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INTRODUCTION It seemed to many a literary discovery . . . when I pulled him out of a century of oblivion. —Emil du Bois-Reymond,“Goethe und kein Ende,” 1882 Emil du Bois-Reymond is the most important forgotten intellectual of the nineteenth century. Born in 1818 (the same year as Ivan Turgenev, Karl Marx, Jacob Burckhardt, Emily Brontë, James Froude, Ignaz Semmelweis, and Frederick Douglass), du BoisReymond achieved international celebrity for his research in neuroscience and his addresses on science and culture; in fact, his picture could be seen hanging for sale in German shop windows alongside those of the Prussian royal family. Contemporaries called him “the foremost naturalist of Europe,”“the last of the encyclopedists,” and “one of the greatest scientists Germany ever produced.”“Gentlemen,” he would tell his students in Berlin only half in jest,“there are two outstanding physiologists in the world; the other one is at Leipzig.”1 People generally recall du Bois-Reymond as an advocate of mechanistic biology, but during his lifetime he earned recognition for a host of other achievements. He pioneered the use of instruments in neuroscience, discovered the electrical transmission of nerve signals, linked structure to function in neural tissue, and posited the improvement of neural connections with use. He also served as a professor, as dean, and as rector at the University of Berlin,directed the first institute of physiology in Prussia,was secretary of the Prussian Academy of Sciences, established the first society of physics in Germany, helped found the Berlin Society of Anthropology, oversaw the Berlin Physiological Society,edited the leading German journal of physiology,supervised dozens of researchers , and trained an army of physicians. He owed the largest share of his fame, however, to public lectures of remarkable scope and originality.In matters of science,they emphasized the unifying principles of energy conservation and natural selection, introduced Darwin’s theory to German students, rejected the inheritance of acquired characters, XVI INTRODUCTION and fought the specter of vitalism. In matters of philosophy, they recovered the teachings of Lucretius,surveyed the borders of science,and provoked Nietzsche,Mach,James, Hilbert, and Wittgenstein. In matters of history, they accelerated the growth of historicism , formulated the tenets of history of science, popularized the Enlightenment, and promoted the study of nationalism. In matters of letters, they championed realism in literature, formulated the earliest account of cinema, and criticized the Americanization of modern culture. Today it is hard to comprehend the furor incited by du Bois-Reymond’s addresses. One, delivered on the eve of the Prussian War, asked whether the French had forfeited their right to exist; another, reviewing the career of Darwin, triggered a two-day debate in the Prussian parliament; another, surveying the course of civilization, argued for science as the essential history of humanity; and the most famous, responding to the dispute between science and religion, delimited the frontiers of knowledge. Epistemology rarely inflames the public imagination anymore.In the second half of the nineteenth century, however, epistemology was one of the sciences of the soul, and the soul was the most politicized object around.When du Bois-Reymond proclaimed the mystery of consciousness, he crushed the last ambition of reason. Everyone who longed for a secular providence was devastated by the loss. Owen Chadwick put it this way: “The forties was the time of doubts, in the plural and with a small d. . . . In the sixties Britain and France and Germany entered the age of Doubt, in the singular and with a capital D.”2 Envious rivals identified du Bois-Reymond as a member of the “Berlinocracy” of the new German Empire.3 This was not quite fair. As a descendant of immigrants, du Bois-Reymond always felt a bit at odds with his surroundings. He had grown up speaking French, his wife was from England, and he counted Jews and foreigners among his closest friends. Even his connections to the crown prince and the crown princess disaffected him from the regime. Du Bois-Reymond supported women, defended minorities , and attacked superstition; he warned against the dangers of power, wealth, and religion; and he stood up to Bismarck in matters of principle. His example reminds us that patriots in Imperial Germany could be cosmopolitan critics as well as chauvinist reactionaries, a point often lost on his peers. He once joked to his wife on a lecture tour that officers in the army assumed that anyone of his eminence was an intimate of the government who regularly conversed with the Kaiser...

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