THE SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT IN GERMANY. 



197 



and Johannes Miiller. The school of the latter especially and Johan- 



J nesMuller. 



has the merit of having introduced over the whole field 

 of physiological phenomena exact methods of inquiry, 

 of having established physiological laboratories all over 

 Germany similar to Liebig's chemical laboratory at 

 Giessen, and of having effectually chased away the vague 

 notions of the older metaphysical school, and diffused the 

 true scientific spirit. It boasts of having filled the chairs 

 of medicine, physiology, and anatomy at the German 

 universities with a long list of eminent teachers who have 

 spread this true scientific spirit in every branch of the 

 medical sciences, 1 which it has in consequence drawn into 



long controversies and fruitful 

 theories. Their joint labours 

 cover fully half a century. See 

 for a sympathetic picture of the 

 position which the three brothers 

 Weber held in the learned world 

 the biography of Fechner by Kuntze, 

 1892, p. 243: "They were among 

 the first to raise the study of Nature 

 among Germans to the eminence 

 occupied by the philosophers and 

 discoveries of the Latin races." 



1 The medical sciences, represent- 

 ed by the medical faculty, but also 

 by those biological sciences which, 

 like botany, zoology, anthropology, 

 &c., belong to the philosophical 

 faculty, now furnish the largest 

 number of students to the German 

 universities. In the beginning of 

 the century the theological faculty, 

 which then included the greater 

 part of those who prepared them- 

 selves for higher teaching, stood 

 at the head as regards numbers. 

 Under the influence of the philo- 

 logico - historical movement, which 

 grew and culminated in the course 

 of this century, and the rising tide 

 of the exact sciences, the philoso- 

 phical faculty for a time gained 



and maintained the upper hand. 

 Biological including medical 

 studies now command the greatest 

 attention. In his statistical report 

 (contained in Lexis, ' Die deutschen 

 Universitaten,' Berlin, 1893) Prof. 

 Conrad gives an interesting table 

 of the changing numerical pro- 

 portion in the different faculties 

 (vol. i. p. 125, &c.) Prof. Billroth 

 in his admirable treatise, ' Ueber 

 das Lehren und Lernen der medi- 

 cinischen Wissenschaften,' Vienna, 

 1876, deals with this subject at all 

 the German universities, including 

 the Austrian. As Vienna is such 

 an important centre of medical 

 studies, the proportion of those 

 students who cultivate biological 

 studies would probably be still 

 greater if we were to include the 

 Austrian universities. I suppose 

 the figure would be about 40 per 

 cent of the whole. To Billroth's 

 treatise I may also refer as con- 

 firming in relation to these more 

 modern branches what I said above 

 of the culture of Wisscnschaft. See 

 p. 279 and the whole section on the 

 relation of the biological sciences to 

 the university, pp. 411-446. It is 



