M. A. Menzbir:
A Quiet Defender of Orthodoxy

In 1882, three years after graduating from Moscow University, Mikhail Aleksandrovich Menzbir (1855–1935) wrote two studies which opened two distinct avenues for his future scholarship. The Ornithologi -

cal Geography of European Russia, immediately accepted as a masterwork in zoogeography, started him on a distinguished career in the study of the ecological features and taxonomy of Russian birds. Going against the established practice in zoogeography, he divided the vast territory he studied into distinct regions by relying on faunistic rather than on geographical features. This study kept Menzbir close to the current work in natural history, which acquired massive proportions particularly after the founding of naturalist societies at all the leading universities. It brought quick and impressive rewards: in the same year he was appointed editor of the serial publications of the Moscow Society of Naturalists, a job he held until his death; two years later he was appointed docent at Moscow University, the institution with which he was affiliated most of his life. The second work was an essay commemorating the death of Charles Darwin, the first in a long series of publications Menzbir devoted to the scientific contributions of the founder of the evolutionary theory. Published in the popular journal Russian Thought, this article presented the main components of Darwin's theory, showing, in particular, the usefulness of the evolutionary orientation in ornithology. Unlike most of his Russian contemporaries, he made no objection to Darwin's reliance on Malthusian progressions.^[28]

In the scope and fervor of his defense of Darwin's scientific legacy, Menzbir was Timiriazev's equal. The two men, however, did not fit the same pattern of scholarly engagement. They brought different backgrounds to their involvement in Darwinian studies. Timiriazev, a plant physiologist, brought an awareness of the importance of physiology to the study of evolution, as well as a conviction that physicochemical analysis should be the primary method of physiology. Menzbir, by contrast, came from a background that combined zoogeography and systematics, a common combination at this time. His ornithological studies appealed to bird lovers, ecologists, and taxonomists alike; most of them stayed at a low level of theoretical considerations.

Both Timiriazev and Menzbir addressed most of their writings on evolution to two audiences: professional biologists and interested laymen. The modes of their writing were quite different. Timiriazev was particularly eager to show the intricacies of Darwin's construction of the conceptual base of his theory of evolution. Menzbir was much more interested in showing how evolution, as Darwin interpreted it, worked in real life. Timiriazev used empirical data to illustrate the intricacies of the general theory of evolution; Menzbir used evolutionary theory to trace transformation processes in specific subdivisions of the ani-

mal universe. There were other differences as well. Unlike Timiriazev, Menzbir was calm, careful, and systematic in reacting to "unorthodox" views in evolutionary theory. In his concessions to the new discoveries in experimental biology he was more gracious than Timiriazev, and his arguments did not transgress the limits of academic propriety. In one important respect the two scientists acted as one: both contended that Darwin's theory of evolution needed only clarification and refinement to be fully established as the primary factor of organic evolution. Despite the measured tone of his rebuttals, Menzbir stuck firmly to the idea that all new developments in biological theory must be judged by their contributions to the universal appeal and revolutionary significance of Darwin's science.

There was another pronounced difference between Timiriazev and Menzbir. Timiriazev was very close to Darwin: he cited him profusely, he stuck closely not only to the substance but also to the style of Darwin's scientific argumentation, and he approached Darwin's theory as a symmetrical, explicit, and integrated system of thought. Menzbir was much less prone to make direct references to—particularly to cite—Darwin: in some essays on evolution, written in the Darwinian spirit, he did not make a single direct reference to Darwin. His Darwinism was selective, asymmetrical, and rather personal. He ignored most of Darwin's suggestions for future exploratory work and his views on more sensitive problems of methodology. Yet in his dedication and basic theoretical commitments Menzbir was one of Darwin's most loyal and enthusiastic followers.

Menzbir's loyalty to Darwin's theory made him a staunch defender of the common origin of man and animal. In 1889 R. Virchow, in a speech at the Congress of German Anthropologists held in Vienna, made a plea for dissociating anthropology from evolutionary ideas and from Darwinian theories. He justified his action on the ground that all efforts to produce a scientific explanation of the origin of man had fallen by the wayside.^[29] He argued that no lower animals could be identified as ancestors of man; nor did he think that science would ever be in a position to answer the question of man's animal origin. Four years later Menzbir published an article analyzing and refuting Virchow's argumentation point by point, mainly by relying on a string of authorities in evolutionary biology. Menzbir considered the animal origin of man a foregone conclusion; his major aim was to defend the power and resourcefulness of Darwinian theory and to uphold the supremacy of "scientific materialism." In the process, however, he gave Russian readers an opportunity

to learn about the basic issues that came in the wake of Darwin's suggestions on the ancestry of man.

P. P. Sushkin, a leading ecological evolutionist, noted in 1916 that in his lectures and published studies Menzbir relied on Darwinian models and analytical designs to give his own ideas inner consistency and overall unity.^[30] Although Darwin's ideas, in Menzbir's view, were not unchallengeable dogmas that discouraged criticism, they were impervious to sweeping criticism and flippant negation. Held together by firm principles, they needed only additional supporting facts, more precision, and wider vistas of research. Only the theory of sexual selection required a more radical reconstitution.^[31] Menzbir relied on the Origin of Species not only for help in general biological theory but for empirical information as well. To students in his zoology classes he presented Darwin both as the creator of a grand theory of evolution and as a true master of the inductive method. Darwin, he said, wanted his followers to treat the theory of evolution as an open system of ideas, inviting criticism and obeying the rules of the inductive method. Menzbir wrote:

Darwin's legacy stresses not a blind allegiance to his authority but a reliance on the inductive method of studying nature, discovering its laws, and unraveling its secrets. In none of his volumes do we encounter passages written in a dogmatic tone. Moderation and modesty give weight and credence to the proofs he uses in support of his theses.^[32]

Darwin's close adherence to the rules of the inductive method evoked most favorable—and very frequent—comments in Russia, among opponents no less than among followers. Particularly appealing was Darwin's abundantly displayed willingness to point out his own conclusions that required additional empirical testing and support. In The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication Darwin made concrete suggestions on how to proceed in empirical testing of natural selection:

This hypothesis may be tested—and this seems to me the only fair and legitimate manner of considering the whole question—by trying whether it explains several large and independent classes of facts; such as the geological succession of organic beings, their distribution in past and present time, and their mutual affinities and homologies. If the principle of natural selection does explain these and other large bodies of facts, it ought to be received.^[33]

While praising the power and rich perspectives of Darwin's inductionism, Menzbir was only too ready to point out and to criticize the speculative constructions built into the theories of some scholars who considered themselves true Darwinists. Ernst Haeckel, as Menzbir saw

him, tried to dress Darwinian ideas in the abstractions of "the recently expired Naturphilosophie ."^[34] Right or wrong, Menzbir was convinced that individual German biologists were deeply steeped in the metaphysical habits of the masters of Naturphilosophie, even though this orientation had ceased to exist as an organized movement. Haeckel copied the logical forms, not the ontological foundations, of Naturphilosophie . The complete system of Haeckel's phylogenetic propositions built into the gastraea theory showed a full disregard of accumulated empirical evidence. Haeckel made no reference to the geographical distribution of plants and animals, and he had little respect for paleontology. He spent more time in creating nature than in studying it.^[35] As a systematizer of morphological knowledge, however, he made contributions of lasting value. In general, he was guilty, according to Menzbir, of not following Darwin's advice that the future triumph of the idea of evolution would come from the cooperative work of many branches of biology.

Contemporary developments in biology attracted Menzbir's attention only insofar as they referred to the key positions of Darwin's theory. In Theodor Eimer's theory of orthogenesis—built on the idea of organic evolution as a process moving in a definite direction and clearly affiliated with Lamarckian thought—he saw an unwelcome and dangerous invitation to teleological interference. In elaborating his orthogenetic views, Eimer refused to recognize random variation as a source of organic evolution. By rejecting the random occurrences of variation, he eliminated the need for natural selection. Nor did Menzbir favor Petr Kropotkin's theory of mutual aid, which categorically rejected Darwin's theory of the struggle for existence and was closely tied to Lamarck's idea of the direct influence of the environment on the evolutionary process.^[36] Menzbir was not impressed with the "successful" efforts of Kammerer, Standfuss, and E. Fischer to present the direct influence of the environment as a leading factor of evolution. Laboratory conditions, he said, accelerate the evolutionary process and make it unrepresentative of the work of nature. He was willing to accept the direct influence of the environment only in cases where it did not interfere with the work of natural selection.

In 1891 the popular journal Russian Thought invited Menzbir to contribute an article on "the present state of biology." Responding to the invitation, he wrote that all contemporary biologists were clearly divided into evolutionists (Darwinists) and antievolutionists (anti-Darwinists), that each group had made its position clear and irrevo-

cable, and that the differences between the two groups were irreconcilable, which made the ongoing strife a totally useless exercise. At this time Menzbir was firm in his belief that the anti-Darwinists were "soundly defeated." He saw the triumph of Darwinism not only in its answering specific questions related to organic transformation but also in its giving biology a general method.^[37] The task of modern biology was not to question the validity of Darwinian principles but to carry them to previously unexplored domains of nature. Arguing from a Newtonian position, Menzbir stated that to demand new proofs for Darwin's theory was "as unnecessary, and as harmful, as to enter into a polemic with Laplace."^[38] At this time, it should be noted, Laplace's views on the absolute and universal validity of causal explanations stood for the quintessence of Newtonian science.

In 1893 Menzbir no longer clung to the view of a sharp and irreconcilable split in biology between Darwinists and anti-Darwinists. Now he recognized the clear existence of an intermediate group of biologists who were neither anti-Darwinists nor orthodox Darwinists. This group recognized the generality of the Darwinian struggle for existence, but it also advanced an anti-Darwinian theory of heredity that placed exclusive emphasis on internal causation. Menzbir took the trouble to explain the details of Weismann's neo-Darwinian theory for the readers of Russian Thought . While welcoming Weismann's strong support for Darwinian natural selection, he argued that his interpretation of the mechanism of heredity required extensive refashioning and refinement. Weismann's theory of heredity, as Menzbir viewed it, suffered from conceptual overelaboration that made it far removed from both the experimental and natural-historical base of biology. In Weismann's "biophores," "determinants," and "ids," he saw unreal categories created by philosophical playfulness detached from the empirical underpinnings of modern science.^[39]

Despite these reservations, Menzbir did not hesitate to voice a favorable opinion about the potential usefulness of Weismann's theory of heredity. Weismann, he wrote, must be given credit for helping create a tradition in Russia that encouraged efforts to build a theoretical bridge between Darwin's legacy and experimental biology, particularly the branch concerned with heredity and variation.^[40] Although it was a product of a particular tradition in German philosophy rather than of solid empirical research, Weismann's theory was destined to serve for a long time as a source of fertile ideas.^[41]

Hugo de Vries's mutation theory, which viewed saltation rather than

"slight modification" as the real source of variation in the forms of life, acquired widespread reputation as a major assault on Darwin's theory. At first Menzbir looked at the new theory with a great deal of suspicion. He was unwilling to attach more importance to "sudden leaps" than to "slight modifications" in morphological features. Nor could he see how the extremely rare saltatory digressions from the norm of heredity could explain the universality and unceasing movement of evolution. He was not even sure whether de Vries's "mutation" and Korzhinskii's "heterogenesis" were one and the same thing, as they were generally assumed to be. The struggle for existence, he said, played an important role in de Vries's theory but did not figure at all in Korzhinskii's thinking.^[42] His first reaction was to count de Vries among the anti-Darwinists, whose ranks made significant gains at the turn of the century. He softened his criticism as soon as he learned that de Vries's allegiance to the idea of evolution, and to Darwin's natural selection, was not in doubt. In his judgment:

It is not generally known that de Vries is an evolutionist; if he were not an evolutionist he would not have spent long years in search of an answer to the question of the origin of species. Never questioning the transformability of species, he worked carefully and impartially on experiments aimed at decoding "the secret of secrets," as the origin of species was previously termed.^[43]

After having completed a critical survey of de Vries's mutation theory, Menzbir drew a conclusion that characterized his rather uncertain attitude toward the challenges of the new experimental biology to the Darwinian orthodoxy:

De Vries's theory, still requiring elaboration and still unsettled in its foundations, cannot replace Darwin's theory, which is well balanced and general, and can answer an infinite series of questions. Nor can it cause a crisis in the development of Darwinism, which has brought together all branches of biology. But my last word about de Vries's research shall not be negative. There, where so much work has been done to answer the most important biological questions, even if that work has contributed only a few grains of truth to science, there can be no negative judgment. Even if we cannot agree with the conclusions of the creator of the mutation theory, we sincerely hope that he will continue his experimental work. Without doubt, this work will produce many new ideas, which may or may not sustain the mutation theory.^[44]

Menzbir was less kind to the Russian botanist S. I. Korzhinskii, whose theory of heterogenesis, made public in 1899, attracted much attention in the West. Like de Vries, Korzhinskii recognized saltatory changes, not caused by external influences, as the primary source of

morphological variation in plants and animals. In one respect, however, the two scientists were far apart: while de Vries recognized natural selection and the struggle for existence as factors of evolution and was full of praise for Darwin's contributions to the triumph of the evolutionary view in biology, Korzhinskii had nothing kind to say about Darwin's conclusions and was ready to reject evolution as a useful biological notion. Menzbir lamented Korzhinskii's premature death, which prevented him from completing the work on his new theory. He claimed that Korzhinskii ignored the actual processes linking heterogenetic change to the emergence of new species.^[45] Menzbir reminded his readers that Darwin was fully aware of saltatory changes and their role in the origin of new species. He was convinced, however, that their exceedingly rare occurrence makes it impossible to treat them as a major factor in the general evolutionary process.

Menzbir was untypically slow in commenting on the rediscovery of Mendelian laws of heredity in 1900. The third edition of his popular university textbook in zoology and comparative anatomy, published in 1906, surveyed the basic principles of the mutation theory, but it fully ignored Mendel and current elaborations of Mendelian genetics. He waited more than twenty years after the rediscovery of Mendel's laws of heredity to comment on the relations of genetics to Darwinism. At that time he acknowledged Mendel's contribution to "the field of hybridization" and to the study of the "mechanism of heredity," but he was sure to add that all this did not explain "the evolution of the organic world" and that Mendel did not make such a claim in the first place.^[46]

In Menzbir's view the future of Darwinism, and of science in general, was in the expansion and refinement of the mechanistic view of the universe. He made little effort to examine the growing attack on Newtonianism by the swelling ranks of contemporary scientists and philosophers. He wrote in 1901 in the widely circulated Russian Thought :

The nineteenth century was dominated by the idea that the phenomena of life are open to mechanical explanation, a conviction that met no opposition. The superiority and the power of mechanical explanation are built on the obvious fact that this mode of scientific thinking offers simple and comprehensive interpretations of phenomena, uses the established methods of the exact sciences, and penetrates the depths of the most complex and mysterious phenomena of life. The mechanical approach offers a powerful analytical tool that can handle even the most complex living phenomena and their minutely segmented components. . . . The so-called philosophical school continues to claim that, despite their brilliant discoveries, the scientists continue to be unable to explain force, matter, and life. This is not true;

every scientist has an excellent understanding of life. Regardless of how we view organisms, we know that a plant lives as long as chlorophyll gives it energy by dissolving carbon dioxide and as long as it produces starch. We know that an animal lives as long as its nervous system receives impressions from the outside world and reacts to them. We also know that both plants and animals live only so long as they exist in both space and time. Inasmuch as our study of vital phenomena depends on the methods employed in the study of all other forms of motion, it produces the same results as long as we do not separate the notion of the organic from the notion of the inorganic. We know the difference between these two categories of phenomena. But we also know that all forms of motion in nature—from molecular motion to the motion of celestial bodies—give us an idea of uniformity and harmony superimposed upon the innate diversity of natural phenomena. The nineteenth century built a bridge between inorganic substance and protein compounds, between protein as a cosmic body and protein as a self-destroying body, and between plants and animals, the latter endowed with strikingly complex behavioral mechanisms. It made all phenomena parts of an indissoluble chain. While coming quietly to a close, it presented all those who showed interest in science with a picture of the grand unity of nature, revealed in the gradual development of the universe.^[47]

Menzbir was not very comfortable in discussing philosophical issues. He thought that idealism and materialism, each as a distinct philosophical strategy, had contributed to the accelerated progress of modern science. Idealism helped elaborate and refine the deductive method and the growing role of mathematics in the growth of scientific knowledge.^[48] Materialism made a major contribution to the creation of a unified picture of the universe: it made "matter and motion" the common denominators of inorganic and organic worlds. Materialism had shown that "nature is one"—that every natural phenomenon is part of a causal link, and that there is no predetermined purposiveness in nature, even though there is harmony. While making tactical concessions to the idealistic strain in science, Menzbir appeared to have been leaning toward materialism—toward the idea of the sovereignty of "matter-in-motion." In another paper he stated explicitly that the triumph of "mechanical explanation" in biology was one of the greatest achievements of the nineteenth century.^[49]

Menzbir admitted that Darwin's theory had not yet achieved full victory. He believed, however, that Darwinism would not only survive all the challenges that came from experimental biology, various branches of neo-Lamarckism, and organismic metaphysics, but would acquire new strength and authority. The new biological theories, he said, can survive and become parts of modern scientific thinking only insofar as

they contribute new information and modes of inquiry to the grand edifice of Darwinian science. The new theories enriched Darwinism, and they also benefited from it. "It is difficult for us to imagine how Darwin would have reacted to the data put forth by his enemies. But we do know that Darwin was aware of the ideas that went into the making of de Vries's mutation theory and Mendel's law of heredity."^[50]

Despite accumulated challenges to its principles, Darwinism, as Menzbir viewed it, represented one of the greatest intellectual challenges of modern time. It inspired all those who cherished the spirit of free inquiry and who showed no fear of transgressing the limits of thought imposed by tradition. "Darwinism became a horrifying specter for all those who were steeped in prejudice and egotism." Darwin's theory, Menzbir argued, was too viable and too timely to be crushed by its enemies. The bitter attacks on it during the 1880s—the Danilevskii-Strakhov era—succeeded, in his opinion, neither in beclouding its rising star nor in undermining its scientific principles; they merely showed the deep pessimism of a society in crisis—a society devastated by intellectual "darkness," "moral crisis," and "loss of faith in itself." Menzbir made it clear that "pessimism" and "moral crisis" had taken deep roots in a large part of the civilized world. In his view, the bitter attacks on Darwin's theory were the purest symptoms of the intellectual and ethical disorientation of modern society.^[51]

Darwin, as Menzbir saw him, wrought a revolution in biology and radically transformed the modern world outlook. His works are rich in theoretical thought and research perspectives and are well stocked with precious empirical data and cogent insights. Menzbir was determined to present Darwin as a model scientist—a personification of the highest standards of contemporary scientific methodology. Guided by "the spirit of free inquiry," Darwin tolerated only the ideas open to challenge. He freed science from metaphysical and theological doctrines and modes of thinking, as well as from intellectual subservience to authority of any kind. By purifying the inductive method, he contributed to the modern emphasis on experimental studies and to a methodological recognition of the unity of inorganic and organic nature. Menzbir joined the commentators on the general development of modern scientific ideas who called Darwin "the Newton of biology."^[52]

With Darwinism uppermost in his mind, Menzbir worked on many fronts of biological scholarship. He carried on empirical and synthetic research in ornithology and wrote special essays showing the effectiveness of Darwin's theory as a research tool. In a series of biographical

sketches of the pioneers of modern evolutionary biology he illumined the key ramifications of Darwin's theory and the most potent challenges germinated by more recent developments in evolutionary thought. Not avoiding a confrontation with the philosophical aspects of Darwinism, Menzbir worked with remarkable consistency on clarifying and strengthening the Newtonian base of evolutionary biology. He participated in public debates on the issues of evolution and served as a busy functionary of the Moscow Society of Naturalists. The writer of a successful university textbook on zoology and comparative anatomy, he also translated several biological-evolutionary classics from the English language, including Alfred Russel Wallace's Darwinism and Natural Selection . He was partly responsible for one of the better Russian translations of the Origin of Species .

In 1900 Menzbir published a series of essays under the general title "The Leading Representatives of Darwinism." Individual essays presented the evolutionary views of Wallace, George Romanes, Haeckel, and Weismann. A few years earlier he had published a similar essay on Thomas Huxley. His aim was clearly to show the flow of evolutionary ideas from various disciplinary sources to a central pool of knowledge and to point out both the commendable contributions to and the lamentable digressions from the basic principles of Darwin's theory. The study of "digressions" produced a significant by-product: it led Menzbir to point out the domains of evolutionary thought, such as the theory of heredity, which needed help from the non-Darwinian effort in biological research. In the work of Haeckel and Weismann, Menzbir detected a strong influence of the cognitive habits and metaphysical propensities of Naturphilosophie, which separated the idea of evolution from the reality of empirical data. He did not approve of Wallace's claim that mental differences between man and animal are differences of kind rather than of degree;^[53] and he thought that Romanes's "theory of physiological selection," intended to replace Darwin's theory of natural selection, consisted of incongruous parts that prevented it from acquiring empirical support.^[54] Despite the shortcomings of certain aspects of their theories, Menzbir admitted that these scholars provided the main wheels for the triumph of Darwinian ideas and for carrying the theory of natural selection to new areas for research. Haeckel's empirical work represented the high point in the development of evolutionary morphology; Wallace was the most consistent and most thorough defender of Darwin's general theory; Weismann showed the path for the experimental study of heredity; and Romanes carried Darwin's theory to the vast area of "mental evolution."