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Instinct theory and the German reaction to Weismannism

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References

  1. See, for example, FrederickChurchill, “August Weismann and a Break from Tradition,” J. Hist. Biol., 1 (1968), 91–112.

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  2. See Ruth Schwartz Cowan, “Sir Francis Galton and the Continuity of Germ-Plasm: A Biological Idea with Political Roots,” Paper Presented to Section 7, XIIe Congrès International d'Histoire des Sciences, Paris, August 26, 1968. The controversy can be followed easily in Nature and other periodicals of the 1880's and 1890's. Weismann of course believed that variation such as Darwin originally suggested accounted for evolution.

  3. C. Lloyd Morgan to Alfred Russel Wallace, February 8, 1892, in Alfred Russel Wallace Papers, British Museum. Journal of the History of Biology, vol. 5, no. 2 (Fall 1972), pp. 321–326.

  4. C. LloydMorgan, Habit and Instinct (London: Edward Arnold, 1896), chap. XV; J. Mark Baldwin, “Heredity and Instinct,” Science, n.s. 3 (1896), 438–441. This whole subject is treated in detail in Hamilton Cravens, “American Scientists and the Heredity-Environment Controversy, 1883–1940” (unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Iowa, 1969), especially chap. 2, where he points out that August Weismann, Essays upon Heredity and Kindred Biological Problems, trans. A. B. Poulton (2 vols., Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1892), II, 33–70, had early differentiated between physical inheritance and cultural inheritance.

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  5. The French, interestingly enough, succeeded in ignoring most of Weismannism until remarkably late; see, for example, CharlesDebierre, “L'Hérédité normale et pathologique,” L'Oeuvre médico-chirurgical, 58 (1910), 1–51.

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  6. Eugen Korschelt, in Zoologischer Anzeiger, 63 (1925), 112; Franz Keibel, “Heinrich Ernst Ziegler,” Anatomischer Anzeiger, 60 (1925), 235–238.

  7. See H. E.Ziegler, “August Weismann,” Die neue Rundschau, 26, pt. 1 (1915), 123; H. E. Ziegler, “Über den Begriff des Instincts,” Verhandlungen der deutschen zoologischen Gesellschaft, 2 (1892), 122–136; and, for example, Weismann, Essays upon Heredity, II, 24–27.

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  8. Heinrich ErnstZiegler, Der Begriff des Instinktes einst und jetzt (Jena: Gustav Fischer, 1910), p. 36; Ziegler, “Über den Begriff,” p. 136.

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  9. Heinrich ErnstZiegler, Der Begriff des Instinktes einst und jetzt (Jena: Gustav Fischer, 1910), p. 123; Ziegler, Der Begriff, p. 100.

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  10. Ziegler, “Über den Begriff,” especially pp. 125–129; Theodor Meynert, “Mechanik der Physiognomik,” Gesellschaft deutscher Naturforscher und Ärtze, Tageblatt, 51 (1887), 148–150. As late as 1897 P. Petrucci, “Théorie de l'hérédité,” Comptes Rendus du XII Congrès international de médecine (Moscow: S. P. Yakovlev, 1899), p. 276, observed that students of heredity were reluctant to invoke the action of the nervous system to explain the transmission of human character.

  11. Heinrich ErnstZiegler, “Der Begriff des Instinctes einst und jetzt,” Zoologische Jahrbücher, Supp. vol. 7 (1904), 700–726. August Forel, Gehirn und Seele (5th & 6th edition, Bonn: Emil Strauss, 1899), pp. 24–25.

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  12. KarlGroos, Die Spiele der Thiere (Jena: Gustav Fischer, 1896), especially chap. 2, p. 242; Karl Groos, Die Spiele der Menschen (Jena: Gustav Fischer, 1899), especially 1–7; Ziegler, Der Begriff, p. 49n.

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  13. The Social Democrats defended Neo-Lamarckianism ferociously until very late; see, for example, the various articles in the early twentiethcentury volumes of Die neue Zeit.

  14. See, for example, H. E.Ziegler, Die Naturwissenschaft und die sozial-demokratische Theorie (Stuttgart: Ferdinand Enke, 1893), especially chap. III and the appendix on instinct; Heinrich Ernst Ziegler, Einleitung zu dem Sammelwerke Natur und Staat, Beiträge zur naturwissenschaftlichen Gesellschaftslehre (Jena: Gustav Fischer, 1903), pp. 14–16; Heinrich Ernst Ziegler, “Das Verhältnis der Socialdemokratie zum Darwinismus,” Zeitschrift für Sozialwissenschaft, 2 (1899), 424–432; Ziegler, “August Weismann,” p. 121.

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  15. Jacques Loeb, for example, also reached conclusions about the materialistic basis for a more or less instinctual explanation of human behavior, but he was not influenced by Weismann or Ziegler in reaching his conclusions. See, for example, JacquesLoeb, “The Mechanistic Conception of Life,” The Popular Science Monthly, 80 (1912), 21.

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  1. Department of History, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA

    John C. Burnham

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Burnham, J.C. Instinct theory and the German reaction to Weismannism. Journal of the History of Biology 5, 321–326 (1972). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00346662

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