Lecture I

It is in these three ways that “scientific research” tries to get near to Nature. Now I will emphasize at the very outset that the Goethean outlook upon Nature strives for the very opposite in all three respects. In the first place, when he began to study natural phenomena, the classification into species and genera, whether of the creatures or of the facts and events of Nature, at once became problematical for Goethe. He did not like to see the many concrete entities and facts of Nature reduced to all these rigid concepts of species, family and genus; what he desired was to observe the gradual transition of one phenomenon into another, or of one form of manifestation of an entity into another. He felt concerned, not with the subdivision and classification into genera, but with the metamorphosis both of phenomena and of the several creatures. Also the quest of so-called “causes” in Nature, which Science has gone on pursuing ever since his time, was not according to Goethe's way of thinking. In this respect it is especially important for us to realize the fundamental difference between natural science and research as pursued today and on the other hand the Goethean approach to Nature.