Goethe's World View
GA 6
The Theory of Metamorphosis
[ 1 ] It is impossible to understand Goethe's relationship to the natural sciences if one only considers the individual discoveries he made. I see the words that Goethe addressed to Knebel from Italy on August 18, 1787 as a guiding point of view for the consideration of this relationship: "After what I have seen of plants and fish near Naples and in Sicily, if I were ten years younger, I would be very tempted to make a journey to India, not to discover something new, but to see what I have discovered in my own way. " The way in which Goethe summarized the natural phenomena known to him in a view of nature that suited his way of thinking seems to me to be important. If all the individual discoveries that he succeeded in making had already been made before him, and he had given us nothing but his view of nature, this would not diminish the significance of his studies of nature in the least. I agree with Du Bois-Reymond that "even without Goethe, science would be as far as it is", that the steps he succeeded in taking would have been taken by others sooner or later. (Goethe und kein Ende, p.1) I cannot, as Du Bois-Reymond does, apply these words to the entire scope of Goethe's scientific work. I limit them to the individual discoveries made in the course of his work. We would probably not have any of them today if Goethe had never occupied himself with botany, anatomy and so on. His view of nature, however, is an expression of his personality; no one else could have arrived at it. Nor was he interested in individual discoveries. They forced themselves upon him during his studies, because in his day there were views about the facts they concerned that were incompatible with his way of looking at things. If he had been able to build up his views on the basis of what natural science handed down to him, he would never have occupied himself with detailed studies. He had to go into the details because what the naturalists told him about the details did not meet his requirements. And it was only by chance that these detailed studies led to individual discoveries. He was not initially concerned with the question of whether humans, like other animals, have an intermaxillary bone in the upper jaw. He wanted to discover the plan according to which nature forms the sequence of stages of animals and, at the height of this sequence of stages, man. He wanted to find the common archetype that underlies all animal species and ultimately, in its highest perfection, also the human species. The naturalists told him that there is a difference in the structure of the animal and human body. Animals have an intermediate bone in the upper jaw, while humans do not. His view was that the human physical structure could only differ from that of animals in the degree of perfection, but not in details. For if the latter were the case, there could not be a common archetype underlying animal and human organization. He could make no sense of the naturalists' assertion. He therefore searched for the intermediate bone in humans and found it. Something similar can be observed in all his individual discoveries. They are never an end in themselves for him. They have to be made in order to make his ideas about natural phenomena appear justified.
[ 2 ] In the field of organic natural phenomena, what is significant in Goethe's view is the idea he formed of the essence of life. Not to the emphasis on the fact that leaf, calyx, crown etc. It is not the emphasis on the fact that leaf, calyx, crown etc. are organs on the plant that are identical to each other and develop from a common basic structure that is important. What matters is Goethe's idea of the whole of plant nature as a living thing and how he conceived of the individual emerging from this whole. His idea of the being of the organism is to be called his very own central discovery in the field of biology. Goethe's fundamental conviction was that something could be seen in the plant, in the animal, which is not accessible to mere sensory observation. What the bodily eye can observe in the organism seems to Goethe to be only the consequence of the living whole of confusedly acting laws of formation, which are only accessible to the spiritual eye. He has described what he sees with the spiritual eye in the plant, in the animal. Only those who are as capable of seeing as he is can reflect on his idea of the nature of the organism. Anyone who stops at what the senses and experiment provide cannot understand Goethe. When we read his two poems "The Metamorphosis of Plants" and "The Metamorphosis of Animals", it seems at first as if the words were merely leading us from one part of the organism to another, as if merely external facts were to be linked. But when we penetrate ourselves with what Goethe had in mind as the idea of the living being, then we feel transported into the sphere of the living-organic, and the ideas about the individual organs grow out of a central idea.
[ 3 ] When Goethe began to think independently about the phenomena of nature, the concept of life took up his attention above all others. In a letter from his time in Strasbourg on July 14, 1770, he writes of a butterfly: "The poor animal trembles in the net, strips off its most beautiful colors; and even if one catches it intact, it finally lies there stiff and lifeless; the corpse is not the whole animal, something else belongs to it, another main part, and on this occasion, as on every other, a very important main part: life." That an organism cannot be regarded as a dead natural product, that there is more to it than the forces that also live in inorganic nature, was clear to Goethe from the outset. When Du Bois-Reymond says that "the purely mechanical construction of the world, which today constitutes science, would have been no less abhorrent to the Weimar poet-prince than Friederiken's friend once hated the 9systeme de la nature," he is undoubtedly right; and he is no less right with the other words: Goethe would have shudderingly turned away from this construction of the world, which "borders on Kant-Laplace's theory through the primordial creation, from the emergence of man out of chaos through the play of atoms mathematically determined from eternity to eternity, from the icy end of the world - from these images, which our generation grasps in the eye as impassively as it became accustomed to the horrors of railroad travel" (Goethe und kein Ende, p. 35 f.). He would certainly have turned away in horror because he was looking for and found a higher concept of the living than that of a complicated, mathematically determined mechanism. Only those who are incapable of grasping such a higher concept and identify the living with the mechanical, because they are only able to see the mechanical in the organism, will warm to the mechanical construction of the world and its interplay of atoms and, without feeling, grasp the images that Du Bois-Reymond creates. But anyone who can accept the concept of the organic in Goethe's sense will argue just as little about its justification as about the existence of the mechanical. After all, one does not argue with the color-blind about the world of colors. All views that imagine the organic to be mechanical fall under the judgment that Goethe has his Mephistopheles say:
Who wants to recognize and describe what is alive,
First seeks to drive out the spirit,
Then he has the parts in his hand.
Missing, alas! only the spiritual bond.
[ 4 ] The opportunity to become more intimately involved with the life of plants came to Goethe when Duke Karl August gave him a garden on April 21, 1776. Goethe was also inspired by his forays into the Thuringian Forest, where he was able to observe the life phenomena of lower organisms. Mosses and lichens captured his attention. On October 31, he asks Frau von Stein for mosses of all kinds, possibly with the roots and moist, so that he can use them to observe reproduction. It is important to bear in mind that Goethe was concerned with the lower plant forms at the beginning of his botanical studies. For he later only considered the higher plants when conceiving his idea of the primordial plant. This cannot therefore be due to the fact that the field of the lower plants was foreign to him, but to the fact that he believed the secrets of plant nature to be more clearly expressed in the higher ones. He wanted to seek out the idea of nature where it reveals itself most clearly and then descend from the perfect to the imperfect in order to understand the latter from the former. He did not want to explain the composite by the simple; but to survey it with one eye as an effective whole and then explain the simple and imperfect as a one-sided formation of the composite and perfect. If nature is able, after innumerable plant forms, to make one that contains them all, then the secret of plant formation must also be immediately apparent to the mind when looking at this perfect form, and it will then easily be able to apply what has been observed in the perfect to the imperfect. Naturalists, on the other hand, see perfection as a mechanical sum of simple processes. They start from this simple and derive the perfect from it.
[ 5 ] When Goethe looked around for a scientific guide for his botanical studies, he could find none other than Linné. We first learn of his interest in Linné from his letters to Frau von Stein in 1782. Just how serious Goethe was about his scientific endeavors can be seen from the interest he took in Linné's writings. He admits that, after Shakespeare and Spinoza, Linné had the greatest effect on him. But how little Linné could satisfy him. Goethe wanted to observe the various plant forms in order to recognize the common factor that lives in them. He wanted to know what makes all these forms plants. And Linné had contented himself with placing the most diverse plant forms next to each other in a certain order and describing them. Here Goethe's naive, unbiased observation of nature came up against the way of thinking of science, influenced by one-sided Platonism. This way of thinking sees in the individual forms realizations of original, coexisting, Platonic ideas or ideas of creation. Goethe sees in the individual form only a particular manifestation of an ideal primal being that lives in all forms. This way of thinking wants to distinguish the individual forms as precisely as possible in order to recognize the multiplicity of the forms of ideas or the plan of creation; Goethe wants to explain the multiplicity of the particular from the original unity. That many things exist in manifold forms is readily apparent to this way of thinking, for even the ideal archetypes are for them the manifold. For Goethe this is not clear, because in his view the many only belong together when one is revealed in them. Goethe therefore says that what Linné "tried to keep apart by force had to strive for unification according to the innermost need of my being". Linné simply accepts the existing forms without asking how they developed from a basic form: "Species we count as many as different forms have been created in principle ": this is his principle. In the plant kingdom, Goethe searches for that which is effective, which creates the individual by specifying the basic form.
[ 6 ] Goethe found a more naive relationship to the plant world than that of Linné in Rousseau. On i6. On June 6, 1782, he wrote to Karl August: "In Rousseau's works there are some very lovely letters on botany, in which he presents this science to a lady in the most comprehensible and delicate way. It is quite a model of how to teach and a supplement to Emil. I therefore take the opportunity to recommend the beautiful realm of flowers to my beautiful friends anew." In his "History of my botanical studies", Goethe explains what drew him to Rousseau's botanical ideas: "His relationship with plant friends and connoisseurs, especially with the Duchess of Portland, may have given his perspicacity more breadth, and a mind like his, which feels itself called upon to prescribe order and law to nations, must nevertheless have arrived at the supposition that in the immense kingdom of plants no such great diversity of forms could appear without a fundamental law, however hidden, bringing them all back to unity. " Goethe also seeks such a fundamental law that brings the multiplicity back to the unity from which it originally emanated.
[ 7 ] Two writings by Baron von Gleichen, known as Rußwurm, fell within Goethe's intellectual horizon at the time. They both deal with the life of plants in a way that could be fruitful for him: "Das Neueste aus dem Reiche der Pflanzen" (Nuremberg 1764) and "Auserlesene mikroskopische Entdeckungen bei den Pflanzen" (Nuremberg 1777-1781). They deal with the fertilization processes of plants. Pollen, stamens and pistils are carefully described in them, and the processes of fertilization are illustrated in well-executed plates. Goethe now conducted his own experiments to observe the results described by Gleichen-Rußwurm with his own eyes. He wrote to Jacobi on January 12, 1785: "A microscope has been set up to observe and check the experiments of v. Gleichen, called Rußwurm, with the onset of spring." At the same time, he was studying the nature of the seed, as can be seen from a report to Knebel dated April 2, 1785: "I have thought through the matter of the seed as far as my experience goes." These observations by Goethe only appear in the right light when one considers that even then he did not stop at them, but sought to gain an overall view of natural processes, which they were intended to support and confirm. On April 8 of the same year, he reported to Merck that he had not only observed facts, but had also made "pretty discoveries and combinations" about these facts.
[ 8 ] The contribution he made to Lavater's great work "Physiognomische Fragmente zur Beförderung der Menschenkenntnis und Menschenliebe", which was published in 1775-1778, had a significant influence on the development of Goethe's ideas on the organic effects of nature. He himself contributed to this work. The way in which he expresses himself in these contributions already prefigures his later way of looking at the organic. Lavater continued to treat the form of the human organism as an expression of the soul. He wanted to interpret the characters of the souls from the forms of the bodies. Goethe was already beginning to look at the external form for its own sake, to study its own laws and formative power. At the same time, he studied Aristotle's writings on physiognomy and attempted to determine the difference between humans and animals on the basis of the study of organic form. He finds this in the prominence of the head due to the overall human structure, in the perfect development of the human brain, to which all parts point as if to an organ to which they are tuned. On the contrary, in the animal the head is merely attached to the backbone, the brain and the spinal cord have no more circumference than is absolutely necessary for the effect of the subordinate spirits of life and for the guidance of purely sensory functions. Even then, Goethe was already looking for the difference between man and animals not in any one individual, but in the different degrees of perfection that the same basic structure achieves in one case or another. He already had in mind the image of a type that is found in both animals and humans, which in the former is so developed that the entire structure serves the animal functions, while in the latter the structure provides the basic framework for the development of the spirit.
[ 9 ] Goethe's special study of anatomy grew out of such observations. On January 22, 1776, he reported to Lavater: "The Duke has sent me six skulls, I have made wonderful observations which will be of service to Your Reverence, if you have not found them without me." In Goethe's diary we read in October 1781 that he studied anatomy with the old Einsiedel in Jena and in the same year he began to be introduced to this science in more detail by Loder. He wrote about this in letters to Frau von Stein on October 29, 1781 and to the Duke on November 4. He also intended to "explain the skeleton to the young people at the drawing academy and introduce them to knowledge of the human body". - "I am doing it," he says, "for my own sake and theirs; the method I have chosen will make them completely familiar with the basic pillars of the body this winter. " As can be seen from the diary, he also gave these lectures. He also had many a conversation with Loder about the structure of the human body during this time. And again it is his general view of nature that appears to be the driving force and the actual aim of these studies. He treated "bones as a text to which all life and everything human can be attached" (letters to Lavater and Merck dated November 14, 1781). Ideas about the workings of the organic, about the connection between human formation and animal formation occupied his mind at the time. The idea that the human structure is only the highest stage of the animal, and that it produces the moral world from within itself through this more perfect degree of the animal, is an idea that is already set down in the ode "The Divine" from 1782.
Noble be man,
Helpful and good! For that alone
Distinguishes him
From all beings,
That we know.- - - - - - -
According to eternal, honorable,
Great laws
We must all
of our existence
Complete our circles.
[ 10 ] The "eternal, honorable laws" work in man just as they do in the rest of the world of organisms; they only achieve a perfection in him through which it is possible for him to be "noble, helpful and good".
[ 11 ] While such ideas were becoming more and more firmly established in Goethe, Herder was working on his "Ideas for a Philosophy of the History of Mankind". All the ideas in this book were discussed by the two of them. Goethe was satisfied with Herder's view of nature. It coincided with his own ideas. "Herder's writing makes it probable that we were first plants and animals... Goethe now broods over these things in a thoughtful way and everything that has passed through his imagination becomes extremely interesting," wrote Frau von Stein to Knebel on May 1, 1784. The extent to which one is justified in drawing conclusions from Herder's ideas to those of Goethe is shown by the words Goethe addressed to Knebel on December 8, 1783: "Herder is writing a philosophy of history, as you can imagine, from scratch. We read the first chapters together the day before yesterday, they are delicious." Sentences like the following are very much in Goethe's line of thought. "The human race is the great confluence of lower organic forces." "And so we can accept the fourth sentence: that man is a middle creature among the animals, i.e. the elaborate form in which the traits of all species gather around him in the finest embodiment."
[ 12 ] However, the view of the anatomists of the time that the small bone that animals have in the upper jaw, the premaxilla that contains the upper incisors, was missing in humans was not compatible with such ideas. Sömmering, one of the most important anatomists of the time, wrote to Merck on October 8, 1782: "I wish that you would follow Blumenbach's example because of the ossis intermaxillaris, which ceteris paribus is the only bone that all animals from apes onwards, even including the orangutang, have, but which is never found in humans; if you take this bone into account, you are missing nothing so that you cannot transfer everything from humans to animals. I therefore enclose a head from a deer to convince you that this os intermaxillare (as Blumenbach calls it) or os incisivum (as Camper calls it) is present even in animals that have no incisors in the upper jaw." This was the general opinion of the time. Even the famous Camper, for whom Merck and Goethe had the deepest admiration, professed it. The fact that the intermaxillary bone in humans is fused with the maxillary bone on the left and right, without a clear boundary being visible in a normally formed individual, led to this view. If the scholars had been right about this, then it would be impossible to establish a common archetype for the structure of the animal and human organism; a boundary between the two forms would have to be assumed. Man would not have been created according to the archetype on which animals are based. Goethe had to remove this obstacle to his world view. He succeeded in the spring of 1784 in collaboration with Loder. Goethe proceeded according to his general principle "that nature has no secret which it does not somewhere lay naked before the eyes of the attentive observer". He found that the boundary between the upper and intermediate jaw was really present in some abnormally formed skulls. He happily reported the discovery to Herder and Frau von Stein on March 27. He wrote to Herder: "You should also be very pleased, because it is like the keystone to man, it is not missing, it is also there! But how! I have also thought of it in connection with your whole, how beautiful it will be." And when Goethe sent the treatise he had written on the matter to Knebel in November 1784, he indicated the significance he attached to the discovery for his entire imaginative world with the words: "I have refrained from mentioning the result that Herder already hinted at in his ideas, namely that the difference between man and animal cannot be found in anything in particular. " Goethe could only gain confidence in his view of nature once the erroneous view of the fatal ankle had been eliminated. He gradually gained the courage to extend his ideas about the way in which nature, playing as it were with one main form, brings forth manifold life "to all realms of nature, to its entire realm". In this sense, he wrote to Frau von Stein in 1786.
[ 13 ] Goethe book of nature becomes increasingly legible after he has correctly deciphered the one letter. "My long spelling has helped me, now it works all at once and my silent joy is inexpressible," he writes to Frau von Stein on May 15, 1785. He now also considers himself capable of writing a short botanical treatise for Knebel. The journey he undertook with Knebel to Karlsbad in 1785 became a formal botanical study trip. On his return, he went through the kingdoms of fungi, mosses, lichens and algae with Linné's help. On November 9, he informs Mrs. von Stein: "I am continuing to read Linné, for I must, I have no other book. It is the best way to read a book, which I must practise more often, especially as I do not easily finish a book. This one, however, is not made for reading, but for recapitulating, and is now doing me excellent service, as I have thought about most of the points myself." During these studies, the basic form from which nature works out all the manifold plant formations also takes on individual, if not yet clear, outlines in his mind. A letter to Frau von Stein dated July 9, 1786 contains the words: "It is an awareness of the essential form with which nature, as it were, only ever plays and playfully brings forth the manifold life."
[ 14 ] In April and May 1786, Goethe observed through the microscope the lower organisms that develop in infusions of various substances (pisang pulp, cactus, truffles, peppercorns, tea, beer, etc.). He carefully notes the processes he observes in these living beings and makes drawings of these organic forms (cf. Goethe's scientific writings in the Sophien edition, 2nd section, vol. 7, pp. 289-309). It can also be seen from these notes that Goethe did not seek to come closer to the knowledge of life through such observation of lower and simpler organisms. It is quite obvious that he believes he grasps the essential features of the processes of life in the higher organisms just as he does in the lower ones. He is of the opinion that the same kind of regularity is repeated in the infusion animal that the mind's eye perceives in the dog. Observation through the microscope only teaches us about processes that are on a small scale what the unaided eye sees on a large scale. It offers an enrichment of sensory experience. The essence of life is revealed to a higher way of looking, not a pursuit of the processes accessible to the senses down to their smallest components. Goethe seeks to recognize this essence by observing the higher plants and animals. He would undoubtedly have sought this knowledge in the same way, even if plant and animal anatomy had already progressed as far in his time as it has today. If Goethe had been able to observe the cells of which the plant and animal body is composed, he would have declared that these elementary organic forms exhibit the same regularity that can also be perceived in the composite. He would have used the same ideas by which he explained the life processes of higher organisms to understand the phenomena of these small beings.
[ 15 ] Goethe solving thought of the riddle that organic formation and transformation had posed to him was first found in Italy. On September 3, he leaves Karlsbad to go south. In his "History of my botanical studies" (Kürschner, vol. 33, p. 61 ff. ), he describes the thoughts that the observation of the plant world aroused in him up to the moment when, in Sicily, a clear idea was revealed to him of how it is possible for plant forms "with a stubborn, generic and specific tenacity, to be endowed with a happy mobility and flexibility in order to be able to adapt themselves to so many conditions that affect them above the earth's surface and to form and transform themselves accordingly". When crossing the Alps, in the botanical gardens of Padua and in other places, the "changeable nature of plant forms" became apparent to him. "If in the lower regions branches and stems were stronger and sturdier, the eyes were closer together and the leaves were broad, then higher up in the mountains branches and stems became more delicate, the eyes moved apart, so that from node to node there was a larger space between them and the leaves became more lance-shaped. I noticed this on a willow and a Gentiana and convinced myself that they were not different species. I also noticed longer and more slender rushes at Walchensee than in the lowlands" (Italian Journey, Sept. 8). On October 8, he found various plants by the sea in Venice, which made him particularly aware of the interrelationship between the organic and its surroundings. "They are all at once mastic and stern, juicy and tough, and it is evident that the old salt of the sandy soil, but more the salty air, gives them these qualities; they are brimming with juices like water plants, they are firm and tough like mountain plants; if their leaf ends have a tendency to spines, as thistles do, they are enormously pointed and strong. I found such a bush of leaves; it seemed to me our innocent hoof-leaf, but here armed with sharp weapons, and the leaf like leather, so also the seed capsules, the stems, all fleshy and fat" (Italian Journey). In the botanical garden in Padua, the thought in Goethe's mind takes on a more definite form as to how all plant forms could perhaps be developed from one (Italian Journey, Sept. 27); in November he informs Knebel: "So my little botany makes me even happier in these lands, where a happier, less interrupted vegetation is at home. I have already made some very kind, general remarks, which will also be pleasant for you in the future." On March 25, 1787, he had a "good epiphany about botanical matters". He asks Herdern to tell him that he will soon be finished with the original plant. He only fears "that no one will want to recognize the rest of the plant world in it" (Italian Journey). On April 7, he goes to the public garden with the "firm, calm intention of continuing his poetic dreams". But before he knows it, the plant creature catches him like a ghost. "The many plants that I was otherwise only used to seeing in tubs and pots, indeed for most of the year only behind glass windows, stand here happy and fresh in the open air, and by completely fulfilling their purpose, they become clearer to us. In the face of so many new and renewed formations, the old cricket came back to me: I wonder if I could discover the original plant among this crowd? There must be one after all! How else would I recognize that this or that structure is a plant if they were not all formed according to one pattern?" He tries to distinguish the divergent forms, but his thoughts are always drawn back to the one archetype that underlies them all (Italian Journey, 7 April 1787). Goethe keeps a botanical diary in which he records all his experiences and reflections on the plant kingdom during the journey (see Sophien-Ausgabe, 2nd ed., vol. 7, p. 273 ff.). These diary pages show how tirelessly he is occupied with locating plant specimens that are suitable for explaining the laws of growth and reproduction. If he believes he is on the trail of any law, he first posits it in hypothetical form, only to have it confirmed in the course of his further experiences. He carefully notes the processes of germination, fertilization and growth. It becomes increasingly clear to him that the leaf is the basic organ of the plant and that the forms of all other plant organs can best be understood if they are seen as transformed leaves. He wrote in his diary: "Hypothesis: everything is a leaf and through this simplicity the greatest diversity is possible." And on May 7th he tells Herder: "Furthermore, I must trust you that I am very close to the secret of plant production and organization, and that it is the simplest thing that can be thought of. Under this sky one can make the most beautiful observations. I have found the main point, where the germ is, quite clearly and without doubt; I can already see everything else as a whole and only a few points need to be specified. The original plant will be the most wonderful creature in the world, which nature itself will envy me for. With this model and the key to it, one can then invent plants into infinity, which must be consistent, that is: which, even if they do not exist, could still exist, and are not picturesque or poetic shadows and appearances, but have an inner truth and necessity. The same law can be applied to all other living things..... "Forwards and backwards, the plant is always only a leaf, so inseparably united with the future germ that one cannot think of one without the other. To grasp such a concept, to endure it, to find it in nature, is a task that puts us in an embarrassingly sweet state" (Italian Journey).
[ 16 ] Goethe takes a path to explain the phenomena of life that is completely different from the one usually taken by natural scientists. These are divided into two parties. There are defenders of a life force at work in organic beings, which represents a special, higher form of force compared to other natural causes. Just as there is gravity, chemical attraction and repulsion, magnetism, etc., so there is also supposed to be a life force which brings the substances of the organism into such an interaction that it can maintain itself, grow, nourish and reproduce. The naturalists who hold this opinion say that the same forces act in the organism as in the rest of nature; but they do not act as in an inanimate machine. They are captured, as it were, by the life force and raised to a higher level of activity. The proponents of this opinion are opposed by other naturalists who believe that no special life force is at work in organisms. They consider the phenomena of life to be complicated chemical and physical processes, and indulge in the hope that it may one day be possible to explain an organism in the same way as a machine by tracing it back to inorganic forces. The first view is known as vitalism, the other as mechanism. Goethe's view is quite different from both. It seems self-evident to him that there is something else at work in the organism than the forces of inorganic nature. He cannot profess a mechanical view of the phenomena of life. Nor does he look for a special vital force to explain the effects in the organism. He is convinced that in order to grasp the processes of life a different kind of perception is required from that through which the phenomena of inorganic nature are perceived. He who decides to assume the existence of a vital force recognizes that the organic effects are not mechanical, but at the same time he lacks the ability to develop that other kind of perception through which the organic could become recognizable to him. The concept of vital force remains obscure and indeterminate. A more recent supporter of vitalism, Gustav Bunge, says: "In the smallest cell - that already contains all the riddles of life, and in the study of the smallest cell - we have already reached the limit with the existing tools" ("Vitalismus und Mechanismus", Leipzig 1886, p. 7). It is entirely in the spirit of Goethe's way of thinking to reply to this: that faculty of perception which only recognizes the essence of inorganic phenomena has reached the limit which must be crossed in order to grasp the living. This faculty of perception, however, will never find within its range the means that can be suitable for explaining the life of even the smallest cell. Just as the eye belongs to the perception of color phenomena, so the ability to see a supersensible directly in the sensible belongs to the perception of life. This supersensible will always escape those who direct their senses only to organic forms. Goethe seeks to animate the sensual perception of plant forms in a higher way and to imagine the sensual form of a supersensible primordial plant (cf. "Geschichte meines botanischen Studiums" in Kürschner, vol. 33, p. 80). The vitalist resorts to the empty concept of life force because he does not see at all what his senses cannot perceive in the organism. Goethe sees the sensual as permeated by the supersensible, just as a colored surface is permeated by color.
[ 17 ] The supporters of mechanism are of the opinion that it may one day be possible to produce living substances artificially from inorganic materials. They say that not many years ago it was claimed that there were substances in the organism that could not be produced artificially, but only through the action of the life force. At present, it is already possible to produce some of these substances artificially in the laboratory. Likewise, it may one day be possible to produce a living protein from carbonic acid, ammonia, water and salts, which is the basic substance of the simplest organisms. Then, the mechanists believe, it will be indisputably proven that life is nothing more than a combination of inorganic processes, the organism nothing more than a machine that has arisen naturally.
[ 18 ] From the standpoint of Goethe's view of the world, we must reply: the mechanists speak of substances and forces in a way that is not justified by any experience. And one has become so accustomed to this way of speaking that it becomes very difficult to assert the pure statements of experience against these concepts. But consider a process of the external world impartially. Take a quantity of water of a certain temperature. How do we know anything about this water? You look at it and notice that it occupies a space and is enclosed between certain boundaries. You stick your finger or a thermometer into it and find that it has a certain degree of heat. You press against its surface and find that it is liquid. These are statements that the senses make about the state of the water. Now heat the water. It will boil and finally turn into steam. Again, through the perception of the senses, one can gain knowledge of the nature of the body, of the vapor into which the water has turned. Instead of heating the water, you can expose it to an electric current under certain conditions. It turns into two bodies, hydrogen and oxygen. You can also learn about the nature of these two bodies through the statements of the senses. Thus one perceives states in the physical world and at the same time observes that these states change into others under certain conditions. The senses inform us about the states. If one speaks of something other than states that change, one no longer limits oneself to the pure facts, but adds concepts to them. If we say that oxygen and hydrogen, which have developed from water through the electric current, were already contained in the water, only so intimately connected with each other that they could not be perceived in their independence, we have added a concept to the perception by which we explain the emergence of the two bodies from the one. And if we go further and assert that oxygen and hydrogen are substances, which we do by the names we give them, we have also added a concept to what we perceive. For actually only a sum of states can be perceived in the space occupied by oxygen. The substance to which they are supposed to adhere is added to these states. What one thinks of the oxygen and hydrogen already present in the water, the material, is a thought that is added to the perceptual content. When hydrogen and oxygen are united by a chemical process to form water, it can be observed that one sum of states changes into another. If one says: two simple substances have united to form a compound, one has attempted a conceptual interpretation of the content of the observation. The concept "substance" does not receive its content from perception, but from thinking. The same applies to "force" as to "substance". You see a stone fall to earth. What is the content of perception? A sum of sensory impressions, states that occur in successive places. One tries to explain this change in the sensory world and says that the earth attracts the stone. It has a "force" by which it forces it towards itself. Again, our mind has added an idea to the fact and given it a content that does not come from perception. It is not substances and forces that are perceived, but states and their transitions into one another. We explain these changes of state by adding concepts to the perceptions.
[ 19 ] Suppose there is a being that can perceive oxygen and hydrogen, but not water. If we were to combine oxygen and hydrogen into water before the eyes of such a being, the states that it perceived in the two substances would disappear into nothing before its eyes. If we were to describe to it the states that we perceive in water, it would not be able to form any idea of them. This proves that there is nothing in the perceptual content of oxygen from which the perceptual content of water can be derived. One thing consists of two or more others, i.e. two or more perceptual contents have been transformed into a coherent one, but one that is completely new compared to the former.
[ 20 ] So what would be achieved if it were possible to artificially combine carbonic acid, ammonia, water and salts into a living protein substance in the laboratory? One would know that the perceptual contents of the many different substances can unite to form one perceptual content. But this perceptual content cannot be derived from them at all. The state of the living protein can only be observed in the protein itself and cannot be developed from the states of carbonic acid, ammonia, water and salts. The organism is something completely different from the inorganic components from which it can be built up. The sensory contents of perception are transformed into sensory-supersensory contents during the development of the living being. And anyone who does not have the ability to form sensory-supersensory ideas can no more know anything about the nature of an organism than someone could know anything about water if sensory perception of it were inaccessible to them.
[ 21 ] Imagining the germination, growth, transformation of organs, nutrition and reproduction of the organism as a sensory-supersensory process was Goethe's endeavor in his studies of the plant and animal world. He noticed that this sensual-supersensible process in the idea is the same in all plants, and that it only takes on different forms in the external appearance. Goethe was able to establish the same for the animal world. Once one has developed the idea of the sensual-supersensible primordial plant within oneself, one will find it again in all individual plant forms. Diversity arises from the fact that what is identical in idea can exist in different forms in the world of perception. The individual organism consists of organs that can be traced back to a basic organ. The basic organ of the plant is the leaf with the node on which it develops. This organ takes on different forms in its external appearance: Cotyledon, stem leaf, sepal, crown leaf, etc. "The plant may now sprout, blossom or bear fruit, but it is always the same organs, which fulfill nature's prescription in many different ways and often in different forms."
[ 22 ] In order to obtain a complete picture of the primordial plant, Goethe had to trace the general forms that the basic organ undergoes in the course of a plant's growth from germination to seed maturity. At the beginning of its development the whole plant form rests in the seed. In this the original plant has assumed a form through which it conceals its ideal content, as it were, in its outer appearance.
The power simply slept in the seed; an incipient model
Lying, closed within itself, bent beneath the shell,
Leaf and root and germ, only half-formed and colorless
Dry thus the core preserves quiet life,
Quillet striving upwards, trusting in mild moisture,
And immediately rises from the surrounding night.Kürschner, vol. 33, p.105
[ 23 ] From the seed the plant develops the first organs, the cotyledons, after it has left "its sheaths more or less in the earth" and "fastened the root into the ground". And now, in the further course of growth, shoot follows shoot; node piles up on top of node, and at each node there is a leaf. The leaves appear in different shapes. The lower ones are still simple, the upper ones have multiple notches, incisions and are composed of several leaflets. At this stage of development, the primordial plant spreads its sensual-supersensual content in space as an external sensual appearance. Goethe imagines that the leaves owe their progressive formation and refinement to the light and the air. "If we find those cotyledons produced in the closed seed coat, stuffed as it were with a raw juice, almost not at all or only roughly organized and unformed, the leaves of plants growing under water show themselves to us more roughly organized than others exposed to the open air; indeed, the same species of plant develops smoother and less refined leaves when it grows in deep, damp places, whereas in higher regions it produces rough, hairy, more finely formed leaves. " (Kürschner, vol. 33, p.25 f.) In the second epoch of growth, the plant pulls back into a narrower space what it has previously spread out.
Now it directs the sap more moderately, constricts the vessels,
And at once the form shows harsher effects.
Silently the drive of the striving edges withdraws,
And the rib of the stem forms more completely.
But leafless and quickly the tougher stem rises,
And a marvel attracts the beholder.
Around the circle now, numbered and without
number, the smaller leaf next to the similar one.
Squeezed around the axis, the containing chalice decides,
Which releases colored crowns to the highest form.
[ 24 ] In the calyx the plant form contracts; in the corolla it expands again. The next contraction follows in the stamens and the pistil, the organs of reproduction. The formative power of the plant developed in the previous growth periods in the same organs as a drive to repeat the basic structure. At this stage of contraction, the same force is distributed between two organs. What has been separated tries to come together again. This happens in the fertilization process. The male pollen present in the stamen unites with the female substance contained in the pistil; and thus the germ of a new plant is given. Goethe calls fertilization a spiritual anastomosis and sees in it only another form of the process that takes place in the development from one node to another. "In all bodies that we call living, we notice the power to bring forth their own kind. When we perceive this power divided, we designate it by the name of the two sexes." (Sophien-Ausgabe, 2nd Abt., Vol. 6, p.361.) From node to node the plant produces its own kind. For node and leaf are the simple form of the original plant. In this form, production is called growth. If the reproductive power is distributed over two organs, we speak of two sexes. In this way Goethe believes he has brought the concepts of growth and procreation closer together. In the stage of fructification the plant attains its final expansion; in the seed it appears contracted again. In these six steps, nature completes a circle of plant development and begins the whole process again from the beginning. Goethe sees in the seed only another form of the eye that develops on the leaves. The side branches that unfold from the eyes are whole plants that stand on a mother plant instead of in the earth. The idea of the basic organ developing step by step, as if on a "spiritual ladder" from seed to fruit, is the idea of the original plant. As if to prove the transformability of the basic organ for sensory perception, nature, under certain conditions, allows another organ to develop at one stage instead of the one that should develop according to the regular course of growth. In the case of the filled poppy, for example, petals appear at the place where the stamens were to develop The organ which, according to the idea, was destined to become a stamen, has become a petal. The organ, which has a certain shape in the regular course of plant development, also contains the possibility of taking on a different shape.
[ 25 ] As an illustration of his idea of the primordial plant, Goethe considers Bryophyllum calicinum, the common cotyledon, a plant species that came from the Moluccas to Calcutta and from there to Europe. Fresh seedlings develop from the notches in the fat leaves of these plants, which, once detached, grow into full plants. Goethe sees in this process sensually and vividly the idea of a whole plant resting in the leaf (cf. Goethe's remarks on Bryophyllum calicinum in the Sophien edition, 2nd ed., vol. VI, p. 336 ff.).
[ 26 ] Whoever develops the idea of the primordial plant within himself and keeps it so flexible that he can think of it in all possible forms that its content allows, can explain all forms in the plant kingdom with its help. He will understand the development of the individual plant; but he will also find that all sexes, species and varieties are formed according to this archetype. Goethe developed this view in Italy and set it down in his 1790 publication "An attempt to explain the metamorphosis of plants".
[ 27 ] Goethe also progressed in the development of his ideas about the human organism in Italy. On January 20 [1787], he wrote to Knebel: "I am quite prepared for anatomy, and I have acquired knowledge of the human body, up to a certain degree, not without effort. Here one is constantly reminded by the eternal contemplation of statues, but in a higher way. In our medical-surgical anatomy, it is merely a matter of knowing the part, and a puny muscle serves this purpose. In Rome, however, the parts mean nothing if they do not at the same time present a noble and beautiful form. - In the great military hospital of San Spirito, a very beautiful muscular body has been prepared for the artists in such a way that its beauty is astonishing. It could really pass for a maltreated demigod, a Marsyas. - Thus, following the instructions of the ancients, the skeleton is not studied as an artificially assembled mass of bones, but rather together with the ligaments, which give it life and movement." Even after his return from Italy, Goethe continued to study anatomy diligently. He was compelled to recognize the laws of formation of the animal form just as he had succeeded in recognizing those of the plant. He is convinced that the unity of the animal organism is also based on a basic organ, which can take on different forms in its external appearance. If the idea of the basic organ is concealed, it appears unformed. It then represents the simpler organs of the animal; if the idea takes possession of the substance in such a way that it makes it completely similar to itself, then the higher, the nobler organs arise. What is present in the simpler organs in terms of the idea is closed up outwardly in the higher ones. Goethe did not succeed in grasping the lawfulness of the whole animal form in a single conception, as he did for the plant form. He only found the law of formation for one part of this form, for the spinal cord and brain with the bones enclosing these organs. In the brain he sees a higher development of the spinal cord. Each nerve center of the ganglia is regarded by him as a brain that has remained at a lower level. (Cf. Sophien-Ausgabe, 2nd Abt., Vol. 8, p. 360) And he interprets the cranial bones enclosing the brain as transformations of the vertebral bones that envelop the spinal cord. The fact that he regarded the posterior cranial bones (occipital bone, posterior and anterior sphenoid bone) as three transformed vertebrae had already occurred to him earlier; he claimed the same for the anterior cranial bones when he found a sheep's skull on the dunes of the Lido in 1790, which was so happily fractured that in the palatal bone, the upper jawbone and the intermaxillary bone three vertebrae in a transformed form appear to present themselves directly to the senses.
[ 28 ] The anatomy of animals had not yet progressed so far in Goethe's time that he could have cited a living being which really has vertebrae in place of developed skull bones and which thus shows in the sensory image what is only present in idea in the perfect animals. Carl Gegenbauer's investigations, which were published in 1872, made it possible to identify such an animal form. The prehistoric fish or selachians have skull bones and a brain, which are clearly the end elements of the spinal column and spinal cord. According to the findings on these animals, however, a larger number of vertebrae (at least nine) appear to have been incorporated into the formation of the head than Goethe assumed. This error as to the number of vertebrae, and also the fact that in the embryonic state the skull of the higher animals shows no trace of a composition of vertebral parts, but develops from a simple cartilaginous bladder, has been adduced against the value of Goethe's idea of the transformation of the spinal cord and vertebral column. It is admitted that the skull developed from vertebrae. But it is denied that the bones of the head, in the form in which they appear in the higher animals, are transformed vertebrae. It is said that a complete fusion of the vertebrae into a cartilaginous bladder took place, in which the original vertebral structure completely disappeared. From this cartilaginous capsule, the bone forms that can be seen in higher animals then developed. These forms did not develop according to the original vertebra, but rather according to the tasks they had to fulfill on the developed head. Therefore, if one is looking for an explanation for any particular skull bone form, one should not ask: how did a vertebra transform itself to become the head bone; but what conditions led to the separation of this or that bone form from the simple cartilage capsule? One believes in the formation of new shapes, according to new laws of formation, after the original vertebral form has merged into a structureless capsule. A contradiction between this view and Goethe's can only be found from the standpoint of factual fanaticism. What is no longer sensually perceptible in the cartilaginous capsule of the skull, the vertebral structure, is nevertheless present in it according to the idea and reappears as soon as the conditions for it are present. In the cartilaginous skull capsule, the idea of the vertebral basic organ is concealed within the sensory matter; in the developed skull bones, it reappears in the outer appearance.
[ 29 ] Goethe hopes that the laws of formation of the other parts of the animal organism will reveal themselves to him in the same way as those of the brain, spinal cord and their enveloping organs have done. On April 30, 1790, he had Frau von Kalb tell Herdern about the discovery he had made on the Lido that he had "come a whole formula closer to the animal form and its various transformations, and that by the strangest coincidence" (Goethe to Frau von Kalb). He believes that he is so close to his goal that he wants to complete a work on animal formation in the same year that brought him the discovery, which can be placed alongside the "Metamorphosis of Plants". (Correspondence with Knebel, p. 98.) In Silesia, where he traveled in July 1790, he studied comparative anatomy and began to write an essay "On the Form of Animals". (Sophien-Ausgabe, 2. Abt., Vol. 8, p. 261 ff.) Goethe did not succeed in proceeding from the starting point he had happily gained to the laws of formation of the whole animal form. However many attempts he makes to find the type of animal form, he has not achieved anything analogous to the idea of the primordial plant. He compares the animals with each other and with man and seeks to gain a general picture of the animal structure, according to which, as a pattern, nature forms the individual shapes. This general image of the animal type is not a living conception that fills itself with content according to the basic laws of animal formation and thus recreates, as it were, the primordial animal of nature. It is only a general concept that has been extracted from the particular phenomena. It establishes what is common in the manifold animal forms; but it does not contain the lawfulness of animality.
All limbs are formed according to eternal laws,
And the rarest form preserves the archetype in secret.Poem "The Metamorphosis of Animals"
[ 30 ] How this archetype develops through the lawful transformation of a basic limb as the many-limbed archetypal form of the animal organism is something Goethe was unable to develop a unified idea of. Both the attempt on "the form of animals" and the "Draft of a comparative anatomy, based on osteology" written in Jena in 1795 and its later, more detailed form "Lectures on the first three chapters of the draft of a general introduction to comparative anatomy" (1796) only contain instructions on how to compare animals appropriately, how the animals are to be appropriately compared in order to obtain a general scheme according to which the creative power "produces and develops organic natures", a standard according to which the "descriptions are to be worked out" and to which, "by deducting such from the form of the various animals, the most diverse forms are to be traced back" (cf. the aforementioned "lectures"). In the case of the plant, on the other hand, Goethe has shown how a primordial form develops lawfully into the perfect organic form through successive modifications.
[ 31 ] Although he was unable to trace the creative power of nature in its formative and transformative force through the various members of the animal organism, Goethe nevertheless succeeded in finding individual laws that nature adheres to in the formation of animal forms, which, although they hold to the general norm, are nevertheless different in appearance. He imagines that nature does not have the ability to change the general picture at will. If in one form it develops one member in a particularly perfect form, this can only happen at the expense of another. The primordial organism contains all the members that can occur in any animal. In the individual animal form, one is developed, the other only hinted at; one is particularly fully developed, the other perhaps not at all perceptible to sensory observation. In the latter case, Goethe is convinced that in every animal that which of the general type is not visible in it is present in the idea.
So if you see the one creature as having special merit
granted to one creature, only ask immediately where it suffers
lack elsewhere, and search with an inquiring mind.
You will immediately find the key to all education,
For no animal that has all its teeth fencing the upper jaw has
jaws has worn a horn on its forehead,
And therefore the lion horns of the eternal mother
Quite impossible to form and would offer her all power:
For she has not mass enough to plant the rows of teeth
To plant completely and also to drive antlers and horns
."The metamorphosis of animals"
[ 32 ] In the primitive organism all the members are developed and maintain their equilibrium; the diversity of the individual arises from the fact that the force of formation throws itself upon one member and another does not develop at all or only in a suggestive way in its external appearance. This law of the animal organism is known today as the law of correlation or compensation of organs.
[ 33 ] Goethe imagines the entire plant world to be contained in the primordial plant and the entire animal world to be contained in the primordial animal. From this thought arises the question: how is it that in the one case these particular plant or animal forms arise, in the other case others? Under what conditions does the primordial animal become a fish? Under which conditions a bird? In explaining the structure of organisms in science, Goethe finds a mode of conception that is repugnant to him. The followers of this mode of conception ask of every organ: what purpose does it serve for the living being in which it occurs? Such a question is based on the general idea that a divine creator or nature has given each being a certain purpose in life and then given it a structure such that it could fulfill this purpose. Goethe finds such a question just as inconsistent as the question: for what purpose does an elastic ball move when it is pushed by another? An explanation of the motion can only be given by finding the law according to which the ball has been set in motion by an impact or some other cause. The question is not: what is the purpose of the ball's movement, but: where does it come from? In the same way, according to Goethe, one should not ask: why does the bull have horns, but: how can it have horns? By what laws does the primordial animal appear in the bull as a horn-bearing form? Goethe sought the idea of the primordial plant and the primordial animal in order to find in them the explanatory reasons for the diversity of organic forms. The primordial plant is the creative element in the plant world. If one wants to explain an individual plant species, one must show how this creative element works in the particular case. The idea that an organic being does not owe its form to the forces working and forming within it, but that it is imposed on it from outside for certain purposes, has a downright repulsive effect on Goethe. He writes: "Recently, in a tiresomely apostolic, Capuchin-like declamation by the Zurich prophet, I found the nonsensical words: Everything that has life lives through something outside itself. Or that's roughly how it sounded. Now a heathen proselytizer can write that down, and genius will not pluck him by the sleeve when he revises it." (Italian Journey, October 5, 1787.) Goethe conceives of the organic being as a small world that exists through itself and shapes itself according to its own laws. "The conception that a living being is produced externally for certain purposes and that its form is determined by a deliberate elemental force has held us back for several centuries in the philosophical consideration of natural things, and still holds us back, although individual men have eagerly disputed this conception and shown the obstacles that it places in the way.... It is, if one may so express it, a trivial mode of conception, which, like all trivial things, is trivial precisely because it is on the whole convenient and sufficient for human nature." (Sophien-Ausgabe, 2. Abt., Vol. 7, p. 217 f.) It is, however, convenient to say that a creator, in creating an organic species, has taken a certain idea of purpose as a basis and has therefore given it a certain form. Goethe, however, does not want to explain nature from the intentions of some being outside nature, but from the laws of formation lying within nature itself. An individual organic form arises from the fact that the original plant or animal gives itself a particular shape in a particular case. This shape must be such that the form can live within the conditions in which it lives. "... the existence of a creature that we call fish is only possible under the condition of an element that we call water ..." (Sophien-Ausgabe, 2. Abt., Vol. 7, p. 221.) If Goethe wants to understand which laws of formation bring forth a certain organic form, then he must stick to his primordial organism. In it lies the power to realize itself in the most varied external forms. In order to explain a fish, Goethe would investigate which formative forces the primordial animal uses in order to produce the fish form from all the forms that lie within it in terms of the idea. If the primordial animal were to realize itself within certain conditions in a form in which it cannot live, it would perish. An organic form can only survive within certain living conditions if it is adapted to them.
So the form determines the animal's way of life,
And the way of living has an effect on all forms
Powerfully back. Thus the orderly formation shows itself firmly,
Which tends to change through outwardly acting beings"The metamorphosis of animals"
[ 34 ] The organic forms permanent in a certain element of life are conditioned by the nature of this element. If an organic form came from one element of life into another, it would have to change accordingly. This will be able to occur in certain cases, for the original organism on which it is based has the ability to realize itself in innumerable forms. According to Goethe, however, the transformation of one form into another is not to be conceived in such a way that the external conditions directly transform the form after themselves, but in such a way that they become the cause through which the inner being is transformed. Changing living conditions stimulate the organic form to transform itself in a certain way according to inner laws. The external influences act indirectly, not directly, on living beings. Countless forms of life are contained in the primal plant and primal animal in idea; those come to actual existence on which external influences act as stimuli.
[ 35 ] The idea that one plant or animal species transforms itself into another in the course of time as a result of certain conditions is fully justified within Goethe's view of nature. Goethe imagines that the force which brings forth a new individual in the process of reproduction is only a transformation of that form of force which also brings about the progressive transformation of the organs in the course of growth. Reproduction is a growth beyond the individual. Just as the basic organ undergoes a series of changes during growth, which are identical in idea, so also during reproduction a transformation of the external form can take place while retaining the ideal archetype. If an original form of organism existed, its descendants could, in the course of great periods of time, through gradual transformation, pass over into the manifold forms that currently populate the earth. The idea of an actual consanguinity of all organic forms flows from Goethe's basic ideas. He could have expressed it in perfect form immediately after the conception of his ideas of the primeval animal and the primeval plant. But where he touches on this idea, he expresses it cautiously, even vaguely. In the essay "Versuch einer allgemeinen Vergleichungslehre", which was probably written not long after "Metamorphose der Pflanzen", we read: "And how worthy it is of nature that it must always use the same means to produce a creature and to nourish it! Thus we will proceed along these same paths and, just as we first regarded the unorganized, undetermined elements as vehicles of the unorganized beings, we will now rise in our contemplation and will again regard the organized world as a coherence of many elements. The whole vegetable kingdom, for example, will again appear to us as an immense sea, which is just as necessary for the conditioned existence of insects as the ocean and the rivers are for the conditioned existence of fishes, and we shall see that an immense number of living creatures are born and nourished in this vegetable ocean; indeed, we shall finally regard the whole animal world again as only one great element, where one generation is sustained by the other and through the other, where it does not arise." The following sentence in the "Lectures on the First Three Chapters of the Draft of a General Introduction to Comparative Anatomy" (1796) is more unreserved: "This, then, is what we would have gained by being able to assert without training: that all the more perfect organic natures, among which we see fish, amphibians, birds, mammals and, at the head of the last, man, are all formed according to one archetype, which only looks more or less to and fro in its constant parts and still forms and transforms itself daily through reproduction. " Goethe's caution towards the idea of transformation is understandable. This idea was not alien to the time in which he developed his ideas. But it had developed it in the wildest possible way. "The time at that time (writes Goethe in 1807, cf. Kürschner, vol. 33, p. 15), however, was darker than one can now imagine. It was maintained, for example, that it depended only on man to walk comfortably on all fours, and that bears, if they kept upright for a time, could become men. The audacious Diderot ventured certain suggestions as to how one could produce goat-footed fauns in order to put such in livery, for special state and distinction, on the carriages of the great and rich." Goethe wanted nothing to do with such vague ideas. He was interested in gaining an idea of the basic laws of life. It became clear to him that the forms of the living are not something rigid and unchanging, but that they are in a constant state of transformation. He lacked the observations to determine how this transformation takes place in detail. Only Darwin's research and Haeckel's intellectual reflections shed some light on the actual relationships between individual organic forms. From the point of view of Goethe's world view, one can only agree with the claims of Darwinism as far as they concern the actual emergence of one organic species from another. However, Goethe's ideas penetrate deeper into the nature of the organic than contemporary Darwinism. The latter believes that it can do without the inner driving forces in the organic, which Goethe imagines under the sensual-supersensible image. Indeed, it even denies Goethe the right to speak of a real transformation of organs and organisms from his premises. Jul. Sachs rejects Goethe's thought with the words that he "transfers the abstraction carried out by the intellect to the object itself by ascribing to it a metamorphosis that has basically only taken place in our concept." According to this view, Goethe is said to have done nothing more than to have brought leaves, sepals, petals, etc. under a general concept and called them leaves. "The matter would be quite different, of course, if ... we could assume that in the ancestors of the plant form before us the stamens were ordinary leaves, etc." (Sachs, "Geschichte der Botanik" 1875, p.169). This view springs from the fanaticism of facts, which cannot realize that ideas belong to things just as objectively as what can be perceived with the senses. Goethe is of the opinion that we can only speak of the transformation of one organ into another if, in addition to their external appearance, both contain something that is common to them. This is the sensual-supersensible form. The stamen of a plant form before us can only be described as the transformed leaf of the ancestor if the same sensory-supersensory form lives in both. If this is not the case, if a stamen simply develops in the same place in the plant form before us where a leaf developed in the ancestors, then nothing has changed, but another organ has taken the place of one. The zoologist Oskar Schmidt asks: "What should be transformed according to Goethe's view? Surely not the archetype" ("Was Goethe a Darwinian?" Graz 1871, p. 22). Certainly the archetype is not transformed, for it is the same in all forms. But precisely because it remains the same, the outer forms can be different and yet represent a unified whole. If one could not recognize the same ideal archetype in two different forms, no relationship could be assumed between them. It is only through the concept of the ideal archetype that a real meaning can be attached to the assertion that the organic forms arise from one another through transformation. Those who do not rise to this conception remain stuck within the realm of mere facts. This is where the laws of organic development lie. Just as Kepler's three fundamental laws make the processes in the solar system comprehensible, so Goethe's ideal archetypes make the forms of organic nature comprehensible.
[ 36 ] Kant, who denies the human mind the ability to ideally penetrate a whole through which a manifold is determined in appearance, calls it a "daring adventure of reason" if someone wants to explain the individual forms of the organic world from a primordial organism. For him, man is only capable of summarizing the manifold individual phenomena into a general concept through which the mind forms an image of unity. However, this image only exists in the human mind and has nothing to do with the creative power through which unity really allows diversity to emerge from itself. The "daring adventure of reason" would consist in someone assuming that the earth would first allow simple organisms of inferior formation to emerge from its womb, which would give birth to more purposeful forms. That, furthermore, from these still higher ones develop, up to the most perfect living beings. Even if someone made such an assumption, Kant thinks, he could only take as a basis a deliberate creative power which has given such an impulse to development that all its individual members develop in a purposeful way. Man perceives a multiplicity of manifold organisms; and since he cannot penetrate into them to see how they give themselves a form adapted to the element of life in which they develop, he must imagine that they are so arranged from without that they can live within their conditions. Goethe invests himself with the ability to recognize how nature creates the individual from the whole, the external from the internal. What Kant calls the "adventure of reason", he therefore wants to courageously pass (cf. the essay "Anschauende Urteilskraft", Kürschner, vol. 33, p.115 f.). If we had no other proof that Goethe recognizes the idea of a consanguinity of all organic forms within the limits indicated here as justified, we would have to conclude it from this judgment on Kant's "Adventures of Reason".
[ 37 ] A still existing sketchy "Entwurf einer Morphologie" (sketch of a morphology) allows us to guess that Goethe had the plan to depict the particular forms in their sequence of stages that his original plant and his original animal assume in the main forms of living beings (cf. Sophien-Ausgabe, z. Abt., Vol. 6, p.321). He first wanted to describe the nature of the organic, as it occurred to him in his reflections on animals and plants. Then, "starting from one point", he wanted to show how the primordial organic being develops into the diverse world of plants on the one hand, and into the multiplicity of animal forms on the other, and how the particular forms of worms, insects, higher animals and the form of man can be derived from the general archetype. Light should also be shed on physiognomy and skull theory. Goethe set himself the task of depicting the outer form in connection with the inner mental faculties. It urged him to pursue the organic formative instinct, which presents itself in the lower organisms in a simple external appearance, in its striving to gradually realize itself in ever more perfect forms until it gives itself a form in man that makes him suitable for the creator of spiritual products.
[ 38 ] This plan of Goethe's was just as little realized as another, for which the fragment "Vorarbeiten zu einer Physiologie der Pflanzen" is an attempt (cf. Sophien-Ausgabe, 2. Abt., Vol. 6, p. 286 ff.). Goethe wanted to show how all the individual branches of knowledge of nature: natural history, natural science, anatomy, chemistry, zoonology and physiology must work together in order to be used by a higher way of looking at things to explain the forms and processes of living beings. He wanted to establish a new science, a general morphology of organisms, "not according to the subject matter, for this is known, but according to the view and the method, which must both give the doctrine itself its own form and also give it its place in relation to other sciences ...". What anatomy, natural history, natural science, chemistry, zoonology and physiology offer in terms of individual natural laws should be taken up by the living concept of the organic and placed on a higher level, just as the living being itself takes up the individual natural processes into the circle of its formation and places them on a higher level of activity.
[ 39 ] Goethe arrived at the ideas that helped him through the labyrinth of living forms by his own means. The prevailing views on important areas of the workings of nature contradicted his general view of the world. He therefore had to form his own ideas about such areas that were in accordance with his nature. He was convinced, however, that there was nothing new under the sun and that "one could well find already hinted at in traditions what one realizes oneself". For this reason, he shared his work on the "Metamorphosis of Plants" with learned friends and asked them to tell him whether anything had already been written or handed down on the subject in question. He is delighted that Friedrich August Wolf draws his attention to an "excellent foreman", Kaspar Friedrich Wolff. Goethe familiarizes himself with his "Theoria generationis", published in 1759. It is precisely in this foreman, however, that we can observe how someone can have a correct view of the facts and yet not arrive at the perfect idea of organic formation if he is not capable of taking possession of the sensuous-supersensible form of life through a higher than sensory faculty of perception. Wolf is an excellent observer. He tries to find out about the beginnings of life through microscopic examinations. He recognizes transformed leaves in the calyx, the corolla, the stamens, the pistil, the seed. But he attributes the transformation to a gradual decrease in vitality, which is supposed to diminish to the extent that the vegetation is continued for a longer period before finally disappearing altogether. For him, calyx, crown etc. are therefore an imperfect formation of the leaves. Wolf was an opponent of Haller, who advocated the theory of preformation or nesting. According to this theory, all limbs of a fully-grown organism should already be pre-formed on a small scale in the germ, in the same shape and mutual arrangement as in the fully-grown organism. The development of an organism is therefore only an outgrowth of what already exists. Wolf only accepted what he saw with his eyes. And since the nested state of a living being could not be detected even by the most careful observations, he regarded development as a real new formation. In his view, the form of an organic being is not yet present in the germ. Goethe is of the same opinion with regard to external appearance. He too rejects Haller's theory of nesting. For Goethe, the organism is indeed pre-formed in the germ, but not in its outward appearance, but in its idea. He also regards the outward appearance as a new formation. But he reproaches Wolf that where he sees nothing with the eyes of the body, he also perceives nothing with the eyes of the mind. Wolf had no idea that something can exist in the idea, even if it does not appear externally. "That is why he always endeavored to penetrate to the beginnings of life formation through microscopic examinations, and thus to trace the organic embryos from their earliest appearance to their formation. However excellent this method may be, by which he has accomplished so much, the excellent man did not think that there was a difference between seeing and seeing, that the eyes of the spirit must work in constant living union with the eyes of the body, because otherwise one would be in danger of seeing and yet looking past. - In the transformation of plants he saw the same organ constantly contracting, shrinking; but he did not see that this contraction alternated with expansion. He saw that it was decreasing in volume, and did not notice that it was at the same time ennobling itself, and therefore attributed the path to perfection, absurdly, to atrophy" (Kürschner, vol. 33, p.107 f.).
[ 40 ] Until the end of his life, Goethe was in personal and written contact with numerous natural scientists. He observed the progress of the science of living creatures with the keenest interest; he was pleased to see how this field of knowledge was being approached by ideas that were closer to his own and how his theory of metamorphosis was recognized and made fruitful by individual researchers. In 1817, he began to collect his work and publish it in a journal, which he founded under the title "Zur Morphologie". Despite all this, he did not further develop his ideas on organic formation through his own observation or reflection. Only twice did he find himself stimulated to deal with such ideas in greater depth. In both cases, he was captivated by scientific phenomena in which he found confirmation of his thoughts. One was the lectures given by K. F. Ph. Martius on the "Vertical and Spiral Tendency of Vegetation" at the naturalists' meetings in 1828 and 1829, excerpts of which were published in the journal "Isis"; the other was a scientific dispute in the French Academy that broke out between Geoffroy de Saint-Hilaire and Cuvier in 1830.
[ 41 ] Martius thought of the growth of the plant as being governed by two tendencies, one striving in the vertical direction, by which the root and stem are dominated; and another by which the leaf and flower organs, etc., are induced to join the vertical organs in the form of a spiral line. Goethe took up these ideas and linked them to his concept of metamorphosis. He wrote a lengthy essay (Kürschner, vol. 33) in which he compiled all his experiences of the plant world that seemed to him to indicate the existence of the two tendencies. He believed that he had to include these tendencies in his idea of metamorphosis. "We had to assume that a general spiral tendency prevailed in vegetation, whereby, in connection with the vertical striving, all construction, every formation of plants is accomplished according to the law of metamorphosis." Goethe regards the presence of spiral vessels in individual plant organs as proof that the spiral tendency pervasively dominates the life of the plant. "Nothing is more in accordance with nature than that she brings into effect through the individual what she intends as a whole." "At summertime, stand in front of a pole stuck in the garden soil, on which a bindweed (Konvolvel) climbs upwards from below, winding its way upwards, firmly following its lively growth. Imagine convolvulus and pole, both equally alive, rising from a root, producing themselves alternately and thus progressing inexorably. Anyone who can transform this sight into an inner vision will find the concept much easier to grasp. The climbing plant seeks outside itself what it should and cannot give to itself." Goethe used the same simile in a letter to Count Sternberg on March 5, 1832, adding the words: "Admittedly, this simile does not quite fit, for in the beginning the climbing plant had to wind its way around the rising stem in barely perceptible circles. But the closer it approached the upper tip, the faster the spiral line had to turn in order to finally (at the blossom) gather in a circle on a discus, similar to the dance where in youth one often saw oneself pressed breast to breast, heart to heart with the most lovable children, even against one's will. Forgive these anthropomorphisms." Ferdinand Cohn comments on this passage: "If only Goethe had lived to see Darwin! ... how he would have enjoyed the man who knew how to find clear and convincing evidence for his ideas using a strictly inductive method ..." Darwin believes that he can show that almost all plant organs have a tendency to spiral movements during their growth, which he calls circummutation.
[ 42 ] In September 1830, Goethe spoke out in an essay on the dispute between the two natural scientists Cuvier and Geoffroy de Saint-Hilaire; he continued this essay in March 1832. In February and March 1830, Cuvier, a fanatic of facts, spoke out in the French Academy against the arguments of Geoffroy de Saint-Hilaire, who, in Goethe's opinion, had arrived at "a high way of thinking in keeping with the idea". Cuvier is a master in distinguishing the individual organic forms. Geoffroy endeavoured to seek out the analogies in these forms and to prove that the organization of animals is "subject to a general plan, modified only here and there, from which the distinction between them can be derived". He strives to recognize the relationship between the laws and is convinced that the individual can be gradually developed from the whole. Goethe regarded Geoffroy as a kindred spirit; he expressed this to Eckermann on August 2, 1830 with the words: "Now Geoffroy de Saint-Hilaire is also decidedly on our side and with him all his important students and followers in France. This event is of incredible value to me and I rightly rejoice at the final victory of a cause to which I have dedicated my life and which is also very much my own." Geoffroy practises a way of thinking that is also Goethe's, he seeks to grasp the idea of unity in the experience of the sensual manifold; Cuvier sticks to the manifold, to the individual, because the idea does not occur to him at the same time when he contemplates it. Geoffroy has a correct perception of the relation of the sensible to the idea; Cuvier does not. This is why he describes Geoffroy's comprehensive principle as presumptuous, even declaring it to be subordinate. One can make the experience, especially with natural scientists, that they speak disparagingly about a "merely" ideal, thought. They have no organ for the ideal and therefore do not know its sphere of activity. Goethe was led to his profound insights into the essence of the living by the fact that he possessed this organ in particularly perfect development, from his general view of the world. His ability to allow the eyes of the spirit to work in constant, living union with the eyes of the body made it possible for him to see the unified sensuous-supersensible essence that runs through organic development, and to recognize this essence even where one organ develops out of another, conceals its relationship, its equality with the previous one through transformation, denies it, and changes in purpose as well as in formation to such an extent that no comparison with the previous one can take place according to external characteristics. (Cf. the essay on Joachim Jungius, Kürschner, vol. 33.) Seeing with the eyes of the body conveys the knowledge of the sensual and material; seeing with the eyes of the spirit leads to the contemplation of the processes in human consciousness, to the observation of the world of thought, feeling and will; the living union between the spiritual and the bodily eye enables the knowledge of the organic, which as a sensual-supersensual element lies in the middle between the purely sensual and the purely spiritual.