{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 78/1921-08-30/p012","lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"text":"One can now elaborate further on what I am suggesting here as Goethe's particular process of cognition. This has been done in the aforementioned introductions to Goethe's scientific writings and also in my little book “Erkenntnistheorie der Goetheschen Weltanschauung” (Epistemology of Goethe's Worldview). But one thing may strike us here: Goethe described the metamorphosis of plants in an extraordinarily illuminating way with his thinking. He became a classical morphologist of the plant world. But although Goethe did not initially start from the plant world in his scientific studies of the organic world, but rather from the animal-human world, he nevertheless did not achieve the same perfection in his observation of the animal-human world as he did in his pursuit of the secrets of the plant world. It is perhaps well known, and can be read in my writings, how Goethe rebelled against the distinction that some anatomists and physiologists sought to establish between animals and humans by denying that humans have an intermaxillary bone in the upper jaw, whereas all animals have one. When he became aware of this, Goethe was not inclined to allow the difference between animality and humanity to be seen in such a minor detail. Goethe wanted to seek what elevated humans above animality in something quite different from such a detail. This led him to attempt to show that humans, like other animals, have an intermaxillary bone in the upper jaw. He did this in a classical manner, using all the scientific means available at the time to prove his point. And when Goethe then moved from the study of the animal-human to the study of plants and, I would say, incorporated this into the aforementioned extraordinarily significant treatise of 1790, he also had the idea of extending this view of metamorphosis to the animal world, that is, to that which not only lives like plants, but is also animated like animals.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"title":"Second Lecture","site_heading":"Thinking as Creative Participation in Reality","site_heading_note":"A heading the site wrote for this unit from a summary of it; not in the edition, and not the words of Rudolf Steiner or of the translator. Cite the unit by its title and locus, never by this heading, and do not quote it.","date":"1921-08-30","location":null,"word_count":317,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/78/1921-08-30/p012","alignment_confidence":"high","alignment_reason":"beads:identity","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":{"scope":"unit","status":"established","translator":"Steiner Online Library","identified_edition":"SOL2025","book_title":"Anthroposophy: Its Roots of Knowledge and Fruits of Life","publisher":"Steiner Online Library","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA078/English/SOL2025/19210830p01.html","evidence":"lecture_page_line","publisher_note":"The publisher is inferred from the edition code in this lecture's source URL, not stated by the source page. The translator IS verified for this lecture: its own source names the translator (evidence: the lecture's page, rsarchive's lecture list, or the cover of the book it was published in), and that page's text was matched against this unit (see match_score and source_url). Cite the translator with confidence; attribute the publisher only as probable."},"edition_coverage":{"de":["original"],"en":["English"]},"available_versions":[{"lang":"de","edition":"original","edition_basis":null,"is_original":true,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/78/1921-08-30/p012"},{"lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/78/1921-08-30/p012","paragraph_aligned":true}],"record":{"record_type":"unknown","scope":"volume","note":"How this text was taken down (shorthand transcript, listeners' notes or manuscript) is not on record here. Unknown is not an assurance of a stenogram: check the edition's own notes before resting an argument on one word.","evidence":null,"evidence_translation":null,"evidence_source":null},"paired_german":{"status":"paired","german":[{"locus":"GA 78/1921-08-30/p012","passage_number":12,"text":"Man kann nun dasjenige, was ich hier als den besonderen Erkenntnisprozeß Goethes andeute, weiter ausführen. Das ist in den genannten Einleitungen zu Goethes naturwissenschaftlichen Schriften geschehen und auch in meinem kleinen Büchelchen «Erkenntnistheorie der Goetheschen Weltanschauung». Aber dabei kann einem eines auffallen: Goethe hat mit seinem Denken in einer außerordentlich einleuchtenden Weise die Metamorphose der Pflanzen beschrieben. Er wurde ein klassischer Morphologe der Pflanzenwelt. Aber obwohl Goethe eigentlich bei seinen naturwissenschaftlichen Studien über die organische Welt zunächst nicht von dem Pflanzlichen ausgegangen ist, sondern von dem Tierisch-Menschlichen, so brachte er es trotzdem in der Betrachtung des Tierisch-Menschlichen nicht zu derselben Vollendung wie in der Verfolgung der Geheimnisse der Pflanzenwelt. Es ist vielleicht bekannt und es kann in meinen Schriften nachgelesen werden, wie Goethe sich auflehnte gegen die Kluft, die aufgerichtet werden sollte von einigen Anatomen und Physiologen zwischen dem Tier und dem Menschen dadurch, daß man diesem einen Zwischenkieferknochen in der oberen Kinnlade absprach, während ein solcher bei allen Tieren vorhanden ist. Goethe war nicht geneigt, als er mit der Sache bekannt wurde, zuzulassen, daß der Unterschied zwischen der Tierheit und der Menschheit in einer so untergeordneten Einzelheit gesehen werden soll. Goethe wollte das, was den Menschen heraufhob über die Tierheit, in etwas ganz anderem als in einer solchen Einzelheit suchen. Daher kam er zu dem Bestreben, zu zeigen, daß dem Menschen wie den übrigen Tieren ein Zwischenkieferknochen in der oberen Kinnlade zuzuschreiben sei. Dieses ist von ihm wieder in einer klassischen Weise geschehen, indem er sich aller damals möglichen wissenschaftlichen Hilfsmittel zu diesem Nachweis bedient hat. Und als dann Goethe von dem Studium des Tierisch-Menschlichen überging zu dem Studium des Pflanzlichen und das, ich möchte sagen, einströmen ließ in die genannte außerordentlich bedeutsame Abhandlung von 1790, da kam ihm auch der Gedanke, diese Metamorphosenanschauung auszudehnen auf das Tierische, also auf dasjenige, was nicht nur lebt wie die Pflanze, sondern was beseelt ist wie das Tier.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":316,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/78/1921-08-30/p012"}],"english":["GA 78/1921-08-30/p012"],"method":"identity","confidence":"high","correspondence":"established","length_check":{"de_words":316,"en_words":317,"ratio":1.0,"partial":false},"pairing_state":"verified","verified":true,"evidence":["length","meaning","anchors","audit"]},"witness_completeness":{"ratio":1.01,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":5464,"original_word_count":5410,"may_be_abridged":false},"witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Steiner Online Library","identified_edition":"SOL2025","book_title":"Anthroposophy: Its Roots of Knowledge and Fruits of Life","publisher":"Steiner Online Library","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA078/English/SOL2025/19210830p01.html","evidence":"lecture_page_line","publisher_note":"The publisher is inferred from the edition code in this lecture's source URL, not stated by the source page. The translator IS verified for this lecture: its own source names the translator (evidence: the lecture's page, rsarchive's lecture list, or the cover of the book it was published in), and that page's text was matched against this unit (see match_score and source_url). Cite the translator with confidence; attribute the publisher only as probable."},"entity_parity":{"status":"ok","checked_against":["GA 78/1921-08-30/p012"],"missing_from_translation":[],"present_only_in_translation":[],"bead_confidence":"high","note":"Every load-bearing name in the German counterpart appears in this English passage. That is a check on NAMES only: a translation can keep every name and still reverse who acts on whom, change a number, or soften a claim. Read the German for anything you intend to rest an argument on."},"note":"quote_safe certifies the bytes of this text. This block is about the translation as a WITNESS: who made it, and whether it carries the same names as the original. 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