252 



SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



" For as I tried to take up his sharp and suggestive 

 distinctions, his expressive, useful, but frequently arbi- 

 trary laws, there arose in me an inner confiiet : what 

 he tried forcibly to hold asunder, tended according to 

 the innermost demands of my nature to be united." And 

 as the process of dividing, classifying, and keeping apart 

 went on among the successors of Linnaeus, so it must 

 have produced in many genuine observers of nature a 

 tendency similar to that which Goethe describes. They 

 would emphasise the resemblances and analogies of 

 natural objects and their organs in proportion as the 

 classijfiers had separated and distinguished them. And 

 it was just as likely that the artistic mind of Goethe 

 might succeed in " lifting the veil of nature," as Hum- 

 boldt ^ put it, when he transmitted to Goethe his 

 suggestive work on the geography of plants, and as 

 Huxley" repeated in 1894. Indeed it was the former 

 who, on the largest scale, Jiad traced those analogies and 

 correspondences in nature which are so much dearer 



- See quotation su^wa, p. 246 

 note ; also ( ' Life of Owen, vol. ii. 

 p. 288) : " The cultivator of botany, 

 who went bej'ond the classification 

 of ' hay,' became familiar with facts 

 of the same order. Indeed, flower- 

 ing plants fairly thrust morpho- 

 logical ideas upon the observer. 

 Flowers are the primers of the 

 morphologist ; those who run may 

 read in them uniformity of type 

 amidst endless diversity, single- 

 ness of plan with complex multi- 

 plicity of detail. As a musician 

 might say, every natural group of 

 flowering plants is a sort of visible 

 fugue wandering about a central 

 theme which is never forsaken, 

 however it may, momentarily, 

 cease to be apparent." 



^ See Goethe's own account (in 

 Werke, 2 Abth., vol. vi. p. 163): 

 " Sollte jedoch meine Eitelkeit 

 einigermasseu gekriinkt sein, dass 

 man weder bei Blumen, Minern, 

 noch Knochelchen meiner weiter 

 gedenken mag, so kann ich mich 

 an der wohlthatigeu Theilnahme 

 eines hochst geschiitzten Freuudes 

 genugsam erholen. Die deutsche 

 Uebersetzung seiner Ideen zu einer 

 Geographie der Pflanzen nebst 

 einem Naturgemiilde der Tropen- 

 liinder sendet mir Alexander von 

 Humboldt mit einem schmeichel- 

 haften Bilde, wodurch er andeutet, 

 dass es der Poesie wohl auch 

 gelingen konne den Schleier der 

 Natur aufzuheben ; und wenn er 

 es zugesteht, wer wird es leugnen ?" 



