a pharmaceutical institute; 

 then followed two anatomical institutes, the great Museum of ISTatural 

 History, with the Zoologic Institute, the Hygienic Institute — in shorty 

 in the course of a few decades so large a number of buildings was 

 erected that at present not one of the experimental sciences is left with- 

 out a home of its own in Berlin, or without the instruments necessary 

 for successful research. Xor have the institutions for the sick been 

 neglected, the less so as the municipal authorities, in praiseworthy 

 emulation of the example set by the Government, have erected hospitals, 

 each with more perfect appointments than the last. 



"Thus," to cite the expression used by one of the most famous expo- 

 nents of physical science, our recently departed friend, Siemens, at the 

 second Berlin meeting of the Association of Scientists, "we have 

 stepped into the age of the natural sciences." Nowadays the scholar is 

 called upon to be an investigator, and the demands made upon instruc- 

 tion have increased to so great an extent that the academic course of 

 studies is arranged with a view not only of initiating the student into 

 the methods of investigation, but also of affording him the opportunity 

 of practicing them. There is no longer need to i^rove the usefulness of 

 this sort of science. Every member of the nation is aware of tlie i)rotit 

 that accrues to the State and to society from the new institutions. 

 Bacon's old dictum, scientia est potentia, has become truth. 



Surely the retrospect upon the career of our university, viewed from 

 the heiglit of its present stage of development, is elevating — we may 

 tell ourselves that eighty years have sufticed to jiroduce a complete 

 revolution in science and instruction. He who has contributed even a 

 mite to this consummation may look back upon his work with deep satis- 

 faction. But it were folly to believe that we have nothing more to 

 investigate, that we are proof against new dangers. Not even the 

 old ones are entirely removed. Perhaps the so called exact natural 

 sciences, physics and chemistry, will enjoy immunity for a long time to 

 come, inasmuch as in them we have reached a perception of the unity 

 of the forces of nature, instead of regarding them as separate agencies. 

 But that great host of sciences whose essential theme is life and its 

 mysteries — biology in all its ramitications — is by no means unassail- 

 able, and it is precisely in this quarter that mysticism has always made 

 its most redoubtable encroachments. 



It took long for life, as such, to be recognized in the light of a study. 

 The beginning of its rational observation arose not more than two hun- 

 dred years ago, and of these two centuries more than three quarters 

 were used up in refuting the doctrine of vital force as a i)eculiar StvauiS 

 of a more or less spiritual nature. Only since we know that life means 

 cell activity, and since we can see the living being in the cell and force 



