238 HAECKEL 



recognising none but divine forces in nature, in 

 proclaiming all natural laws to be divine, Monism 

 rises to the greatest and most lofty conception of 

 which man, the most perfect of all things, is 

 capable, the conception of the unity of God and 

 nature." 



The book closes with these words and a quotation 

 from Goethe. It had opened with a quotation 

 from Goethe. Goethe runs through the whole of 

 the two energetic volumes like an old and vener- 

 able anthem. The stalwart fighter not only traces 

 his whole Monistic philosophy to Goethe : not 

 only owes to him the very idea of morphology. In 

 front of the second and more strictly Darwinistic 

 volume he has a dedication '^ to the founders of 

 the theory of evolution," and between Darwin 

 and Lamarck we find the name of Goethe. It 

 was Haeckel's firm conviction that Goethe not 

 only believed in the unity of God and nature, 

 but literally in the natural evolution of the 

 various species of animals and plants from each 

 other. In this conviction, which claims Goethe 

 explicitly for Darwin, he has never been shaken, 

 although his own friends and convinced evolu- 

 tionists (Oscar Schmidt, for instance) have often 

 opposed him on the point. 



Much has been written since the days of the 

 General Morphology both for and against this 

 Goethe-Darwin theory, but I cannot see that we 

 have got much further with it. I still find that 

 a candid study of some of Goethe's smaller 

 writings, such as the History of my Botanical 



