106 HERMANN VON HELMHOLTZ 



they contained the germs of the wildest misunderstandings, 

 which now run riot in perverted and superstitious minds'. 

 Helmholtz recognized that the seed which Goethe sowed in 

 the field of natural science had developed in rich and full 

 abundance, since Darwin's theory of the modifications of 

 organic form rests confessedly upon those very analogies and 

 homologies of structure in plants and animals which Goethe, 

 the first discoverer, presented to his contemporaries in the 

 form of anticipations only, while Darwin developed this poetic 

 forecast into a mature concept. He finds the reign of law 

 among physical phenomena, which Goethe sought to discover, 

 expressed with the greatest precision and lucidity in Kirchhoff s 

 lectures on mathematical physics, which enrolled mechanics 

 among the ' descriptive sciences'. For Helmholtz, science and 

 art are intimately connected, since both express and enunciate 

 truth. The artist can only succeed in his work when he has 

 a subtle knowledge of the natural relations of the phenomena 

 which it expresses, and of their effect upon the auditor or 

 spectator. 'When the task can be fulfilled by expression in 

 the tangible images of poetic divination, the poet proves him- 

 self capable of the highest achievement ; where the strict in- 

 ductive method alone can avail, he founders. But again, where 

 cardinal points of the relation between reason and empirical 

 fact are involved, his firm grasp of reality preserves him from 

 error, and gives him a sure insight which extends to the very 

 limits of human understanding.' 



The commencement of the New Year found Helmholtz in 

 depressed conditions. It had been a sad Christmas, for his 

 wife was ill of nervous gastritis, from which she only recovered 

 after some weeks of unremitting attention from her mother and 

 sister. His mother had been laid by with a serious operation. 

 He himself was suffering from frequent attacks of migraine, 

 which kept him in bed for days together. He proposed to take 

 his wife to Marienbad on his way to England, but his father 

 disapproved, on economical grounds, though this difficulty was 

 partly removed by a rise of salary in April, 1853, which brought 

 his income up to 150. 



From the beginning of 1853 to the summer vacation, Helm- 

 holtz was engaged in the continuation of his measurements of the 

 rate of transmission in nerve and muscle, which necessitated 



