16 Professor Burdon Sanderson [Jan. 24, 



method to questions beyond its scope. The other mistake is chiefly 

 fallen into by careless thinkers who, while they object to the employ- 

 ment of intuition even in regions where intuition is the only method 

 by which anything can be learned, attempt to describe and define 

 mental processes in mechanical terms, assigning to these terms mean- 

 ings which science does not recognise, and thus slide into a kind of 

 speculation which is as futile as it is unphilosophical. 



Ludwig as Investigator and Teacher. 



The uneventful history of Ludwig's life — how early he began his 

 investigation of the anatomy and function of the kidneys, how lie 

 became just fifty years ago titular Professor at Marburg, in the small 

 University of his native State, Hesse Cassel ; how in 1849 he 

 removed to Zurich as actual Professor and thereupon married ; how 

 he was six years later promoted to Vienna, h;is already been admir- 

 ably related by Dr. Stirling.* In 1865, after twenty years of 

 professorial experience, but still in the prime of life and, as it 

 turned out, with thirty years of activity still before him, he accepted 

 the Chair of Physiology at Leipzig. His invitation to that great 

 University was by far the most important occurrence in his life, for 

 the liberality of the Saxon Government, and particularly the energetic 

 support which he received from the enlightened Minister, v. Falken- 

 stein, enabled him to accomplish for Physiology what had never 

 before been attempted on an adequate scale. No sooner had he been 

 appointed, than he set himself to create what was then essential to 

 the progress of the Science — a great Observatory, arranged not as a 

 Museum, but much more like a physical and chemical Laboratory, 

 provided with all that was needed for the apj^lication of exact 

 methods of research to the investigation of the processes of Life. 

 The idea which he had ever in view, and which he carried into effect 

 during the last thirty years of his life with signal success, was to 

 unite his life-work as an investigator with the highest kind of teach- 

 ing. Even at Marburg and at Zurich he had begun to form a School ; 

 for already men nearly of his own age had rallied round him. 

 Attracted in the first instance by his early discoveries, they were held 

 by the force of his character, and became permanently associated with 

 him in his work as his loyal friends and followers — in the highest 

 sense his scholars. If, therefore, we speak of Ludwig as one of the 

 greatest teachers of Science the world has seen, we have in mind 

 his relation to the men who ranged themselves under his leadership 

 in the building up of the Science of Physiology, without reference to 

 his function as an ordinary academical teacher. 



Of this relation we can best judge by the careful perusal of the 

 numerous biographical memoirs which have appeared since his death, 



* See 'Science Progress,' vol. iv. Nov. 1895. 



