68. Rudolf Heidenhain Died on October 13, 1897

Describing the significance of the physiologist Rudolf Heidenhain, who died a few days ago, for his discipline is not one of the tasks of this weekly publication. However, it should not remain unconsidered that Heidenhain's work was carried out in the Wroclaw University Laboratory, which is important for anyone who has a need for a general understanding of the world. In our age of specialization, the results of scholarly individual work do not easily penetrate the general consciousness of the educated. It is partly due to this circumstance that Heidenhain's investigations into the life of the cell have not had the influence on our modern world view that they should have had by their very nature. However, there is something else that I will mention later.

Our view of nature clearly strives towards the goal of explaining the life of organisms according to the same laws. organisms according to the same laws by which the phenomena of inanimate nature must also be explained. Mechanical, physical and chemical laws are sought in the animal and plant body. The same kind of laws that govern a machine should also be at work in the organism, only in an infinitely complicated and difficult to recognize form. Nothing should be added to these laws to make the phenomenon we call life possible. They are supposed to be able to do it alone in a manifold concatenation. This mechanistic view of the phenomena of life is gaining more and more ground. However, it will never satisfy those who are capable of taking a deeper look at natural processes. Such a person will recognize that laws of a higher order are at work in the organism than in lifeless nature. It will become clear to him that only he who does not see such laws can deny them. The person who sees more deeply will not like to argue with anyone about the laws of organic life, just as the person who sees colors will not argue with the color-blind person about colors. Such a deep seer knows that even in the smallest cell laws of a higher kind are at work than in the machine.

Through investigations such as Heidenhain's, the ideas about special laws of organisms gain specific content in detail. This researcher has shown that the cells of the salivary glands are in a state of living activity when the secretion product of the same is produced. Thus secretion is not brought about by mere physical causes, but by the active life of the small organs. Heidenhain has demonstrated something similar for the cells of the kidney and the intestinal walls. It is not the mere mechanical blood pressure or the chemical forces in question that are solely active, but special organic driving forces. Under certain conditions, these driving forces can work alone, independently of mechanical effects, under certain other conditions in combination with those others.

It remains characteristic of the way modern natural scientists think that Heidenhain himself did not draw the conclusion from his experiments that the life of cells obeys higher laws than the things of inorganic nature. He lived under the delusion that the life he perceived in the cells could still be explained by physical and chemical processes. Here one encounters a way of looking at things that immediately seems to lapse into mysticism when it leaves the ground of the simple laws according to which a stone falls to earth or according to which two liquids mix. One believes to enter the realm of miracles, of lawlessness, when one steps out of the realm of the purely mechanical laws of nature. This is the second reason why Heidenhain's experiments did not have a sufficient effect on the world view of the time. The natural scientists of today are too cowardly in their thinking. When they run out of wisdom in their mechanical explanations, they say: the matter cannot be explained for us. The future will bring enlightenment. They do not venture further than they can penetrate with the poor laws of mechanics, physics and chemistry. Bold thinking rises to a higher way of looking at things. It attempts to explain what is not mechanical according to higher laws. All our scientific thinking lags behind our scientific experience. The scientific way of thinking is highly praised today. It is said that we live in a scientific age. But basically this scientific age is the poorest that history has to record. It is characterized by a clinging to mere facts and mechanical explanations. Life is never comprehended by this way of thinking, because such a comprehension requires a higher level of imagination than the explanation of a machine.