114 '^^^ DOCTRINE OF DESCENT. 



perish than resign its place, was hkewise instituted by 

 him at the same time. 



Thus, in Goethe's opinion, nature always makes use 

 of the same parts. Nature is inexhaustible in the modi- 

 fication and realization of the archetype; but to that 

 which has once attained realization cleaves the tenacious 

 power of persistency, a vis centripeta, of which the pro- 

 found basis is beyond the influence of anything external. 

 Hence, if he speaks of daily completion and transforma- 

 tion by means of reproduction, he understands, with re- 

 spect to the animal which has attained realization, merely 

 that course of development or metamorphosis which is 

 an image of inexhaustible phenomenal nature. The in- 

 fluences which Nature has exercised upon the parts, he 

 pictures to himself as still present; but of an actual trans- 

 formation of existing species into new ones, such as is 

 required by the modern Darwinian doctrine of Descent, 

 Goethe does not speak at all. 



In his view, what was it, then, that was to be trans- 

 formed? Surely not the archetype. He sjiys, indeed, 

 " Thus the eagle fashioned itself by the air for the air, 

 by the mountain top for the mountain top. The mole 

 fashions itself to the loose soil, the seal to the water, 

 the bat to the air ; " and generally, " the animal is fash- 

 ioned by circumstances to circumstances." But the il- 

 lustrations which he gives in the Sketch of a. d. 1796, 

 show plainly that he thought, not of any transforma- 

 tion of existing forms, but of mere modes of manifesta- 

 tion of the type and archetype as they exist in given spe- 

 cies. He then says, " The serpent stands high in organi- 

 zation. It has a decided head, with a perfect auxiliary 

 organ, — a consolidated lower jaw-bone. Only its body 



