The Rudolf Steiner Archive

On Morphology III

[Introduction to the readings, Volume 8, pp. 279-282:]

The eighth volume of scientific writings, the third of “Morphology,” contains all of Goethe's works relating to zoology in the broadest sense. Since 1790, he had intended to present his views and experiences on the formation and transformation of animal organisms in a systematic context, based in particular on his discovery of the intervertebral bone in 1784. In 1790, he made a start on this, as evidenced by the surviving manuscript fragment: “On the Form of Animals” (pp. 261-275) provides evidence of this; and in 1795 he dictated the introductory essays of such a presentation to Max Jacobi, under the title: “First Draft of a General Introduction to Comparative Anatomy, Starting from Osteology” (pp. 5-58. Cf. Tag- und Jahres-Hefte. Volume 45, 13-28). This idea was never fully realized. Only individual parts of it were worked out, and even these were often only fragmentary. Goethe published some of them in the notebooks: “On Morphology” (1817-24), while others were found in manuscript form in the holdings of the Goethe Archive.

The arrangement of the individual essays and fragments in this volume does not correspond to the random sequence of their creation, but is such that, as far as possible, it provides a picture of Goethe's anatomical-zoological system. Goethe's scheme, which can be discerned from the individual explanations, was taken as a basis, and the works were structured accordingly.

The volume begins with the aforementioned “First Draft” (pp. 5-60), which contains the principles and plan of the whole. The poem AYgotoyog, printed on pp. 58-60, which (according to Diary III 178,25) dates back to 1806, at least in terms of its conception, complements the ideas of the “Draft” and at the same time presents the general ideas of the theory of metamorphosis as it relates to the animal world. The “Lectures” (pp. 61-89) are a more detailed presentation of the first three chapters of the ‘Draft’ from 1796. This is followed by the “Attempt from comparative osteology to prove that the intermaxillary bone of the upper jaw is common to humans and other animals,” first conceived in 1784. The discovery made by Goethe and described in this essay was probably one of the most important foundations of Goethe's entire morphology. It encouraged him to grasp the idea of a unified organization of all living beings, including humans, and to carry it out in detail as far as his time and energy allowed. The form in which the essay is printed here is that given by Goethe himself in the morphological notebooks (1820). The only exception is the part that refers to the plates at the end of the volume, pp. 97-101. This corresponds to the reprint in the “Nova Acta” (1830), because we also had to take the plates from where they first appeared. The 1820 reprint does not contain any illustrations. We are printing the first draft of the essay on the intervertebral bone in the Paralipomena. The next treatise, “Description of the intervertebral bone of several animals with regard to the popular classification and terminology” (pp. 140-164), deals with the intervertebral bone using the comparative method derived from the basic ideas of the preceding essays, in a series of animals and also in humans. This previously unpublished work, which exists in Seidel's handwriting, dates from 1784-86, the period immediately following the discovery of the intervertebral bone. pp. 165-166 contain a general note following on from the preceding text, which was printed in 1824 (in the morphological notebooks). Pages 167-169 contain a brief description, also printed in 1824, of Goethe's views on the vertebral nature of the skull bones, which he had formed in 1790 while observing a sheep's skull in Venice; what is said here supplements the remarks on pages 138-139.

The following “Attempt at a General Study of Bones” (pp. 171-208) extends the method initially applied only to the intermaxillary bone to several other bones of the head. It has not been printed to date and is contained in the archive in a manuscript by Götze. According to Suphan's observation, only the chapter on the palatine bone (pp. 182-185) was written by Herder's son, August. The latter circumstance (August Herder went to Neuchâtel in the fall of 1794, while Goethe returned home from the siege of Mainz in August 1793) leads to the conclusion that this treatise was written in 1794. “Die Knochen der Gehörwerkzeuge” (The Bones of the Auditory Organs) (pp. 209-213) first appeared in the morphological notebooks in 1824. Goethe also dealt extensively with other parts of the organism in “Ulna und Radius” (Ulna and Radius) and “Tibia und Fibula” (Tibia and Fibula) (pp. 214-222), which follow on from this and were first printed in 1824. We add to this the essays that were written in reference to zoological works by Goethe's contemporaries, with which he engaged. These are: “Sloths and Pachyderms” (pp. 223-232), “Fossil Bull” (pp. 233-243), “Second Primitive Bull” (pp. 244-245), “The Skeletons of Rodents” (pp. 246-254), “The Lepads” (pp. 255-259). In addition to comments on details, these essays also contain general ideas and discussions on fundamental questions of zoology, which form the transition to the handwritten “Essay on the Form of Animals” that concludes the volume. It expresses Goethe's convictions in the most profound and comprehensive way. Although it was written as early as 1790, it must be regarded as the final conclusion that Goethe drew from the morphological experiences and views contained in this volume. The annals of 1790, the paper, and Götze's handwriting, from which the essay was written according to Goethe's dictation, all point to its creation in Breslau in 1790 during the military turmoil. Internal reasons can also be cited for this. Individual thoughts expressed in the “First Draft” definitely have their older form here.

Any preliminary work, individual experiences, and notes that are still available and could not be systematically integrated at any point have been relegated to the Paralipomena. The fragments printed here show that Goethe was not only concerned with osteology, but also with observations in the fields of ligament, muscle, and nerve studies.

The editor of the volume is Karl von Bardeleben, who was assisted in the production of the text and the readings by Rudolf Steiner from the Goethe and Schiller Archive. The redactor is Bernhard Suphan.