GOETHE, III 
tremely fruitful was this supposed discovery, although 
the subject is far more complex than Goethe and his 
followers imagined. 
We must commemorate yet another genuine dis- 
covery made by Goethe, which exhibits his very peculiar 
method. It relates to the inter-maxillary bone in 
man. About 1780, he was studying osteology at Jena, 
under the guidance of Loder, an anatomist of somie 
renown. It is evident that all higher animals possess 
a bone, the so-called inter-maxillary bone, supporting 
the upper incisor teeth. “The strange case now oc- 
curred,” relates Goethe, “that the distinction between 
apes and men was made by ascribing an inter-maxillary 
bone to the former, and none to the latter ; but as this 
part is mainly remarkable as the upper incisor teeth are 
set in it, it was inconceivable how man should have the 
incisor teeth and lack the bone.” It was inconceivable 
to him because, from the comparisons of Nature, he had 
framed the idea “that all divisions of the creature, 
singly and collectively, may be found in all animals.” 
To make man an exception, not to be measured by the 
same pattern, was repugnant to his mind. Man must 
have an inter-maxillary bone; and, contrary to the 
opinions of the greatest anatomists of that period, such 
as Peter Camper, he demonstrated how in man this 
inter-maxillary bone, although it subsequently becomes 
almost undistinguishably anchylosed with the actual 
supra-maxillary bone, nevertheless exists, quite dis- 
tinctly, as a separate part during development and early 
infancy. , 
From this narrative we have gained a good deal. In 
the contemplation of individuals and details, Goethe 
6 
