Dec. 6, 1877] 



NATURE 



III 



I 



THE LTBERTY OF SCIENCE IN THE MODERN 

 STATE"- 



III, 



F what I have said before is true— that half-knowledge is 

 more or less the characteristic of all naturalists, that in many, 

 perhaps in most, of the lateral branches of their own science, 

 even the naturalists themselves are only half-knowers ; if later on 

 I said that the true naturalist was distinguished by his being 

 perfectly aware of the limit between his knowledge and his 

 ignorance, then you understand, gentlemen, that also with 

 regard to the public at large we must confine our claims to 

 demanding that merely what every single investigator in his own 

 direction, in his sphere, can designate as reliable truth which is 

 common to all — that only this shall be admitted into the general 

 plan of education. 



In thus marking the confines of our knowledge we must 

 remember before all things that what is generally termed natural 

 science is, like all other knowledge in this world, composed of 

 three totally different parts. Generally a difference is only made 

 between objective and j?/i^>c/;V^ knowledge, but there is a certain 

 intermediate part — I mean ^f/^f/^— which also exists in science, 

 with this difference only, that here it is applied to other things 

 than in the case of religious belief. It is somewhat unfortunate, 

 in my opinion, that the expression belief has been so completely 

 monopolised by the church, that one can hardly apply it to any 

 secular object without being misunderstood. In reality there is 

 a certain domain of belief even in science, upon which the single 

 worker no longer undertakes to prove what is transmitted to him 

 as true, but where he instructs himself merely by means of tradi- 

 tion, just what we have in the church. I would like to remark 

 on the contrary — and my conception has not been contradicted 

 by the church — that it is not belief alone which is taught in the 

 church, but that even ecclesiastical dogmas have their objective 

 and their subjective sides. No church can avoid developing in 

 the three directions I have pointed out : in the middle the path 

 of belief, which is cerlainly very broad, but on the one side of 

 which there is a certain quantity of objective historical truth, and 

 on the other a variable series of subjective and often very fantastic 

 ideas. In this the ecclesiastical and the scientific doctrines are 

 alike. The cause of this is that the human mind is a simple one, 

 and that it carries the method which it follows in one domain 

 finally into all the others as well But we must be aware at all 

 times how far each of the directions mentioned extends in the 

 different domains. Thus, for instance, in the ecclesiastical 

 domain — it is easier to show it in this one — we have the real 

 dogma, the so-called positive belief; about this I need not speak. 

 But each creed has its peculiar historical side. It says : this has 

 happened, this has occurred, these events have taken place. This 

 historical truth is not simply handed down, but in the garb of an 

 objective truth it appears with certain proofs. This is the case 

 with the Christian religion just as much as with the Mohammedan, 

 with Judaism just as much as with Buddhism. On the other 

 side we find the left wing as it were, where subjectivity reigns ; 

 there the single individual dreams, there visions come and hallu- 

 cinations. One religion promotes them by special drugs, another 

 by abstinence, &c. Thus subjective individual currents are deve- 

 loped, which occasionally assume the shape of perfectly inde- 

 pendent phenomena existing by the side of and apart from the 

 previous ecclesiastical domain, which at other times are rejected 

 as heresies, but which often enough lead into the large current of 

 the recognised church. All this we find again in natural science. 

 There too we have the current of the dogma, there too we have 

 the currents of the objective and subjective doctrines. Conse- 

 quently our task is a compound one. First of all we always try 

 to reduce the dogmatic current. The principal aim of science 

 has for centuries been to strengthen more and more the right, the 

 conservative side. This side, which collects the ascertained facts 

 with the full consciousness of proof, this side, which adheres to 

 experiment as the highest means of proof, this side, which is in 

 possession of the real scientific treasury, has always grown larger 

 and broader, and this principally at the expense of the dogmatic 

 stream. Really, if we only consider the number of natural 

 sciences which since the end of last century have grown and now 

 flourish, we must admit that an almost incredible revolution has 

 taken place. 



There is no science in which this is so eminently evident as in 

 medicine, because it is the only science, which has a continuous 



' Address delivered at the Munich meeting of the German Association, 

 by Prof. Rudolf Virehow, of Berlin. Continued from p. 94. 



history of nearly 3,000 years. We are, so to speak, the patriarchs 

 of science, inasmuch as we have the dogmatic current at its 

 longest. This current was so strong, that in the early part of the 

 middle ages even the catholic church embraced it, and the 

 heathen Galen appeared like a father of the church in the ideas 

 of men ; indeed, if we read the poems of that period, he often 

 presents himself exactly in the position of a church dignitary. 

 The medical dogma went on until the time of the Reformation. 

 As contemporaries of Luther, Vesal and Paracelsus came and 

 made the first grand attempts at reduction, they drove piles 

 into the dogmatic stream, constructed dykes by its sides, and 

 left only a narrow fair- way to it. Beginning from the sixteenth 

 century it has grown narrower and narrower every century, so 

 that finally only a very small channel has remained for tlxe 

 therapeutists. Thus vanishes the lordliness of the world. 



Only thirty years ago the Hippocratic method was spoken of as 

 something so sublime and importantthat nothing moresacred could 

 be imagined. Nowadays we must own that this method is annihi- 

 lated nearly down to its root. At least, a good deal of imagina- 

 tion is necessary if we say that any physician of the present day 

 acts as Hippocrates did. Indeed, if we compare the medicine of 

 to-day with the medicine of the year 1800— accidentally the year 

 1800 marks a great turning-point in medicine — then we find that 

 our science has undergone a complete reformation during the last 

 seventy years. At that time the great Paris school was formed, 

 immediately under the influence of the French Revolution, and 

 we must admire the genius of our neighbours that enabled them 

 to find all at once the fundamental basis of an entire new 

 discipline. If now we see medicine continue its development in 

 the greater breadth of objective knowledge, we will never forget 

 that the French were the precursors, as in the middle ages the 

 Germans were. 



By our own example I only wished to show you shortly what 

 changes both the methods and the storehouse of knowledge 

 undergo. I am convinced that in medicine, at the end of the 

 present century, only a sort of clay-pipe system will have 

 remained, through which the last weak waters of the dogmatic 

 stream may move — a sort of drainage. For the rest the 

 objective current will probably have entirely consumed the 

 dogmatic one. 



Perhaps the subjective one will remain as well. Perhaps even 

 then many an individual will dream his beautiful dreams. The 

 field of objective facts in medicine, great as it has become, has 

 yet left such a number of lateral fields, that for anybody who 

 wants to speculate, plenty of opportunities offer daily. And 

 these opportunities are honestly made use of. A multitude of 

 books would remain unwritten if only objective things were to be 

 communicated. But the subjective wants are still so great, that 

 I believe I am justified in maintaining that of our present medical 

 literature about one half might safely remain unpublished, with- 

 out doing any damage worth mentioning to the objective side. 



Now when we teach, in my opinion, we ought not to look 

 upon this subjective side as an essential object in the doctrine. 

 I believe I naw belong to the oldest professors of medicine ; I 

 have taught my science now for over thirty years, and I may say 

 that during these thirty years I have honestly striven by myself 

 to free my mind more and more from all subjective tendency, and 

 to get more and more into the objective current. Nevertheless 

 I openly confess that I find it impossible to give up subjectivity 

 altogether. Every year I see again and again that even in points, 

 where I had believed myself to be entirely objective, I ^till 

 retained a large number of subjective ideas. I do not go so far 

 as to make the inhuman demand that everybody is to express 

 himself entirely without any subjective vein, but I do say that we 

 must set ourselves the task to transmit to the students the real 

 knowledge of facts in the first place, and if we go further, we 

 must tell them each time : " but this is not proved, but this is 

 my opinion, my idea, my theory, my speculation.' 



This, however, we can only do with those who are already 

 educated and developed. We cannot carry the same method 

 into the elementary schools, we cannot say to each peasant boy, 

 " This is a fact, this we know, and that we only suppose. On 

 the contrary, that which is known, and that which is only sup- 

 posed, as a rule get so thoroughly mixed up that that which is 

 supposed becomes the main thing, and that which is really 

 known appears only of secondary importance. Therefore we 

 who support science, we who live in science, are all the more 

 called upon to abstain from carrying into the heads of men, and 

 most of all into the heads of teachers, that which we only suppose. 

 Certainly, we cannot give facts only as raw material, that is 

 impossible. They must be arranged in a certain systematic 



