GOETHE. l8l 



viction, maintaining and repeating his arguments to 

 his death-bed. There is a pathetic strain in the in- 

 troduction to the last edition of his Animaux sans 

 Vert^ebres : 



" Avant d'atteindre le terme de mon existence, j'ai pense" que 

 dans un nouvel ouvrage, susceptible d'etre consider^ comme 

 une seconde Edition de mon Systeme des Animaux sans Vertebres, 

 je devais exposer les principaux faits que j'ai recuellis pour mes 

 lecons. . . . Ainsi que mes observations et mes reflexions sur la 

 source de ces faits." 



JOHANN WOLFGANG GOETHE (1749-1832) was 

 the greatest poet of Evolution; he saw the law 

 as a poet, as a philosopher, and as an anatomist. 



While making the most substantial contribu- 

 tions to the scientific evidences, he did not, like 

 his French contemporary, formulate a system. He 

 was born five years later and died three years 

 earlier than Lamarck, yet never knew of his writ- 

 ings. This circumstance Haeckel truly calls a 

 tragic loss to science, for Goethe would have made 

 the buried Philosophic Zoologique known to the 

 world. 



The brilliant early achievements of Goethe in 

 science afford another illustration of the union of 

 imagination and powers of observation as the essen- 

 tial characteristics of the naturalist. When he took 

 his journey into Italy, and the poetic instinct began 

 to predominate over the scientific, science lost a 

 disciple who would have ranked among the very 

 highest, if not the highest. Of this time Goethe 



