Helmholtz and Goethe -- controversies at the birth of modern neuroscience

Hermann von Helmholtz (1821-1894), a great German scientist and philosopher, made his mark during the exciting twilight period from the Enlightenment and Romanticism to the beginnings of modern neuroscience and offered new perspectives through his work. His early inclination was for physics, which he found more attractive than purely geometric and algebraic studies, but his father was not able to make it possible for him to study physics, and so he studied medicine in order to earn a living. His lecture before the Physical Society in Berlin on July 23, 1847, 'about the conservation of the force' marked an epochal turn, even though his intention had been to deliver 'merely, some critical investigations and arrangement of facts in favor of the physiologists' as well as good arguments for the refusal of the theory of 'vitality'. Even though these new concepts were at first dismissed as fantastic speculation by some of the authorities in physics and philosophy of the day, they were enthusiastically welcomed by younger students of philosophy and the older men soon had to allow themselves to be persuaded that the effectiveness of vitality, though great and beautiful, is actually always dependent on some source of energy. Helmholtz critically assessed Goethe as a physical scientist but he did not dispute his great importance as a poet.