PROFESSOR VIRCHOW AND EVOLUTION. 383 



now reached in my story the feeling referred to was 

 indefinitely strengthened, my whole life being at the 

 same time rendered more earnest, resolute, and laborious 

 by the writings of Carlyle. Others also ministered to 

 this result. Emerson kindled me, while Fichte power- 

 fully stirred my moral pulse.* In this relation I cared 

 little for political theories or philosophic systems, but a 

 great deal for the propagated life and strength of pure 

 and powerful minds. In my later school-days, under a 

 clever teacher, some knowledge of mathematics and 

 physics had been picked up: my stock of both was, how- 

 ever, scanty, and I resolved to augment it. But it was 

 really with the view of learning whether mathematics 

 and physics could help me in other spheres, rather than 

 with the desire of acquiring distinction in either sci- 

 ence, that I ventured, in 1848, to break the continuity 

 of my life, and devote the meagre funds then at my 

 disposal to the study of science in Germany. 



But science soon fascinated me on its own account. 

 To carry it duly and honestly out, moral qualities were 

 incessantly invoked. There was no room allowed for 

 insincerity no room even for carelessness. The edi- 

 fice of science had been raised by men who had un- 

 swervingly followed the truth as it is in nature; and 

 in doing so had often sacrificed interests which are usu- 

 ally potent in this world. Among these rationalistic 

 men of Germany I found conscientiousness in work 

 as much insisted on as it could be among theologians. 

 And why, since they had not the rewards or penalties 

 of the theologian to offer to their disciples? Because 

 they assumed, and were justified in assuming, that those 

 whom they addressed had that within them which 



* The reader will find in the Seventeenth Lecture of Fichte's 

 course on the ' Characteristics of the Present Age ' a sample of 

 the vital power of this philosopher. 



