SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES 2.85 



His influence 

 Goethe's posthumous reputation as a natural scientist has varied generation 

 after generation. From the exact scientists of his own age he met with but 

 little encouragement — optical science in particular, which was just in his 

 time making brilliant progress in the hands of Fresnel, Wollaston, Brewster, 

 and others, naturally left him far behind — while, on the other hand, the 

 entire school of natural philosophy saw in him an inimitable master. And 

 with good reason, for as a matter of fact he did more than any other to pre- 

 serve the reputation of natural philosophy. When, however, this tendency 

 w-as finally abandoned and mercilessly given up to ridicule, Goethe was ac- 

 corded far more indulgent treatment; his great authority as a poet and man 

 of culture exempted him from harsh treatment at the hands of scientific 

 critics. Goethe's morphological speculation received a new lease of life 

 through the coming of Haeckel; for reasons that will be explained later on, 

 Haeckel expressed a boundless admiration for Goethe and regarded him as 

 one of the foremost precursors of Darwinism. On his authority both the 

 general public and literary history have since willingly accorded Goethe, 

 who in other respects has left so many marks on the cultural development 

 of our time, the further honour of being a natural scientist in the modern 

 sense of the term. Nevertheless, his biological writings have certainly been 

 more admired at a distance than read in the original, a fact that has no doubt 

 contributed in the long run towards concealing their true quality.^ Goethe 

 was no exact scientist, but a romantic natural philosopher; in that capacity, 

 however, he has also exercised an influence, which must not be underesti- 

 mated; his psycho-physiological observations and speculations have formed 

 the basis on which men like Johannes Miiller and Purkinje have built up 

 their work, and although Goethe may have had no eye for comparative 

 morphology in the modern sense, yet many an eminent anatomist of later 

 date has been induced by Goethe's ideas to devote himself to a comparative 

 study of form that has proved of benefit to science. Goethe takes his place in 

 the history of biology as a stimulating force; his influence was, it is true, 

 both good and bad, but by no means inconsiderable. 



- So far as is known, no separate edition of Goethe's scientific writings has existed until 

 recent times; those desirous of studying them have had to have recourse to the somewhat ex- 

 pensive editions of his Sdmtlkhe IVerkt. An edition of these writings was published some years 

 ago by R. Steiner, who, as is well known, made Goethe's conception of nature the basis of 

 his " anthroposophical " theory of existence, which does not in the least accord with modern 

 natural science. 



