Du Bois-Reymond

(Emil), biologist, of Swi father and French mother, b. Berlin, 7 Nov. 1818. He studied at Berlin and Bonn for the Church, but left it to follow science, ’37. Has become famous as a physiologist, especially by his Researches in Animal Electricity , ’48–60. With Helmholtz he has done much to establish the new era of positive science, wrongly called by opponents Materialism. Du Bois-Reymond holds that thought is a function of the brain and nervous system, and that “soul” has arisen as the gradual results of natural combinations, but in his Limits of the Knowledge of Nature , ’72, he contends that we must always come to an ultimate incomprehensible. Du Bois-Reymond has written on Voltaire and Natural Science , ’68; La Mettrie , ’75; Darwin versus Galiani , ’78; and Frederick II. and Rou eau , ’79. Since ’67 he has been perpetual secretary of the Academy of Sciences, Berlin.