NOTES.
Helmholtz and the Scientific Spirit.
Some few days after the death of Helmholtz I was speaking of his career with two well-known American scientists, a physicist and an electrical engineer; and remarked incidentally that his attitude to science was pre-eminently the right one: the pursuance of knowledge for the sake of knowledge, because it was enjoyable, and the entire disregard of its possible practical consequences. To my great surprise, both of my friends took exception to this view. The physicist promptly declared, and the engineer as promptly agreed with him, that he had never undertaken and would never undertake any piece of theoretical investigation, the practical utility of whose results was not clear from its inception.
That my representation of Helmholtz' position was correct is evidenced by the following quotations. They are taken from the speech delivered by him on Nov. 2, 1891, on the occasion of his jubilee. "I have one more point to mention: you tell me that you owe me your thanks. Now I cannot say I should be dishonest, if I did that I have had the advantage of mankind before my eyes from the first, as the conscious end and aim of my work. What has led me on, and induced me to devote my spare time to science, is really the particular form of my desire to know (Wissensdrang).… I have been, you see, in a very fortunate position. When I gave free rein to my natural inclination, I was impelled by it to do the work for which you are praising me, and from which you tell me that you have derived benefit and instruction. I feel myself exceedingly fortunate to have obtained from my contemporaries such hearty applause and such a rich measure of thanks for what were to me the most interesting things that I could think of to do."[1]
This is sufficiently plain speaking. I will take another set of quotations, from speeches made at the jubilee of the Chemical Society of London, Feb. 24 and 25, 1891. Chemistry is a particularly good science to appeal to, because its relations to industry are so extremely close. "If it be asked," said Professor Roberts-Austen at Cardiff in August, 1891, "who did most in gaining the industrial treasure and in revealing the light of chemical knowledge, the answer is certainly the metallurgists, whose labors in this respect differ materially from others which have ministered to the welfare of mankind. First it may be urged that in no other art have the
- ↑ Ansprachen und Reden, gehalten bei der am 2. November 1891 zu Ehren von Hermann von Helmholtz veranstalteten Feier. Berlin, 1892.—pp. 57, 58.
