The Invention of Nature

At the time Haeckel was in Naples in Italy where he hoped to make some zoological discoveries that would kick-start his academic career in Germany. So far the scientific part of the trip had turned out to be completely unsuccessful. He had come to study the anatomy of sea urchins, sea-cucumbers and starfish but it had been impossible to find enough living specimens in the Gulf of Naples. Instead of a rich sea harvest, it was the Italian landscape that offered what he called ‘beckoning temptations’. How was he supposed to be a scientist in a discipline that felt claustrophobically cramped when nature laid out its tantalizing wares as if in an oriental bazaar? It was so bad, Haeckel wrote to Anna, that he could hear ‘Mephistopheles’ scornful laughter’.

In this one letter, Haeckel filtered his doubts through the lens of Humboldt’s vision of nature. How was he to reconcile taking the detailed observations that his scientific work required with his urge to ‘understand nature as a whole’? How was he to align his artistic appreciation for nature with scientific truth? In Cosmos Humboldt had written about the bond that united knowledge, science, poetry and artistic feeling, but Haeckel was unsure how to apply this to his zoological work. Flora and fauna invited him to unlock their secrets, teasing and luring him, but he didn’t know if he should use a paintbrush or a microscope. How could he be sure?

Humboldt’s death set in motion a phase of uncertainty in Haeckel’s life during which he searched for his true vocation. It marked the beginning of a career that was shaped partly by anger, crisis and grief. Death would become a channelling force in Haeckel’s life – but instead of leading towards stasis or stagnation, it made him work harder, more ferociously and with no concern for his future reputation. It also made Haeckel one of the most controversial and remarkable scientists of his time¹

– a man who influenced artists and scientists alike, and one who moved Humboldt’s concept of nature into the twentieth century.

Humboldt had always loomed large in Haeckel’s life. Born in Potsdam in 1834 – the same year that Humboldt had begun Cosmos – Haeckel had read his books as a boy. His father worked for the Prussian government but was also interested in science and the Haeckel family spent many evenings reading scientific publications aloud to each other. Though he had never met Humboldt, Haeckel had been immersed in his ideas of nature from childhood. He so adored Humboldt’s descriptions of the tropics that he too dreamed of being an explorer, but Haeckel’s father had envisaged a more traditional career for him.

Following his father’s wishes, the eighteen-year-old had therefore enrolled in 1852 at the medical school in Würzburg in Bavaria to become a doctor. Haeckel was homesick and lonely in Würzburg. After long days at school, he withdrew to his room, desperate to read Cosmos. Every evening when he opened the well-thumbed pages, Haeckel disappeared into Humboldt’s glorious world. When not reading, he hiked through the forests, seeking solitude and a connection to the natural world. Tall, slender, handsome and with piercing blue eyes, Haeckel ran and swam every day and was as athletic as Humboldt had been as a young man.

‘I cannot tell you how much joy the pleasure of nature gives me,’ Haeckel wrote to his parents from Würzburg; ‘all my worries disappear at once.’ He wrote of the gentle song of birds and of the wind combing through the leaves. He admired double rainbows and mountain slopes dappled in the fleeting shadows of the clouds. Sometimes Haeckel returned from his long walks loaded with ivy with which he made wreaths that he hung across Humboldt’s portrait in his room. How he longed to live in Berlin, closer to his hero. He wanted to attend the annual dinner at the Geographical Society in Berlin where Humboldt would be, he wrote to his parents in May 1853, a few months after his arrival in Würzburg. Seeing Humboldt – even from a distance – was his ‘most ardent desire’.

The following spring Haeckel was allowed to study for a term in Berlin – and although he failed to glimpse Humboldt, he did find someone else to admire. Haeckel took some classes on comparative anatomy with the most famous German zoologist of the time, Johannes Müller, who was working on fish and marine invertebrates. Enthralled by Müller’s lively stories of seashore collecting, Haeckel spent a summer in Heligoland, a small island off the coast of Germany in the North Sea. He spent his days outside, swimming and catching sea creatures. Haeckel admired the jellyfish they caught – their transparent bodies were veined with streaks of colour and their long tentacles moved elegantly through the water. When he netted a particularly magnificent one, Haeckel had found his favourite animal and a scientific discipline to pursue: zoology.

Ernst Haeckel with his fishing equipment (Illustration Credit 22.1)