PROFESSOR AT HEIDELBERG

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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