PROFESSOR IN BERLIN 307 



depends, above all, on its political and legal organization as a 

 State, and on the moral discipline of its individual citizens, which 

 determines the superiority of civilized to uncivilized nations. 

 Where there is no firm legal status, where the interests of the 

 majority of the people do not prevail in an orderly fashion, 

 where the political interests of the working classes are not 

 given a legitimate voice in the government, he holds the deve- 

 lopment of the power of that State to be impossible. For modern 

 Humanity, as he insisted on a later occasion, Science is, in the 

 contests of the more highly developed nations, the sole bond 

 of union that unconditionally makes for peace; in Science, 

 wherever the individual races are educated enough to profit by 

 its fruits, every one is working, not for the good of his country 

 only, but for the whole of Humanity. But it is necessary for 

 the profitable development of the sciences that there shall be an 

 independent conviction of the accuracy of their results, as the 

 consequence of conscientious trial and resolute labour; it is this 

 that becomes the fruitful germ of new insight and the true rule of 

 action. Helmholtz regards Germany as standing in the fore- 

 front of the struggle with authority ; in the sixteenth century it 

 testified even unto blood for the right of such convictions. He 

 had already pointed out in his Innsbruck Address that there 

 was greater fearlessness of the consequences of the whole 

 entire truth in Germany than elsewhere, while in England and 

 France the many distinguished investigators in natural science 

 had almost always to bow to social and ecclesiastical prejudices, 

 if they were not to suffer in their social influence and activity. 

 In the whole truth he sees the remedy for the disadvantages 

 and dangers of half-knowledge: 'An industrious, moderate, 

 moral people must have the boldness to look truth full in the 

 face : the nation will not perish even if a few premature and 

 one-sided theories are paraded, which may seem to infringe on 

 the principles of morality and social order.' 



And yet it is this very love of truth that tempts the Germans to 

 follow out the cardinal questions to their very foundations, without 

 regard to their practical consequences and useful applications. 

 The independent intellectual development of the last three 

 centuries had begun in Germany under political conditions which 

 threw the chief burden upon theological study. Germany had 

 freed Europe from the old tyranny, but in the Reformation 



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