280 HEKMANN VON HELMHOLTZ : 



however, say that I ascribed my success in great measure 

 to the circumstance that, possessing some geometrical 

 capacity, and equipped with a knowledge of physics, I 

 had, by good fortune, been thrown among medical men, 

 where I found in physiology a virgin soil of great fer- 

 tility ; while, on the other hand, I was led by the con- 

 sideration of the vital processes to questions and points 

 of view which are usually foreign to pure mathematicians 

 and physicists. Up to that time I had only been able 

 to compare my mathematical abilities with those of my 

 fellow-pupils and of my medical colleagues ; that I was 

 for the most part superior to them in this respect did 

 not, perhaps, say very much. Moreover, mathematics 

 was always regarded in the school as a branch of 

 secondary rank. In Latin composition, on the con- 

 trary, which then decided the palm of victory, more 

 than half my fellow-pupils were ahead of me. 



In my own consciousness, my researches were 

 simple logical applications of the experimental and 

 mathematical methods developed in science, which by 

 plight modifications could be easily adapted to the 

 particular object in view. My colleagues and friends, 

 who, like myself, had devoted themselves to the phy- 

 sical aspect of physiology, furnished results no less 

 surprising. 



But in the course of time matters could not remain 

 in that stage. Problems which might be solved by 



