GOETHE. 117 



With the word Species, we reach the most important 

 point in our account of Goethe's theory of nature ; if 

 indeed we have not already unquestionably proved that 

 he can in no way be regarded as a true precursor 

 of Darwin. Darwin and his adherents maintain the 

 variabihty of the so-called vegetal and animal species. 

 The question is simply whether Goethe was or was 

 not, like his contemporary Lamarck, convinced of this 

 mutability. If he says on one occasion that ** from 

 the seed, plants are developed, ever diverging and 

 variously determining the mutual relations of their 

 parts," this is ambiguous in itself; it may refer either 

 to the origin of new species, or to the variability of 

 species by nature immutable. Another time he speaks 

 of the "purpose of Nature" in the horse. 



I can find but one single passage in Goethe's writings 

 in which there is a question of an actual transformation 

 of a creature, if not into a new species, at least into a 

 very marked and persistent variety. In 1820, a Dr. 

 Korte gave a description of a primaeval bull found in 

 the neighbourhood of Halberstadt, and instituted com- 

 parisons and reflections, how under the influence of 

 domestication our highly modified cattle had been 

 evolved from the former. This relic, and another in 

 Thuringia {1821), which latter specimen was obtained 

 by him for the Museum at Jena, gave him an oppor- 

 tunity of coinciding with Korte, and of illustrating by an 

 actual incident, the possibility of this doubtless easy 

 transformation. 



But from this to the transformation of species there 

 is still a long way, and Goethe did not traverse it. We 

 have just seen that the idea of deriving single animals 



