SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES x8l 

 Erster Enfwurf einer allgemeinen Einleitung in die vergleichende Anatomic, dated 

 1795. He starts with the principle that natural science is on the whole based 

 on comparison — a principle upon which Aristotle had already laid great 

 emphasis. As the standard of comparison Goethe sets up an ideal type, with 

 which the anatomical details in each animal form are to be compared. Thus 

 one should at once be able to interpret an anatomical detail in an individual 

 by comparison with the ideal type. Goethe offers no detailed description of 

 what he imagines this type to be like, and indeed it would have been difficult 

 to conceive one. Herder's above-mentioned speculations on an ideal type have 

 obviously influenced Goethe here far more than the already existing com- 

 parative anatomy such as Buffon, Daubenton, and Camper practised. Even 

 in this theory Goethe indulges in wild philosophical fancies, as when he 

 states that the tail of mammals ''ah eine Andeutung der Unendlichkeit organischer 

 Existenzen angesehen iverden kann,'' or when he says of the body of the snake 

 that it is " gleichsam unendlirh," because it does not need to expend matter 

 and force on extremities. This paper also remained in manuscript form for 

 the time being. 



His metamorphosis of plants 

 Before this, however, Goethe had published the treatise that is generally 

 acknowledged to be his principal contribution in the field of natural science 

 — namely, his Versuch, die Metamorphose der Pflan^en xu erklaren, which was 

 printed in 1790. The gist of it is, briefly, that the leaves of plants gradually 

 develop through "metamorphosis," which first gives rise to cotyledons, 

 then to the stem-leaves, and finally to the flower-leaves: food-leaves and 

 petals, stamen and pistils. This metamorphosis can partly be "regular" or 

 ' 'progressive, " " welche sich von den ersten Samenblattem bis zur letzten Ausbildung 

 der Frucht immer stufeniveise wirksam bemerken Idsst, und durch Umwandlung einer 

 Gestalt in die andere, gleichsam auf einer geistigen Leiter xu jenem Gipjel der Natur, 

 der Fortpflanzimg durch z^vei Geschlechter hinaujsteigt.'" Irregular metamorphosis 

 is one of nature's retrograde steps: "ivie sie dort mit unwiderstehlichem Trieb 

 und krdjtiger Anstrengung die Blumen bildet und xu den Werken der Liebe rustet, so 

 erschlafft sie bier gleichsam, und Idsst unentschlossen ihr Geschopf in einem unent- 

 schiedenen, weichen, unseren Augen oft gefdlligen, aber innerlich unkrdftigen und 

 univirksamen Zustande.'' Here he refers to double flowers, whose stamens are 

 converted into petals. Thenhe goes through the different leaf-forms: the seed- 

 lobes are thick because they are filled with raw material, while the leaves of 

 the stem, and still more of the flower, become finer and finer on account of 

 the fact that only finer saps penetrate into them. Another idea that, besides 

 the saps of various degrees of tenuity, plays a conspicuous part in Goethe's 

 vegetable physiology is ''Anastomosis,'' by which he apparently means the 

 intercommunication between various parts of plants; the idea, however, 

 remains obscure and is certainly not made any clearer by the fact of 



