The Rudolf Steiner Archive

2. The Origin of the Theory of Metamorphosis

[ 1 ] If one traces the genesis of Goethe's thoughts on the formation of organisms, it is all too easy to doubt the part that can be attributed to the poet's youth, i.e. the time before he came to Weimar. Goethe himself thought very little of his scientific knowledge at this time: "Of that ... which is actually called external nature, I had no conception and not the slightest knowledge of its so-called three kingdoms." (See Goethe's scientific writings in Kürschner's German National Literature, ^{4abbreviated as Natw. Schr. in the following.} Volume 1 [p. 64]). Based on this statement, one usually thinks of the beginning of his scientific thinking only after his arrival in Weimar. Nevertheless, it seems necessary to go back even further if one does not want to leave the whole spirit of his views unexplained. The invigorating force that steered his studies in the direction we will describe later is already evident in his earliest youth.

[ 2 ] When Goethe arrived at the Leipzig University, the scientific endeavors there were still dominated by the spirit that is characteristic of a large part of the eighteenth century and which divided the entire science into two extremes that no one felt the need to unite. On the one side stood the philosophy of Christian Wolff (1679-1754), which moved entirely within an abstract element; on the other, the individual branches of science, which lost themselves in the external description of infinite details and lacked any endeavor to seek out a higher principle in the world of their objects. That philosophy could not find its way out of the sphere of its general concepts into the realm of immediate reality, of individual existence. There the most self-evident things were treated in great detail. One learned that the thing was a something that had no contradiction in itself, that there were finite and infinite substances, etc. But if we approached the things themselves with these generalities in order to understand their workings and life, we were at a complete loss; we could not apply these concepts to the world in which we live and which we want to understand. But the things around us were described in a rather unprincipled way, purely according to appearance, according to their external characteristics. A science of principles, which lacked the living content, the loving immersion in immediate reality, and an unprincipled science, which lacked the ideal content, stood opposite each other without mediation, each unfruitful for the other. Goethe's healthy nature found itself equally repelled by both one-sidednesses ^{5see "Dichtung und Wahrheit", II. Teil, 6. Buch.} and in conflict with them he developed ideas that later led him to that fruitful conception of nature in which idea and experience mutually enliven each other in all-round interpenetration and become a whole.

[ 3 ] The concept that those extremes were least able to grasp therefore developed first in Goethe: the concept of life. A living being, when we look at its external appearance, presents us with a number of details that appear to us as its limbs or organs. The description of these limbs, according to their form, mutual position, size, etc., can form the subject of extensive discourse, to which the second of the directions we have described is devoted. But any mechanical composition of inorganic bodies can also be described in this way. It has been entirely forgotten that in the case of the organism it must above all be noted that here the external appearance is governed by an internal principle, that in every organ the whole is at work. This external appearance, the spatial juxtaposition of the limbs, can also be observed after the destruction of life, for it continues for a time. But what we have before us in a dead organism is in truth no longer an organism. The principle that permeates all details has disappeared. The contemplation that destroys life in order to recognize life is countered early on by Goethe with the possibility and the need for a higher one. We can already see this in a letter from the Strasbourg period of 14. July 1770, where he speaks of a butterfly: "The poor animal trembles in the net, strips off its most beautiful colors; and even if one catches it unharmed, it is finally stiff and lifeless; the corpse is not the whole animal, something else belongs to it, another main piece and on this occasion, as on every other, a main main piece: life [WA 1, 238] The words in "Faust" [1. Part/Study Room] originated from this:

[ 4 ] "Who wants to recognize and describe something living,
First seeks to drive out the spirit; Then he has the parts in his hand,
Missing, alas! only the spiritual bond."

[ 5 ] However, Goethe did not stop at this negation of a conception, as is to be expected given his nature, but rather sought to develop his own more and more, and in the hints we have of his thinking from 1769-1775 we often recognize the seeds of his later works. Here he develops the idea of a being in which each part animates the others, in which one principle permeates all details. In "Faust" [Part 1/Night] it says:

[ 6 ] "How everything weaves itself into the whole,
one working and living in the other."

[ 7 ] and in "Satyros" [Act 4]:

[ 8 ] "As in the Unding the primal thing quenched,
Light's power resounded through the night,
Pervading the depths of beings all, That burgeoning surge of desire
And the elements opened up,
With hunger poured into each other,
All-pervading, all-pervading."

[ 9 ] This being is conceived in such a way that it is subject to constant change in time, but that in all stages of change only one being is revealed, which asserts itself as the enduring, constant in change. The "Satyros" goes on to say of this primal thing:

[ 10 ] "And rolling up and down went
The all and one and eternal thing,
Always changing, always constant! "

[ 11 ] Compare this with what Goethe wrote in 1807 as an introduction to his theory of metamorphosis: "But if we look at all forms, especially the organic ones, we find that nowhere is there an existing thing, nowhere a resting, a completed thing, but rather that everything fluctuates in a constant movement." (Natw. Schr., 1st vol. [p. 8]) He contrasts this fluctuation with the idea or "something held fast in experience only for the moment" as the permanent. One will recognize clearly enough from the above passage from "Satyros" that the foundation for the morphological thoughts had already been laid in the time before he entered Weimar.

[ 12 ] What must be noted, however, is that this idea of a living being is not immediately applied to a single organism, but that the whole universe is presented as such a living being. Of course, the reason for this is to be found in the alchymistic works with Fräulein von Klettenberg and in the reading of Theophrastus Paracelsus after his return from Leipzig (1768/69). The attempt was made to capture the principle that pervades the entire universe by some attempt to represent it in a material. ^{6"Poetry and Truth", Part II, Book 8.} However, this mystical way of viewing the world was only a temporary episode in Goethe's development and soon gave way to a healthier and more objective approach. The view of the entire universe as one large organism, as we have seen above in the passages from "Faust" and "Satyros", remained intact until around 1780, as we will see later in the essay "Nature". It confronts us once again in "Faust", namely where the earth spirit is depicted as the life principle that permeates the All-Organism [1st part/night]:

[ 13 ] "In floods of life, in the storm of deeds
I wall up and down,
weaving back and forth!
Birth and grave,
An eternal sea,
A changing weaving,
A glowing life."

.

[ 14 ] While certain views were developing in Goethe's mind, a book came into his hands in Strasbourg that sought to emphasize a world view that was precisely the opposite of his own. It was Holbach's "Système de la nature". ^{7"Dichtung und Wahrheit", III. part, 11. book.} If until then he had only had to criticize the fact that living things were described like a mechanical accumulation of individual things, in Holbach he was able to get to know a philosopher who really regarded living things as a mechanism. What there arose merely from an inability to recognize life at its root led here to a dogma that killed life. Goethe says about this in "Dichtung und Wahrheit" (Part III, Book 11): "A matter should be from eternity, and moved from eternity, and should now with this movement right and left and to all sides, without further ado, bring forth the infinite phenomena of existence. We would even have been satisfied with all this if the author had really built up the world before our eyes from his moving matter. But he may have known as little of nature as we do; for, by piling up a few general concepts, he immediately abandons them in order to transform that which appears higher than nature, or as higher nature in nature, into material, heavy, moving, but nevertheless directionless and formless nature, and thereby believes he has gained quite a lot." Goethe could find nothing in it but "moving matter" and, in contrast to this, his concepts of nature became ever clearer. We find them presented in context in his essay "Nature", ^{8Natw. Schr., 2nd vol, p. 5 ff.; regarding this essay, see also Rudolf Steiner's remarks in "Grundlinien einer Erkenntnistheorie der Goetheschen Weltanschauung", Complete Edition Dornach 1960, p. 138 (note to p. 28) and "Methodische Grundlagen der Anthroposophie 1884-1901", Complete Edition Dornach 1961, p. 320ff.} which was written around the year 1780. Since all of Goethe's thoughts on nature, which we have only found scattered hints of until then, are compiled in this essay, it takes on a special significance. The idea of a being that is in a constant state of change and yet always remains identical confronts us here: "Everything is new and always the same." "It (nature) is eternally changing, and there is not a moment of stasis in it," but "its laws are immutable." We will see later that Goethe is looking for the one original plant in the infinite number of plant forms. We also find this thought already hinted at here: "Each of its (nature's) works has its own essence, each of its phenomena the most isolated concept, and yet everything makes one." Indeed, even the position he later adopted towards exceptional cases, namely not to regard them simply as errors of formation, but to explain them in terms of natural laws, is already very clearly expressed here: "Even the most unnatural is nature" and "its exceptions are rare." ^{9For the authorship of this essay, see note 1 at the end of this publication. [Rudolf Steiner had intended to write annotations for the special edition of the "Complete Introductions to Goethe's Scientific Writings", 1st-5th edition, Dornach 1926, in this and a further 35 passages already designated by him - all of these passages have one in the present text. He was no longer able to realize this intention.}

[ 15 ] We have seen that Goethe had already formed a certain concept of an organism before he came to Weimar. For although the essay "Nature" mentioned above was not written until long after his arrival, it largely contains Goethe's earlier views. He had not yet applied this concept to a specific genus of natural objects, to individual beings. This required the concrete world of living beings in immediate reality. The reflection of nature that had passed through the human mind was not at all the element that could inspire Goethe. The botanical conversations with Hofrat Ludwig in Leipzig remained without any deeper effect, as did the table talks with his medical friends in Strasbourg. With regard to scientific studies, the young Goethe appears to us entirely as Faust, lacking the freshness of the original view of nature, who expresses his longing for it with the words [1st part/night]:

[ 16 ] "Ah! could I but walk on mountain heights In thy (the moon's) dear light, Float around mountain caves with spirits, Weave on meadows in thy twilight."

[ 17 ] It seems to us like a fulfillment of this longing when, on his arrival in Weimar, he is allowed to "exchange parlour and city air for a country, forest and garden atmosphere" (Natw. Schr., 1st vol., p. 64).

[ 18 ] We must regard the poet's occupation with planting plants in the garden given to him by Duke Karl August as the direct stimulus for studying plants. Goethe received it on April 21, 1776, and from then on the "Diary" published by R. Keil often reports on Goethe's work in this garden, which became one of his favorite activities. The Thuringian Forest offered him a further field for his endeavors in this direction, where he also had the opportunity to get to know the lower organisms in their living phenomena. He was particularly interested in mosses and lichens. On October 31, 1777, he asked Frau von Stein for mosses of all kinds, possibly with roots and moist, so that they could reproduce. It must seem highly significant to us that Goethe was already concerned here with this deep-rooted world of organisms and later derived the laws of plant organization from the higher plants. In consideration of this circumstance, we must not, as many do, attribute this to an underestimation of the importance of the less developed beings, but to a fully conscious intention.

[ 19 ] Now the poet no longer leaves the realm of plants. Linné's writings may well have been undertaken very early on. We first learn of his acquaintance with them from his letters to Frau von Stein in 1782.

[ 20 ] Linné's aim was to bring a systematic overview to the knowledge of plants. A certain order was to be found in which each organism was to be placed in a specific position so that it could be easily found at any time, indeed so that one would have a means of orientation in the boundless quantity of details. For this purpose, the organisms had to be examined according to their degree of relationship and grouped accordingly. Since the main aim was to recognize each plant and easily find its place in the system, particular attention had to be paid to those characteristics that distinguish the plants from one another. In order to make it impossible to confuse one plant with another, these distinguishing characteristics were sought out in particular. Linné and his students considered the external features, size, number and position of the individual organs to be characteristic. The plants were arranged in a row in this way, but in the same way as a number of inorganic bodies could have been arranged: according to characteristics that were taken from the appearance, not from the inner nature of the plant. They appeared in an external juxtaposition, without any inner, necessary connection. Given the important concept Goethe had of the nature of a living being, this approach could not satisfy him. Nowhere had the essence of the plant been investigated. Goethe had to ask himself the question: What is the "something" that makes a certain being of nature a plant? He also had to recognize that this something occurs in the same way in all plants. And yet there was the infinite diversity of individual beings that needed to be explained. How is it that this One manifests itself in such diverse forms? These were probably the questions that Goethe raised when reading Linné's writings, for he says of himself: "That which he - Linné - sought by force to keep apart, must, according to the innermost need of my being, strive to unite." ^{10Cf. Natw. Schr., 1st vol. [p. 68].}

[ 21 ] At about the same time as Goethe's first acquaintance with Linné, he also became acquainted with Rousseau's botanical endeavors. On June 16, 1782, Goethe wrote to [Duke] Karl August: "In Rousseau's works there are some very lovely letters on botany, in which he presents this science to a lady in the most comprehensible and delicate way. It is quite a model of how to teach and a supplement to Emil. I therefore take this opportunity to recommend the beautiful realm of flowers to my beautiful friends anew." [WA 5, 347] Rousseau's endeavors in botany must have made a deep impression on Goethe. The emphasis on a nomenclature that emerges from the nature of plants and corresponds to it, the originality of observation, the observation of the plant for its own sake, apart from all the principles of utility that we encounter in Rousseau, all this was entirely in Goethe's spirit. What both had in common was that they had come to the study of plants not through a specific scientific endeavor, but through general human motives. The same interest tied them to the same subject.

[ 22 ] The next in-depth observations of the plant world were made in 1784, when Wilhelm Freiherr von Gleichen, known as Rußwurm, published two works that dealt with studies that were of great interest to Goethe: "Das Neueste aus dem Reiche der Pflanzen" (Nuremberg 1764) and "Auserlesene mikroskopische Entdeckungen bei Pflanzen, Blumen und Blüten, Insekten und anderen Merkwürdigkeiten" (Nuremberg 1777-81). Both writings dealt with the fertilization processes of plants. The pollen, stamens and pistils were carefully examined and the processes involved were illustrated on beautifully executed plates. Goethe now copied these investigations. On January 12, 1785, he wrote to Frau von Stein: "A microscope has been set up to observe and check the experiments of v. Gleichen, called Rußwurm, at the beginning of spring." [WA 7, 8] In the same spring, the nature of semen was also studied, as a letter to Knebel dated April 2, 1785 shows: "I have thought through the matter of semen as far as my experience goes." [WA 7, 36]. [WA 7, 36] Goethe was not concerned with the individual in all these investigations; the aim of his endeavors was to explore the essence of the plant. On April 8, 1785, he reported to Merck that he had made "pretty discoveries and combinations in botany". [WA 7, 41] The expression combinations also proves that he was aiming to create a picture of the processes in the plant world by thinking. The study of botany was now rapidly approaching a specific goal. We must, of course, remember that Goethe discovered the intermediate bone in 1784, of which we shall speak explicitly below, and that he had thus moved a significant step closer to the secret of how nature proceeds in the formation of organic beings. We must also remember that the first part of Herder's "Ideas on the Philosophy of History" was completed in 1784, and that conversations between Goethe and Herder on matters of nature were very frequent at that time. Thus Frau von Stein reported to Knebel on May 1, 1784: "Herder's new writing makes it probable that we were first plants and animals ... Goethe is now brooding over these things in a thoughtful way and everything that has passed through his imagination is becoming extremely interesting." [On German Literature and History, ed. by H. Düntzer, vol. 1, Nuremberg 1857, p. 120]. We can see from this the nature of Goethe's interest in the greatest questions of science at that time. His reflections on the nature of plants and the combinations he made about them in the spring of 1785 must therefore seem quite explicable to us. In mid-April of that year he went to Belvedere specifically to resolve his doubts and questions, and on June 15 [1786!] he wrote the following to Frau von Stein: "I cannot express to you how legible the book of nature is becoming to me, my long spelling has helped me, now it suddenly jolts, and my silent joy is inexpressible." [WA 7, 229] Shortly beforehand, he even wants to write a short botanical treatise for Knebel in order to win him over to this science. ^{11"I would gladly send you a little botanical lesson, if only it had already been written." [Letter to Knebel dated] April 2, 1785 [WA 7, 36]} He was so attracted to botany that his journey to Karlsbad, which he set off on June 20, 1785 to spend the summer there, became a botanical study trip. Knebel accompanied him. Near Jena, they met a 17-year-old youth, [Friedrich Gottlieb] Dietrich, whose tin drum showed that he had just returned from a botanical excursion. We learn more about this interesting journey from Goethe's "History of my botanical studies" and from some notes by [Ferdinand] Cohn ^{12"Deutsche Rundschau" (Berlin etc.) Vol. XXVIII (July-Sept.) 1881, p. 34 f.} in Breslau, who was able to borrow the same from a manuscript by Dietrich. In Karlsbad, botanical discussions now often provide pleasant entertainment. Back home, Goethe devoted himself with great energy to the study of botany; he made observations on fungi, mosses, lichens and algae on the basis of Linné's Philosophia ^{13Karl von Linné "philosophia botanica", Stockholm 1751}, as we can see from his letters to Frau von Stein. Only now, when he had already thought and observed many things himself, did Linné become more useful to him, providing him with information on many details that helped him with his combinations. On November 9, 1785, he wrote to Frau von Stein: "I continue to read Linné, for I must, I have no other book. It is certainly the best way to read a book, which I must practise often, especially as I do not easily finish a book. This, however, is not primarily made for reading, but for recapitulating, and is now doing me the most excellent service, since I have thought about most of the points myself." [WA 7, 118] During these studies, it became increasingly clear to him that it is only a basic form that appears in the infinite number of individual plants; this basic form itself also became increasingly clear to him, and he also realized that in this basic form lies the capacity for infinite variation, whereby diversity is produced from unity. On July 9, 1786, he wrote to Frau von Stein: "It is an awareness of . . . . form, with which nature, as it were, only ever plays and playfully brings forth manifold life." [WA 7, 242] Now it was above all a question of forming the permanent, enduring, that archetypal form with which nature plays, as it were, into a sculptural image. This required an opportunity to separate the truly constant, enduring in plant form from the changing, impermanent. Goethe had still explored too small an area for observations of this kind. He had to observe one and the same plant under different conditions and influences; for only in this way does the changeable really come into view. We notice it less in plants of different species. All this was brought about by the delightful journey to Italy, which he started on September 3 from Karlsbad. Many observations had already been made on the flora of the Alps. He not only found new plants that he had never seen before, but also plants that he already knew, but had changed. "If in the lower regions the branches and stems were stronger and sturdier, the eyes closer together and the leaves broad, then higher up in the mountains the branches and stems became more delicate, the eyes moved apart so that there was a larger gap from node to node and the leaves became more lance-shaped. I noticed this on a willow and a Gentiana and convinced myself that they were not different species. I also noticed longer and more slender rushes at Walchensee than in the Unterlande". ^{14Italian journey, Oct. 8, 1786.} Similar observations were repeated. In Venice by the sea, he discovered various plants that showed him properties that only the old salt of the sandy soil, but more the salty air, could give them. He found a plant that seemed to him like our "innocent coltsfoot", "but here it was armed with sharp weapons and the leaves were like leather, as were the seed capsules, the stems, everything was fleshy and fat." ^{15Italian Journey, Sept. 8, 1786.} Goethe saw all the external characteristics of the plant, everything about it that was apparent to the eye, unstable, changing. He draws the conclusion that the essence of the plant does not lie in these characteristics, but must be sought more deeply. Darwin's observations were similar to Goethe's when he expressed his doubts about the constancy of the external forms of genera and species. The results drawn by the two, however, are quite different. While Darwin considers the essence of the organism to be exhausted in those characteristics and draws the conclusion from the variability: Therefore there is nothing constant in the life of plants, Goethe goes deeper and draws the conclusion: If those properties are not constant, then the constant must be sought in another, which underlies those changeable externalities. Goethe's aim is to develop the latter, while Darwin's endeavors are directed towards investigating and explaining the causes of this variability in detail. Both approaches are necessary and complement each other. It would be quite wrong to believe that Goethe's greatness in organic science lies in the fact that we see in him the mere forerunner of Darwin. His approach is much broader; it comprises two sides: 1. the type, i.e. the lawfulness that manifests itself in the organism, the animal-being in the animal, the life that develops out of itself, which has the power and ability to develop into manifold external forms (species, genera) through the possibilities that lie within it. 2. the interaction between the organism and inorganic nature and between the organisms themselves (adaptation and struggle for existence). Darwin only developed the latter side of organicism. It cannot therefore be said that Darwin's theory is the development of Goethe's basic ideas, but is merely the development of one side of the latter. It looks only at those facts which cause the world of living beings to develop in a certain way, but not at that "something" on which those facts have a determining effect. If one side alone is pursued, it can by no means lead to a complete theory of organisms; it must be pursued essentially in the spirit of Goethe, it must be supplemented and deepened by the other side of his theory. A simple comparison will make the matter clearer. Take a piece of lead, make it liquid by heating it and then pour it into cold water. The lead has gone through two successive stages of its state; the first was caused by the higher temperature, the second by the lower temperature. How the two stages develop depends not only on the nature of the heat, but also essentially on that of the lead. A different body would show completely different states when put through the same media. Organisms, too, allow themselves to be influenced by the media surrounding them; they, too, induced by the latter, assume different states, and indeed entirely according to their nature, according to that essence which makes them organisms. And this essence can be found in Goethe's ideas. He who is equipped with the understanding of this essence will only be able to comprehend why the organisms respond (react) to certain causes in just such a way and no other. Such a person will only be able to form the correct ideas about the variability of the manifestations of organisms and the associated laws of adaptation and the struggle for existence. ^{16Needless to say, this is not intended to cast doubt on the modern theories of descent or to limit their claims; on the contrary, it creates a secure basis for them.}

[ 23 ] The idea of the primordial plant develops ever more definitely and clearly in Goethe's mind. In the botanical garden in Padua (Italian Journey, Sept. 27, 1786), where he walked among vegetation that was unfamiliar to him, the "thought that all plant forms could perhaps be developed from one" became more and more vivid to him. On November 17, 1786, he wrote to Knebel: "My little botany makes me even happier in these lands, where a happier, less interrupted vegetation is at home. I have already made some very kind, general remarks, which will also be pleasant for you in the future." [WA 8, 58] On February 19, 1787 (see Italian Journey), he wrote in Rome that he was on his way to "discovering new beautiful relationships, how nature develops such a monstrosity, which looks like nothing, from the simple into the most varied." On March 25, he asked Herdern to tell him that he would soon be finished with the original plant. On April 17 (see Italian Journey), in Palermo, he writes down the words: "There must be such a plant! How else would I recognize that this or that structure is a plant if they were not all formed according to one pattern?" He has in mind the complex of laws of formation which organize the plant, make it what it is and through which we arrive at the thought of a certain object of nature: This is a plant -, this is the primordial plant. As such it is an ideal, something to be grasped only in thought; but it acquires form, it acquires a certain shape, size, color, number of organs, and so on. This external form is not something fixed, but can undergo infinite changes, all of which are in accordance with that complex of laws of formation, from which they necessarily follow. Once one has grasped those laws of formation, that archetype of the plant, one has captured in the idea that which, as it were, underlies nature in every single plant individual and from which it derives the same as a consequence and allows it to develop. Indeed, one can even invent plant forms in accordance with this law, which could necessarily follow from the nature of the plant and exist if the necessary conditions were met. Goethe thus seeks, as it were, to reproduce in his mind what nature accomplishes in the formation of its creatures. On 17 May 1787, he writes ^{17Italian Journey} to Herder: "Furthermore, I must trust you that I am very close to the secret of plant production and organization and that it is the simplest thing that can be conceived... The primordial plant will be the most marvelous creature in the world, which nature itself should envy me for. With this model and the key to it, one can then invent plants into infinity, which must be consistent, that is, which, even if they do not exist, could exist and are not picturesque or poetic shadows and appearances, but have an inner truth and necessity. The same law can be applied to all other living things." A further difference between Goethe's view and Darwin's emerges here, especially when one considers how the latter is usually represented. ^{18We have less in mind here the evolutionary theory of those naturalists who stand on the ground of sensuous empiricism than the theoretical foundations, the principles on which Darwinism is based. Above all, of course, the Jena School with Haeckel at its head; in this spirit of the first rank, the Darwinian doctrine with all its one-sidedness has probably found its consistent formulation.} This assumes that external influences act like mechanical causes on the nature of an organism and change it accordingly. For Goethe, the individual changes are different manifestations of the primordial organism, which in itself has the ability to take on manifold forms and in a particular case adopts the one that is most appropriate to the surrounding conditions of the external world. These external conditions are merely the occasion for the inner formative forces to manifest themselves in a particular way. The latter alone are the constitutive principle, the creative force in the plant. This is why Goethe on September 6, 1787 ^{19Italian Journey} also calls it a, - 7(51) (One and All) of the plant world.

[ 24 ] If we now turn to this primordial plant itself, we can say the following about it. The living organism is a self-contained whole, which determines its states from within itself. Both in the juxtaposition of the members and in the temporal succession of the states of a living being there is an interrelation which does not appear to be conditioned by the sensory properties of the members, not by the mechanical-causal conditionality of the later from the earlier, but which is governed by a higher principle standing above the members and states. It is conditioned in the nature of the whole that a certain state is set as the first, another as the last; and also the succession of the middle ones is determined in the idea of the whole; the before is dependent on the after and vice versa; in short, in the living organism there is development of the one from the other, a transition of the states into one another, not a finished, completed being of the individual, but constant becoming. In the plant, this conditionality of each individual member by the whole occurs insofar as all organs are built according to the same basic form. On May 17, 1787 ^{20Italian Journey,} Goethe wrote this thought to Herder with the words: "For it had occurred to me that in that organ (of the plant) which we usually address as a leaf lies hidden the true Proteus, which can hide and reveal itself in all forms. Backwards and forwards the plant is always only a leaf, so inseparably united with the future germ that one cannot imagine one without the other." Whereas in the animal that higher principle which governs each individual thing confronts us concretely as that which moves the organs, uses them according to its needs, etc., the plant still lacks such a real principle of life; in it it only reveals itself in the more indeterminate way that all organs are built according to the same type of formation, indeed that the whole plant is contained in each part according to possibility and can also be produced from it by favorable circumstances. This became particularly clear to Goethe when, while walking with him in Rome, Councilor Reiffenstein claimed, tearing off a twig here and there, that it must be stuck in the ground, grow and develop into a whole plant. The plant is therefore a being that develops certain organs in successive periods of time, all of which are built according to one and the same idea, both among themselves and individually with the whole. Every plant is a harmonious whole of plants. ^{21We will have occasion to explain in various places how these details relate to the whole. If we were to borrow a term from modern science for such an interaction of animate parts to form a whole, it would be that of a "stick" in zoology. It is a kind of state of living beings, an individual that again consists of independent individuals, an individual of a higher kind.} When Goethe had this clearly in mind, he was only concerned with the individual observations that made it possible to describe in detail the various stages of development that the plant sets out of itself. For this, too, the necessary work had already been done. We have seen that Goethe had already examined seeds in the spring of 1785; on May 17, 1787, he reported to Herdern from Italy that he had found the point where the germ was located quite clearly and without a doubt. The first stage of plant life was thus taken care of. But the unity of the structure of all leaves also soon became clear enough. Among numerous other examples, Goethe found the difference between the lower and upper leaves, which are nevertheless always the same organ, particularly in fresh fennel. On March 25 ^{22Italian journey} he asked Herdern to report that his doctrine of the cotyledons was so sublimated that it would be difficult to go any further. It was only a small step to go before the petals, stamens and pistils could also be regarded as metamorphosed leaves. The investigations of the English botanist Hill, which became more widely known at the time and dealt with the transformation of individual flower organs into others, could lead to this.

[ 25 ] When the forces that organize the essence of the plant come into actual existence, they take on a series of spatial forms. It is now a question of the living concept that connects these forms backwards and forwards.

[ 26 ] If we look at Goethe's theory of metamorphosis as it is available to us from the year 1790, we find that in Goethe this concept is one of alternating expansion and contraction. Plant formation is most strongly contracted (concentrated) in the seed. The first unfolding and expansion of the formative forces takes place with the leaves. What is condensed to one point in the seed is spatially dispersed in the leaves. In the calyx the forces contract again at an axial point; the crown is brought about by the next expansion; stamens and pistils are formed by the next contraction; the fruit by the last (third) expansion, whereupon the whole force of plant life (this entelechical principle) is again concealed in the most contracted state in the seed. While we can now follow almost all the details of the idea of metamorphosis up to its final utilization in the essay published in 1790, it will not be so easy with the concept of expansion and contraction. But one will not be mistaken if one assumes that this idea, which by the way is deeply rooted in Goethe's mind, was already interwoven with the concept of plant formation in Italy. Since the content of this idea is the greater or lesser spatial unfolding caused by the forming forces, i.e. in what the plant immediately presents to the eye, it will probably arise most easily if one undertakes to draw the plant according to the laws of natural formation. Now Goethe found a shrub-like carnation bush in Rome, which showed him the metamorphosis particularly clearly. He now writes about it: "Seeing no means of preserving this miraculous form, I undertook to draw it precisely, whereby I gained more and more insight into the basic concept of metamorphosis." ^{23Italienische Reise / Störende Naturbetrachtungen; cf. also Goethe's letter to Knebel of August 18, 1787 (WA 8, 251).} Such drawings may have been made more often and this could then have led to the concept in question.*

[ 27 ] In September 1787, during his second stay in Rome, Goethe presented the matter to his friend Moritz; he found how lively and vivid the matter became in such a presentation. It is always written down how far they have come. From this passage and several other statements by Goethe, it seems likely that the writing of the Metamorphosis Theory, at least aphoristically, also took place in Italy. He goes on to say: "In this way - in conversation with Moritz - I alone was able to put some of my thoughts on paper." ^{24Italian journey, Sept. 28, 1787.} There is now no question that at the end of 1789 and the beginning of 1790 the work was written down in the form in which it is now before us; but to what extent this latter writing was of a purely editorial nature and what else was added will be difficult to say. A book announced for the next Easter Fair, which could have contained roughly the same ideas, tempted him in the autumn of 1789 to undertake his ideas and promote their publication. On November 20, he wrote to the Duke that he was inspired to write his botanical ideas. On December 18, he sends the manuscript to the botanist Batsch in Jena for review; on the 20th, he goes there himself to discuss it with Batsch; on the 22nd, he reports to Knebel that Batsch has received the matter well. He returns home, works through the manuscript again, then sends it back to Batsch, who returns it on January 19, 1790. Goethe himself has told us in detail what experiences the manuscript and the printed work had (see Natw. Schr., 1st vol. [pp. 91ff.]). The great significance of the doctrine of metamorphosis, as well as its essence in detail, will be dealt with below [570ff.] in the essay: "Über das Wesen und die Bedeutung von Goethes Schriften über organische Bildung".