Autobiography of Dr. Karl Ernst von Baer by Karl Ernst von Baer; Jane M.

Oppenheimer
Review by: Frederick B. Churchill
Isis, Vol. 78, No. 4 (Dec., 1987), pp. 639-640
Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The History of Science Society
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 BOOK REVIEWS-ISIS, 78: 4: 294 (1987) 639

cifically with the development of his notion

event to have von Baer's Autobiography
of Vorstellungsart, or "manner of conceiv- appear in English, and we may thank the
ing." There is a certain tension in these dis-
National Library of Medicine for coordinat-
cussions between those that emphasize ing the funding for an initial translation.
Goethe's proximity to twentieth-century Jane M. Oppenheimer, embryologist, histo-
rian, and herself deeply immersed in writ-
categories of scientific pluralism and those
that, while conceding Goethe's relevance ing a biography of von Baer, took on the
to the contemporary debate between scien- task of editing the rough version and assur-
tific realism and its critics, wish to showing its publication.
how Goethe's belief that the scientist's Initially this autobiography was inspired
"qualitative cognition" can be sharpened by the fifty-year jubilee honoring von
with training carried him in a direction dif-
Baer's doctorate and appeared in a private
ferent from that of contemporary trends. printing in 1865 and in a public edition the
Not only is it suggested that Goethe's un- following year. As autobiographies go, it is
derstanding of these issues has something a rambling, disorganized work. Von Baer
to offer contemporary philosophers, but devotes nearly a third of its length to his
Goethe's vision of the enterprise of natural
childhood and early education, during
science itself, a vision identified variously
which he allows himself to digress into
as "humane" or "ecological" science, is lengthy observations on education in gen-
also held up as an alternative deserving the
eral. In the remaining two thirds of the
attention of present-day scientists. work von Baer presents the development of
This volume is a worthy investment for his early academic career. He reviews se-
all historians and philosophers of science,riatim his university studies at Dorpat, his
but it is particularly recommended to those"postdoctoral" training under Ignaz Dol-
who have attributed Goethe's complaints linger at Wurzburg, two brief interludes in
about the scientific community of his time Vienna and Berlin, and three periods in
to his ignorance of science and its method-Konigsberg, where he went in 1817 to be
ology. Goethe's position was assumed de- prosector under Karl Burdach and where
liberately, with full knowledge of the way it
he attained a professorship in zoology in
differed from that of Newtonian scientists 1826. For all intents and purposes the Auto-
and from that of Naturphilosophen. biography ends with von Baer's permanent
Gunther Altner quotes from a letter the removal to St. Petersburg in 1834. The final
eighty-year-old Goethe wrote to K. F. chapter sketches the itineraries of scientific
Zeltner: "We, and perhaps still a few expeditions to Novaya Zemlya, the North
others, shall be the last of an era that will
Cape, the Caucasus, the Caspian Sea, and
not soon return" (p. 342). After reading this
Kazan.
reappraisal of Goethe one cannot help but Despite the informal and disorganized
wonder if Goethe's belief that he would be nature of the text there are several profit-
remembered more for his science than for able ways it may be read. The chapters on
his literary productions may one day be von Baer's Wurzburg and Konigsberg pe-
vindicated. riods are rich in information and insights
FREDERICK GREGORY about the scientific communities in both
cities and on von Baer's anatomical and
embryological research, which during these
Karl Ernst von Baer. Autobiography of Dr.
years included his discovery of the mam-
Karl Ernst von Baer. Edited by Jane M.
malian ovum and the writing of Volume I
Oppenheimer. (Resources in Medical His-
and the incomplete Volume II of the Ent-
tory.) xiii + 389 pp., indexes. Canton,
wicklungsgeschichte. Von Baer creates a
Mass.: Science History Publications/USA,
sympathetic and valuable portrait of Dol-
1986. $25.
linger; he is far less complimentary to Bur-
One of the major figures in nineteenth- dach, with whom he had several fallings
century biology still remains an enigma to out; he includes an important discussion on
the English-speaking world. Aside from the differences between his embryological
two treatises on the mammalian egg and a researches and those of Caspar Friedrich
section from the Entwicklungsgeschichte, Wolff and Christian I. Pander. These and
Karl Ernst von Baer's extensive publica- other scientific judgments are, of course,
tions and the two standard book-length bi- tempered by the thirty years intervening
ographies of his life and works remain un- between the events and the writing of the
translated. Consequently, it is a major Autobiography.

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640 BOOK REVIEWS-ISIS,
A second way to read this work is to
focus on what von Baer inadvertentlyre-
veals about himself. We find a man with
strong opinions about the raising of chil-
dren and their education;he tolerateda va-
riety of pedagogicalroutes into the univer-
sity system. We find him highly critical of
traditionalinstitutions,be they the German
gymnasiumor a socially closed urbansoci-
ety. Von Baer reveals a marveloussense of
humorand hints at havingbeen clever with
verse and languagesas a boy. He dwells on
the impact of his father on his personalde-
velopment but wastes no more than three
lines on his mother. Having grown up in
Estonia, von Baer demonstratesdeep feel-
ings about Russia as his "fatherland"de-
spite the fact that he is equallyproudof his
German culturalheritage. Although an ad-
mirer of Immanuel Kant, von Baer keeps
all formalphilosophy at arm's length.
Finally, the Autobiographyis revealing
for what the author selects to tell us about
his interactionwith contemporarydevelop-
ments in science. He alludes to exploring
the works of Friedrich Schelling but dis-
misses their impactwith an anecdote. Later
he admits to reading Lorenz Oken's work
with profit and to erecting his own "intel-
lectual scaffolding"framed on the premise
that "the (original) unity develops into a
plurality;unity and pluralitycombinedcon-
stitute totality," but immediatelyhe derides
this insight as "fantasy"(p. 204). As an ad-
mirer of Georges Cuvier's system of anat-
omy and taxonomy, von Baer remainsfrus-
tratingly elusive about the relationship
between their similar ideas. In defense of
accusations that he failed to accommodate
to the cell theory von Baer adds a fascinat-
ing four-page footnote that substantiates
more than refutes the charges. Since the
Autobiographyends with his move to St.
Petersburg in 1834, von Baer does not
commentupon transmutationtheory and its
implicationsfor anatomy, embryology,and
anthropology.
Whereas the originalAutobiographydid
not contain them, Oppenheimer has
thoughtfully added name and subject in-
dexes to this translation.The edition does
contain the original annotated and topo-
graphicallyarrangedlist of von Baer's writ-
ings. Scholars who wish a more complete
listing are advised to refer to Boris E. Rai-
kov's 1968biography.
FREDERICK B. CHURCHILL
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78: 4: 294 (1987)
Sven-Eric Liedman. Das Spiel der Gegen-
sdtze: Friedrich Engels' Philosophie und
die Wissenschaften des 19. Jahrhunderts.
Translated by Michael Tabukasch. 221 pp.,
bibl. Frankfurt/NewYork: CampusVerlag,
1984. DM 38 (paper).
In the immense secondary literatureon
Marx and Engels, this book will take its
place as an authoritativeinterpretationof
their theory of science. Sven-EricLiedman
gives careful attention to the nature of the
evidence for whether Engels formulated
key theses independentlyof Marx. Deftly
exploring the connection behind the scien-
tific ideas, Liedman makes careful distinc-
tions between theoretical and ideological
issues and skillfully compares abundant
primary and secondary materials. This
translation presents only a third of the
Swedish work published in 1977, omitting
an overview of the sciences from mechan-
ics to history.
Born in 1820, Engels sold his shares in
the firm Emmen & Engels in 1870 and
moved to London. This provided the time
(and financial support) for him to begin
work on Dialektik der Natur in 1873 (pub-
lished posthumously in Russia in 1925)
and to publish "Anti-Duihring"during
1877-1878 in Vorwarts, a Social Demo-
cratic Party organ.
Engels was preoccupied, like other nine-
teenth-centurythinkers, with Hegel's clas-
sification of the sciences into mechanism,
chemism, and organicism. However, he
drew on contemporaries for his under-
standingof the unity of science. From Rob-
ert Grove, as well as Hermannvon Helm-
holtz and Wilhelm Wundt, Engels took
motion as his fundamental concept. He
even quoted from Ernst Mach's book on
the conservation of work to establish the
connection of the concept of energy with
mechanicism.Yet Lenin would later desig-
nate Mach the chief enemy of dialectical
materialism.
The dialecticalkey to Engels's ontology,
however, was irreductive materialism.He
came to accept Rudolf Clausius's expres-
sion of the second law of thermodynamics.
Using the example of change of chemical
qualitiessuppliedby his chemistfriendCarl
Schorlemmer,Engels demonstratedhis be-
lief in the dialectical law of change from
quantityto quality, which he then extended
to the organic and social realms.
In biology Engels took up three prob-