Intern, Zs. f. Gesch. u. Ethik der Naturwiss., Techn. u, Meal.

, 3 ( 1995): 255-269
0036-6978/95/040255-15 $ 1.50+0.20
9 1995 BirkhfiuserVerlag.Basel

Gotthilf Heinrich Schubert

and the dark side of natural science
Frederick Gregory

Abstract

G. H. Schuberts Vorlesungsreihe fiber die Nachtseite der Naturwissenschaft ist wegen ihres [nhalts
und wegen der Rolle, die sie in der deutschen Kultur und Politik w/ihrend der Zeit der napoleonischen
Beherrschung gespeilt hat, ein aufschlussreiches Erzeugnis der romantischen Wissenschaft.
Schuberts Versuch, der den natiirlichen Erscheinungestets unvoreingenommen gerecht werden
wollte, hat eine Vision der Natur und der Geschichte zur Folge gehabt, die den Deutschen eine neue
Hoffnung auf die Zukunft ihres Vaterlandes errffnet hat. Scbuberts Vorlesungen liefem dem
Historiker fiberdies einen fasinierenden Blick auf die gesellschaftliche Resonanz der Naturwissen-
schaft in dern ersten Jahrzehnt des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts.

For a German in Dresden in November of 1807 it was not a particularly wonderful

time to be alive. Just over one year earlier outside Jena some 100 miles to the
west, what soon was to become known as Germany's "deepest humiliation" had
occurred. Napoleon's complete defeat of Prussia's troops at the Battle of Jena had
demoralized Germans everywhere. Austria too had been disgraced - at Austerlitz
in late 1805. The confused conglomeration of over 300 German states was
disorganized, fragmented, impotent. Things did not look bright.
One might have thought that the cold and often raw rainy weather of the Saxon
fall would match well the prevailing mood. And yet in Saxony life had been going
on almost as if nothing was amiss. Dresden, of course, had long been known for
its full slate of cultural activities. To theatrical productions and a variety of
musical concerts had some time before been added a winter lecture series in
science and art. The historian Karl August BOttiger [ 1760o1835], for example,
recently had held tbrth on the history of art, including fascinating tidbits about
households and family life of the ancient Greeks and Romans. And just in the
previous winter Adam MOiler [ 1779-1829] had covered German literature and
dramatic poetry in his attempt to dissect the idea of the beautiful. Enjoying these
lectures were women and men from diverse levels of educated society, from
nobility, that is, to artists and scholars. For the 1807-1808 season Miiller,
Brttiger, and Heinrich yon Kleist [ 1777-1811 ] approached a young twenty-seven
year-old physician who had recently arrived in Dresden from nearby Freiberg.
Gotthilf Heinrich Schubert [1780-1860], who would later become professor of

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natural history at Erlangen and Munich, had been trained in medicine at Jena,
where he had become enamored of the fascinating researches of Johann Wilhelm
Ritter [ 1776-1810] in galvanism and Friedrich Schelling [ 1775-1854] in philos-
ophy. He had begun practicing medicine in 1803 in Altenburg, but because he
was unable to make a living of it, he decided to give in to his love for natural
science and return to study. In 1805 he travelled to Freiberg to hear the famous
Abraham Werner [1749-1817] lecture on geognosy and mineralogy. A friend
from his Altenburg days had settled in Dresden and was keeping Schubert
informed about the intellectual life of the Saxon capital. By October of 1806, full
of new ideas about science and eager to share them with others, he had decided
to go to Dresden himself, l
His chance came quicker than he expected. It did not take the Dresden circle
long to recognize in Schubert a mind of unusual breadth and curiosity. As Alice
R~Sssler has noted, "FUr die Dresdener Romantik war neben der Einbeziehung der
Malerei eine Wissenschaft naturwissenschaftlichen Gepr~iges bezeichnend, die
sich mit Physiognomie, Psychologie und Physiologie befaBte und diese wiederum
mit der Religion in Verbindung brachte." [ 12, p. 6] 2 Young Schubert had already
published a novel entitled Die Kirche und die GOner (The Church and the Gods)
[17], and in the year he arrived in Dresden from his year of scientific study there
appeared a modest little volume presuming to give the inside track on, of all things,
the general history of life [14]. 3 He would be perfect, thought Adam MUller, for a
series of lectures on an aspect of natural history and psychology that enjoyed
enormous interest in Dresden at the time: animal magnetism.
Mtiller was right. Schubert was a good choice to deliver lectures to a general
audience. As Dietrich yon Engelhardt has noted, although during his study of
medicine he had engaged in some detailed scientific investigations of galvanism,
and although he also had conducted original experiments on animal magnestism,
Schubert's tendency and his gift was to write works whose focus was general and
comprehensive. [2, pp. 12-13] Having read all the important works on animal
magnestism and having studied the recent and historical literature on other
psychical phenomena frequently associated with it, Schubert was just the person
to summarize the subject for the educated public.
There was another reason why Schubert would appeal to a broad audience.
Raised in a pastor's house, Schubert harbored a deep appreciation of the religious
meaning of nature. He had begun his university study with the intention of
pursuing theology, only later changing to medicine. But he never relinquished his
religious search; indeed, the religious heritage he shared with most of his listeners
provided a common ground on which he counted. He spoke the language of those
who, like him, found reassurance in the spiritual interconnection of all things. He
was certainly not alone. All around him leading intellectuals were confirming the
need to go beyond what they regarded as the fractured perspective of the era just
past. His task, as he saw it, was to show how natural phenomena, especially those
involving living and thinking beings, participated in the one law before which

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Gotthilf Heinrich Schubert and the dark side of natural science FORSCHUNG- RESEARCH

the humble should bow. it was precisely the set of beliefs that would appeal to a
demoralized German public in need of reassurance that the larger picture still
made sense. Once Miiller had persuaded Schubert to set aside his fear of public
speaking, the series was set for the winter of I807/1808. 4
Before turning to what turns out to be a remarkable set of presentations, we
should appreciate the physical setting in which they were delivered. Schubert's
series of lectures was to be offered in conjunction with a parallel series by Mtiller
in the same place but on a different night. Furthermore, the two series were to
complement one another. M011er would carry the thread he had developed in the
last winter over into political thought, and the two speakers would attempt to
correlate their subject matter so that their contributions formed a coherent
package. As Schubert later described it,

"Der Kreis der ZuhOrer wiirde dann fiir uns beide muthmaBlich derselbe sein, und diese wtirde
yon dem Einen yon tins Das empfangen, was der Andere nicht geben krnne oder wolle; yon dem
Einen die Anschauungen des Lebens der Natur, von dem Anderen die des Lebens der Staaten.'"
[ 16, II, p. 229] s

The modem day reader should try to picture what the evening must have been
like. Schubert's description of the first night is delightful. The subscription list
included his acquaintances of course, but filing in and surrendering their tickets
were also a prince of a grand duchy, several counts and countesses, and some
envoys of nearby manors with their spouses. An artist friend of Schubert told him
that the wife of a General Kroke, who was eager to learn what he had to say about
a fascinating subject like animal magnetism, had essentially pressured the noble
women of a fashionable evening society into subscribing to the series. To
complicate matters, the people were buzzing that first night about predictions of
destruction from a comet that some astronomical hacks declared was about to
pass so near the earth that all terrestrial inhabitants were in danger. A bundle of
nerves, Schubert stands that first Thursday night in front of the assembled crowd,
illuminated by candlelight in the main hall of Captain von Carlowitz's manor. As
he gazed at the music stand holding his notes his fear made him unable to be
grateful that he at least could read his remarks instead of having to speak
extemporaneously as they did in Weimar. [16, II, p. 231].
What was it that attracted this assemblage to hear Schubert'? Some came to be
sure to hear a scientific lecture. Undoubtedly others had heard that a young natural
scientist would be talking about animal magnetism and related subjects, an unusual
subject that evoked a natural curiosity then as it does today. But what was it about
such "borderline" phenomena that attracted the educated of Dresden society? For
those in the audience we can at best merely speculate. But for Schubert himself we
have more. He tells us in both his published lectures and in his autobiography what
it was he was trying to accomplish. Only one of the fourteen evenings was in fact
devoted specifically to animal magnetism, But Schubert did not disappoint his
audience. The title be gave to the published lectures was Ansichten v o n d e r

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FORSCHUNG - RESEARCH Frederick Gregory

Nachtseite der Naturwissenschafl (Views of the Dark Side of Natural Science). 6

That first night he told his listeners what lay ahead:

"Wir werden n~irnlichin diesen Abendstunden jene Nachtseite der Naturwissenschaft, welche
bisher 6fters auBer Acht gelassen worden, mit nicht geringerem Ernst als andere allgemeiner
anerkannte Gegenstiindebetrachten und von verschiedenenjener Gegens~nde, die man zu dern
Gebiete des sogenannten Wunderglaubens gez~hlt hat, handeln." [15, p. I ]7

Schubert felt it necessary at the outset to declare that he was not out to defend or
justify anything. He clearly felt that something had been omitted from the corpus
of natural science, something which he believed it was important to include. On
inserting what was missing Schubert's real goal began to emerge.

"Es schien mir, als ob aus der Zusammenstellungjener, von Vielen verkannten Erscheinungen
ein eigenthfimlichesLicht auch fiberaile anderen Theile der Naturwissenschaftverbreitetwiirde,
in welchem sich diese leichter und gliicklicher zu jenem Ganzen vereinigen lieBen, das ich in
dem kurzen Umfange dieser Untersuchungen darzustellen bemiiht seyn werde." [15, p. 2]8

His purpose, it quickly became evident, was to confirm the coherence of all
existence, physical and historical. To do that no part of human experience could
be ignored or omitted.
But there was more. Not only would his series of investigations examine
overlooked aspects of the relation of humans to nature and the living harmony of
the individual to the whole, but they would also reveal how "der Zusammenhang
eines jetzigen Daseyns mit einem zuktinftigen hrheren, und wie sich der Keim
des neuen zuktinftigen Lebens in der Mitte des jetzigen allmfihlig entfalte." [15,
p. 2] 9
His lectures comprised treatments of the "dark side" of geological and cosmic
science, botany, zoology, physics and chemistry. What was most important to
him, however, was the natural history of the human race, for it was in this context
that his quasi-theodicy could be laid out. "Ich woiite," he wrote many years later,

den erkennenden Geist des Menschen, in einem ~nlichen Verhiilmissezur gesammtensichtba-

ren Natur darstellen, als das des leiblichen Thieres durch seinen lnstinkt zu jenem beengteren
Kreise der Leiblichkeitist, der ihm Erhaltung gewiihrtoder Gefahren bringenkann. Aus diesem
Hellblick, diesem Ferngesicht des Naturmenschen... miisse dann jenes Wissen um die Natur-
jene Naturweisheit- hervorgegangensein, die wir an dem frtihesten Alterthum bewundern, und
aus welcher die Geschichte der Naturwissenschaft ihren Anfang nahm. [16, II, p. 231]1~

In all this Schubert was being very much the stereotypical romantic of the first
decade of the century. If Friedrich Schelling was ever the darling of the Wissen-
schaftsideologen, it was in these years. His system of Naturphilosophie, which
only in recent years has attracted serious interest from twentieth century historians
of science, also served as a grand statement of the wonderful coherence of the ideal
and the real. I I Schubert, who read Schelling with enthusiasm, was, however, much
more the theist, much less the pantheist than Schelling. His goal was closer to that
of the natural theologian, even if his God was remote and mysterious.

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Gotthitf Heinrich Schubert and the dark side of natural science FORSCHUNG-RF~EARCH

Like Schelling, however, Schubert felt the need to find an authoritative

guarantee that the world was not in fact incoherent. That was no mean challenge
for a German who one year earlier had watched as Napoleon brought the Holy
Roman Empire to an end after 533 years of existence. Now there was not even a
semblance of unity in the Kleinstaaterei that characterized German politics.
Divided and defeated in what was rapidly becoming Napoleon's Europe, the only
meaning left to Germans lay in the realm of Geist. Earlier in 1807 the Prussian
King Friedrich Wilhelm III [1770-1840], pining over his losses in the Peace of
Tilsit, had said outright what many felt: "Der Staat mul3 durch geistige Kr~ifte
ersetzen, was er an physichen verloren hat. ''12
But could it be trusted, this product of the mind? Not, to be sure, if it bore no
necessary relation to what was real. Writing to the son of Johann Gottfried Herder
[ 1744-1803] at the end of the eighteenth century Schubert had waxed enthusiastic
about the attraction natural science held for him: "I have now found something
real," he gushed. [3, p. 34] Therein lay the attraction of nature philosophy over
Immanuel Kant's [1724-1804] transcendental idealism, for if anything repre-
sented a source of the unconditioned, of the real, it was nature. Schubert soon
discovered Schelling's Naturphilosophie and was an instant convert. Schelling's
documentation of the unity of all natural phenomena consoled the young and
fertile mind in the face of the social disruption that surrounded him. It permitted
him, so to speak, to say to himself: "I now realize that I am not on my own here.
I'm part of a larger reality, a larger scheme whose meaning is discernable. Natural
science, especially through it dark side, provides me with knowledge of my
origins and my destiny. Things will work out, regardless how they appear to me
today."
Schubert's fascinating understanding of the past emerges from his lectures,
although not in any logically developed fashion. The presentations can be
repetitive and occasionally disjointed; consequently, the analysis that follows will
not necessarily adhere to the the format he observed.
What captivated Schubert's focus was the history of life, not so much the
origin and development of the inorganic cosmos.13 And life, as for Schelling, 14
was caught firmly in the grip of a law of development. First, however, life had to
come to be, and that required a creative act. The power to become a butterfly or
a rose may have lain in these artifacts, "aber sie mul3te durch eine andere,
kr~tigere, die aul3er ihnen war, geweckt werden." [15, p. 115] 15 The historic
moment had occurred sometime in the distant past.
Es war ein Blitz aus den sichtbarlich er6ffneten Hrhen einer ewigen Geisterwelt, sein Leuchten
durchdrang die ganze Wohnung der irdischen Leiblichkeit bis hinab und hinaus in ihre abgele-
gensten Tiefen; die Tausende der Lampen und Kerzen entziandeten sich, der Blitz aber, der jeden
Punkt mit gleichem Glanz erf'tillte, war voriiber; hinfort leuchtet in beschrtinktem Kreise nur
jede der einzelnen Kerzen, und wo eine neue flammen soil, da mul~ sie an der schon brennenden
sich entziinden; wiire der Blitz von oben nichtgewesen, der Docht der Lampen h/itte niemals
aus sich selbst das Feuer geboren. [ 15, p. 115] 16

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FORSCHUNG - RESEARCH Frederick Gregory

In his lectures on plants and animals Schubert was careful to say how the two
kingdoms were alike and how they were different. They were similar, for
example, in that the most incomplete animals bordered just as near to the
inorganic world as the most incomplete plants; further, the highest forms of both
were approached from more than a single direction by less perfect forms. [ 15, pp.
141-142] Nevertheless animals clearly expressed a higher form of existence than
plants, and the approach to the animal kingdom was recognizable in the capacity
for sensitivity. In his discussion of the transition from plant to animal life in the
scale of nature Schubert developed a theme he would treat in a broader context
in other lectures. Here he spoke about the high moment of achievement when a
plant, in blossoming, revealed a sensitivity and movement not present in its life
to that point. But the blossom was also a moment of death. Nature, he suggested,
expressed here a "presentiment" (Vorahnung) of a higher life.

"Es werden in solchen Momentendas Organ und die bisher tief im Innern verborgenenKr~ifte
eines vollkommnerenLebens aufgewecktund belebt... Hierin bezeugt die Natur 6fters durch
deutlicheThatsachendie Unsterblichkeitder inneren Lebensursache,und wir sehen ein Daseyn
in das andereiibergehen,ein kiinftigesin das vorhergehendehineinreichen."[ 15, pp. 145-146]17

One may be tempted here, and even more at other places in Schubert's writing,
to read evolutionary notions into the description. But, as for all the German
romantics, one must be careful not to ascribe later Lamarckian or especially
Darwinian evolutionary connotations to his treatment. What Dorothea Kuhn
notes for Goethe applies as well to Schubert: no biological development from
one species to another is contemplated. [8, p. 7] 18 Schubert's recognition of
patterns of development results from imposing a progressive structure upon a
static idealization. The peak of development which the blossoming plant achieves
reveals its communion with the one great law of the whole.
This is not to say that no temporal dimension was intended at all, for from his
analysis of how one level of nature reflected what existed at a "higher" level
Schubert also wished to illustrate a relationship between past, present and future.
One of his main motivations, I contend, was to provide his fellow countrymen
with comfort about their own future; hence he has announced that he would, by
discussing the dark side of natural science, show his listeners how they could
learn to discern a future, higher existence in the present, less perfect one, how
they could recognize those certain moments when the dormant seed of a new life
deep within us breaks through to our consciousness. [15, p. 14] For human
existence too "tritt in die lange Reihe der Lebendigen ein, und wir wissen weder
woher, noch wohin wir eilen." [15, p. 157] 19 The way behind us is dark and
disconnected with our present experience. But because human life is anticipated
in the less perfect forms of animal existence, indeed, because "das Leben des
ganzen Thierreiches sich durch ein stetes Vorw~rtsstreben nach dem des Men-
schen hinzud~ngen und nach diesem gleichsam zu sehnen scheint, ''2~ we can
follow the hints of "a deeper natural science" (eine tiefere Naturwissenschaft)

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Gotthilf Heinrich Schubert and the dark side of natural science FORSCHUNG - RF~F~-~RCH

and can look back across the dark chasm separating us from our past with a happy
confidence. [15, 156-57]
Our look back into humankind's past, then, proceeds into darkness. The
nighttime of our history provides occasion for Schubert to develop two motifs.
One involved the common romantic theme of an original unity which has been
fractured by an alienation that must now be overcome. The other centered on the
terror of the night, the fear of dark and death that plagues our experience of life
and light.
Already on the first evening Schubert titillated the interest of his listeners by
broaching the subject of the origins of the human race. He was not specific about
when it had occurred - although he clearly meant for the audience to understand
that it had taken place at least "many thousands of years" ago. [ 15, p. 3. Cf. also
lecture 8, pp. 115-116.] In the second lecture and again in the eighth he developed
the subject at more length.
What he wanted to investigate first was the question whether humans as we
know them today emerged into nature (ob der Mensch bei seinem Eintritt in diese
Natur) from a wild state or whether they became human by falling away from
some prior state of being. Schubert observed that the issue remained still unde-
cided, but he noted that for a century now most scholars had opted for the former
position. 21 His own view, however, was that the earliest humans were anything
but primitive. Arguing from our knowledge of the most ancient religions, of the
oldest languages, and of the earliest understanding of the heavens, Schubert
asserted that the evidence suggested an original level of sophistication that was
subsequently lost. The older the religion (for example in India), the purer and
nobler the moral sentiment; the farther back we trace language, the more metric
(complex) it becomes; the more we learn about ancient civilizations (in Egypt
and Chaldea), the more we realize that they do not exhibit so much the beginning
of astronomy, but a science already fully developed. The common possession of
these achievements by peoples widely separated led to the conjecture that there
was originally one highly developed primal people. [15, pp. 15-29]
A favorite hypothesis of Schubert's was that the original location of this
Urvolk, indeed the original site of all life, was in Asia near the northern pole. To
make this plausible he had to assert that the polar regions were once much warmer
than they are today. He rejected the argument, given by some, that the earth's axis
had once been tilted perpendicular to the ecliptic as opposed to 23.5 degree angle
of the present. In fact his reasoning, which was based on atmospheric conditions
that altered gradually over time, strikes today's reader as somewhat less than
convincing. 22
But what is most remarkable is his description of humankind's original
comprehension of nature and of its fall from its initial state. As we have already
seen, God's creative word was of course necessary to ignite the creative spark of
life in the physical world. But Schubert also described early humankind as having
been born and nurtured by nature, its "mother". Humans in this early state were

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FORSCHUNG - RESEARCH Frederick Gregory

at one with nature, they instinctively understood the unity of the individual with
the whole. They did not lay hold of nature; rather, nature actively seized the mind
of humans. This was a time of childhood, of innocence, of the most intimate
resonance between humankind and the whole of external nature. Kings here were
priests in the service of nature, preserving the harmony and the bond joining
creature and creation. [15, p. 3]
Present within nature's human product, however, was the seed of knowledge
that had to grow and develop beyond the level of intuition. Schubert described
the inevitable fall from bliss, which made possible the birth of natural science, as
the emergence from night into day, from dark into light. One sees from his
narration, whose explicitly and unmistakably gendered perspective reinforced the
jurisdiction of males in the religion and science of his day, why the dark side of
our comprehension of nature would be lost in the normal pursuit of natural
science.

Der gOttlicheKeim,dessenzartes Beginnendie Muttergepflegt,wird im Gemiithdes Menschen

strak, und, siehe, der Brust und dem Bediirfnisseder Mutterentwachsen, fragt derjunge Knabe
nach seinem Vaterund nachjenem grttlieheren Ideal,durch welchesdiese Natur und aus ihr der
Mensch geworden. Hieraufsehen wir in der Geschichteder Naturwissenschaft.welehe mit der
Urgeschichte unseres Geschlechts Eins ist, den alten Bund des Menschen mit tier Natur
tibertreten. Wie die Nacht mit ihren hohen Gestirnenverbleichtin der Morgend~mmerungeines
neuen, hOherenBediirfnissesdie alte Abh~gigkeit und Harmoniemit der Natur. [ 15, pp. 5-6] 23

With the passing of the night came also the death of the old harmony with nature
and the loss of tranquility. Schubert's audience the first night heard him describe
how nature watched "mit traurigem Unwillen den Geist des Menschen sich ihren
Armen entwinden und ein anderes Gesetz, eine andere Heimat als die des
Friedens suchen. ''2+ Kings ceased being priests of nature and became conquerors,
models of humankind's will to power. "Es gef,'illt dem Menschen, die Erde,
welche vorhin anzubauen ihm heiliges Gesetz war, zu zerstOren. ''25 Now bloody
wars threatened the fruitfulness of the species and the whole race, once charac-
terized by the surrender of the individual to the whole, was marked by the
subjection of the whole to the individual. [ 15, p. 6]
The death of the our primal spirit, however, brought with it a higher possibility.
But it would take some time to develop. Schubert saw in the generations of conflict
in the history of human civilization evidence of the degeneration of the race. During
this period humankind possessed only hints and reminders of its earlier state in the
form of mysteries of nature, dark phenomena, some having to do with the heavens.
In an anti- Semitic tendency typical of the day he explained that the degeneration
continued until it reached its maximum in Jewish culture, which retained virtually
no ancient astronomical wisdom or instinct. [ 15, pp. 41-43, 51 ff.] But here at the
nadir o f degeneration the moment o f redemption appeared.
Not surprisingly it was with the appearance of Christianity that the beginning
of a new era dawned. [15, pp. 8, 41] The conquering of death and the hope of
eternal life introduced a divine ideal that simmered for 1500 years and flickered

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G o n h i l f H e i n r i c h S c h u b e r t a n d the d a r k side o f n a t u r a l science FORSCHUNG - RF~EARCH

into visibility in the works of Raphael, Michelangelo, and Copernicus. But for
the most part natural science had remained subservient to a mechanical or
"handicraft" (handwerksm/issig) view of nature. While insights into the whole
had occasionally shone forth fleetingly, science had been sidetracked in its
preoccupation with detail, waiting for the genius to appear who would put it all
together into a higher unity. Schubert told his audience that eventually the wealth
of detail would become so great that "the proper view of nature" (die rechte
Naturansicht) would break forth again and through undeniable facts, no doubt
especially those from the dark side of natural science, force itself onto the mind
of even the strictest mechanist. His task in the lectures would be to give an idea
of the pregnant state of the natural science of his day. [ 15, pp. 8-9.]
If one of the Schubert's night-motifs dealt with the overcoming of alienation
through redemptive history, the second provided comfort in face of fear and death.
In the eleventh evening he portrayed vividly the sudden terror the night can bring
by recalling a fire siren and the red glow from the flames of a nearby burning house
that had wakened him the night before he delivered the lecture. It was, he said, an
example of the fear and terror that comes over all living things in the course of the
night, a fear that has its basis in the experience of separation and isolation and
"welche die Nacht, die hehre Pflegmutter, zu einer Knigin der Schrecken, zu einer
Herrftihrerin der Sorgen und der Furcht machet." [ 15, p. 158.] 26
The link to the fear of death was obvious. Schubert did not dwell on human-
kind's new-found awareness of its own mortality as a result of its fall, but, in
words that are remindful of C. R Snow's terse pronouncement "we die alone,"
he did not fail to make the connection to the isolation one feels in experience of
dying. "Da fiihlt die Seele schmerzlich, dag, wie sie beim Leben mit Tausenden
der Mittlebenden und vielen der Freunde vereint gewesen, sie dennoch jetzt im
Sterben allein sey." [15, p. 160.] 27 Such horror, symbolized each night by the
separating power of the darkness, would truly be unbearable without the hope
that after the night the day will come. In the light of day the fears of the night
appear different, for light's secret lay in its capacity to unite all being. As if in
anticipation of Paul Tillich, who, was familiar with romantic Naturphilosophie,
Schubert defined light as "the pull toward the ground of all being" (der Zug nach
dem Urgrund alles Wesens). "Darum spricht jeder Lichtstrahl," he assured his
listeners, "zu der empfindenden Seele: du bist nicht allein; halte dich an meinen
Zug, und ich ffihre dich mit allen Schaaren der Lebenden auf dem sicheren Wege
des gemeinsamen Bewegens." [15, p. 159.] 28
But Schubert was in no way denying the reality of evil. The enemy was both
inside us and outside us, for to be alive was to engage in a struggle for existence.
The snake's bite was poisonous, the tiger's bloodthirst real: where, he asked
rhetorically, did all this anger come into nature? Did humans bring it with them?
The question provided him an opportunity to discuss at length for his listeners
the balance that nature maintains among its creatures. The mutual destruction of
life forms acts to hold back surplus in nature. The natural scientist, Schubert

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FORSCHUNG - RESEARCH Frederick Gregory

noted, sees in these sounds of the night a master governor who blends the
disharmonies into the overall benefit of the whole. [ 15, p. 162.]
When all was said and done, then, Schubert felt that he had established beyond
doubt that an understanding of our present experience revealed the contours of a
future existence. He had tried to show how arrangements at one level anticipated
those at the next, higher level. In his twelfth lecture he called for us to cultivate
our ability to recognize higher existence by working hard to examine our present
existence in all its diversity. He gave new examples from the world of living
things and also included examples from the physical sciences. Electricity, for
example, contains indications of higher chemical properties. [ 15, pp. 184ff.] Now
he expressed longing for that future in language with a curious political tinge.
Referring to a distant land whose spring was said to be eternal, Schubert asked
time itself to remove the last remains of our earthly existence and to let us, "wenn
dein ewiges Gesetz es so gebietet, schlummemd in dem lange ersehnten Vaterland
ankommen!" [15, p. 182.] 29
As he neared the end of the lecture series Schubert finally got around to the
subject Mailer had originally asked him to address: animal magnetism. This
phenomenon functioned like a microscope through which we could catch a
glimpse of the nocturnal depths of our being, as if we could here encounter
directly snatches of that original instinctual unity with nature we had once
enjoyed. What we observe in animal magnetism was the results of the inner
workings of our soul as it assimilated the raw material of our mental life and
produced the unified consciousness that distinguished us as humans from ani-
mals. Here we step out of our role as actors and become observers of the spiritual
realm.
Whereas normally we see what is external and already in existence, there are
circumstances in which our psychical capacities are moved beyond their usual
limits. Schubert distinguished three different levels of such a state, each level
exhibiting both a healthy and a diseased form of the state. The three healthy
manifestations included divine inspiration, in which the spirit was raised to an
immediate recognition of the divine; artistic inspiration, in which the soul was
elevated to a knowledge of what is normally concealed; and somatic inspiration,
having in lower animal forms to do with instinct and in humans with an
enhancement of the senses that affects the higher psychic faculties as well, as in
the sweet drunkenness of love. The parallel diseased forms resulted not from an
inner source, as in the first series, but from an external source foreign to one's
own life. They involved demonic inspiration, whose source was clear; magnetic
inspiration, which derived from astral attractions that have no externally per-
ceived effect on the healthy body; and what he called silenic inspiration, which
was induced from the use of drugs. [15, pp. 198-199.] 30
Animal magnetism was naturally a phenomenon that resulted from magnetic
inspiration, but one that in turn was able to set up a resonance with the body
and its senses. It expressed itself on the level of instinct. In animal magnetism,

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which showed itself only in conjunction with ill health, it was as though the
soul saw with the eyes of the instinct that was stimulated by magnetic forces.
As a result the soul viewed a nexus of forces normally closed to it, one in which
the present and future were linked. The external magnetic forces that attracted
the body of the one magnetically treated usurped a portion of the soul, leaving
the subject in a dream state. As in dying the subject became more free of the
grasp of the body. 31 For the remainder of the lecture Schubert described one
after another report of subjects, invariably women, who had exhibited the
remarkable abilities known to be associated with animal magnetism. In the main
he was concerned with somnambulism, or the capacity of a magnetized person
to interact normally with her external environment without the benefit of sight.
Such persons also frequently revealed a knowledge of events that would happen
to them in the future. He warned his listeners not to make the mistake of
circumscribing all natural science within just one set of phenomena. Electricity,
for example, was now a subject of central importance to science. But not that
long ago it had been touted as the midpoint between body and soul, the cure for
incurable diseases. Overenthusiasm and self deception were easy blunders to
commit. [ 15, p. 204.]
Schubert's lectures were very successful. They went through four editions
between their original publication in 1808 and 1840 and they were reviewed
widely. The reception ranged from enthusiastic endorsement (Windischmann,
Schelling, von Baader, Madame de Stall), to ambiguity (Goethe, Oken), to
criticism. 32 For Madame de Sta$1 the lectures were simply indispensable; for
Windischmann they were a corrective of the confusion the Enlightenment had
brought to natural science. [2, pp. 26, 28] Goethe warmed to the astronomical
portions of the lectures if he did not to Schubert's fascination with the dark side
of nature [2, pp. 26-27], while Oken could not sympathize with Schubert's
religious perspective any more than Schubert could endorse the pantheism
implied in Oken's Naturphilosophie. [2, p. 29] Not everyone, of course, was
happy with the speculative tone the lectures contained. An anonymous reviewer
evaluated the published lectures to be without influence for serious science [2,
p. 25], an attitude that would characterize empirically oriented critics of Natur-
philosophie.
In general, however, Schubert must have been gratified with the recognition
that his lectures on nature's dark side had brought his way. Given his purpose, he
had accomplished in his mind what he had set out to do. It is not difficult to
understand why the treatment of somnambulism was saved to the last of his
lectures, for it contained the culmination of his theme. And what was that? Our
encounter with nature constrains us to recognize its moral power to tell us who
we are and why we are here. The phenomena of animal magnetism put us in touch
with forces that betray meaning in the cosmos. Schubert could say with Erazim
Kohak: "When the task is not to effect a predetermined purpose but rather to ask
what the purpose is, to grasp the sense of the cosmos and of our being therein,

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FORSCHUNG - RESEARCH Frederick Gregory

i n c l u d i n g t h e p u r p o s e o f e n g a g i n g in n a t u r a l s c i e n t i f i c i n q u i r y , t h e n c l e a r , s e n s i -
t i v e s e e i n g is in o r d e r . " [7, p. xii.] S e n s i t i v e s e e i n g , S c h u b e r t w o u l d say, n e e d n o t
b e d o n e w i t h o n e ' s p h y s i c a l e y e s o p e n , b u t it m u s t b e d o n e w i t h s p i r i t u a l e y e s
t h a t h a v e b e c o m e a c c u s t o m e d to t h e d a r k .

Annotations

1 Schubert's three-volume autobiography serves as a wonderful source for the details of his life
and for a portrait of the life of an academic in the German Romantic Period. See [16, II, pp.
221 f.] Secondary literature on Schubert is sparse. The best summary of sources, most having to
do with the later Schubert, may be found in Dietrich von Engelhardt's essay on Schubert's place
in romantic natural science. Cf. [2, pp. 12-13, note 5].
2 "What marked romanticism in Dresden, beside the inclusion of painting, was scholarship with
a natural scientific stamp, scholarship which concerned itself with physionomy, psychology, and
physiology and which tied these in turn to religion."
Later Schubert published a second part to this work, although the promised third and last part
never appeared.
Schubert's fear was an obstacle of no mean proportion. He had never lectured before, and while
he could discuss these subjects perfectly well in conversation, speaking to a group formally was
another matter. He later compared the experience to that of one who has a fear of water being
thrown into the sea. where he sinks or swims. Cf. [ 16, II, pp. 226---28].
"The circle of listeners would presumably be the same tbr both of us, and they would get from
one of us what the other neither could nor wanted to give - from one views on the life of nature,
from the other on the life of the state.'"
The edition available to me was the fourth from 1840 [15]. Schubert notes that the first several
chapters have been reproduced unaltered from the 1808 first edition. Additional material was
added to the later chapters in the 1840 edition.
"In these evening hours we will examine that dark side of natural science which up to now has
often been left out of view. We will do so with no less .seriousness than others regard more
generally recognized objects. [Further, we will examine] various of those subjects that are
included in the area of the so-called miraculous."
"It seemed to me that a proper light would be spread over all other parts of natural science from
the collection of those phenomena that are misjudged by many, a light in which [the parts of
natural science] are unified more easily and happily into that whole which I will take pains to
sketch in the limited scope of these investigations."
How "the connection of present existence to a future, higher [existence] as well as the seed of
the future life are gradually unfolding in the middle of the present."
10 "I wanted to represent the cognitive mind of humans [as standing] in a relation to the whole of
visible nature as does a corporeal animal through its instinct to the narrower circle of corporeality
that vouchsafes its preservation or can bring it danger. From this clear sightedness and far
sightedness of natural man.., must have originated that knowledge of nature - that natural
wisdom - which we admire in the earliest antiquity and out of which the history of natural science
commenced."
I 1 Those Stephen Turner has called the ideologists of Wissenschaft occupied a complex spectrum
of views about the relationship between natural science and philosophy, as Dietrich von
Engelhardt made clear some time ago. Among the ways in which philosophy and the investiga-
tion of nature were linked at the turn of the nineteenth century one must distinguish three main
categories, each with its own internal differences. Besides the Kantian transcendental philosophy
of nature one finds a speculative variety, represented by Hegel and Schelling, and an approach
that emphasized empiricism as the point of departure. Within each there were subdivisions.
Fries's version of transcendental philosophy of nature, while sympathetic to Kant's, was not
identical to it. Hegel, unlike Schelling, created very little interest among natural scientists with

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his ideas about nature. Hegel despised the ideas of those followers of Schelling who, as in
Schubert's case, took their own liberties with their master's Naturphilosophie. And "'szientifische
Naturphilosophie," argues yon Engelhardt, must be distinguished from "'empirische Naturwis-
senschaft'" in this period. For more on Wissenschaftsideologie and on the differences described
above, see [19, p. 322; 18, pp. 142, 147, 153, 172; 1, pp. 4-5; 2, p. I1: 4, pp. 17-25; 5, pp.
145-57].
12 "'The state must replace intellectually what it has lost physically." Quoted by Notker Hammer-
stein in [6, p. 327]. Cf. also [I I, p. 50].
13 In his lecture on cosmic laws Schubert rejected the "mechanicar' view that suggested the heavens
came about accidentally. He asserted that through laws like those of Kepler and Newton one
encounters an order of a higher kind, relating this experience to the same one met in the organic
realm. [15, p. 94. Cf. also p. 121. Elsewhere he says: "Wenn sich in das Buch der sichtbaren
Werke kein anderer Beweis eingeschrieben f~inde ftir das Daseyn eines Gottes, eines unbewegten
Bewegers, als Aristotoles ihn nennt, eines Sch6pfers dem Gesch6pf gegenilber, als das erste der
drei Kepler'schen Gesetze, oder das Newtonische der Schwere, dann k6nnte er allein schon dem
denkenden Geiste gentigen. Denn in Menschenworte gefal3t, sprechen alle jene Gesetze der
Bewegungen, die Kepler und Newton auffanden, den Inhalt jenes ersten Sinaitischen aus: ich
bin der Herr, dein Gott.'" (p. 84)
14 Cf. [13, pp. 299-300] in which he says that what we behold in nature is not product but
development. On the centrality of the development of life for Sch.elling's entire philosophy, .see
[10, pp. 318f].
15 But "it had to be awakened by another, mightier [power] that was outside [them]."
16 "There came a lightning bolt from the opened heights of an eternal spirit world, its illumination
penetrated every dwelling place of the earth's corpus to every crease of its deepest depths.
Thousands of lamps and candles were ignited. The lightning, which touched every part with the
same glow, was gone. From here on only some of the candles gave light, and where a new flame
ignited it had to get its light from one already burning. Had there been no lightning from above,
the wick of the lamps would never have made fire by itself."
17 "The organ of a more perfect life and the forces [thereof], heretofore hidden deep inside, are
awakened and given life in such moments... Nature testifies here repeatedly through [such]
distinct data to the immortality of the inner cause of life and we see one existence go over into
another, a future [existence] reach [back] into the preceding one."
18 For more on the formative principles of biological organization in the German romantic scientists
see [9].
19 Human existence too "enters into the long series of living things, and we know neither whence
we came nor whither we are hastening."
20 "The life of the entire animal kingdom seems to urge itself along in a constant striving forward
toward humans existence and, as it were, to long for it."
21 Defenders of this view pointed to the wild peoples that still existed in Schubert's day as
depictions of the earliest state of humans. Cf. [15, p. 15]
22 Explaining how the climate could have been warmer near the pole is less his concern than finding
fossil and cultural evidence that is explained only if it had once been warmer. [15, pp. 117-18,
124-26.]
23 "The divine seed, whose tender beginning the mother nurtured, becomes strong in the mind o f
the human and, look, outgrowing the breast and the need for the mother the young boy asks
about his father and about that more divine ideal through which this nature and from it humans
came to be. At this we see in the history of natural science, which merges with the early history
of our race, the old bond between humans and nature overstepped. As the night with its far off
stars fades, so does the old dependence and harmony with nature fade in the twilight of a new,
higher need.'" Schubert uses the word Fall (fall) for this event on p. 41. Clearly natural science
after the "fail" is something different from what it was before. Once nature became an object,
something external to humans, its context became kiinstlicher (more artificial) and no longer
had a visible relationship to their wider fate. (p. 7)
24 Nature watched "with resentment as the spirit of humans bursts loose from its arms, seeking
another law, a different home from that of peace."

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FORSCHUNG - RESEARCH Frederick Gregory

25 "'It pleases humans [now] to destroy the earth, the cultivation of which had been belbre a holy
law to them."
26 And "'which makes the night, the sublime foster-mother, into a queen of terror, a commander-
in-chief of worry and fear."
27 "'The soul feels painfully that however united it has been with thousands of other lives and many
friends, now, when it is dying, it is alone."
28 "Every ray of light says to the sensing soul: 'You are not alone. Hold fast to my pull and I will
lead you with all the hosts of the living on the safe path of the motion everything shares.'"
29 To let us, "if your eternal law permits it, arrive resting in the long-desired fatherland."
30 On the whole the phenomena of the first series are, according to Schubert, experienced
continuously and are part of consciousness while those of the second come and go and cannot
later be recalled.
31 Because of the similarity to the near-death state, Schubert warned his audience not to become
enamored of these forces for fear of unleashing something they could not control. [ 15. p. 201 .]
32 Reviews of Schubert's lectures, along with those of others of his works, are thoroughly discussed
by yon Engelhardt in [2, pp. 24-32].

Bibliography
[ I] Engelhardt. Dietrich yon: Hegel und die Chemie: Studie zur Philosophie und Wissenschaft.
Pressler Verlag: Wiesbaden 1976.
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Heinrich Schubert. Gedenkschrift zum 200. Geburtstag des romantischen Naturforschers.
Universitfitsbund Erlangen-Niirnberg: Erlangen 1980, pp. 11-36.
[3] G.H. Schubert in seinen Briefen. Ein Lehensbild. Ed. by Nathanael Bonwetsch. Belschersche
Verlagsbuchhandlung: Stuttgart 1918.
[41 Gregory, Frederick: "Kant, Schelling, and the Administration of Science in the Romantic Era."
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[51 Gregory, Frederick: "Die Kritik von J. E Fries an Schellings Naturphilosophie." Sudhoffs
Archiv, 67(1983), 145--57.
[6] Hammerstein, Notker: "Universittiten und gelehrte Institutionen von der Aufkl~irung zum
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[7] Kohak, Erazim. The Embers and the Stars. University of Chicago Press: Chicago 1984.
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[9] Lenoir. "timothy: "Morphotypes in Romantic Biology.'" Romanticism and the Sciences. Ed.
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[ 1O] Lovejoy, Arthur. The Great Chain of Being. Harper and Row: New York 1960.
[1 I] Paulsen, Friedrich: German Education Past and Present. Scribners: New York 1912.
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[ 13] Schelling, Friedrich: Einleitung zu dem Entwurfeines Systems der Naturphilosophie (1799).
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[15] Schubert, Gotthilf Heinrich: Ansichten vonder Nachtseite der Naturwissenschaft, 4th ed.
Arnoldischen Buchhandlung: Dresden and Leipzig 1840.

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Ootthilf Heinrich Schubert and the dark side of natural science FORSCHUNG - RESEARCH

[16] Schubert. Gouhilf Heinrich: Der Erwerb aus einem ve~angenen und die Erwartungen von
einem zuktinftigen Leben. Eine Selbstbiographie. 3 vols. J.J. Palm und Ernst Enke: Erlangen
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[ 17] Schubert. Gotthilf Heinrich: Die Kirche und die GOtter. E Dienemann: Penig 1804.
[ 18] Turner, R. Steven: "'The Growth of Professional R e , a r c h in Prussia. 1818-1848 - Causes
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[ 19] Turner, R. Steven: 'q"he Prussian Professoriate and the Research Imperative." Epistemo!ogi-
cal and Social Problems of the Sciences in the Early Nineteenth Century. Ed by Hans N.
Jahnke and Michael Otte. Reidel: Dordrecht 1981.

Author's address."

Prof. Dr. Frederick Gregory

University of Florida
Department of History
PO Box 117320
Gainesville, F1 32611-7320
USA

NTM N.S. 3(1995) 269