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CHAPTER VII. 



IGNOEABIMUS ET RESTRIXGAMUR. 



THE dangerous attempt which Virchow made in 

 Munich against the freedom of science is not the 

 first of its kind. On the contrary, five years before, it 

 experienced a similar attack which is most intimately 

 connected with this later one, so that, in conclusion, 

 we must here add a few words on the subject. Un- 

 doubtedly the famous " Ignorabimus-speech " of Du 

 Bois-Eeymond, which he delivered in 1872 at the 

 forty-fifth meeting of German naturalists and physicians 

 in Leipzig, forms only the first portion of that same 

 crusade against the freedom of science of which Vir- 

 chow's " Eestringamur speech " of 1877, at the fiftieth 

 meeting of the same society, forms the second part. 



That brilliant and powerful essay by Du Bois-Eey- 

 mond " on the Limitation of ^Natural Knowledge " has 

 already been discussed so often, and from such different 

 sides, that it might seem superfluous to say another 

 word about it. It seems to me, nevertheless, that by 

 most people the centre-of-gravity of its contents was 



