26Q FROM THE GREEKS TO DARWIN 



as he had previously done against those of La- 

 marck. 



Goethe (1749-1832) 



Johann Wolfgang Goethe, the poet-natural- 

 ist, perceived the law of transmutation as a 

 naturalist, as an anatomist, as a botanist, as a 

 philosopher, and as a poet. His brilliant early- 

 achievements in science afford a striking illus- 

 tration of the union of imagination with a pas- 

 sion for observation and generalization as the 

 essential characteristics of the naturalist. 



In these characteristics of genius as a biologist 

 he ranked above Lamarck and Geoffroy, but 

 when he took his journey into Italy the poetic 

 instinct began to predominate over the scientific 

 and science thereby lost a disciple who would 

 have ranked among the very highest, if not the 

 highest. Of this time Goethe says: "I have aban- 

 doned my master Loder for my friend Schiller, 

 and Linnaeus for Shakespeare." Yet Goethe, in 

 the midst of poetry, never lost his passion for 

 scientific studies. He seems to have felt instinc- 

 tively that what contemporary science needed 

 was not only observation but generalization. He 

 showed his own power of scientific generaliza- 

 tion in his famous studies upon the metamor- 

 phoses of plants, and in his perception in 1790 



