THE HISTORY OF ANATOMICAL SCIENCE 291 



I do not think that any one who studies these 

 works, in many ways so remarkable, can doubt 

 that, in the last two decades of the eighteenth cen- 

 tury, Goethe arrived, by a generally just, though 

 by no means critical, process of induction, at the 

 leading theses of what were subsequently known 

 as Naturphilosophie in Germany, and as Philo- 

 sophic anatomique in France ; in other words, that 

 he was the first person to enunciate and conceive 

 as parts of a systematic whole, whatever principles 

 of value are to be met with in the works of Oken, 

 Geoffroy, and Lamarck. 



Of the idea of ' unity of organisation ' which 

 is fundamental for all three, Geoffroy St. Hilaire 

 himself, writing in 1831, says : 



' Elle est presentement acquise au domaine de 

 l'esprit humain ; et l'honneur d'un succes aussi 

 memorable appartient a Goethe.' 



Furthermore, the notions of a necessary cor- 

 relation between excess of development in one 

 direction and diminution in another ; of the natural 

 evolution of the animal and vegetable worlds from 

 a common foundation ; of the direct influence of 

 varying conditions on the process of evolution, 

 are all to be found, indeed are plainly enunciated, 

 in Goethe's writings. In addition, he sometimes 

 uses language which may be fairly interpreted as 

 an anticipation of the fundamental teachings of 

 modern histology and embryology ; a fact which 



is by no means wonderful, when we consider that 



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