38. On Comprehension

For Goethe, it is not important that the petal or carpel of a perfect plant was once a real leaf in an imperfect plant form; rather, it is important to find the idea of the plant. It is only from this idea that it is possible to understand that the individual moments of a more complicated form can also form a simple form as such. We do not understand how the composite is formed from the simple, but rather we always understand the simple through the composite. We understand the whole world through its most composite product, through man. What does it mean to understand? We experience processes. The highest experiences are those that we experience in ourselves. In analogy to this, we think other processes. It is quite ridiculous to want to explain what is perceptible to the ordinary eye through the microscopic. When we observe the act of procreation under the microscope, we basically have no more before us than what we see in ordinary life. A new organic form develops from a male and a female. By using the microscope, we expand the range of our perceptions, but not the sum of our concepts and ideas. And it is these that ultimately matter. Everything else can be seen as an enrichment of our experience.