The Rudolf Steiner Archive

5. Conclusion on Goethe's Morphological Views

[ 1 ] When I look back at the views that I felt compelled to express at the end of my consideration of Goethe's ideas on metamorphosis, I cannot conceal from myself how many outstanding representatives of different schools of science have a different opinion. Their position on Goethe is clearly before my eyes; and the judgment they will pronounce on my attempt to represent the point of view of our great thinker and poet can probably be estimated in advance.

[ 2 ] The views on Goethe's endeavors in the natural sciences are divided into two camps.

[ 3 ] The representatives of modern monism, headed by Professor Haeckel, recognize in Goethe the prophet of Darwinism, who, in their view, sees the organic as governed entirely by the laws that are also effective in inorganic nature. What Goethe lacked was only the theory of selection, through which Darwin founded the monistic world view and elevated the theory of evolution to a scientific conviction.

[ 4 ] This point of view is opposed by another, which assumes that the type idea in Goethe is nothing more than a general concept, an idea in the sense of Platonic philosophy. Goethe would indeed have made individual assertions reminiscent of the theory of development, which he had arrived at through the pantheism inherent in his nature; but he would not have felt the need to go as far as the ultimate mechanical basis. There could therefore be no question of development theory in the modern sense of the word in his case.

[ 5 ] When I tried to explain Goethe's views without presupposing any positive point of view, purely from Goethe's nature, from the whole of his spirit, it became clear that neither one nor the other of the directions mentioned - as extraordinarily significant as that is which they have both provided for an assessment of Goethe - has interpreted his view of nature completely correctly.

[ 6 ] The first of the views characterized is quite right when it claims that Goethe, by striving to explain organic nature, fought against the dualism that assumes insurmountable barriers between this and the inorganic world. But Goethe did not assert the possibility of this explanation because he thought of the forms and phenomena of organic nature in a mechanical context, but because he realized that the higher context in which they stand is by no means closed to our knowledge. Although he conceived of the universe in a monistic way as an indivisible unity - from which he did not at all exclude man [see Goethe's letter to F. H. Jacobi of 23 Nov. 1801; WA 15, 280f.] - he nevertheless recognized that within this unity there are levels to be distinguished which have their own laws. From his youth onwards, he was hostile to endeavors that conceived of unity as uniformity and thought of the organic world, as in general that which appears within nature as higher nature, as governed by the laws at work in the inorganic world (see "Geschichte meines botanischen Studiums" in Natw. Schr., 1st vol., pp. 61ff.). It was also this rejection that later compelled him to assume a contemplative power of judgment through which we grasp organic nature in contrast to the discursive mind through which we recognize inorganic nature. Goethe conceives of the world as a circle of circles, each of which has its own explanatory principle. Modern monists know only one circle, that of the inorganic laws of nature.

[ 7 ] The second of the opinions cited about Goethe recognizes that he is something different from modern monism. However, since its proponents regard it as a postulate of science that organic nature is explained in exactly the same way as inorganic nature and perhorres a view such as Goethe's from the outset, they see it as useless to go into his endeavors in any detail.

[ 8 ] So Goethe's high principles could not come into full application here or there. And it is precisely these that are the outstanding feature of his endeavors, that which does not lose its significance for those who have visualized its full depth, even if they realize that some of the details of Goethe's research require correction.

[ 9 ] From this now arises the demand for those who attempt to expound Goethe's views to look beyond the critical assessment of the individual things Goethe found in this or that chapter of natural science to the central aspects of Goethe's view of nature.

[ 10 ] In trying to meet this demand, there is the possibility of being misunderstood by those for whom I would be most sorry, the pure empiricists. I mean those who pursue the interrelationships of organisms that can be proven to be real, the empirically provided material on all sides, and who regard the question of the original principles of organic science as one that is still open today. My remarks cannot be directed against them, because they do not affect them. On the contrary: I base part of my hopes on them, because they still have their hands free on all sides. They are also the ones who will have to correct some of Goethe's assertions, for he was sometimes mistaken in the facts; here, of course, even genius cannot overcome the limitations of its time.

[ 11 ] In principle, however, he arrived at basic views that have the same significance for the science of organic matter as Galileo's basic laws for mechanics.

[ 12 ] I set myself the task of substantiating this.

[ 13 ] May those who are unable to be convinced by my words at least see the honest will with which I endeavored, without regard to persons, only turned to the matter at hand, to solve the indicated problem of explaining Goethe's scientific writings from the whole of his nature, and to express a conviction that is uplifting for me.

[ 14 ] Once a happy and successful start has been made on explaining Goethe's poetry in the same way, this already implies the need to include all the works of his spirit in this kind of consideration. This cannot be avoided forever and I will not be the last of those who will be delighted if my successor succeeds better than I did. May youthful thinkers and researchers, especially those whose views are not merely broad but look directly into the centrality of our knowledge, pay some attention to my remarks and follow in droves in order to carry out more fully what I have endeavored to expound.