Emanuel Rádl

Emanuel Rádl (December 21, 1873 – May 12, 1942) was an original Czech biologist, historian of science, philosopher and a critical supporter of Masaryk´s pre-war democratic Czechoslovakia.

[1] At the book's climax at the end of Chapter 33, Rádl dismisses Darwinism with the words We may therefore sum up the modern position in Driesch's words: 'For those with insight Darwinism has been dead for a long time'... Darwinism as a tyrannic doctrine, which imperiously enchains the minds of men, is dead.Under the influence of Masaryk he inclined more and more towards philosophical questions, became a critic of scientific positivism and after the establishment of Czechoslovakia (1918) a public critic of several contemporary tendencies he considered dangerous.

He wrote books on Czech and German nationalism, on social justice, on the fundamental differences between the West and the East and very early against the misuse of racial theories and against antisemitism.

Together with the Protestant theologian J. L. Hromádka he co-founded the Czech Academic YMCA and published numerous booklets on various public topics.

His posthumous book Consolation from Philosophy, in the oppressive mood of war, is a highly personal profession of faith in the lasting values of truth and religion and evoked a lively discussion after its publication in 1946.