# 36. Goethe's Relationship to Natural Science

Around the same time that the idea that was to become the most important for his scientific thinking took shape in Goethe's mind, he also found the words that sharply characterize his relationship to science. On May 17, 1787, he writes to Herder that he is very close to the secret of plant development; and on Aug. 18, he writes to Knabel:

> After what I have seen in Sicily and near Naples of plants and fish, if I were ten years younger, I would be very tempted to make a trip to India, not to discover anything new, but to look at what had been discovered in my own way.

He made it clear that he was not interested in discovering individual facts, but in achieving a conception of nature that was in keeping with his way of thinking. When, after his arrival in Weimar, he began to occupy himself with natural things, driven by inner compulsion and external circumstances, he found the science of these things among his contemporaries in a state that was completely at odds with his way of thinking. This circumstance shaped his entire preoccupation in this direction. He sought enlightenment in the works of naturalists. He always found himself compelled to look at things from points of view that were foreign to the researchers he turned to.

This is most evident in his botanical studies. In this field, Linné was the leading authority at the time. Goethe immersed himself in his writings, but was soon forced into opposition to his way of thinking. Linné sought out the characteristics of the individual plant forms. According to the degree of their relationship, he placed these forms in a systematic series. He does not ask whether there is a natural relationship between the different forms. This is because his conception of nature is dominated by the theological idea of a plan of creation: “We count as many species as different forms have been created in principle.” Anyone who starts from this basic view cannot see what the forms have in common. Rather, he will emphasize the distinguishing features in order to get to know the diversity that lies in the plan of creation. Goethe's way of looking at things was the opposite: “That which he - Linnaeus - sought to keep apart by force, had, according to the innermost need of my being, to strive for union.”

The difference between Goethe's and Linnaeus's approach lies in the fact that Goethe seeks the creative forces within nature itself, which bring the manifold forms of life into existence, while Linnaeus assumes that the creative power exists outside of nature. Therefore, Goethe must seek to immerse himself so deeply in nature until this creative essence becomes visible to him, whereas Linné is content to study the created in its diversity and surrender to the belief that this diversity is based on a wise cosmic plan. It was against Goethe's nature to surrender to such a belief. This nature is characterized by a statement he made to Jacobi:

> God has punished you with metaphysics and given you a thorn in the flesh, but blessed me with physics. I follow the atheist's (Spinoza) Verbum Deo caro factum (The Word of God made flesh) and leave to you everything you call and may call religion. You believe in God; I see.

Just as one sees external sensual facts with the eyes of the body, so Goethe wanted to see the deeper-lying facts with the eyes of the spirit, which contain the reasons for those external facts. He searches for an essence that is contained in all plants, because - as he writes down in Palermo on April 17:

> There must be such a thing! Otherwise how would I recognize that this or that structure is a plant if they were not all formed according to one pattern.

For Linnaeus and his like-minded colleagues, this question is superfluous, because the common pattern of all plants, in his opinion, does not lie within, but outside of nature in the idea of creation. What is outside of nature cannot be the subject of research.

One can see what is important to Goethe. He includes an element in research that excludes the opposing world view from it. Goethe had the courage to scientifically recognize what others believed should remain a matter of faith: therein lies the essence of his view. Kant found such striving contrary to the human spirit. He believed that our intellect is only called upon to bring the sensual diversity of beings into a conceptual unity. What this unity, which exists only in our minds, corresponds to in reality, we cannot know, he said. Goethe opposed this view. He was convinced that it is possible for the human mind to penetrate to that real unity of things (see the essay “Anschauende Urteilskraft”).

What Goethe calls the primal plant, the primal animal or the type of animal are components of this real unity of nature. These primal plants and animals cannot be perceived by the external senses. They cannot be given to us as sensual, but only as spiritual intuitions. No single actual plant is a primal plant. In this respect, Goethe's view differs from that of contemporary natural science. The latter believes that it has found the original essence when it can point to a single, sensually perceptible organism that has the simplest possible structure and from which more complex living beings have gradually developed. Goethe, on the other hand, says:

> But once you have grasped the idea of this type, you will [only] realize how impossible it is to establish a single species as a canon. The individual cannot be a model for the whole, and so we must not look for the model for all in the individual. The classes, genera, species and individuals are related to the law as individual cases are to a law; they are contained in it, but they do not contain and give it.

When we survey the individual classes, genera and species, an ideal form arises in our mind that is not realized anywhere in the senses: and this is the original being in the sense of Goethe's conception. The modern naturalist would call such a form a mere idea, a thought. Goethe, however, sees in it a real being. This is characteristic of him. He regards the ideal as a reality, as truly present in nature.

From this basic view, Goethe's relationship to the modern conception of nature and his significance within it can be seen. This conception of nature differs fundamentally from the one prevailing at the time of Goethe. But it also differs from his own. Under the influence of the research of Lamarck, Darwin and others who followed similar paths, a revolution in natural science took place in the nineteenth century. It was recognized that one organic form can change into another over time. The consequence of this idea is the assumption that one form is not similar to another because it was originally created similarly by a higher being, but because it actually gradually emerged from the other. The forms of predators are no longer seen as similar to each other because they are all originally designed similarly, but because one actually emerged from the other. Thus, the view was arrived at that originally there were only a few or only one organic form, which developed over immeasurably long periods of time into today's diversity. What was previously seen as existing side by side is now seen as emerging from one another in a temporal sequence. This is essentially the difference between the modern conception of nature and that of Goethe's contemporaries.

This modern view of nature is, however, initially nothing more than a description of a state of affairs. And it stops at this description. It differs from the usual approach in inorganic science. When two elastic spheres in motion meet, they both change their motion. Inorganic natural science is not satisfied with describing the process of the change of motion, but seeks a law from which this process can be explained. Once this law has been recognized, the process can be understood. One can develop the process of motion after the encounter from the one before it.

The corresponding process in organic natural science is that one living form can be developed logically from another in thought. One then not only describes its temporal emergence from this other, but also comprehends it. The means to this comprehension in the organic realm would have to be something like the natural law in the realm of the inorganic.

Goethe strove to discover in organic nature that which corresponds to the law in inorganic nature. And he recognized it in his Primordial Plant and in his Primordial Animal. Through the inorganic laws of nature, an ideal unity is brought into the abundance of mechanical, chemical and physical phenomena; through them we see what is next to each other in a large, structured context; Goethe also wanted to recognize such a unity in the organic world of forms. The extension of the physical-mechanical way of explaining to the whole field of natural science is the characteristic of his view. It must be admitted, however, that modern natural science is moving in a similar direction. But it does so in a fundamentally different way from Goethe. He sought for the organic world something that would explain the diversity just as the laws of nature explain the inorganic phenomena, but which is of a higher nature than the latter. Today, we look for the same laws in the organic realm as we do in the inorganic realm. We imagine that the laws of organic action are actually physical laws, only in complicated combinations that are not easily understood. In exactly the same way, it is thought, as hydrogen and oxygen combine to form water under certain conditions, so under more complicated conditions, carbonic acid, ammonia, water and protein combine to form living substance, without the need to imagine special organic physical-chemical forces in addition to the physical-chemical ones.

This is not Goethe's view. He does not want to see inorganic laws applied to organic life, but he wants to discover new ones for this field that correspond to them. For anyone with a deeper insight, contemporary natural science virtually demands expansion in the direction that Goethe has taken.

When it comes to actual discoveries, one can fully agree with du Bois-Reymond, who said:

> Even without Goethe's participation, science would have progressed as far as it has today. ... Sooner or later, others would have made the advances he achieved.

This applies perfectly to the individual facts that Goethe discovered. But these facts are not the essence of his scientific endeavors. This consists in the indicated basic direction of his scientific thinking.

In this respect, it is remarkable how Goethe came to his individual discoveries.

When he set about studying the animal and human organism, he was guided by the idea that both must be based on a common archetype, which appears in man only at a higher stage of development than in animals. This was demanded by his fundamental view of the unity of ideas in nature. However, the most important natural scientists of his time saw a significant difference between the organization of higher mammals and that of humans in that the former have the so-called premaxillary bone in the upper jaw and the latter does not. Goethe could not do anything with this assertion of the natural scientists. He therefore looked for the premaxillary bone in humans and found it. In the embryonic state it is still separate from the laterally adjacent bones, but in the developed human being it has grown together with them. In individual cases, if the development is not quite normal, the separation can remain. So Goethe did not make the discovery of the intermediate bone for its own sake, but to dispel an opinion that contradicted his basic view. It will become clear in what follows that the same applies to the discovery of the vertebral nature of the skull bones.

Fundamental to Goethe's scientific ideas is his concept of the metamorphosis of plants. In this area, he consciously set out to find an ideal form that underlies all the diverse plant forms as a pattern. He felt as if he were studying botany as if he had a text in front of him that he couldn't read at first, but could only look at the individual letter forms. The individual organs of the plant appeared to him as a diversity that must correspond to a unity, and the abundance of plant forms also seemed to point to something that they all have in common. He relentlessly pursued the goal of being able to move from one structure to another in such a way that this transition becomes a continuous unity, as when moving from spelling to reading. And on [June 15, 1786] he was able to report to Frau von Stein: “[...] my long spelling has helped me, now it works all at once, and my quiet joy is inexpressible.” It was, however, a long way from spelling to actual reading. In his estate, which is in the Goethe Archive in Weimar, there are diary-like pages on which he has recorded the individual stages of this journey. (See Goethe's works in the Weimar edition, 2nd section, volume 7, p. 273ff.) They were written during the Italian journey. The opulent world of forms in the south offers him the opportunity to recognize unity in abundance. He is tireless in his efforts to find plant specimens that are suitable for shedding particular light on the laws of germination, growth and reproduction. If he thinks he is on the trail of some law, he first formulates it hypothetically and then tests it for accuracy in the course of further experiences. One such hypothetical law is: “Everything is a leaf, and through this simplicity the greatest diversity becomes possible.” Finally, on May 17, 1787, he writes to Herder about his completed discovery with the words:

> It had become clear to me that the true Proteus lies hidden in that organ of the plant that we usually refer to as the leaf, which can hide and reveal itself in all formations. Back and forth, the plant is always only a leaf, so inseparably united with the future germ that one cannot be thought of without the other.

Goethe means that all the organs of the plant, from the germ to the fruit, no longer appear to him as mere diversity, but he can, in the idea, carry out their emergence from one another just as it develops in reality before his eyes. Just as a sentence is formed out of words into a spiritual unity, so all the organs of the plant are united in the ideal image of the primal plant. Therefore, the term “leaf” should not be taken literally either. It is only intended to convey that the unity of the plant's being lives in the other organs as well as in the leaf, only in a modified form. When he set down his idea in the essay “An Attempt to Explain the Metamorphosis of Plants” in 1790, he therefore expresses himself more clearly:

> It goes without saying that we would need a general word to describe this organ that has been metamorphosed into such different forms and to compare all the appearances of its shape with it; at present, we have to be content with getting used to holding the appearances backwards and forwards against each other. For we can just as well say that a stamen is a contracted petal as we can say of the petal that it is an expanded stamen; that a sepal is a a stem-leaf that is contracted and approaching a certain degree of refinement, than we can say of a stem-leaf that it is a sepal that has been expanded by the intrusion of rougher juices.

When Goethe speaks of the unified organ that underlies all visible organs, he means an idealized structure that enables the observer to see the sequence of forms present in the plant in a living sequence and development. He has described how the text that he reads from the individual letters is formulated in the aforementioned essay and in the poem 'The Metamorphosis of Plants'.

Does the unity that Goethe perceives in the plant from germination to fruitfulness suddenly come to an end? He answers this with a decisive 'No'. In the fruit, the potential for a new plant is present in the form of the seed. This is a whole plant, only contracted into a sensually simple form. During germination, it undergoes further transformation, and the new plant thus presents itself only as a continuation of the parent plant. Goethe expresses this by saying that procreation is only a growth of the organism beyond the individual. However, since the basic ideal organ is changeable in its sensory appearance, the plant forms that descend in continuous succession from a progenitor can also take on different forms over time. And thus the present-day view that the diversity of forms has gradually developed in a temporal sequence from a few or only one original species is justified by Goethe's view. What is today called the theory of descent thus finds a lawful explanation through Goethe's view.

It was in Goethe's nature to extend the ideas that had occurred to him for explaining the plant world to the whole of organic natural science. As early as 1786, he wrote to Frau von Stein: he wanted to extend his thoughts about the way in which nature, as it were, plays with a main form to produce the manifold life, to “all realms of nature, to all of her realm”.

Therefore, after his return from Italy, he also eagerly continued his studies of the animal organism, which he had already begun in the mid-1770s and which led him to the discovery of the interosseous bone. In this field, however, he did not succeed in achieving results as perfect as in the science of plants. He was unable to create an ideal structure in this field, as he had done with the “primordial plant”. The essays he wrote in 1795 and 96 (“First Draft of a General Introduction to Comparative Anatomy, based on Osteology” and “Lectures on the First Three Chapters of the Draft of a General Introduction to comparative anatomy, proceeding from osteology), written in 1795 and 96, as well as the earlier fragment, “On the Form of Animals,” found in his estate and published in the Weimar edition, contain only rudiments and preliminary studies for the general idea of the archetypal animal. Nor is there more to be found in the poem “Metamorphosis of Animals” (AOPOIEMOR). He has only achieved something more important in one detail. He recognized the relationship between the brain and the limbs of the spinal cord, and also that between the bones that enclose the brain and the vertebrae that enclose the spinal cord. Goethe's efforts were obviously aimed at tracing all the organs of the animal body back to an ideal basic form, as he had already done with plant organisms. This is much more difficult for all the organs of the animal form than for plants, because the more perfect a creature of nature is, the more diverse the outward appearance of the organs that are the same in their ideal form. The simplest case is that of the mutual relationship between the spinal cord and the brain and the bones that enclose them. Through his general view of nature, Goethe came to suspect that the bones that enclose the brain are not only spatially adjacent to the vertebral bones of the spinal cord, but are also ideally related to them. Full certainty was brought to him by a chance event that he experienced in 1790 on the dunes of the Lido in Venice. He found a sheep's skull that had so happily disintegrated into its individual bony components that the observer could recognize remodeled vertebrae in the individual pieces. Contemporary science has not entirely confirmed this isolated discovery by Goethe, but it has confirmed it in its essential parts. The anatomist Carl Gegenbaur conducted research on this subject and published his findings. They deal with the head skeleton of the selachians, or ancestral fish. The skull of these animals is clearly the remodeled end part of the backbone and the brain is the remodeled end member of the spinal cord. One must therefore imagine that the bony capsule of the skull of higher animals also consists of remodeled vertebral bodies, which, however, in the course of the development of higher animal forms from lower ones, have gradually shape that is very different from vertebral bodies and that are also fused together in such a way that they have become suitable for enclosing the brain, which also developed from a limb of the spinal cord. Over time, this adhesion has become such a permanent feature of higher animals that a separation into the individual components, as in the case of the interstitial bone, cannot even be observed in the embryonic state in which the organs concerned are still soft. On the contrary, the separation into individual skull bones occurs only at a later stage of development in higher animals today. Initially, they form a continuous cartilaginous capsule.

But this case is characteristic of Goethe. He discovers something that later natural science rediscovers by completely different means, simply because it follows from his general view of nature. Goethe also viewed the relationship between the brain and spinal cord in the same way as the later research mentioned above. In 1790, he made the following entry in his diary:

> The brain itself [is] only a large main ganglion. The organization of the brain is repeated in every ganglion, so that each ganglion [is] to be regarded as a small subordinate brain.

Today, when speaking of Goethe's relationship to science, many people feel that the most important question is: Did Goethe believe that over time one species of plant or animal actually transforms into another, or did he not go beyond the observation of the ideal unity? From what has been said so far, it is clear that his approach provides a meaningful explanation for an actual transformation. In contrast to this, it seems completely irrelevant whether he actually spoke about such an actual transformation. One must bear in mind that such an expression was far less necessary in his time than it is today. It would also not have seemed as significant as it did a few decades later. All experiential foundations for how one was to imagine the actual relationships and transformations in detail were lacking. Therefore, the actual science could not do anything with such ideas. It was only when Darwin created scientific foundations for individual thoughts in this direction that one could talk about them. Goethe, according to the state of empirical science at the time, could only form very general concepts. And he spoke about such concepts clearly enough.

> But if we consider all forms, especially organic ones, we find that nothing exists, nothing rests, nothing is closed off, but rather everything is in constant motion. (Formation and Transformation of Organic Beings [on morphology). The intention is introduced.

This, then, we have gained, and can claim without fear that all perfect organic natures, including fish, amphibians, birds, mammals, and at the top of the latter man, were all formed according to an archetype, which only tilts more or less back and forth in its [very] constant parts and still daily forms and remodels itself through reproduction.

If Goethe had expressed his view of the transformation of organic nature more clearly than in such phrases, he would have been lumped together with the fantasists who had all kinds of adventurous ideas about the metamorphosis of natural beings. We also have a statement from him about this: “However, the time was darker than one can imagine now,” he writes in retrospect in

> For example, it was claimed that it only depends on the person to walk comfortably on all fours, and that bears, if they remained upright for a while, could become people. The audacious Diderot dared to make certain suggestions as to how to produce goat-footed fauns to be placed on carriages in livery, for the special pleasure and distinction of the great and rich.

Just as far as the science of that time was from such ideas, just as close was the un-science to them. He was careful in his indications of an actual tribal or blood relationship of the organic forms, so as not to see his explanations mixed up with the latter.

Goethe wanted to extract everything necessary for the explanation of natural phenomena from nature itself. This has been shown by considering his studies of the organic world. This fundamental view of his mind can be observed just as clearly in his theory of colors. In Goethe's time, this field of natural science was built on assumptions that were not taken from nature. And even today it still bears this character. The eye's perception provides light and dark and the variety of colors. The theory of colors seeks to discover the relationships between these elements of perception. Light is the absolute brightness; its opposite is absolute darkness. Goethe, in accordance with his entire nature, had to stop at the sensory perception of light. Newton, the founder of the more recent color theory, did not do that. He was of the opinion that light is something other than what it directly presents to the eye, namely an extremely fine substance. What presents itself to perception as light should be substance in reality outside of perception. And white light, as it reaches the earth from the sun, for example, is said to be a composite substance. This composite substance is broken down into its individual components, which are the seven primary colors, by the prism. So this theory explains a vivid process, namely the appearance of colors in the illuminated space, by means of a non-vivid, hypothetical process. Present-day natural science takes a similar view. It has only replaced the substance with a wave motion of that substance. Goethe could not work with such a view. Within the world of the eye, there are neither substances nor movements, but only qualities of light and color. He wants to work with them alone, not with hypothetical entities that cannot be found within experience. He observes how the sensory elements of perception of the eye relate to each other. He notices that where light and dark meet, color arises when the spot is viewed through a prism or a glass lens. He records this immediately perceptible fact. He conducts experiments that are suitable for elucidating the phenomenon. If a white disc on a black background is viewed through a convex glass lens, it appears larger than it actually is. Through the edges of the enlarged surface, you can see the black background below. The part of it that is covered by the enlarged white disc appears blue. The situation is different when a black disc on a light background is observed in the same way. The edge that appeared blue there now appears yellow. Goethe does not go beyond these perceptible facts. He says: When a light color is moved over a dark one, the blue color arises; when a dark color is moved over a light one, the yellow color arises. These colors also arise in a similar way through the prism. Through the inclination of the prism surfaces against each other, just as through the lens, a dark color is passed over a light color or vice versa, when a point is observed where the dark and light colors meet. A white disc on a black background appears displaced when viewed through the prism. The upper parts of the disk slide over the adjacent black of the background; while on the opposite side the black background slides over the lower parts of the disk. So through the prism you see the upper part of the disk as if through a veil. The lower part, on the other hand, can be seen through the superimposed darkness. The upper edge therefore appears [blue], the lower edge yellow. The blue increases towards the black, a violet tone, the yellow downwards a red tone. With increasing distance of the prism from the observed disc, the edges broaden. At a sufficiently large distance, the yellow from below spreads over the blue from above; and green is created in the middle. To further educate himself, Goethe looks at a black disc on a white background through the prism. This causes a dark color to be pushed over a light color at the top and a light color over a dark color at the bottom. Yellow appears at the top and blue at the bottom. When the prism is removed from the disc, peach blossoms appear in the middle.

> If the light is broken up into so many colors there, [I said to myself,] then here, too, darkness must be seen as broken up into colors.

Goethe calls these experiments subjective because the colors do not appear fixed anywhere in space, but only appear to the eye when it looks at an object through a prism. He wants to supplement these experiments with objective ones. To do this, he uses a water prism. He lets the light shine through this prism and catches it behind it through a screen. Because the sunlight has to shine through openings cut out of cardboard, a limited illuminated space is obtained, surrounded by darkness. The limited body of light is deflected by the prism. If this deflected light falls on a screen, an objective image appears on it, which is colored blue at the upper edge and yellow at the lower edge if the cross-section of the prism becomes narrower from top to bottom. Towards the dark space, the blue turns into violet; towards the light center, it turns into light blue; towards the dark, the yellow takes on a red tone. Goethe explains this phenomenon as follows. At the top, the bright mass of light radiates into the dark space; it illuminates a dark area and makes it appear blue. At the bottom, the dark space radiates into the mass of light; it darkens the brightness, which then appears yellow. If the screen is removed from the prism, the edges broaden; and at a sufficiently large distance, the blue in the middle shines into the yellow; and green is created. Through such experiments, Goethe finds the view that he has gained from subjective experiments confirmed by objective ones. In his opinion, colors are therefore produced by the interaction of light and dark. The purpose of the prism is to superimpose light on dark and dark on light. Yellow is light subdued by darkness; blue is darkness attenuated by light. Where yellow is further dimmed by overlying darkness, red arises; where blue is attenuated by darkness, violet appears. These are the basic laws of Goethe's theory of colors. They are nothing more than the expression of the experience given to the eye. And because they are brought about by the simplest conditions, Goethe calls them the archetypal phenomena of the color world. All other phenomena within this world arise when further conditions are added to the simple ones. One then obtains the derived phenomena, which, however, can be traced back to a sum of simple ones. In this way of thinking, Goethe's theory of color remains strictly within the bounds of empirical observation. Because Newton and the physicists did not proceed in the same way, Goethe became their opponent. He attacked Newton so fiercely because he felt that he lived in a completely different conceptual world from his own. However, he did not become fully aware of this fundamental contradiction. Otherwise he would have simply developed his own point of view and ignored the other, which was based on entirely different premises. Instead, he went through each of Newton's experiments individually, seeking to prove the error in each particular case. This is how the “polemical” part of his theory of colors came about.

Goethe's efforts in the fields of mineralogy, geology and meteorology were less successful, although he also tried to penetrate the phenomena of these fields from the point of view of his world view. Here, too, he succeeded in making individual discoveries. But again, the guiding ideas are more important than these individual discoveries, although he remained stuck in the rudiments everywhere. In mineralogy and geology, too, he seeks to explain phenomena by striving to expand the world of concepts. He believes that he can recognize how large inorganic masses are formed during his journeys into the resin. His view that not only the sensually perceptible but also the spiritually perceptible is real is also evident in this area. He imagines the stone masses to be permeated by an ideational lattice work, and indeed a six-sided one. As a result, cubic, parallelepipedal, rhombic and columnar bodies are cut out of the ground mass. This lattice work should not be just an idea, a thought, but a real system of forces at work in the stone mass. This lattice work of forces represents a transitional stage between the inorganic processes and the archetypes that Goethe sees as underlying organic nature. He sees geology as a realm between physics and organic. Therefore, he also rejects the idea that the composite rocks have arisen from their components by aggregation, but believes that these individual components were originally contained in a uniform groundmass and have been separated from each other by internal formative laws. Unfortunately, Goethe did not succeed in applying these fundamental ideas to a larger number of inorganic formations. But from them we can understand his antipathy to the volcano theory of the Earth's formation as defended by Hutton, Alexander von Humboldt, Leopold von Buch and others. This view explains the development of the Earth's surface in terms of violent revolutions. It is now impossible for a mind like Goethe's, which always adheres to what is empirically given, to assume that at any time in the earth's development forces were present that do not currently fall within the scope of experience. The only natural view is that which derives this development from the forces recognizable by observing the present conditions, from which all earth formations can be explained if one only assumes that these forces were active for a sufficiently long time. To Goethe, nature appeared consistent in all its parts, so that even a deity could not change the laws innate to it and ascertainable through experience. He therefore could not see why these laws should have expressed themselves in the past by “lifting and pushing, hurling and throwing”. The fight against the volcanic theory led him back to individual discoveries, to the one about the origin of the boulders found in some areas, which, based on their composition, must once have belonged to the mass of distant mountains. Volcanism provided the explanation that these “erratic blocks” were hurled to their present location by the tumultuous uprising of the mountains far from their present location. Goethe found an explanation that corresponded to his view in the assumption that [breaks off]