HERMANN VON HELMHOLTZ 



* His exceptionally calm and reserved disposition is 

 combined with great intellectual enthusiasm. In it 

 we recognise an excellent combination of clear and 

 prudent understanding and deep good nature. His 

 manners bear witness to a carefully preserved, ex- 

 ceptionally pure, and genuine childlike innocence. 

 These peculiarities, along with the richness and 

 power of his mental development, give an agreeable 

 and captivating impression, and justify the hope that 

 such a ground-soil of intellectual life will only bring 

 forth the best of fruits.' This testamur and prophecy 

 were amply justified in after life. 



It is remarkable that his mathematical talents were 

 developed without the aid of an eminent teacher. 

 He had no training in mathematics such as has 

 been given to the great majority of physicists who 

 have attained eminence. His talent was not fostered 

 by the mathematical atmosphere of a great university 

 like that of Cambridge, nor did he start life among 

 his comrades with the blue ribbon of a high wrangler- 

 ship. His mathematical development was silently 

 carried on, so that some of his early friends, such as 

 Briicke and Du Bois Reymond, both afterwards 

 physiologists of the first rank, who were his fellow- 

 students at the Gymnasium, were not aware, even 

 when they were all engaged in the problems of 

 analytical geometry, how transcendent were his 

 latent mathematical powers. 



Such was his early training. Throughout life 

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