Scientific Materialism in Nineteenth Century Germany

SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM IN NINETEENTH CENTURY GERMANY STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF MODERN SCIENCE Editors: ROBER T S. COHEN, Boston University ERWIN N. HIEBERT, Harvard University EVERETT 1. MENDELSOHN, Harvard University VOLUME 1 FREDERICK GREGORY SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM IN NINETEENTH CENTUR Y GERMANY D. REIDEL PUBLISHING COMPANY DORDRECHT-HOLLAND / BOSTON-U.S.A. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Gregory, Frederick, 1942- Scientific materialism in nineteenth century Germany. (Studies in the history of modern science; I ) Bibliography : p. Includes index. \. Materialism History. 2. Philosophy, German 19th century. 3. Science History Germany. I. Title. II. Series. BlI88.G73 146'.3'0943 76 56077 ]SBN-13: 978-90-277-076)-5 c-ISBN-I) : 978-94-0 10- 1173-0 DO]: 10.10071978-94-0 10- 1173-0 Published by D. Reidel Publishing Company. P.O. Box 17, Dordrecht, Holland Sold and distributed in the U.S.A., Canada, and Mexico by D. Reidel Publishing Company,lnc. Lincoln Building, 160 Old Derby Street, Hingham, Mass. 02043, U.S.A. All Rights Reserved Copyright CI 1977 by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht. Holland Softoover reprint oftlle hardcover 1st edition 1977 No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or utiJited in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any informational storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyrig ht owner to my mother, Eleanor R. Gregory, and the memory of Richard P. Gregory, my father TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface ix Foreword xiii Abbreviations xxi list of Figures xxiii Introduction PART 1. BACKGROUND I. Ludwig Feuerbach: Father of German Materialism 13 II. Reaction in the Fifties 29 PART 2. THE SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISTS AND THEIR WORKS III. Karl V ogt: Sounding the Alarm 51 N. Jacob Moleschott: 'Furdas Volk' 80 V. Ludwig Buchner: Summarizer and Spokesman 100 VI. Heimich Czolbe: I"ejUhrender Materialist 122 PART 3. ISSUES VII. Of Philosophy and Science 145 VIII. Controversies in Biology 164 IX. Materialism and Society 189 Concluding Remarks 213 Notes 215 Bibliography 262 Index 273 PREFACE A comprehensive study of German materialism in the second half of the nineteenth century is long overdue. Among contemporary historians the mere passing references to Karl Vogt, Jacob Moleschott, and Ludwig Buchner as materialists and popularizers of science are hardly sufficient, for few individuals influenced public opinion in nineteenth-century Germany more than these men. Buchner, for example, revealed his awareness of the historical significance of his Kraft und Stoff in comments made in 1872, just seventeen years after its original appearance. A philosophical book which has undergone twelve big German editions in the short span of seventeen years, which further has been issued in non-German countries and languages about fifteen to sixteen times in the same period, and whose appearance (although its author was entirely unknown up to then) has called forth an almost unprecedented storm in the press, ... such a book can be nothing ordinary; the world-calling it enjoys at present must be justified through its wholly special characteristics or by the merits of its form and content.' Vogt, Moleschott and Buchner explicitly held that their materialism was founded on natural science. But other materialists of the nineteenth century also laid claim to the scientific character of their own thought. It is likely that Marx and Engels would have permitted their brand of materialism to have been called scientific, provided, of course, that 'scientific' was understood in their dialectical meaning of the term. Socialism, Engels maintained, had become a science with Marx. Given Engels concern with demonstrating the dialectics of nature through natural science, it is not difficult to imagine that he also might have labeled Marx's materialism scientific. In that case what Plekhanov later dubbed dialectical materialism would now be known as scientific materialism? In fact, the materialism of Marx and Engels did not become known under this or any other label in their lifetimes, in spite of the fact that both men noted the significant place natural science occupied in their philosophical outlook. In addition to the Marxist version there were other variants of materialism in Germany during the nineteenth century. Feuerbach's critique of Hegelian idealism, which dominated the theological scene in the 1840's, was received as a materialistic correction of the Master. Although X SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM IN 19TH-CENTURY GERMANY Feuerbach's thought was an important influence on the works of Vogt, Moleschott and BUchner, his materialism was not generally regarded as a doctrine which owed its inspiration to the natural sciences_ The same cannot be said, however, about the reductionistic program of the students of Johannes MUller, which also was being formulated in the 1840's, nor about the later materialism of Ernst HaeckeL My reason for excluding Haeckel from this study of German scientific materialism is that his work was not part of the flurry of materialistic activity of the 1850's_ Unlike the materialists of the fifties, who incorporated and shaped Darwin's contribution to fit their already formulated message, Haeckel, a younger man than BUchner by more than a decade, took his cue from Darwin_ Haeckel's reputation did not become firmly established until the Stettin Congress of 1863_ In 1859, the year of Darwin's Origin, Vogt said that he had tired of the debate between science and religion, and hoped that he would not have to write about it anymore. What was drawing to a close in the mind of one had not yet been broached in the life of the other. While it is true that Buchner later expressed agreement with Haeckel's emphasis on monism, none of the earlier materialists could stomach his anti-Semitism or his notion of religion. They were more sympathetic to the goals of the German liberal tradition, and had no use for the revival of romanticism in the late nineteenth century. In spite of conceptual similarities in message, Haeckel's fame belongs to a slightly later period of German history than the one which Vogt, Moleschott and Buchner flourished. It remains to distinguish the thought of Vogt, Moleschott and Buchner from that of biological mechanists such as Brucke and DuBois-Reymond. This is best accomplished by noting the purpose each group of scientists possessed. MUller's students were concerned with a specific problem of biology; viz., the explanation of organic phenomena. They chose to address this problem by means of the then radical suggestion that life could be explained mechanistically, thereby eliminating the need for a special vital force. Since this approach was not intended to serve as a metaphysical explanation of life, they cannot properly be called materialists at all. As a noted scholar has pointed out, materialism is a metaphysical position, and in the nineteenth century it often entailed the follOWing tenets: (1) that there is an independently existing world; (2) that human beings, like all other subjects, are material entities; (3) that the human mind does not exist as an entity distinct from the human body; (4) that there is no God (nor any PREFACE Xl other nonhuman being) whose mode of existence is not that of material entities. 3 These are metaphysical postulates which are not necessarily implied by mechanism or reductionism. Yogt and Moleschott were physiologists, Buchner a medical doctor. The subjects they wrote about clearly reflected the interests of men of science, and the methodology they claimed was modelled on their approach to scientific research. On the other hand, the message they proclaimed was metaphysical materialism. The term 'scientific materialism,' then, best expresses what their works represent. Yogt, Moleschott and Buchner were not the only scientists to preach materialism to their age, but they were among the first, and in Germany they were among the most popUlar. A word about my working assumptions in the task at hand. I take it for granted that the period of disenchantment with idealism in the German intellectual theater of the middle years of the nineteenth century reflects changes on many fronts, including the social, political and economic. My concern here is to deal with the rise of scientific materialism as an aspect of intellectual history; i.e., I want to examine scientific materialism as a second wave of the criticism of idealism that surfaced in the late thirties and early forties. Among the critical authors most read in Germany in the forties were David Strauss and Ludwig Feuerbach. Feuerbach quickly became known as a materialist. His works, largely carried out in the context of theological criticism, helped to establish the naturalistic attitude proclaimed a decade later in Germany by the scientific materialists. Further, I should like to remind the reader that it will be difficult to work our way back into the minds of men whose thought patterns are foreign to us today. Their denials to the contrary, the scientific materialists were certainly metaphysicians by twentieth-century standards. Grand issues were true or false for them. With this in mind, I have chosen an approach which immerses the reader in the issues rather than one which becomes preoccupied with ready-made analyses. In this way I hope to communicate the assumptions, logic, values, and dispositions of the major figures, thereby proViding the best poSsible understanding of why they behaved as they did. To accomplish this a conscientious attempt has been made to explore the wealth of primary material available, and to examine the accounts and evaluations of scientific materialism of writers who experienced the debates first hand. The dependence on older historians is also necessary because of the lack of interest in the subject on the part of modem scholars. I should like to express my special thanks to several individuals without whose assistance this book would not have been completed.

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