274 HERMANN VON HELMHOLTZt 



an absorbing impulse, amounting even to a passion. 

 This impulse to dominate the actual world by acquiring 

 an understanding of it, or what, I think, is only another 

 expression for the same thing, to discover the causal 

 connection of phenomena, has guided me through my 

 whole life, and the strength of this impulse is possibly 

 the reason why I found no satisfaction in apparent 

 solutions of problems so long as I felt there were still 

 obscure points in them. 



And now I was to go to the university. Physics 

 was at that time looked upon as an art by which a 

 living could not be made. My parents were compelled 

 to be very economical, and my father explained to me 

 that he knew of no other way of helping me to the 

 study of Physics, than by taking up the study of 

 medicine into the bargain. I was by no means averse 

 from the study of living Nature, and assented to this 

 without much difficulty. Moreover, the only influential 

 person in our family had been a medical man, the late 

 Surgeon-General Mursinna ; and this relationship was 

 a recommendation in my favour among other ap- 

 plicants for admission to our Army Medical School, the 

 Friedrich Wilhelms Institut, which very materially 

 helped the poorer students in passing through their 

 medical course. 



In this study I came at once under the influence 

 of a profound teacher Johannes Miiller; he who at 



