164 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LIV. No. 1391 



At the age of twenty-one years he published 

 his first paper announcing the discovery of 

 nerve cells in ganglia, the beginning of 

 a steady flow of contributions to science from 

 his pen, interrupted only by his death more 

 than fifty years later. 



At twenty-six he had produced what was 

 possibly the most important piece of work 

 of his whole career, namely, his famous paper 

 on the conservation of energy. Refused for 

 publication by Poggendorff's Annalen, its value 

 was appreciated by Du Bois-Eeymond, who 

 presented a copy of it to Tyndall (then a stu- 

 dent at Berlin) with the remark that it was 

 "the product of the first head in Europe." 

 This paper fixed his place as one of that im- 

 mortal trinity. Joule, Helmholtz and Kelvin, 

 to whom we owe the establishment of this 

 great law. 



An account of Helmholtz's principal con- 

 tributions to science was given in this journal 

 not long after his death, together with the lead- 

 ing incidents of his long career.^ 



In one respect he was unique. No other man 

 of his day approached him in the wide range 

 of his intellectual activities, ranking, as he 

 did, among the first of mathematicians, physi- 

 cists, and physiologists, besides being claimed 

 as " their own " by chemists and musicians. 

 His contributions to the science of astronomy 

 and of theoretical mechanics are of the highest 

 order and in respect to his prodigious learning 

 and the wide scope of his investigations he 

 may be put in the same category with Francis 

 Bacon and his own renowned fellow country- 

 man, Alexander von Humboldt. The enor- 

 mous extension of the bounds of human knowl- 

 edge within the past fifty years and the 

 irresistible tendency to specialization make it 

 certain that there will never be an addition to 

 this group. 



Helmholtz's intellectual processes were in 

 a marked degree typical of the race to which 

 he belonged. They were not characterized by 

 brilliant sorties but rather by steady advances 

 accompanied by entrenchments so safe and 

 strong that he was rarely if ever obliged to 

 retreat. 



1 Science, No. 58, February 7, 1896. 



There was a certain massiveness of style in 

 both his speech and composition which made 

 his arguments a little more difficult to follow 

 than was the case with his two or three more 

 brilliant contemporaries. The charm of his 

 personality will not be forgotten by those 

 who had the good fortune to come within its 

 sphere. With much dignity of manner he was 

 easy of approach, simple and modest in his 

 mode of life, eloquent in speech in popular ad- 

 dresses on scientific subjects, and to those who 

 had tried to find the man in his published 

 works, unexpectedly delightful in social inters 

 course. 



Physically he was not above the average in 

 height and in figure much like that of the 

 well-bred and well-fed German. The one small 

 disappointment was his head which, though 

 large, did not in shape at once proclaim his 

 intellectual superiority, as did that of von 

 Humboldt. 



Personally chosen by the Kaiser to repre- 

 sent the German Empire, he came to the 

 United States at the time of the World's Fair 

 in Chicago in 1893. He was honorary presi- 

 dent of the International Electrical Congress, 

 with its " Chamber of Delegates " assembled 

 at that time and through the kindness of 

 friends, ofiicial and unofficial, all of whom 

 were glad to do him honor, he was enabled 

 to see the places and things most worth seeing 

 in this country which he had never before 

 visited. 



On the voyage back to Germany he met 

 with an accident which resulted finally in his 

 death in September, 1894, mourned, as he had 

 been beloved, by people of every nationality 

 and all ranks of life. 



The then youthful Kaiser, who was very 

 fond of von Helmholtz and who two years 

 earlier on the occasion of his seventieth birth- 

 day, had placed him at the head of the civil 

 list, judged wisely in selecting him as the 

 " highest product of the Empire " and in pure 

 intellectual power he will always rank with 

 the foremost men of the nineteenth century. 

 T. C. Mendenhall 



Bavenna, Ohio 



