Emil du Bois-Reymond · Lablypedia

Life

Du Bois-Reymond was born in Berlin and spent his life there. His father was a poor immigrant from Neuchâtel, and his mother was a Berliner of prominent Huguenot origin. Emil had two sisters and two brothers, of whom one, Paul (2 December 1831 – 7 April 1889), became a distinguished mathematician.

Educated first at the French College in Berlin, du Bois-Reymond enrolled in the University of Berlin in 1838. He seems to have been uncertain at first as to the topic of his studies, for he was a student of the renowned ecclesiastical historian August Neander, and dallied with Naturphilosophie, geology, and physics, but eventually began to study medicine with such zeal and success as to attract the notice of Johannes Peter Müller (1801–1858), a well-known professor of anatomy and physiology.

Müller's earlier studies had been distinctly physiological, but his preferences caused him later to study comparative anatomy. He had, about the time when the young du Bois-Reymond came to his lectures, published his Elements of Physiology, which contains the following statement:

Though there appears to be something in the phenomena of living beings which cannot be explained by ordinary mechanical, physical or chemical laws, much may be so explained, and we may without fear push these explanations as far as we can, so long as we keep to the solid ground of observation and experiment.

In 1840 Müller made du Bois-Reymond his assistant in physiology, and as the beginning of an inquiry gave him a copy of the essay which the Italian physicist Carlo Matteucci had just published on the electric phenomena of animals. This determined the work of du Bois-Reymond's life. He chose as the subject of his graduation thesis Electric fishes, and so commenced a long series of investigations on bioelectricity. The results of these inquiries were made known partly in papers communicated to scientific journals, but also and chiefly by his work Investigations of Animal Electricity, the first part of which was published in 1848, the last in 1884. In 1892 he was awarded honorary membership of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society in recognition of this work.

In 1852 while living alone and unable to get a professorship he traveled to England and met his second cousin Jeannette Claude, whom he courted and married in 1853. The couple had ten children, one of whom died in infancy.

Concerning religious belief, du Bois-Reymond was an atheist.

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Oratory

On nationalism

Following France's declaration of war on Prussia on 3 August 1870, du Bois-Reymond proclaimed that "the University of Berlin, quartered opposite the King's palace, is, by the deed of its foundation, the intellectual bodyguard (das geistige Leibregiment) of the House of Hohenzollern." But by the time of France's surrender on 26 January 1871 du Bois-Reymond had come to regret his words, lamenting the "national hatred of two embittered peoples." His 1878 lecture "On National Feeling" expanded on this topic, offering one of the earliest analyses of nationalism after those of Lord Acton and Fustel de Coulanges.

On history

In 1877 du Bois-Reymond presented a view of the past that highlighted science as the sole endeavor that demonstrated any improvement. "Science is the chief instrument of civilization," he wrote, "and the history of science the essential history of humanity.” In 1936 his argument was repeated by George Sarton in a lecture inaugurating a seminary in the history of science at Harvard University:

Definition. Science is systematized positive knowledge, or what has been taken as such at different ages and in different places.

Theorem. The acquisition and systematization of positive knowledge are the only human activities which are truly cumulative and progressive.

Corollary. The history of science is the only history which can illustrate the progress of mankind. In fact, progress has no definite and unquestionable meaning in other fields than the field of science.

One historiographer described du Bois-Reymond's attention to the history of science as "the first and indeed the most decisive attack on established historical scholarship" in the 19th century.

On Darwinism

Du Bois-Reymond was the first German professor to convert to Darwinism. He expounded the theory in popular classes at the University of Berlin, in itinerant lectures in the Ruhr and the Rhineland, and in formal addresses translated and reprinted across Europe and North America. Unlike his rival Ernst Haeckel, du Bois-Reymond espoused a mechanistic interpretation of natural selection that anticipated modern views. Few in Germany took offense at his teachings until 1883, when his obituary to Darwin outraged conservatives and Catholics.

On Goethe

In 1882 du Bois-Reymond dismissed Goethe's science as the muddled product of a bygone era. His address met with shock and outrage. Privately, du Bois-Reymond noted, "In Germany there is a widespread community inculcated in the worship of great literary works which takes as blasphemy every expression of approval that is not absolute.... Heaven forfend if someone dares to check to see if their idols have feet of clay."

On epistemology

In 1880 du Bois-Reymond delivered a speech to the Berlin Academy of Sciences enumerating seven "world riddles" or "shortcomings" of science:

the ultimate nature of matter and force;
the origin of motion;
the origin of life;
the "apparently teleological arrangements of nature" (not an "absolutely transcendent riddle");
the origin of simple sensations ("a quite transcendent" question);
the origin of intelligent thought and language (which might be known if the origin of sensations could be known); and
the question of free will.

Concerning numbers 1, 2 and 5 he proclaimed "Ignorabimus" ("we will never know"). Concerning number 7 he proclaimed "Dubitamus" ("we doubt it').

According to his biographer, "du Bois-Reymond was not the first to suggest that we could never fathom the ultimate nature of mind and matter, but his was the clearest voice of caution towards our modern faith in experiment."