WASMANN, ERICH. - Jesuit, naturalist and entomologist, b. at Merano (Tyrol) on 29 May 1859, d. at Valkenburg (Holland) on 27 February 1931.
Having entered the Order in 1875, he was forced by tuberculosis into long stays 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 attached to Stimmen aus Maria Laach as biology editor, he lived from 1892 at Exaeten, from 1899 at Luxembourg, from 1912 at Valkenburg, ever more immersed in his biological studies. The fruit of these, besides numerous articles for periodicals including scientific ones, were: Vergleichende Studien über die Seelen der Ameisen und der höheren Tiere, Freiburg im Br. 1897; Instinkt und Intelligenz im Tierreich, ibid. 1897; Die psychischen Fähigkeiten der Ameisen, Stuttgart 1890; Die Gastpflege der Ameisen, ihre biologischen und philosophischen Probleme, Freiburg im Br. 1920; Die Ameisenminikry, ibid. 1924. Besides the scientific merits he acquired in this field, his name is linked to the struggle against anthropological evolutionism and monistic materialism. The work Die moderne Biologie und die Entwicklungslehre (ibid. 1904) caused a great stir; E. Haeckel sought to refute it in the Berlin lectures of 1915, to which W. replied in other lectures with rebuttal in Berlin and Freiburg in 1907, not only against evolution and the animal origin of man, but also to demonstrate the harmony that reigns between science and faith (cf. M. Wasmann, Der Kampf um das Entwicklungsproblem in Berlin 1907 [ibid. 1907] and L. Plata, Ultramontane Weltanschauung und moderne Lebenskunde [ibid. 1907]). The Berlin lectures aroused wide discussion in scientific circles and exercised a salutary influence not only on Catholics but also on many Protestants, who proclaimed W. the equal of his opponents in science, but greatly superior in logic. W. concedes, it is true, for the animal kingdom a broad evolution from species to species according to its own internal laws; but, with regard to the body of man, he declares against Haeckel that the proofs adduced for its animal derivation are insufficient; while, as regards the spirituality of the human soul, any dependence on and connection with matter and with any animal species, even the most evolved, must be excluded. A member of numerous academies and scientific societies, W. was a pioneer in his entomological field and has the merit of having dealt a mortal blow to Haeckelian monism. His printed works number about 750, of which 435 are on entomology.