Abstract
Categorized on occasion as a phenomenologist and a nativist, Hering is most appropriately characterized as a physiologist. The number of his books, handbook articles, scientific papers, and addresses is close to one hundred and span the years 1856–1918. In the two volume “Collected Works” they are grouped as zoological, the anatomy and physiology of glands, the physiology of breathing and circulation, the physiology of nerves and muscles, the physiology of the temperature sense and the physiology of vision. Attention will be directed to three of the following six items all of which are highly noteworthy: A theory of the relation between mind and body. A critique of Fechner (1876); a series of six lectures (1874–1875) ultimately published in book form as “Zur Lehre vom Lichtsinne” (1878); a series of 9 electrophysiology papers (1879–1894); a little known 90 page paper entitled “Newton's Law of Color Mixture (1897) ; a volume entitled “Funf Reden” published in 1921 by his son H. E. Hering (a collaborator of Sherrington). The talks treat memory, specific nerve energies, neural processes in living substance, a theory of nerve activity, and conclude with a response to a tribute.