22 HERMANN VON HELMHOLTZ 



Briicke and du Bois-Reymond, who were two years senior to 

 himself, and like him devotedly attached to their teacher. 

 Friendly intercourse with each other, and daily exchange of 

 ideas with the great investigator, who showed them ' the 

 working of the mind of an independent thinker', ennobled 

 their lives and efforts. ' Whoever/ said Helmholtz half a cen- 

 tury later, ' comes into contact with men of the first rank has 

 an altered scale of values in life. Such intellectual contact is 

 the most interesting event that life can offer/ 



Miiller's pupils were united in a common attempt to connect 

 physiology with physics, and to place its conclusions upon 

 a more exact basis, but, as they often confessed at a later period, 

 Helmholtz had a decided advantage over the rest, since in 

 mathematics he gained a tremendous power in the clear for- 

 mulating of problems and the precise determination of appro- 

 priate methods of solution. Yet his wealth of mathematical 

 knowledge had been won by private study of the works of the 

 great mathematicians; for among all the different lectures he 

 attended there was strangely enough not one on this subject, 

 while he said so little about his mathematical learning that even 

 his close friends Briicke and du Bois-Reymond were unaware 

 of it. The time had not yet come when he was to dominate the 

 problems of physiology and physics as one of the greatest of 

 mathematicians. 



Miiller had indeed emancipated himself from the earlier 

 and essentially metaphysical views of the nature of life, and 

 demanded an empirical foundation for all scientific concepts, 

 but, as his pupils recognized, he had been unable to free him- 

 self entirely from the traditions of nature-philosophy and from 

 metaphysical conceptions. Under his influence Helmholtz 

 endeavoured to lay the foundations of a strict physical science 

 by ascertaining the facts in certain definite problems, thereby 

 co-operating with the ceaseless efforts of his master. 



And with how modest an equipment Helmholtz set about 

 his colossal investigations! During his illness in the Charite 

 Hospital, where he was nursed free of charge as a student, 

 he saved enough of his little monthly allowance to procure 

 a small and very ordinary microscope, and it was with this 

 instrument, supplemented by a few antiquated textbooks of 

 physics and chemistry, that he attacked his task. 



