APHORISMS AND REFLECTIONS 141 



All this is mere justice to Goethe ; but, as it is the 

 unpleasant duty of the historian to do justice upon, 

 as well as to, great men, it behoves me to add that 

 the germs of the worst faults of later speculative 

 morphologists are no less visible in his writings than 

 their great merits. In the artist-philosopher there 

 was, at best, a good deal more artist than philo- 

 sopher ; and when Goethe ventured into the regions 

 which belong to pure science, this excess of a virtue 

 had all the consequences of a vice. " Trennen und 

 zahlen lag nicht in meiner Natur," says he ; but the 

 mental operations of which " analysis and numera- 

 tion " are partial expressions are indispensable for 

 every step of progress beyond happy glimpses, even 

 in morphology ; while, in physiology and in physics, 

 failure in the most exact performance of these 

 operations involves sheer disaster, as indeed Goethe 

 was afforded abundant opportunity of learning. Yet 

 he never understood the sharp lessons he received, 

 and put down to malice, or prejudice, the ill-reception 

 of his unfortunate attempts to deal with purely 

 physical problems. 



There was never any lack of the scientific 

 imagination about the great anatomist ; and the 

 charge of indifference to general ideas, sometimes 

 brought against him, is stupidly unjust. But Cuvier 

 was one of those happily endowed persons in whom 

 genius never parts company with common-sense ; 

 and whose perception of the importance of sound 

 method is so great that they look at even a truth, 

 hit upon by those who pursue an essentially vicious 

 method, with the sort of feeling with which an 



