RICHARD OWEN. 121 



a " spiral tendency " and a " vertical tendency " in plants, 

 and they at once become " fundamental laws of life." 

 Now in root and stem we undoubtedly see a vertical 

 tendency downwards and upwards; we see convolutions 

 and tendrils; we have, moreover, been able to analyze 

 these facts into simpler physical and physiological phe- 

 nomena, without having arrived at the innermost cause, 

 the actual law. 



Goethe's opinion as to man's place in Nature is im- 

 plied in what has been already said. That he, a creature 

 and a product of Nature should form an exception to the 

 animal so obviously resembling him, he could not ad- 

 mit. He must remain therefore unconditionally within 

 the type, " of which the parts are perpetually modified 

 in all races and species of animals." But we have now, 

 I think, furnished sufficient evidence that this and sirhilar 

 enunciations apply only to the potential variabihty of the 

 archetype which has found expression in the races and 

 species. Hence man also is to him a product allied to 

 the animal, only by the idea of the type, and not by actual 

 propagation and descent. This is the solution which he 

 sought respecting the " most beautiful organization." 

 And with this he was content. 



From Goethe to our contemporary Richard Owen 

 seems a wide leap. But if it was our object to produce 

 in Goethe a stage of natural inquiry which contents 

 itself with a formula of the correlation of living things, 

 dazzling indeed, but ultimately vague, the renowned 

 English comparative anatomist will show us how it is 

 possible to take even the final step and arrive at the 

 conclusion that consanguinity is the sole solution of the 

 similarity of species, and how, nevertheless, by cHnging 



