The Tragic Sense of Life: Ernst Haeckel and the Battle over Evolutionary Theory in Germany

University Of Chicago, Chicago IL

Investigators

Abstract

The P.I. proposes to research and write a book with the tentative title The Tragic Sense of Life: Ernst Haeckel and the Battle over Evolutionary Theory in Germany. Prior to the First World War, more people learned of evolutionary theory through the voluminous writings of Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919), Darwin's foremost champion in Germany, than through any other source, including the writings of Darwin himself. Aside from the more popular spread of evolutionary ideas, Haeckel was responsible for major developments on the technical side of biology. He trained many of the eminent German researchers of the next generation (e.g., Richard and Oskar Hertwig, Wilhelm Roux, Anton Dohrn, Hans Driesch). Relations with his contemporaries was mixed: adored by some, hated by others. He was in constant contact with Darwin and T. H. Huxley about a number of issues in evolutionary biology, and he had a rebounding impact on their own work. Haeckel's theories of human evolution, published before Darwin's Descent of Man, came to structure the Englishman's account of the evolution of human mind and its realization in different social groups. Though Darwin had employed the idea that the development of the embryo recapitulated phylogenetic history, Haeckel further elaborated the principle and solidified it in Darwin's usage. Haeckel's work on the principle, which he called the biogenetic law, involved him in monumental battles in Germany and elsewhere, and generated charges of fraud concerning his evidence. Haeckel was the first to employ, in a systematic way, tree-diagrams depicting the phylogenetic history of organisms. The warfare between science and religion that broke out all over Europe and American during the last part of the nineteenth century and that is still fiercely fought today can largely be attributed to Haeckel.s constant baiting of the preachers and religiously minded scientists, though Mohandas Gandhi believed Haeckel's work the solution to the wars of religion racking India. Haeckel was an artist as well as a biologist, and he illustrated all of his own works. These illustrations had a marked influence on the movement in Germany called Jungenstil, comparable to our art deco. It has been alleged that Haeckel's biological theories have contributed to the rise of Nazi biology, and many, particularly in Germany, still attribute a residual racism to Haeckel's influence. There is little doubt of Haeckel's impact on biology and larger scientific affairs during the last half of the nineteenth century and a good part of the twentieth. There is no comprehensive study of Haeckel's work and influence in English, though there are some smaller studies of individual aspects of his accomplishments. With some exceptions, most of these English studies (and the recent German ones as well) come to powerfully negative judgments about Haeckel, judgments that often rely more on ideology than fact. There are some earlier studies in German, but mostly in the hagiographic vein. The P.I.'s effort will be to research and write an intellectual biography of Haeckel, and simultaneously to depict the state of evolutionary theory in Germany during his lifetime. The strategy will be to examine in particular Haeckel's personal history, his loves, his hates, his significant relationships, his artistic talents, so as to consider how more intimate events came to shape his evolutionary ideas. The book will certainly make judgments about Haeckel's accomplishments, but judgments controlled by recognizing the historical context. An appendix will consider the justification and conditions for making moral judgments about historical characters and events. Many of the debates about religion and science, as well as those alleging an endemic racism in respect to Darwinian theory, have manipulated a demonic Haeckel in those controversies. It is the P.I.'s hope that this study will alter the picture of Haeckel, and more generally the strategy of doing this kind of history. Under the best of outcomes, this research may have some judicious impact on the aforementioned debates and the historiography of science.