GOETHE. 113 



the two must be summoned to solve the problem. To 

 this archetype, itself incapable of representation, — to 

 this abstraction, and to this alone, — Nature, according to 

 Goethe, was bound to adhere in her work of creation, 

 " without being able, in the slightest measure, to break 

 through or overleap the circle." 



If it be attempted to make it appear that Goethe 

 actually proclaimed the doctrine of Descent, or was 

 even in a poetical sense its inspired prophet, either too 

 much value is attributed to his enunciations of "cease- 

 less progressive transformation," and such like, or the 

 sense which he connected with them is not appreciated. 

 Now let us take the following passage, which Haeckel 

 looks upon as decisive. " Thus much we should have 

 gained ; that we may fearlessly affirm all the more perfect 

 organic beings, among which we include Fishes, Amphi- 

 bians, Birds, Mammals (and at the head of the latter, 

 Man), to be formed according to an archetype, which 

 merely fluctuates more or less in its very persistent parts, 

 and moreover, day by day, completes and transforms 

 itself by means of reproduction." Is it here meant, 

 perchance, that the persistent are contrasted with the 

 non-persistent parts ? By no means. 



Even prior to Geoffroy Saint Hilaire, Goethe had 

 spoken of a law, w^hich is, however, no law, nor even an 

 expression of facts, namely, that Nature in her work has 

 to deal with a given quantity of material to which she 

 must adapt it. He does not seem to have been aware 

 that Aristotle had affirmed the same, that Nature, if 

 she enlarged an organ, did so only at the expense of 

 another. A second of the supposed fundamental laws 

 discovered by the Frenchman, that an organ would 



