Hans Adolf Eduard Driesch Biography

German developmental biologist, and a vitalist, born in Bad Kreuznach, Prussia. Educated at Frieburg and Munich, he received his doctorate in Jena in 1889 under Ernst Haeckel. Driesch travelled extensively in Europe and the Far East, working at the International Zoological Station in Naples between 1891 and 1900. During this time he performed a renowned series of experiments on sea urchin embryos that conclusively demonstrated that the fate of a cell is not determined in the early developmental stages. In 1896, he became the first to demonstrate embryonic induction. After serving as the Gifford lecturer at Aberdeen in 1907–8, Driesch was appointed professor of philosophy at Heidelberg (1911–20), and subsequently at Cologne and Leipzig.

Driesch's early interest in biology was gradually overshadowed by his involvement in philosophy. The discovery, in sea urchins, that a portion of an early embryo could develop into a complete, though smaller than normal, organism contradicted then-current mechanistic theories and led Driesch to develop a theory of vitalism that life is directed by a unique principle and cannot be explained solely in terms of chemical and physical processes. His main work on the subject of vitalism is The History and Theory of Vitalism (1905). Driesch came to believe that living activities, especially development, were controlled by an indefinable vital principle, which he called entelechy.

Driesch's pacifism and philosophical beliefs made him anathema to the Nazi regime. He was forced to retire in 1933. He died in Leipzig on 16 April 1941.

Key publications include The Science and Philosophy of the Organism (1908) compiled from the Gifford lectures at Aberdeen in 1907, Theory of Order (1912), Logic as a Task (1913), and Theory of Reality (1917).

(Published 2004)

Richard L. Gregory