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- 
sophie anatomiqiie in France ; in other words, that 
he was the first person to enunciate and conceive 
as parts of a systematic whole, w'hatever 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 : 
‘ File est presentement acquise au domaine de 
I’esprit humain ; et I’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 jDlainly 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 
u 2 
