GOETHE. 115 



is indefinitely long; and the cause of its being so is that 

 it expends neither material nor power upon auxiliary or- 

 gans. As soon as these make their appearance in another 

 form, as, for instance, in the lizard, though only short 

 arms and legs are produced, the indefinite length must 

 at once contract, and a shorter body takes its place. The 

 long legs of the frog necessitate a very short form for 

 the body of this creature, and by the same law, the un- 

 shapely toad is laterally extended." It is well to bear 

 in mind this somewhat trivial passage, that we may not 

 see more in the poetic glorification of the Metamorphosis 

 of Animals than it really contains. 



When Goethe says in the magnificent poem: 



" Hence, each form conditions the life and acts of the creature, 

 And each fashion of life, with reflex forcible action, 

 Works on the form : " * 



it sounds, as we must admit, extremely seductive. But 

 we are sobered, or rather led to the right standpoint, by 

 reading his fascinating remarks on d'Alton's skeletons 

 of the rodents (1824). It is there made manifest that 

 Goethe had not the remotest idea of an actual transfor- 

 mation of a rodent into any other animal by the force of 

 external influences. 



The reader may judge for himself. " Let us contem- 

 plate the animal in the neighbourhood of water; as the 

 so-called water-hog it wallows, pig-like, on the marshy 

 shore; as a beaver it is seen building by fresh waters; 

 next, still requiring some degree of moisture, it burrows 

 in the earth, and at least loves concealment, hiding witli 



* Also bestimmt die Gestalt die Lebensweise des Thieres, 

 Und die Weise des Lcbens, sie wirkt auf alle Gestalten, 

 Machtig zurllck 



