FROM LAMARCK TO ST. HILAIRE 271 



history of life, a principle which on his arrival in 

 Weimar he applied to the plant world — for bot- 

 any fascinated him no less than osteology. In 

 1790 appeared his Vcrsuch, die Mctavior phase 

 dcr Pflanzen zu erJddren, in which he revealed 

 to the scientific world an idea of creative power 

 continuing in operation, but decades passed be- 

 fore the scientific world recognized the value of 

 his conception. 



When Goethe came out with his work in 1790 it 

 was little noticed: indeed, scientists came near con- 

 sidering it an aberration. To be sure, there was an 

 error at the bottom of it, but such a one as only 

 genius can commit. Goethe's only error consisted in 

 allowing his treatise to be published almost half a 

 century too soon, before there were any botanists 

 who were able to study it and under.stand it.^ 



Thus the germ of the idea of Evolution and the 

 proof of this idea through comparative anatomy 

 and embryonic development were contained in 

 Goethe's first scientific writings and discoveries 

 between the years 1781 and 1790. This was prior 

 to the publication of the Zoonomia of Darwin 

 and long prior to Lamarck's Philosophie Zoolo- 

 gique. It is not an exaggeration to say that 

 Goethe was the first to conceive Evolution in the 

 modern sense of the term and that his transfer 



'Mliller: Goethe's letzte litcrarifiche TUtighcit, p. 54. 



