404  Plant  Morphology  and  Taxonomy.  {^ptember.w™' 
was  able  to  show  the  close  relation  of  these  groups,  and  to  demon- 
strate the  value  of  such  studies  in  establishing  a  scientific  taxonomy. 
Contemporaneous  with  De  Candolle  and  Brown  was  Goethe  (1790), 
the  German  poet  and  naturalist,  who  promulgated  the  doctrine  of 
metamorphosis,  whereby  he  "  derived  all  the  different  species  of 
plants  from  one  primitive  type,  and  all  their  different  organs  from 
one  primitive  organ — the  leaf."  Following  the  lead  of  Wolff  there 
was  a  tendency  to  reduce  the  plant  to  only  two  parts,  namely,  stem 
and  leaves,  the  parts  of  the  flower  being  considered  modified  leaves 
and  the  root  a  modification  of  the  stem.  While  it  is  generally  con- 
ceded that  in  the  evolution  of  plants  the  development  of  leaves  pre- 
ceded that  of  flowers;  still  we  now  look  upon  the  flowers  as  arising 
independently  and  not  as  being  derived  from  the  leaves.  That  this 
is  true  seems  also  to  be  borne  out  by  the  fact  that  in  many  plants, 
particularly  trees,  the  flowers  appear  before  the  leaves.  While  it  is 
unfortunate  that  the  doctrine  of  metamorphosis  was  taken  up  by 
the  "  nature  philosophers"  and  made  more  or  less  ridiculous  by  their 
speculations,  and  while  the  evolutionary  ideas  of  Goethe,  as  pointed 
out  by  Haeckel,  like  the  analogous  ideas  of  Kant,  Owen,  Treviranus 
and  other  philosophers  at  the  commencement  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, did  not  amount  to  more  than  certain  general  conclusions, 
the  great  merit  of  Goethe's  work  lies  in  the  fact  that  he  was  among 
the  first  to  appreciate  the  value  of  the  study  of  the  living  plant.  He 
not  only  introduced  the  word  "  morphology,"  but  has  also  given  us 
a  definition  of  the  term.    He  says  :■ — 
"  Scientific  men  in  all  time  have  striven  to  recognize  living 
bodies  as  such,  to  understand  the  relations  of  their  external,  visible, 
tangible  parts,  and  to  interpret  them  as  indications  of  what  is  within, 
and  thereby  in  some  measure  to  gain  a  comprehensive  notion  of 
the  whole.  .  .  .  We  find  therefore  in  the  march  of  art,  of 
knowledge,  and  of  science,  many  attempts  to  found  and  construct 
a  doctrine  which  we  may  call  morphology." 
While  Goethe  gave  us  a  new  point  of  view  in  the  study  of  the 
biological  sciences,  Wolff,  De  Candolle,  Brown  and  others  laid  the 
foundations  for  the  morphological  study  of  plants,  which  was 
brought  to  such  perfection  under  the  guidance  of  Nageli,  Hofmeistcr 
and  others  about  the  middle  of  the  last  century. 
In  the  work  of  Jung,  which  has  already  been  referred  to,  we  ste 
how  the  mathematical  bent  of  his  mind  enabled  him  to  give  not  only 
