RICHARD OWEN, 121 
corroboration of facts for an explanation of those facts, 
for their reduction to their causes. He is acquainted 
with 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 phenomena, without having arrived at 
the innermost cause, the actual law. 
Goethe's opinion as to man’s place in Nature is implied 
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 
admit. He must remain therefore unconditionally with- 
in the type, “of which the parts are perpetually modi- 
fied in all races and species of animals.” But we have 
now, I think, furnished sufficient evidence that this and 
similar enunciations apply only to the potential varia- 
bility 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 
