160 HERMANN VON HELMHOLTZ 



hauer at the present time seems really to be due to the fact 

 that he goes back to the sound old Kantian standpoint/ 



And on March 4 (after a long letter from his father) he 

 resumes : 



'We who approach natural science from the mathematical 

 point of view are disciplined to a painful exactitude in the 

 testing of facts and consequences, and compel each other 

 to proceed by very short and safe steps in the hypotheses 

 with which we endeavour to sound what is still an unexplored 

 ocean, so that we are perhaps too much afraid of a bolder 

 application of the facts of science, which may very well be 

 justified upon other occasions. 



' Your letter implies that you suspect me of believing in the 

 trivial tirades of Vogt and Moleschott. Not in the very least. 

 And I must protest vigorously against your taking these two 

 men as representatives of natural science. Neither has so far 

 shown by any special scientific achievement that he possesses 

 either the respect for facts, or the discretion in accepting 

 conclusions, that is acquired in the discipline of science. 

 A sober investigator knows right well that the fact of his 

 having gained a little insight into the complexities of natural 

 processes in no way justifies him in concluding more than 

 other men as to the nature of the soul. And for this reason 

 I do not think you are right in supposing the majority of sober 

 men of science to be inimical to philosophy. Indifferent indeed 

 they are, but that I put down solely to the exaggerations of 

 Hegel and Schelling, who have been presented to them as 

 typical philosophers. Lotze, for instance, has a fair following 

 among the naturalists. Personally I get no satisfaction out of 

 him. He is not clear or strict enough for me. I feel the 

 crying want of a special treatment of certain questions, which 

 have not, so far as I know, been attacked by any modern 

 philosopher, and which lie wholly within the field of a priori 

 concepts which Kant investigated, e. g. the derivation of the 

 principles of geometry and mechanics, the reason why we are 

 logically bound to reduce reality to two abstractions matter and 

 energy, &c., or again, the laws of the unconscious arguments 

 from analogy, by which we pass from sensations to sense- 

 perceptions. I see plainly that these can only be solved by 

 philosophical investigation, and are resolvable by it, so that 



