AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 275 



the same time introduced E. Du Bois Reymond, 

 E. Briicke, C. Ludwig, and Virchow to the study of 

 anatomy and physiology. As respects the critical 

 questions about the nature of life, Miiller still 

 struggled between the older essentially the meta- 

 physical view and the naturalistic one, which was 

 then being developed; but the conviction that nothing 

 could replace the knowledge of facts forced itself upon 

 him with increasing certainty, and it may be that his 

 influence over his students was the greater because he 

 still so struggled. 



Young people are ready at once to attack the 

 deepest problems, and thus I attacked the perplexing 

 question of the nature of the vital force. Most 

 physiologists had at that time adopted Gr. E. Stahl's 

 way out of the difficulty, that while it is the physical 

 and chemical forces of the organs and substances of the 

 living body which act on it, there is an indwelling vital 

 soul or vital force which could bind and Icose the 

 activity of these forces ; that after death the free 

 action of these forces produces decomposition, while 

 during life their action is continually being controlled 

 by the soul of life. I had a misgiving that there was 

 something against nature in this explanation; but it 

 took me a good deal of trouble to state my misgiving 

 in the form of a definite question. I found ultimately, 

 in the latter years of my career as a student, that 



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