In the flow [of time] the individual is nothing, the species is everything; and history, just as nature, marks each of its steps forward, even the smallest, with innumerable piles of corpses.
Büchner, Ludwig. Die Macht der Vererbung und ihr Einfluss auf den moralischen und geistigen Fortschritt der Menschheit. 1882.
Without phosphorus there would be no thoughts.
Büchner, Ludwig. attributed. 19th century.
THE question of mind in animals and of their intellectual capacities as compared with those of men is as old as man's thought ;' it can scarcely be accepted as a brilliant testimony to human philosophy and its progress, that the different points of view-from which this question has been judged stand out against each other to-day with almost the same distinctness as was the case some thousand years ago, although lately the influence of the Darwinian theory, and the more accurate knowledge of the remarkable facts of heredity, have thrown a heavy weight into the scale of the opinion hitherto rejected by the majority.
Büchner, Ludwig. Mind in Animals. 1880.
Plutarch seems also to embrace the opinion, about whicb there is now so much controversy, that the difference between animals of the same race is not nearly so great as that between man and man.
Büchner, Ludwig. Mind in Animals. 1880.
The Christian Middle Ages, enemy of all natural investigation, could evidently make no peace with such theories.
Büchner, Ludwig. Mind in Animals. 1880.
After the error, of Atheism," says Descartes, there is none which leads weak minds further from the path of virtue than the idea that the minds of animals resemble our own, and therefore that we have no greater right to a future life than have gnats and ants, while, on the contrary, our mind is quite independent of the body and does not therefore necessarily perish with it."
Büchner, Ludwig. Mind in Animals. 1880.
Besides, the all-powerful devil of the Middle Ages got mixed up in the matter, and was held to be the author of the unmistakable manifestations of reason in animals, by those who sought for some ground for them.
Büchner, Ludwig. Mind in Animals. 1880.
Since I have proved that both the first explanations are utterly unsatisfactory, the last alone remains." Linnaeus, Buffon — who made the admirable remark that we were compelled to marvel the more at the intelligence of animals,* the more we observed and the less we theorised — Voltaire, G. F. Meier (in his famous " Search after a new system of Animal Intelligence," 1750), C. Bonnet, and many others spoke more or less against the Cartesian philosophy.
Büchner, Ludwig. Mind in Animals. 1880.
Nothing is more interesting than to watch this struggle of two passions. If honey, of which ants are known to be inordinately fond and for which they will generally leave all other food, be placed on a battle field between two contending parties, as for instance red and turf ants, some of the warriors will be seen approaching and tasting it. They never stay by it long, but quickly return to the fight. Sometimes these same ants wUl turn back longingly twice or thrice.
Büchner, Ludwig. Mind in Animals. 1880.
Further, all. these bodily and mental qualities vary as much or more in different races, species and individuals, as in different races and individuals amongst nmn As Forel says, there is a greater difference between a FlagtoUpais pygmcea and a Camponotus ligniperduSj than between a mouse and a tiger; and a colony of Lasius fulginosus compared with one of Leptothorax tubei'um, is as Paris compared to a town or village. Strength, swiftness, the power of defence and attack, the number of the population of a colony, timidity, the time and frequency of swarming, smell, love of war, architectural skill, and choice of localities, the art of feeding the young, the habit of day or night work, and many other matters, vary, as Moggridge points out, between the widest limits.
Büchner, Ludwig. Mind in Animals. 1880.
That the extreme intelligence of ants must be related to a special development of their nervous system and especially of their organ of thought, or brain, will be a matter of course to the anatomist and physiologist, who knows that the organ and the function— or its action under given circumstances — must co-exist side by side.
Büchner, Ludwig. Mind in Animals. 1880.
Injuries to the brains of ants are followed by exactly similar results as injuries to those of higher animals, and the behavior of ants with injured brains is just like, or very much resembles, that of men or other mammals suffering from brain-lesions.
Büchner, Ludwig. Mind in Animals. 1880.
There is, moreover, a great difference in the behavior of ants which have only had the antennae and eyes destroyed, and those which have suffered serious brain-lesion. The former show will and consciousness; the latter are automatic and their motions are reflex.
Büchner, Ludwig. Mind in Animals. 1880.
The next most important organs after the feelers are the generally toothed jawbones, nippers, upper jaws or mandibles, which give the ants their peculiar power and force, but which never serve, as was thought, for chevying or eating, but are only weapons and organs of prehension. Ants do not eat solid food, but only lick liquid or soft food with the tongue, like dogs. They tear or bite animals with their mandibles and then lick the soft interior. The mandibles are peculiarly developed and strong in slave-making species and in the so-called soldiers, which in some species are a separate caste, apart from the workers.
Büchner, Ludwig. Mind in Animals. 1880.
As to the so-called queens, it has been already said that they do not exercise the smallest authority, and only so far deserve their name in that, as a rule, they take no part in the ordinary work, and that, omitting their duty of egglaying, they yield themselves up to a dolcefar niente^ a soft idleness, to a frivolous and careless life of pleasure. They also resemble human queens in allowing themselves to be fed by their tom-subjects, but they are very favorably distinguished from their human antetypes, so that under exceptional circumstances, when there is need, they set to work and are not ashamed to perform the same tasks as their subjects.
Büchner, Ludwig. Mind in Animals. 1880.
Clever as these little architects may be, they are, however, subject to error, like human architects, and have to suffer from the clumsiness of some of the laborers.
Büchner, Ludwig. Mind in Animals. 1880.
Two exactly similar cases have been briefly told to the author. Herr F. Moll, of Worms, watched a wood-ant, which was carrying a beech-nut obliquely between its jaws, and wanted to pass through the rather narrow crevice in a gnarled root. As it did not succeed after several attempts, it retreated a few steps, laid down the husk on the ground, seized it by its narrow end and drew it easily through the crevice ! Could a man have done it better ?
Büchner, Ludwig. Mind in Animals. 1880.
Ants sometimes change their dwellings because they are too much in the shade, or are too damp, or from some other unknown reason.
Büchner, Ludwig. Mind in Animals. 1880.
That which makes the Amazons so specially dreaded by the other ants is not their matchless courage so much as. their manner of battle.
Büchner, Ludwig. Mind in Animals. 1880.
On another occasion observed by Forel, in which several fertile Amazons also took part and killed many enemies, the nest was thoroughly ravished, but the retreat was also in this case very much disturbed and harassed by the superior numbers of the enemy.
Büchner, Ludwig. Mind in Animals. 1880.
It was of the pratensis that Huber wrote the observations touching its gymnastic sports which became so famous. He saw these ants on a fine day assembled on the surface of their nest and behaving in a way that he could only explain as simulating festival sports or other games. They raised themselves on their hind legs, embraced each other with their forelegs, seized each other by the antennae, feet, or mandibles and wrestled — ^but aU in friendliest fashion. They then let go, ran after each other, and played hide and seek. When one was victorious, it seized all the others in the ring, and tumbled them over like ninepins.
Büchner, Ludwig. Mind in Animals. 1880.
There are some blind or half blind species which avoid light, and when their road leads them over open places they cover it in with remarkable swiftness by building tunnels or galleries of earth.
Büchner, Ludwig. Mind in Animals. 1880.
The outer forms of the Termites' hills vary in different species. While most are conical, others resemble blunted pillars or giant fungi, the latter having domed roofs, overhanging five centimetres all round, and resting on a tall cjlindrical support four or five feet high. In places subject to great and regular inundations, the Termites' nests are found barrel-shaped and built on the gnarled branches of strong trees, with tubular passages running down the trunks to the ground. Some species live in decayed trees, others subterraneously.
Büchner, Ludwig. Mind in Animals. 1880.
The Termites were first introduced into Europe by a ship from over the seas, and have made themselves remarkable as the most mischievous enemies of wood in Italy, Spain, France, and the greenhouses in SchQnbrunn, near Vienna. In France they have settled along the banks of the Lower Charente, in the towns of Rochefort and la Rochelle, and also in Bordeaux and the vicinity.
Büchner, Ludwig. Mind in Animals. 1880.
WE have already seen that the Termites shun the light of day, and must, therefore, be reckoned among the decided *' darkies." This is also shown to some extent in their State polity, which, as already said, otherwise much resembles the Ant Repnblic, but which approaches the monarchical idea by possessing a standing army and having, generally only one queen.
Büchner, Ludwig. Mind in Animals. 1880.
A bee State without drones is a real female State in the fullest sense of the words, for it contains only fertile females and females with rudimentary sexual organs.
Büchner, Ludwig. Mind in Animals. 1880.
The swarming, which is so important for the maintenance and propagation of the race, can be very simply prevented by artificially widening and enlarging the hive. The nation thus has room enough to spread and to make new. combs, and no longer experiences the need of sending out swarms.
Büchner, Ludwig. Mind in Animals. 1880.
The whole activity of the hive may be divided into two parts, domestic and abroad, the domestic being, as a rule, performed by the younger, and the work abroad by the older bees.
Büchner, Ludwig. Mind in Animals. 1880.
[M]any materialists were jubilant when Darwin published his theory and immediately jumped on the Darwinist bandwagon. They used Darwinism as a club against their religious opponents. Karl Marx, for example, stated that Darwin provided the natural-historical foundation for his views. Friedrich Engels crowed that Darwin had demolished teleology in nature. Ludwig Büchner and Karl Vogt, two prominent scientific materialists in the 1850s, embraced Darwinism with alacrity and used it to buttress their materialist position. However, there’s another side to this story. Many young people in the late nineteenth century were converted to materialism through Darwinism. Karl Kautsky, a leading socialist thinker in late nineteenth-century Germany, for instance, confessed that Darwin’s explanation for the origin of morality won him over to materialism.
Richard Weikart. From Darwin to Hitler (Interview). 2005.
What we still designate as chance, merely depends on a concatenation of circumstances, the internal connection and final causes of which we have as yet been unable to unravel.
Büchner, Ludwig. Force and Matter--Empirico-Philosophical Studies Intelligibly Rendered. 1855.
No force without matter---no matter without force! Neither can be thought of per se; separated, they become empty abstractions.
Büchner, Ludwig. Force and Matter--Empirico-Philosophical Studies Intelligibly Rendered. 1855.
Imagine matter without force, and the minute particles of which a body consists, without that system of mutual attraction and repulsion which holds them together and gives form and shape to the body; imagine the molecular forces of cohesion and affinity removed, what then would be the consequence? The matter must instantly break up into a shapeless nothing.
Büchner, Ludwig. Force and Matter--Empirico-Philosophical Studies Intelligibly Rendered. 1855.
What are the philosophical consequences of this simple and natural truth? That those who talk of a creative power, which is said to have produced the world out of itself, or out of nothing, are ignorant of the first and most simple principle, founded upon experience and the contemplation of nature. How could a power have existed not manifested in material substance, but governing it arbitrarily according to individual views?
Büchner, Ludwig. Force and Matter--Empirico-Philosophical Studies Intelligibly Rendered. 1855.
The world, or matter with its properties which we term forces, must have existed from eternity and must last forever---in one word, the world cannot have been created. The notion "eternal" is certainly one which, with our limited faculties, is difficult of conception. The facts, nevertheless, leave no doubt as to the eternity of the world....
Büchner, Ludwig. Force and Matter--Empirico-Philosophical Studies Intelligibly Rendered. 1855.
Matter is immortal, indestructible. There is not an atom in the universe which can be lost. We cannot, even in thought, remove or add an atom without admitting that the world would thereby be disturbed and the laws of gravitation and the equilibrium of matter interfered with.
Büchner, Ludwig. Force and Matter--Empirico-Philosophical Studies Intelligibly Rendered. 1855.
Matter has, by means of the scales, been followed in all its various and complicated transitions, and everywhere has it been found to emerge from any combination in the same quantity as it has entered. The calculations founded upon this law have everywhere proved to be perfectly correct. .. .
Büchner, Ludwig. Force and Matter--Empirico-Philosophical Studies Intelligibly Rendered. 1855.
How can anyone deny the axiom that out of nothing, nothing can arise? The matter must be in existence, though previously in another form and combination, to produce or to share in any new formation.
Büchner, Ludwig. Force and Matter--Empirico-Philosophical Studies Intelligibly Rendered. 1855.
But never can an atom arise anew or disappear: it can only change its combinations. For these reasons is matter immortal: and for this reason is it, as already shown, impossible that the world can have been created. How could anything be created that cannot be annihilated? . . .
Büchner, Ludwig. Force and Matter--Empirico-Philosophical Studies Intelligibly Rendered. 1855.
There exists a phrase, repeated ad nauseam, of "mortal body and immortal spirit." A closer examination causes us with more truth to reverse the sentence. The body is certainly mortal in its individual form, but not in its constituents.
Büchner, Ludwig. Force and Matter--Empirico-Philosophical Studies Intelligibly Rendered. 1855.
On the contrary, that which we call "spirit" disappears with the dissolution of the individual material combination; and it must appear to any unprejudiced intellect as if the concurrent action of many particles of matter had produced an effect which ceases with the cause.
Büchner, Ludwig. Force and Matter--Empirico-Philosophical Studies Intelligibly Rendered. 1855.
To despise matter and our own body, because it is material---to consider nature and the world as dust which we must endeavor to shake off---nay, to torment our own body, can only arise from a confusion of notions, the result of ignorance or fanaticism.
Büchner, Ludwig. Force and Matter--Empirico-Philosophical Studies Intelligibly Rendered. 1855.
We may, perhaps, share with one of our greatest naturalists his enthusiasm for matter, "the veneration of which formerly called forth an accusation." Whoever degrades matter, degrades himself; who abuses his body, abuses his mind and injures himself to the same degree as, in his foolish imagination, he believed to have profited his soul.
Büchner, Ludwig. Force and Matter--Empirico-Philosophical Studies Intelligibly Rendered. 1855.
Increased knowledge has taught us to have more respect for the matter without and within us. Let us, then, cultivate our body no less than our mind; and let us not forget that they are inseparable, so that which profits the one, profits the other!
Büchner, Ludwig. Force and Matter--Empirico-Philosophical Studies Intelligibly Rendered. 1855.
The laws according to which nature acts, and matter moves, now destroying, now rebuilding, and thus producing the most varied organic and inorganic forms, are eternal and unalterable. An unbending, inexorable necessity governs the mass.
Büchner, Ludwig. Force and Matter--Empirico-Philosophical Studies Intelligibly Rendered. 1855.
The experience of thousands of years has impressed upon the investigator the firmest conviction of the immutability of the laws of nature, so that there cannot remain the least doubt in respect to this great truth.
Büchner, Ludwig. Force and Matter--Empirico-Philosophical Studies Intelligibly Rendered. 1855.
Science has gradually taken all the positions of the childish belief of the peoples; it has snatched thunder and lightning from the hands of the gods; the eclipse of the stars, and the stupendous powers of the Titans of the olden time, have been grasped by the fingers of man
Büchner, Ludwig. Force and Matter--Empirico-Philosophical Studies Intelligibly Rendered. 1855.
We have the fullest right, and are scientifically correct, in asserting there is no such thing as a miracle; everything that happens does so in a natural way.
Büchner, Ludwig. Force and Matter--Empirico-Philosophical Studies Intelligibly Rendered. 1855.
It was no mighty arm reaching down from the ether which raised the mountains, limited the seas, and created man and beast according to pleasure, but it was effected by the same forces which to this day produce hill and dale and living beings; and all this happened according to the strictest necessity....
Büchner, Ludwig. Force and Matter--Empirico-Philosophical Studies Intelligibly Rendered. 1855.
The fate of man resembles the fate of nature. It is similarly dependent on natural laws, and it obeys without exception the same stringent and inexorable necessity which governs all that exists. It lies in the nature of every living being that it should be born and die; none has ever escaped that law; death is the surest calculation that can be made, and the unavoidable keystone of every individual existence.
Büchner, Ludwig. Force and Matter--Empirico-Philosophical Studies Intelligibly Rendered. 1855.
The supplications of the mother, the tears of the wife, the despair of the husband, cannot stay his hands. "The natural laws," says Vogt, "are rude unbending powers, which have neither morals nor heart." No call can awaken from the sleep of death; no angel can deliver the prisoner from the dungeon; no hand from the clouds reaches bread to the hungry....
Büchner, Ludwig. Force and Matter--Empirico-Philosophical Studies Intelligibly Rendered. 1855.
The investigations of geology have thrown a highly interesting and important light on the history of the origin and gradual development of the earth. It was in the rocks and strata of the crust of the earth, and in the organic remains, that geologists read, as in an old chronicle, the history of the earth. In this history they found the plainest indications of several stupendous successive revolutions, now produced by fire, now by water, now by their combined action.
Büchner, Ludwig. Force and Matter--Empirico-Philosophical Studies Intelligibly Rendered. 1855.
It is now known that there can be no discussion about these periodic ereatiorts of the earth of which so much was said, and which to this day an erroneous conception of nature tries to identify with the so-called days of creation of the Bible, but that the whole past of the earth is nothing but an unfolded present.
Büchner, Ludwig. Force and Matter--Empirico-Philosophical Studies Intelligibly Rendered. 1855.
We see at present all these slow and local effects, which millions of years have produced in their entirety, and cannot, therefore, divest ourselves of the idea of a direct creative power, whilst we are merely surrounded by the natural effects of natural forces The whole science of the conditions of development of the earth is however, the greatest victory over every kind of faith in an extramundane authority.
Büchner, Ludwig. Force and Matter--Empirico-Philosophical Studies Intelligibly Rendered. 1855.
A spirit without body is as unimaginable as electricity or magnetism without metallic or other substances on which these forces act. We have equally shown that the animal soul does not come into the world with any innate intuitions, that it does not represent an ens per se, but is a product of external influences, without which it would never have been called into existence.
Büchner, Ludwig. Force and Matter--Empirico-Philosophical Studies Intelligibly Rendered. 1855.
Man is a product of nature in body and mind. Hence not merely what he is but also what he does, wills, feels, and thinks depends upon the same natural necessity as the whole structure of the world Only a superficial observation of human existence could lead to the conclusion that the actions of nations and of individuals were the result of a perfectly free will. A closer inquiry teaches us, on the contrary, that the connection of nature is so essential and necessary, that free will, if it exist, can only have a very limited range; it teaches us to recognize in all these phenomena fixed laws which hitherto were considered as the results of free choice. "Human liberty, of which all boast' says Spinoza, "consists solely in this, that man is conscious of his will, and unconscious of the causes by which it is determined "
Büchner, Ludwig. Force and Matter--Empirico-Philosophical Studies Intelligibly Rendered. 1855.
The conduct and actions of every individual are dependent upon the character, manners, and modes of thought of the nation to which he belongs. These again are, to a certain extent, the necessary product of external circumstances under which they live and have grown up....
Büchner, Ludwig. Force and Matter--Empirico-Philosophical Studies Intelligibly Rendered. 1855.
But what is this intellectual individuality which determines man and prescribes to him, in every individual case, his mode of action with such force that there remains for him but a minute space for free choice; what else is it but the necessary product of congenital physical and mental dispositions in connection with education, example, rank, property, sex, nationality, climate, soil, and other circumstances? Man is subject to the same laws as plants and animals.....
Büchner, Ludwig. Force and Matter--Empirico-Philosophical Studies Intelligibly Rendered. 1855.
We must finally be permitted to leave all questions about morality and utility out of sight. The chief and indeed the sole object which concerned us in these researches is truth. Nature exists neither for religion, for morality, nor for human beings; but it exists for itself. What else can we do but take it as it is? Would it not be ridiculous in us to cry like little children because our bread is not sufficiently buttered?
Büchner, Ludwig. Force and Matter--Empirico-Philosophical Studies Intelligibly Rendered. 1855.
Source: European Graduate School (EGS)