UNITY OF PLAN 47 



other structure was man himself, we see that in seeking after 

 an abstract generalised type Goethe was reaching out to a 

 new conception. The fact that only the structure of man 

 and the higher animals was at all well-known in his time 

 led Goethe to think that his general Typus would hold for 

 the lower animals as well, though it was to be arrived at 

 primarily from a study of the higher animals. All he could 

 assert of the entire animal kingdom was that all animals 

 agreed in having a head, a middle part, and an end part, 

 with their characteristic organs, and that accordingly they 

 might, in this respect at least, be reduced to one common 

 Typus. Goethe's knowledge of the lower animals was not 

 extensive. 



Though Goethe did not work out a criterion of the 

 homology of parts with any great clearness, he had an 

 inkling of the principle later developed by E. Geoffroy St 

 Hilaire, and called by him the "Principle of Connections." 

 According to this principle, the homology of a part is 

 determined by its position relative to other parts. Goethe 

 expresses it thus : " On the other hand the most constant 

 factor is the position in which the bone is invariably found, 

 and the function to which it is adapted in the organic edifice." l 

 But from this sentence it is not clear that Goethe understood 

 the principle as one of form independent of function, for he 

 seems to consider that the homology of an organ is partly 

 determined by the function which it performs for the whole. 

 He wavers between the purely formal or morphological 

 interpretation of the principle of connections and the 

 functional. We find him in the additions to the Entwurf 

 (1796), saying: "We must take into consideration not 

 merely the spatial relations of the parts, but also their 

 living reciprocal influence, their dependence upon and action 

 on one another." But in seeking for the intermaxillary . 

 bone in man he was guided by its position relative to the 

 maxillaries -- it must be the bone between the anterior 

 ends of the maxillaries, a bone whose limits are indicated 

 in the adult only by surface grooves. 



As a matter of fact Goethe's morphological views are 

 neither very clearly expressed nor very consistent. This 

 1 Cotta ed., p. 478. 2 Loc. ctt., p. 491. 



