i2 4 HERMANN VON HELMHOLTZ 



sun perpetually receives a certain increment of heat from 

 the contraction incident on its cooling. This fundamental law 

 of nature, indeed, leaves a long, but by no means an eternal 

 existence to the human race: 'Just as the individual has to 

 face the thought of death, so too the race ; but it rises above 

 the forms of life gone by, in having higher moral problems 

 before it, in the consummation of which it finds its destiny/ 



How great an effect, both ethical and scientific, this lecture 

 produced in the scientific world, is shown by a letter of Ludwig 

 to the Prussian Minister. Ludwig had embarked on a scientific 

 dispute with Rudolph Wagner at Gottingen, which speedily 

 degenerated, thanks to the retrograde party in science, into 

 a war of religious views. 'What have you been up to in 

 Gottingen with R. Wagner?* writes Helmholtz to Ludwig. 

 ' Dark rumours have reached us here, which sound as though 

 you, like Dr. Eck and Dr. Luther of yore, had held, or wanted 

 to hold, a public disputation on the nature of the soul, in which 

 Wagner of course would have fought with the Bible in his hand, 

 and you with the weapons of the Devil, atheism and such like.' 



At this time, notwithstanding the efforts of Helmholtz and 

 du Bois-Reymond, Ludwig was in fact in no good odour in 

 Prussia. When he was again passed over a year later on 

 the occasion of a vacancy in the physiological chair at Bonn, 

 although a long way senior to the other candidates, he ad- 

 dressed a letter to the Prussian Minister which was of real 

 benefit from its distinguished sentiments, and in which, as 

 the event was now past, and no unworthy motives could be 

 ascribed to his communication, he pointed out the untenability 

 of confusing scientific progress with religious principles. With 

 reference to the foregoing lecture by Helmholtz, he says: ' How 

 remote these religious ideas are from physical physiology is 

 apparent from the fact that the physiologist Volkmann of 

 Halle, a prominent supporter of the orthodox party, and 

 our very dear friend, is not merely a stanch Christian, but 

 has lately been busying himself in the attempt to deduce 

 a proof for the personality of God from this very lecture of 

 Helmholtz/ 



On June i, Helmholtz tells his father that a second edition 

 of the lecture has already been asked for, adding : ' I have 

 read several very flattering notices of it, but it was evident 



