Emil du Bois-Reymond. 127 



which he delivered as Rector of the University on August 3, 1870, the 

 day before Wissembourg, and just six weeks before Sedan. 



" . But this Richard III is nearing his field of Bos worth, 

 and the day is preceded by the haunted night .... Yet let us 

 leave him who is but a passing shade. There is another indictment to 

 be drawn up. Louis Napoleon has an accomplice. I do not speak of 

 his pitiful tools, of those strangers, dukes, and chancellors who lie for 

 him to-day as they will counter-lie against him to-morrow. The 

 criminal whom I arraign, more dangerous than Louis Napoleon him- 

 self, because imperishable, is the whole French nation. I proclaim 

 this aloud from the tribune of the premier German University, to be 

 whose mouthpiece at this historical pass I prize as highest honour. I 

 call upon the French people to hear and understand how sentence is 

 passed upon its present state, not merely by the pens of journalists, 

 or the gossip of boon companions, or the limited patriotism of young 

 braves, but by the deliberate judgment of a learned body which con- 

 sists of most serious, most honourable, and most impartial men of 

 pur most distinguished German teachers and scholars. Myself of 

 almost pure Celtic blood, half French by education, I pronounce these 

 words with deepest pain, for the roots of my intellectual life spring in 

 large measure from French soil. All the more do I feel it to be my 

 right and my duty to speak as I shall speak, since my almost inter- 

 national position can but increase the weight of my words in the minds 

 of all clear-thinking Frenchmen." 



This war-speech gave great and enduring offence, which, however, 

 was justified less by the general tenor of the speech, which was al the 

 same time severe and respectful, than by the partial and twisted 

 quotations of it that appeared in the Paris journals. Du Bois- 

 Reymond, Rector of the University of Berlin, knew and appreciated 

 better than most men the strengths and weaknesses of the French 

 nature. And in that sense, although a Berliner, he was a good 

 Frenchman, just as, although bearing a French name, he was a good 

 German. 



Among the biographical essays from du Bois-Reymond's pen two in 

 particular have permanent historical value and interest, the first dealing 

 with the career of Johannes Miiller, the last which was also the last 

 act of his life giving us a most living and dramatic picture of his 

 great fellow-student Helmholtz. Thus it fell to du Bois-Reymond to 

 turn the first and the last pages of what will in time to come stand 

 out as one of the most vigorous chapters in the life-history of physi- 

 ology, the second half of the nineteenth century, a period deeply 

 scored by the names of four great men Ernst Briicke, Karl Ludwig, 

 Hermann Helmholtz, Emil du Bois-Reymond. 



A. D. W. 



