2 GOETHE ON THE METAMORPHOSIS OF PLANTS. 
6. Regular metamorphosis may be equally well styled progressive ; 
for it may be observed constantly and gradually at work from the first 
seed-leaves to the mature fruit; mounting upwards through a series of 
transformations, as by an imaginary ladder, to that crowning aim of 
nature, the propagation of the plant by the male and female organs. 
I have been attentively observing this process for several years, and it 
is for the purpose of explaining it that I propose to write this Essay. I 
shall treat of annual plants only, and the manner in which they progress 
from the seed to the fruit. 
7. Irregular metamorphosis might be equally well styled retrogres- 
sive. For as in the former case nature hastens forward to her great 
object, she here takes one or more steps backward. In the former 
instance, with irresistible impulse and powerful effort she forms the 
flowers and fits them for their office; in the latter she seems, as it 
were, to relax, and irresolutely leaves her work in an unfinished, weakly 
condition, pleasing often to the eye, but — *rinsically powerless and in- - 
active. By means of practical observat. made upon this kind of 
metamorphosis, we shall unveil that whi. in the ordinary way of 
development is concealed from us, and here shall see clearly what there 
we dare only infer. We may thus hope to attain, with the greatest 
certainty, the purpose we have in view. 
8. We will not take into consideration the third kind of metamor- 
phosis, which is produced accidentally and by external causes (especially 
through the operation of insects),* as it might lead us out of our way, 
and interfere with our object. Occasion may perhaps be found to speak 
elsewhere of those excrescences, which, monstrous though they be, are 
nevertheless confined within certain limits. 
9. I publish this Essay without illustrations, although in many 
respects they might appear necessary. I reserve the introduction of 
them till some future time; an intention which may not improbably 
be carried out, as sufficient matter still remains for elucidating and 
further enlarging the present short and merely prefatory treatise. It 
will not then be necessary to keep so measured a step as now, I shall 
* 
Vid. Dahlberg, Diss. Bot. Metamorph. Plant. sub presid. Linn, Holm. 1755. 
T An editi > - : : 
1837, by Did. J sey papers on Natural History was published at Paris IM 
A ins, accompanied by an atlas containing the author's orig!” 
-— — as well as three by Turpin, with notes illustrative of the RPM 
Schrift und ween Wish expressed by Goethe in a paper entitled “ Wirkung dieser 
und weitere Eutfaltung der darin vorgetragenen Idee," 1830, 






