Gotthilf Heinrich von Schubert was a German physician and naturalist.
Education
He gave renowned lectures on fringe science (animal magnetism, clairvoyance and dream), and in 1819 he occupied the chair in natural history in Erlangen where he studied botany (botanical transcript: Schub), forestry, mineralogy and geognosy.
Career
He began his studies with theology, but turned to medicine and established himself as a doctor in Altenburg, Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg. He soon gave up his practice however and devoted himself to research in Dresden (from 1806). In 1809, by way of mediation from Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, he received the post of rector at a secondary school in Nuremberg.
Schubert aimed to create a religiously-grounded interpretation of the cosmos.
Contemporaries that included Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Jean Paul, Justinus Kerner and Heinrich von Kleist were favorable to his work. His masterpiece, Symbolism of Dreams (1814) was one of the most famous books of its time, exercising influence over East. T. A. Hoffmann, and later on, Sigmund Freud and C. G. Jung.
Synthesising the Bible with the philosophy of Schelling, he was a major figure in the "later Enlightenment". In his History of the Soul (1830), Schubert again attempted to fuse the philosophy of Herder and Schelling with the Christian tradition.
In 1824 Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius named the plant genus Schubertia (family Apocynaceae) in his honor.
Membership
German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities.