HELMHOLTZ AS A LECTURER 



authority is given as the source of their science, but 

 not for those who desire to deepen their convictions 

 to their final foundations.' 



6. Judgment of Students. ' All this system rests 

 upon the idea that the general current of the opinion 

 of the students cannot long be at fault. The majority 

 among them come to us with a reason sufficiently 

 formed by logic, with a sufficient habit of intellectual 

 effort, with a judgment so considerably developed by a 

 knowledge of the best models, as to be able to discern 

 the truth from a phraseology which has only the 

 appearance of truth.' 



One of the greatest lectures given by Helmholtz 

 is on Thought in Medicine, delivered on 2nd August 

 1877, on the Anniversary of the Foundation of the 

 Institute for the Education of Army Surgeons. 1 It 

 opens with the following sentence : ' It is now 

 thirty-five years since, on the 2nd of August, I stood 

 on the rostrum in the hall of this institute, before such 

 another audience as this, and read a paper on the 

 operation for Venous Tumours. I was then a pupil 

 of this institution, and was just at the end of my 

 studies.' When he delivered the lecture on Thought 

 in Medicine he was Professor of Mathematical Physics 

 in the University of Berlin, and the foremost man 

 of science in Germany. He adds : c I rejoice, there- 

 fore, that I can once more address an assembly, 



1 Lectures, p. 199. 1881. 



