ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on Martin Hinrich Carl Lichtenstein, an exemplary figure in the history of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century naturalism. Hinrich Lichtenstein was born on 10 January 1780 into an academic family living in Hamburg. Due to his father's passion, Lichtenstein's education was marked by the development of a robust interest in natural history, which was even more stimulated by his contacts with Count Johann Centurius von Hoffmannsegg. Lichtenstein arrived in Cape Town on 23 December 1802, together with Commissary-General de Mist and Governor Janssens. Back in Germany, Lichtenstein met with many contemporary intellectuals, among them Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. He encountered him in Weimar in 1808 and talked to him about his notes from South Africa. Learned societies not only provided an avenue for communicating results of scientific investigations, they also increasingly formalised the system of communication due to their regular meetings and the dissemination of their results in journals. Lichtenstein became the director of the Zoological Museum in 1815.
