Büchner

Büchner, LUDWIG, physician and materialist philosopher, was born at Darmstadt, where his father was a doctor, 29th March 1824. He studied at Giessen, Strasburg, Würzburg, and Vienna. He became a lecturer at Tübingen University, and in 1855 published Kraft und Stoff (14th ed. 1876; Eng. trans. Force and Matter, 1870), in which he attempted scientifically to establish a materialistic view of the universe. A violent controversy was raised; and Büchner saw himself compelled to resign his university post, and begin medical practice in Darmstadt. He wrote much in periodicals on physiological and pathological subjects, as also in support of his atomistic philosophy; published Natur und Geist (1857; 3d ed. 1876), Aus Natur und Wissenschaft (1862), as well as works on Darwinism, the idea of God, the intelligence of animals; and translated Lyell's Antiquity of Man (1864). He died 2d May 1899.—His brother, GEORGE (1813-37), also a doctor by profession, made a name for himself as a poet; and his sister, LUISE (1823-77), was a poetess and novelist.