Science and the concept of totality in Georg Buchner's Lenz, Woyzeck, and Die Probevorlesung

The German writer Georg Buchner (1813 - 1837) studied medicine and completed a doctoral dissertation in comparative anatomy, and the nature of science's role in human existence and the natural world is displayed artistically and diagnostically in his novella Lenz and his drama fragment Woyzeck. In an anatomical lecture Die Probevorlesung, Buchner eloquently articulates his concept of science, philosophy, and nature. His analytical methodology always aims to group the totality of the living organism, and it classifies science as an integral, but not exclusive, component of nature and human existence. Science must be combined with other, equally important elements to arrive at valid conclusions. Though his lecture was delivered after he wrote Lenz, his concept of the totality of human existence had been established well before the novella was written. Lenz and Woyzeck owe much of their complexity to Buchner's understanding of science. Each protagonist is derived from actual documentation of one or more mentally disturbed individuals. Buchner complements his scientific skills with additional human facets like compassion and socio-economic awareness to draw poignant conclusions from the documentation. Finally, the protagonists are created in the image of totality Buchner demonstrates that the human characters are in themselves whole complex arrangements of mutually dependent components.