12 



THE STUDY OF PLANTS IN ANCIENT AND MODERN TIMES. 



of the stem and inclose the seeds, the latter being developed from the tip of the 

 stem. Thus the plant accomplishes its life-history in six stages. It is built up of 

 leaves, the " intrinsic identity " of which cannot be doubted, although they assume 

 extremely various shapes corresponding to the six strides towards perfection. In 

 this process of transformation or metamorphosis of the leaf there are three alter- 

 nate contractions and expansions, whilst each stage 

 is more perfect than the one next below it. 



Whilst seeking to explain metamorphosis in 

 this manner, and endeavouring, with greater per- 

 spicacity than all his predecessors and contem- 

 poraries, " to reduce to one simple universal prin- 

 ciple all the multifarious phenomena of the glorious 

 garden of the world," Goethe conceived the notion 

 of a typical plant, an ideal, the realization of 

 which is achieved in nature by means of a mani- 

 fold variation of individual parts. This abstract 

 notion of a plant's development with its six stages 

 corresponding to "three wave-crests" or expan- 

 sions (Leaf, Petal, Carpel) and "three wave- 

 troughs" or contractions (Cotyledon, Sepal, Sta- 

 men) is expressed graphically in figure 3. It still 

 holds its ground at the present day under the 

 name of Goethe's " Urpflanze," and the credit of its 

 invention is entirely his. But it is not quite right 

 to claim for Goethe, in addition, the title of 

 founder of the doctrine of vegetable metamor- 

 phosis; for in reality he only offered another inter- 

 pretation and mode of representation of a pheno- 

 menon already included by Linnaeus under the 

 term metamorphosis. Linnaeus had instituted a 

 comparison between the metamorphosis of plants and that of insects; in particular, 

 he likened the calyx to the ruptured integument of a chrysalis and the internal parts 

 of a flower to the perfect insect (Imago). He also made many different attempts to 

 establish analogies between the development of plants and that of animals; and in 

 so doing he opened up a wide field for the speculations of the "nature philosophers" 

 in the earlier part of the nineteenth century. 



An extensive study of this subject now commenced; and writers on nature- 

 philosophy worked indefatigably at the amplification and modification of this 

 theme, first broached by Linnaeus. 



"A plant is a magnetic needle attracted towards the light from the earth into 

 the air. It is a galvanic bubble, and, as such, is earth, water, and air. The plant- 

 bubble possesses two opposite extremities, a single terrestrial end and a dual aerial 

 end; and so plants must be looked upon as being organisms which manifest a 



Fig. 3. Goethe's "Urpflanze.' 



