55. Weimar Goethe Edition: Report of the Editors and Publishers

Second section, volumes 6 and 7

The sixth and seventh volumes of the second section (natural science writings) contain Goethe's morphological works insofar as they relate to botany. What has been transferred from the volumes "Zur Morphologie" (1817-1824) to the "Nachgelassenen Werke" has been combined here with the as yet unprinted treatises and sketches on this subject, of which the archive is particularly rich. As a result, Goethe's "Theory of Plants" is contained in these two volumes in its complete and self-contained form. The essays published in the "Nachgelassene Werke" left many questions unanswered about the principles on which this theory is based and about the consequences Goethe drew from it. The knowledgeable reader first had to round off the matter by inserting hypotheses. Some of the gaps indicated here now appear to have been filled by the publication of the manuscript bequest.

The basis of the sixth volume was considered to be what appeared in the 1831 "Versuch über die Metamorphose der Pflanzen. Translated by Friedrich Soret, together with historical supplements". The archive contains the handwritten documents for most of this part. This is followed by the related material from the unprinted estate in such an order that Goethe's ideas appear in the systematic sequence required by their content, namely: 1. on the morphology of plants in general, containing the principles (pp.279-322 ), 2. special questions and examples from the doctrine of metamorphosis (pp. 323-344); 3. natural philosophical foundations and consequences of the whole doctrine (pp. 345-361); 4. matters relating to border areas between morphology and aesthetics (5.362-363). These essays contain the basic principles of Goethe's views on organics, his thoughts on the nature and relationship of living beings and on the necessary requirements for a scientific systematics of them. Paralipomena I ($. 401-446) comprise preliminary work on the metamorphosis of insects; Paralipomena II ($.446-451) a definition of morphology in the grand style in which Goethe conceived this science, and notes on the individual propositions of the doctrine of metamorphosis, finally sketches on the metamorphosis of worms and insects. Everything under "Paralipomena" has not yet been printed.

The seventh volume contains all of Goethe's botanical works from the period before the discovery of metamorphosis, in which the struggle with this idea is first revealed, then the essays that contain the examination of contemporaneous or historical phenomena from the point of view of the theory of metamorphosis. The first series includes the "Vorarbeiten zur Morphologie" (as yet unprinted), the second the essays on the spiral tendency of vegetation, on the systematics of plants, reviews of botanical works, the work on Joachim Jungius, the aphorisms "Über den Weinbau" (unprinted), the translation of the chapter "De la symetrie vegetale" from de Candolle's "Organographie vegetale" (unprinted), the discussion of the dispute that broke out in the French Academy between Geoffroy de Saint-Hilaire and Cuvier and finally the "Versuch einer allgemeinen Vergleichungslehre" (unprinted), which draws the final conclusion of Goethe's organics and takes account of the teleological view of nature. The printed part was again based on the manuscripts in the archive. The "Paralipomena" contain unprinted material throughout, namely: Goethe's notes on botany as he made them on his Italian journey, his studies on infusoria and on the effect of light and color on plants, finally sketches and preliminary work and so on. When it came to the question of what should be included in the text from the manuscript bequest, consideration for formal completion took a back seat to the necessity of including everything that belonged to Goethe's body of thought. Fragmentary and sketchy material was also included if it added something new to Goethe's view or showed ideas expressed elsewhere in a new context. The principle was to compile all available material in such a way that the reader receives a complete, unbroken picture of Goethe's "System of Botany".

Second section, volume 9

The ninth volume of Goethe's scientific writings contains all of Goethe's works, which are arranged in such a way as to give an outline of his geological ideas. Studies on individual questions and further explanations of his fundamental ideas have been excluded here and relegated to the tenth volume. Volumes 9 and 10 are intended to complement each other in terms of geology, just as volumes 6 and 7 complement each other in terms of morphology. The distribution of the material in this volume was carried out according to the way in which Goethe's thoughts naturally coalesce into a systematic whole. The observations on the empirical foundations form the beginning, followed by theoretical considerations on the formation of individual geological formations, and the comprehensive views on the formation of the earth and the world form the conclusion: world formation. The first section includes the essays: "On the knowledge of the Bohemian mountains and those in other regions"; the second the works on the origin and significance of granite and other rocks; the third Goethe's contributions to the major questions of volcanism and Neptunism, his remarks on atomism and dynamism in geology and his schematic and sketchy notes on higher geology and cosmology. With regard to the second series, it should be mentioned in particular that the treatise on granite first published in Hempel's edition, which Goethe wrote in 1784, is followed by a previously unpublished one which expresses the ideas of the first in a more scientifically rigorous form. In the third chapter, the disposition for a treatise on the formation process of the earth and the agents at work in this process, also first printed in Hempel's edition, is supplemented by handwritten works in the archive (draft of a general history of nature, scheme for the geological essay, rock storage), which are to be understood as preparatory work for a "general history of nature". The manuscript material in the archive also yielded the important sketches for Goethe's relationship to the Vulcanists and Neptunists: "Ursache der Vulkane wird angenommen" and "Vergleichs-Vorschläge, die Vulkanier und Neptunier über die Entstehung des Basalts zu vereinigen".

The Paralipomenis contains: 1. a summary of Goethe's work with critical remarks: "Kritik der geologischen Theorie, besonders der von Breislak und jeder ähnliche", which is important for the understanding of Goethe's own views. 2. supplementary sketches to the essays on the mountains of Bohemia and other regions.

The need for a new arrangement of the essays in this volume arose from the fact that they were printed in Goethe's booklets "Zur Naturwissenschaft" in the random order in which they were written. This sequence, which was then also retained in the Nachgelassene

Writings, however, by no means corresponds to the content.

Second section, volume 10

The ninth and tenth volumes deal with Goethe's geological works in a similar way to the sixth and seventh volumes. Everything that forms a systematic whole, characterizing Goethe's geological views in general, was incorporated into the ninth volume; everything that fell outside the systematic development of ideas was included in the tenth volume. This volume therefore contains the essays and sketches that supplement and extend the content of the ninth volume. They are of three kinds: 1. developments of Goethe's thoughts on basic mineralogical and geological concepts, in connection with corresponding natural objects ($.1-71); 2. views on the basic laws of the action of inorganic natural forces, beginning with the laws of crystal formation and ending with the causes of mountain formation ($. 73-97); 3. descriptions of geological objects and phenomena in their dependence on certain local conditions (pp.99-207). The most important essay in the first section is the previously unpublished one on the term "porphyry-like" (pp. 7-17). Goethe began dictating it on March 12, 1812, inspired by von Raumer's "Geognostische Fragmente" (see diary note). It contains a terminological discussion of the most important concept for Goethe's geological approach: the original indistinguishable unity of the individual mineral masses that form a particular rock, from which the constituent parts have emerged through differentiation over time. Further explanations of this idea, which is opposed to the materialistic-atomistic view of the aggregation of the originally separate constituents of a rock, are contained in pp. 18-45, where the conditions under which the separation of the constituents of a rock mass takes place and the disturbances that this process can suffer are described. This is followed by the essay "King Coal" (pp. 46-50), which is a kind of explanation of the relationship between the individual rocks. The section concludes with Goethe's remarks on the accompanying phenomena of glaciers, stratification of mountain masses, gangue formation, rupture of inorganic masses. Everything here, with the exception of.46-50, is previously unpublished.

The second section contains discussions on the formation of inorganic forms of solid ($. 75-82) and solid-liquid matter (coagulation, pp.83-84). This is followed by the essay on the "Formation of Precious Stones" (pp. 85-87), which Goethe wrote in response to a request from the geologist Leonhard in March 1816. The thoughts he expresses here on the formation of a particular type of natural body lead on to the remarks on the chemical forces involved in the formation of rocks and mountains, to which the chapter "Chemical forces in the formation of mountains" ($.88--89) is devoted. The essays on "Ice Age" (pp.90-97) contain the data that Goethe was able to compile as an inductive basis for the ideas developed purely deductively from his world view in general in the essay "Geological Problems and Attempts to Resolve Them". The essays in this section are also previously unpublished.

The last main part of the volume begins with remarks on the geological conditions of the Leitmeritz district, especially on the tin formation (pp. 101-126). This chapter appears here as a self-contained unit because Goethe himself saw it as such. He had it stapled together into a file fascicle and sent it to Knebel for review on January 3, 1814, together with an introductory letter (which is included in Paralipomena p.251). P.129-182 contain what belongs to the field of purely topographical geology. Mere lists of collections of minerals and rocks have not been included here, but only that which is based on an idea rooted in Goethe's geological views as the principle of listing individual objects or to which such an idea is linked as a conclusion. The notes on "Mineralogie von Thüringen und angrenzender Länder" (p. 135 ff.) are taken from a fascicle dating from the beginning of the 1980s. The information on Bohemian minerals (pp. 142-150) was written down in Eger in 1822 (Tagund Jahreshefte 1822).

An appendix was placed at the end of the volume, which could not be accommodated in any of the three sections, such as the thoughts on a letter and a book by the geologist von Eschwege (pp. 183-185), a paleontological essay (pp. 186-188) and the treatise on the natural phenomenon to be observed at the temple of Jupiter Serapis near Puzzuoli, finally a discussion of geological methods. The latter belongs here because it indicates how Goethe recognized the deductive and inductive methods as one-sided and demanded that they merge into a higher view of nature. In this way, the essay combines volumes 9 and 10 into a whole. Of this last section, pp. 99-150, 174-176, 185-188, 205-207 are unpublished. The paralipomena of the volume contain Goethe's preliminary geological work and notes of individual thoughts that could not be incorporated into the structure of the text.

Second section, volume 11

The eleventh volume of the natural scientific writings is intended to provide a picture of Goethe's natural philosophical ideas and his ideas about scientific methods. Two points of view were decisive in the arrangement of the essays and sketches: firstly, the context of the ideas themselves, and secondly, to illustrate the methodical treatment that natural science undergoes under his influence. Trained in the study of organic life, Goethe's ideas on scientific methodology only took on a firm form when he began to deal with the less complex phenomena of inorganic nature. This is why he wrote his essays on this subject with reference to his physical works.

The principle of arrangement for pp.1-77 is: the essays on general intentions in natural philosophy (pp.1-12) are placed first; then follow the arguments on scientific methods (pp. 13-44: Fortunate Event, The Experiment as Mediator of Object and Subject and the unprinted essays: Experience and Science, Observation and Thought); concluding this part are the essays in which Goethe sought justification in contemporary philosophy for his initially naively observed method in organic science ($.45-55: Einwirkung der neueren Philosophie, Anschauende Urteilskraft); pp.56-77 (Bedenken und Ergebung, Bedeutende Fördernis durch ein einziges geistiges Wort, Vorschlag zur Güte, Analyse und Synthese, Ernst Stiedenroths Psychologie zur Erklärung der Seelenerscheinungen) contain what Goethe had to cite to justify his going beyond the foundations provided by the philosophy of the time, namely the teleological approach prevalent in organicism.

If the latter stood in the way of Goethe's view of organic life, then in the field of physics it was the sole dominance of mathematics. The essays. 78 102 contain Goethe's views on the applicability of mathematics in the natural sciences and on the limits of this application. pp. 103-163 contain the quintessence of Goethe's view of nature in individual aphorisms. The majority of these are printed in the "Nachgelassene Werke". Eckermann's arrangement has been retained; only in two places (pp. 132, 6-10, and 132, 16 to 133, 2) have previously unpublished sayings been inserted, which must necessarily find their place here. All other unpublished material has been appended to the already printed mass as a special chapter. The arrangement of these aphorisms in the "Nachgelassene Werke" has been retained because it is clear from the dates found on the existing manuscripts that Goethe himself was largely responsible for editing them together with Eckermann. It does not seem possible to determine what is Goethe's contribution and what is Eckermann's later work. pp. 164-166 deal with polarity as a general primordial phenomenon; pp. 167-169 with the significance of linguistic expression for primordial phenomena; pp. 170-174 with the series of physical effects, arranged according to the principles of polarity and intensification;.175 with a general physical observation; pp. 176-239 with Goethe's system of physical phenomena. Goethe was prompted to write down this system by the lectures he gave to a circle of Weimar ladies in the winter of 1805/06. Since Goethe did not allow the intention of offering an easy-to-understand presentation to interfere with the scientific demands he was making and, for the stated purpose, worked through physics in the individual form that it had to take according to his principles, the scheme of these lectures is given here as an example of how he wanted his methodological points of view to be implemented in particular. The schematic representation of the theory of color appears here because it belongs here as an integral part of the physical scheme. The essays: Polarity (pp.164-166), Symbolism (pp.167-169), Physical Effects ($.170-174), General (5.175), the table of physical effects between pp.172 and 173 and the physical scheme were previously unprinted. The physical schematizations are followed by the essay on a "physical-chemical-mechanical problem" (pp.240-243). The essays on the inner (factual) context of scientific ideas are followed by those on the origin of these ideas within the development of the human mind (Influence of the origin of scientific discoveries pp. 244-245, Meteors of the literary sky pp. 246-254, Invention and discovery. 255-262). Of the aphorisms in the last chapter, the following have not yet been printed: p. 259, 1 to p. 261, 5 - "Naturphilosophie" (pp. 263-264) and "Eins und Alles" (pp. 265-266) belong in the natural scientific writings, the first because of its content, the second because Goethe himself included it in the morphological booklets (II, 1). They form the conclusion of the essays included in the "Allgemeine Naturlehre" because they contain thoughts that go beyond the boundaries of the view of nature in the narrower sense and lead from this to Goethe's general world view. The study after Spinoza printed on pp. 313-319 serves the same purpose; because of its purely epistemological content, it cannot form part of the essays on the natural sciences, but should be regarded as a kind of appendix to them. The essay is published in the XII. volume of the Goethe-Jahrbuch by Bernhard Suphan. Attached to the essays on natural philosophy are the psychophysical ones: "Das Sehen in subjektiver Hinsicht" (pp. 269-284) and the previously unpublished "Tonlehre" (pp. 287-294). The volume concludes with the essays first printed here: Naturwissenschaftlicher Entwicklungsgang (pp.295-302), die biographische Einzelheit (p.303), and the sketches belonging to the general Wissenschaftslehre: Dogmatismus und Skeptizismus ($p.307308), Induktion (8.309-310), In Sachen der Physik contra Physik (pp.311-312). The latter table distributes the empirical material relevant to physics to the mathematical and chemical fields. These are purely didactic points of view; therefore they cannot be incorporated into the ongoing development of ideas.

Second section, volume 12

The most important part of this volume is Goethe's work on meteorology. Its content is made up of the following pieces. The first is the essay "Wolkengestalt" (pp. 5-13), which is based on Luke Howard's "On the Modifications of Clouds. London 1803". When Goethe wrote his notes, he was only aware of a paper on Howard's work, which was included in Gilbert's Annalen 1815 and to which he was referred by the Grand Duke (cf. p.6 of the text). The essay was written in the fall of 1817; it was first printed in the third issue of the first volume "Zur Naturwissenschaft". This work is followed in the same volume by the text of our volume pp. 15-41. The following from.4245, 3, is in the fourth issue of the first; pp.45--58, 10, in the first issue of the second volume "Zur Naturwissenschaft". Only p.5-13, line 15, of this part of the text is in manuscript form in the archive. The second part of the text is the treatise "Über die Ursache der Barometerschwankungen" (p.59-73). It is in the second volume of the second volume "Zur Naturwissenschaft" and contains a preliminary statement on the hypothesis, particularly important for Goerhe's entire scientific approach, that the causes of barometric fluctuations are not cosmic, but telluric, and that this cause is to be sought in a lawfully changing strength of the Earth's gravitational pull. The detailed exposition of this view can only be found in the "Nachgelassene Werke" under the title: "Versuch einer Witterungslehre". This essay contains a systematic sequence of Goethe's thoughts on meteorological phenomena, their mutual relationships and causes. We have made it the third part of the text (pp. 74-109). It is in manuscript form, in a transcript that is partly by Eckermann and partly by Goethe's scribe John. Goethe himself carefully corrected most of it. This transcript and the printed version in the "Nachgelassene Werke" form the basis for our text. These already printed parts of the volume are followed by the unprinted essays "Karlsbad" (pp. 110-114), Zur Winderzeugung (p. 115), Wolkenzüge (pp. 116-117), Konzentrische Wolkensphären (pp. 118-119), Witterungskunde (5.120), Bisherige Beobachtung und Wünsche für die Zukunft ($. 121-122), Meteorologische Beobachtungsorte ($.123-124). The last essay relates to Goethe's meteorological works in the same way as the methodological sketches at the end of the seventh and tenth volumes relate to the morphological and geological works. It is a methodological justification of Goethe's way of looking at things. The meteorological parts are followed by the "Natural Scientific Details": Betrachtungen über eine Sammlung krankhaften Elfenbein, Über die Anforderungen an naturhistorische Abbildungen im allgemeinen und an osteologische insbesondere, Johann Kunckel, Jenaische Museen und Sternwarte. These essays cannot be categorized in one of the usual natural science subjects. They are therefore already included in the "Nachgelassene Werke" in the special chapter "Naturwissenschaftliche Einzelheiten". The text concludes with a number of sketches that follow on from the contents of earlier volumes but were only discovered after the latter were printed. The "Paralipomena" begin with the "Instruction" which Goethe used as a basis for his meteorological observations. He worked it out in 1817 with the help of the Jenens meteorologists and improved it in 1820. He wanted the observations to be made at individual locations according to these instructions (cf. p. 123). The remaining part of the Paralipomena consists of details that belong to the field of meteorology and could not be integrated into the systematic whole of the text.

The twelfth volume concludes the second, larger half of the natural science section, the collection of writings on morphology, geology and meteorology. At the request of the editors, an index of names and subjects covering volumes 6-12 is therefore appended to this volume.