In that time of the most sorrowful reaction the political condition of
Germany was so wretched that any discussion concerning it was gladly
avoided. I do not remember having attended a single debate on that topic
in the circles of the students with which I was nearly connected.

But the great question "Materialism or Antimaterialism" still agitated
the Georgia Augusta, in whose province the conflict had assumed still
sharper forms, owing to Rudolf Wagner's speech during the convention of
the Guttingen naturalists three years prior to my entrance.

Carl Vogt's "Science and Bigotry" exerted a powerful influence, owing to
the sarcastic tone in which the author attacked his calmer adversary. In
the honest conviction of profound knowledge, the clever, vigorous
champion of materialism endeavoured to brand the opponents of his dogmas
with the stigma of absurdity, and those who flattered themselves with the
belief that they belonged to the ranks of the "strong-minded" followed
his standard.

Hegel's influence was broken, Schelling's idealism had been thrust aside.
The solid, easily accessible fare of the materialists was especially
relished by those educated in the natural sciences, and Vogt's maxim,
that thought stands in a similar relation to the brain as the gall to the
liver and the excretions of the other organs, met with the greater
approval the more confidently and wittily it was promulgated. The
philosopher could not help asserting that the nature of the soul could be
disclosed neither by the scalpel nor the microscope; yet the discoveries
of the naturalist, which had led to the perception of the relation
existing between the psychical and material life seemed to give the most
honest, among whom Carl Vogt held the first rank; a right to uphold their