RICHARD OWEN, 121 



corroboration of facts for an explanation of those facts, 

 for their reduction to their causes. He is acquainted 

 with a " spiral tendency " and a " vertical tendency " in 

 plants, and they at once become " fundamental laws of 

 life." Now in root and stem we undoubtedly see 

 a vertical tendency downwards and upwards ; we see 

 convolutions and tendrils ; we have, moreover, been 

 able to analyze these facts into simpler physical and 

 physiological phenomena, without having arrived at 

 the innermost cause, the actual law. 



Goethe's opinion as to man's place in Nature is implied 

 in what has been already said. That he, a creature and 

 a product of Nature should form an exception to the 

 animal so obviously resembling him, he could not 

 admit. He must remain therefore unconditionally with- 

 in the type, " of which the parts are perpetually modi- 

 fied in all races and species of animals." But we have 

 now, I think, furnished sufficient evidence that this and 

 similar enunciations apply only to the potential varia- 

 bility of the archetype which has found expression in 

 the races and species. Hence man also is to him a 

 product allied to the animal, only by the idea of the 

 type, and not by actual propagation and descent. This 

 is the solution which he sought respecting the "most 

 beautiful organization." And with this he was content. 



From Goethe to our contemporary Richard Owen 

 seems a wide leap. But if it was our object to produce 

 in Goethe a stage of natural inquiry which contents 

 itself with a formula of the correlation of living things, 

 dazzling indeed, but ultimately vague, the renowned 

 English comparative anatomist will show us how it is 

 possible to take even the final step and arrive at the 



