GOETHE. Ill 



tremely fruitful was this supposed discovery, altliough 

 the subject is far more complex than Goethe and his 

 followers imagined. 



We must commemorate yet another genuine dis- 

 covery made by Goethe, which exhibits his very peculiar 

 method. It relates to the inter-maxillary bone in 

 man. About 1780, he was studying osteology at Jena, 

 under the guidance of Loder, an anatomist of some 

 renown. It is evident that all higher animals possess 

 a bone, the so-called inter-maxillary bone, supporting 

 the upper incisor teeth. "The strange case now oc- 

 curred," relates Goethe, "that the distinction between 

 apes and men was made by ascribing an inter-maxillary 

 bone to the former, and none to the latter ; but as this 

 part is mainly remarkable as the upper incisor teeth are 

 set in it, it was inconceivable how man should have the 

 incisor teeth and lack the bone." It was inconceivable 

 to him because, from the comparisons of Nature, he had 

 framed the idea " that all divisions of the creature, 

 singly and collectively, may be found in all animals." 

 To make man an exception, not to be measured by the 

 same pattern, was repugnant to his mind. Man must 

 have an inter-maxillary bone ; and, contrary to the 

 opinions of the greatest anatomists of that period, such 

 as Peter Camper, he demonstrated how in man this 

 inter-maxillary bone, although it subsequently becomes 

 almost undistinguishably anchylosed with the actual 

 supra-maxillary bone, nevertheless exists, quite dis- 

 tinctly, as a separate part during development and early 

 infancy. 



From this narrative we have gained a good deal. In 

 the contemplation of individuals and details, Goethe 

 6 



