276 FROM THE GREEKS TO DARWIN 



we now know as heredity and variation, or in- 

 heritance and adaptation. 



Goethe's interest in science remained unabated 

 to the close of his life. As remarked by Biel- 

 schowsky:^ 



It is admitted in many quarters that at least near 

 the end of his life Goethe arrived at a clear concep- 

 tion of the idea of descent, and that in the last scien- 

 tific work of his life, his review of the remarkable 

 controversy between Cuvier and Geoffroy de Saint- 

 Hilaire, he gave expression to the idea by placing 

 himself uncompromisingly on the side of the latter. 

 But if that is true it is no less true that these ideas 

 had long been his own, for we have his testimony: 

 "This event is for me one of altogether incredible 

 value, and I have a right to rejoice that I have finally 

 lived to witness the general victory of a cause to 

 which I have devoted my whole life, and which is pre- 

 eminently my cause." 



The movements of scientific thought were to 

 him of far more importance than political events, 

 as we learn from an account by Soret, quoted by 

 Haeckel,^ of Goethe's reaction in his eighty-first 

 year to the famous discussion between Cuvier 

 and St. Hilaire described above: 



Monday, Aug. 2d, 1880. — The news of the out- 

 break of the revolution of July arrived in Weimar 

 today, and has caused general excitement. In the 



iBielschowsky: The Life of Goethe, 1912, vol. Ill, p. 110. 

 ^The History of Creation, 1892, vol. I, pp. 89-90. 



