WASMANN, ERICH. – Jesuit, naturalist and entomologist, born in Merano (Tyrol) on 29 May 1859, died in Valkenburg (Holland) on 27 February 1931.
He entered the Order in 1875 and was forced by tuberculosis to spend long periods in the countryside, where he devoted himself to studying the life of ants and termites, their colonies, instincts, and parasites. Ordained a priest (1888) and appointed to the Stimmen aus Maria Laach as editor for biology, he lived from 1892 at Exaeten, from 1899 in Luxembourg, and from 1912 in Valkenburg, becoming ever more immersed in his biological studies. The fruits of these studies, besides numerous articles for periodicals, including scientific ones, were: Vergleichende Studien über die Seelen der Ameisen und der höheren Tiere, Freiburg im Breisgau 1897; Instinkt und Intelligenz im Tierreich, there 1897; Die psychischen Fähigkeiten der Ameisen, Stuttgart 1890; Die Gastpflege der Ameisen, ihre biologischen und philosophischen Probleme, Freiburg im Breisgau 1920; Die Ameisenminikry, there 1924. In addition to the scientific merits he acquired in this field, his name is associated with the struggle against anthropological evolutionism and monistic materialism. The work Die moderne Biologie und die Entwicklungslehre (there 1904) caused a great stir; E. Haeckel attempted to refute it in the Berlin lectures of 1915, to which W. replied in other lectures, with debate, in Berlin and Freiburg in 1907, not only against evolution and the animal origin of man, but also to demonstrate the harmony that exists between science and faith (cf. M. Wasmann, Der Kampf um das Entwicklungsproblem in Berlin 1907 [there 1907] and L. Plata, Ultramontane Weltanschauung und moderne Lebenskunde [there 1907]). The Berlin lectures prompted extensive discussions among scientists and exerted a salutary influence not only on Catholics but also on many Protestants, who declared W. equal to his opponents in science, but far superior in logic. W. does indeed concede, for the animal kingdom, extensive evolution from species to species according to its own internal laws; but, with regard to the human body, he declares, against Haeckel, the evidence adduced for its animal derivation insufficient; while, as regards the spirituality of the human soul, dependence on and connection with matter and with any animal species, however highly evolved, must be excluded. A member of numerous academies and scientific societies, W. was a pioneer in his entomological field and deserves credit for having dealt a mortal blow to Haeckelian monism. His printed works number approximately 750, of which 435 concern entomology.