196 



SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



of animals and plants, where the rays of comparative ana- 

 tomy and embryology could not reach." l This bold gener- 

 alisation, which had been prepared by a long series of 

 botanical and morphological researches in and out of Ger- 

 many, met alternately with applause and criticism ; it gave 

 rise to a long controversy, and was the starting-point of a 

 whole line of important discoveries. 2 It secured for Ger- 

 many a long period of supremacy in physiological science. 

 This supremacy was more than maintained by a great 

 23. volume of minute investigations, which emanated from 

 rich Weber the schools, and centred in the names, of E. H. Weber 3 



1 Du Bois-Reymond, ' Reden, ' vol. 

 ii. p. 541, &c. 



2 " Whatever cavillers may say, 

 it is certain that histology before 

 1838, and histology since then, are 

 two different sciences in scope, in 

 purpose, and in dignity and the 

 eminent men to whom we allude 

 may safely answer all detraction by 

 a proud Oircumspice." Huxley in 

 his valuable paper on " The Cell 

 Theory" in the 'British and Foreign 

 Medical Chirurgical Review,' 1853, 

 vol. xii. p. 290. 



3 The three brothers Weber (Ernst 

 Heinrich, 1795 - 1878 ; Wilhelm, 

 1804-91 ; and Eduard, 1806-71) may 

 be looked upon as early representa- 

 tives of the best form of German 

 research on the lines now recognised 

 as the true and fruitful ones in na- 

 tural science. Born in an age when 

 other great and more widely known 

 reformers such as Liebig, Schon- 

 lein, and Joh. Mtiller freed them- 

 selves with difficulty from the pre- 

 vailing metaphysical systems, they 

 seem to have at once seized the 

 true spirit of exact research with- 

 out relinquishing the broader philo- 

 sophical and encyclopaedic view of 

 the sciences which they cultivated. 

 Living far into an age when the 

 utilitarian spirit became equally 



seductive in an opposite direction, 

 they preserved pure and undented 

 within themselves the German ideal 

 of Wissenschaft as a pursuit carried 

 on for its own intrinsic value, not 

 for any immediate practical object. 

 Their position, especially that of 

 the two elder brothers, is in this 

 respect unique, and may be studied 

 independently of the scientific ideas 

 which they represented, and which 

 will occupy us later on as a chapter 

 in the history of thought character- 

 istic of the German mind and the 

 best type of the university studies. 

 In three works of ^classical value 

 'Die Wellenlehre auf Experimen- 

 ten begriindet' (E. H. and W. 

 Weber), 1825; 'Die Mechanik der 

 menschlichen Gehwerkzeuge ' (W. 

 and E. Weber), 1836; 'Elektro- 

 dynamische Maasbestimmungen ' 

 (W. Weber), 1846 onward and in 

 a great number of special investi- 

 gations, the method of exact mea- 

 surement was applied to physical, 

 physiological, and even mental 

 phenomena, and the foundation 

 laid for a mechanical description 

 and mathematical calculation. The 

 later generalisations, known as Wil- 

 helm W 7 eber's law of electro-dyna- 

 mics and E. H. Weber's law of 

 psycho-physics, have given rise to 



