88 THE HISTOKY OF CREATION?. 



* but what else could be expected under the circum- 

 stances, and with such a ministry, except that it would 

 end in the expulsion of the present royal family ? ' * We do 

 not seem to understand each other, my dear friend,^ replied 

 Goethe. ' I am not speaking of those people at all ; I am 

 interested in something very different, I mean the dispute 

 between Cuvier and Geoffi'oy de Saint Hilaire, which has 

 broken out in the Academy, and which is of such great im- 

 portance to science.' This remark of Goethe's came upon 

 me so unexpectedly, that I did not know what to say, and 

 my thoughts for some minutes seemed to have come to a 

 complete standstill. ' The affair is of the utmost import- 

 ance,' he continued, ' and you cannot form any idea of what 

 I felt on receiving the news of the meeting on the 19th. 

 In Geoffroy de Saint Hilaire we have now a mighty ally 

 for a long time to come. But I see also how great the 

 sympathy of the French scientific world must be in this 

 affair, for, in spite of the terrible political excitement, the 

 meeting on the 19th was attended by a full house. The 

 best of it is, however, that the synthetic treatment of 

 natm^e, introduced into France by Geoffroy, can now no 

 longer be stopped. This matter has now become public 

 through the discussions in the Academy, carried on in the 

 presence of a large audience; it can no longer be referred 

 to secret committees, or be settled or suppressed behind 

 closed doors.' " 



In my book on " The General Morphology of Organisms " 

 I have placed as headings to the difierent books and chapters 

 a selection of the numerous interesting and important sen- 

 tences in which Goethe clearly expresses his view of 

 organic nature and its constant development. I will here 



