PHENOMENA OF CONVERGENCE. 15 



remarks, which are continually being quoted since 

 Haeckel's enthusiastic advocacy of Goethe as the 

 precursor of Darwin, are mere transcriptions of 

 passages from d' Alton. 1 The phenomenon that 

 different animals, very divergent in their struc- 

 ture, and hence not related to one another, can, 

 when placed in the same circumstances, develop 

 certain similarities, did not escape his thoughtful 

 mind. He writes : ' The Eodents in form show 

 affinity with various orders ; the rat resembles 

 the beast of prey ; and the hare in its mode 

 of life and food, even in form and characteristics, 

 resembles the Kuminants.' This sentence Goethe 



1 Goethe's poem, the MetamorpJiosis of Animals, where we 

 find the lines 



Hence, each form conditions the life and acts of the creature, 

 And each fashion of life, with reflex forcible action, 

 Works on the form ; 



* 



Also hestimmt die Gestalt die Lebensweise des Thieres, 

 Und die Weise des Lebens, sie wirkt auf alle Gestalten 

 Machtig zuriick 



belongs to the year 1819. D'Alton, in his work on the Skeletons 

 of the Rodents in 1823, says : ' Thus it can no longer appear 

 doubtful that the tendency of development in the organism is as 

 dependent upon outward circumstances, as the mode of life of 

 animals is determined by their organisation.' This thought, 

 like others, is reproduced by Goethe when discussing this 

 classical work in 1824. In this ' intellectual discourse ' he may 

 have found to his great satisfaction what he had himself long 

 since perceived and pondered over. 



