PROFESSOR AT HEIDELBERG 211 



experimenting, will never forget the impression which he gave 

 of the purposeful activity of a master-mind when confronted 

 with difficulties. He turned out models of ingenious con- 

 trivances with the simplest materials, corks, glass rods, bits of 

 wood, cardboard boxes, and the like, before putting them into 

 the hands of the mechanician. No accident ever disturbed the 

 wonderful serenity and equanimity of Helmholtz's tempera- 

 ment ; he was never upset by the clumsiness of others. Men 

 who had worked for him for years never saw him excited 

 under such circumstances/ 



He was respected and admired by the Government of Baden, 

 by his colleagues, by the students of every faculty, and it was 

 but a slight token of this feeling that made him Pro-Rector of 

 Heidelberg University as early as 1862. 



The discourse which he delivered on this occasion (November 

 22, 1862), ' On the Relation of the Natural Sciences to Science 

 in General/ was a model of style, and contained a wealth of 

 ideas and points of view which he enlarged on and enriched 

 on various subsequent occasions, and which were frequently 

 utilized by others as the foundation of their efforts at organiza- 

 tion. In contrast with the one-sided view of many scholars, 

 knowledge does not seem to him the sole aim of mankind upon 

 this earth. Even if the sciences evoke and educate the finer 

 energies of man, it is in action alone that he finds a worthy 

 destiny; his goal must be the practical application of his 

 knowledge, or the enlargement of science itself, which again 

 is an act that promotes the welfare of mankind. But it is not 

 enough to have a knowledge of facts in order to collaborate 

 in the progress of science : science consists in the unveiling 

 of laws and the discovery of causes. If science aims at the 

 predominance of mind over matter, it is none the less the duty 

 of educated men to recognize the equality of both, and to 

 distinguish them only by their content. If the physical 

 sciences have been more perfected as regards their scientific 

 form, the mental sciences which resolve the human mind itself 

 into its different activities and impulses treat of richer material, 

 more closely knit with the interests and emotions of man. 



Such knowledge, however, is slow to make its way ; before 

 his death, Helmholtz was lamenting in his congratulatory 

 address to the Academy at Berlin on the Jubilee for the fiftieth 



p 2 



