, 1877-03-10

airy lAh0rs were at once understood. while
his scientific lab0rs, in which he was half
II century in advance of his cont4mpora.
res, sr" only just beginning to be valued
and even now, the large majority of peo.
pie have no idea of their high import
ance. II" went forward with such great
steps that he was soon tar ahead of his
time, and contemporary philosophers
were utterly unable to keep pace with
HIM, misfortune which he himself felt
and acknowledged.
Goethe approached the grand prob.
lens OF nature not as an unimpassioned
investigator but as an inspired poet,
and the wonderful generalizations which
he made in metaphysics, in botanical and
geological anatomy, in embryoIogy and
comparative anatomy were the basis of
the modern theory of evolution. These
theories sprang from his intensely poeti.
cal conception Of the necessary unity of
""l"'c, anu nave HOW Dcen generally
acknowledged and accepted. Metaphys.
les he reformed entirely, by proving that
in tact there is no such thing as meta
physical universe, no nature above the
visible nature; and therefore, to Goethe,
metaphysics proper did not exist. He
SAW that matter without mind was as
unthinkab!c as mind without matter :;
and he was the first who attacked the
dualisms which treated mind and mate
rial nature, essence and phenomenon, or
whatever else they may be called, as OPP
posing principles. He held that in place
of being distinct, they form an INSOFAR
able unit. Neither matter nor spirit can
exist alone; but everything is both in
one and it is evident that it is just as
erroneous to call natural objects mate.
rialisms as it would be to call them spir-
itualisms. Nor can any one call this
view of the universe atheism, As it ac-
knowledges God grander and nearer TO
man than the hypothetical deus er ma.
china of the ancient creeCls.
There was recently published letter
from Goethe to Jacobi, in which the
writer says; "Why some good people
want God existing outside of the uni
verse is what do not understand. Does
not God exist in the universe, every.
where in the universe If he does not
exist everywhere, entirely and undivided
because Il le whole universe is mani.
iestation of His, to us, visible form then
does he exist nowhere. Outside OF the
universe, there is no space; space comes
only to existence as an abstraction when
universe is evolved A limited person
ality does not fit an infinite being, which
must be the highest, living active unit;
not IN all things, as if there could be
anything outside of Him, but by all
things, which appear only as perceptible
conceptions to the observing faculties of
material beings"
IN regard to Goethe's labors in special
branches of the natural sciences, we must
first consider principle which he insist
ed on in all his works, namely: That "a
had hypothesis is better than none at
all" Professor Huxley endorses this,
and adds ut forces the mind into
lines of thought, in which it is more
profitable TO grow wrong than to stand
still" One Of Goetho's most celebrated
works in the natural sciences is his
"Metamorphoses of Plants" first pub
lished in 1890. In this work he at,
tempted to prove that there was one
fundamental organ, by the infinitely man.
itold transformation of which the whole
world of the vegetable forms was evolv-
ed. This fundamental organ he thought
he had found in the leaf; but If he had
been microscopist he would have gone
farther back, and recognized the cell as
the organic cause Of the leaf. Applying
the same reasoning to the cell develop
ment, he would have done as we, en-
lightened by his example, do now he
would have looked for the primary form
or type, or other name by which the
originating germ may be called
Goetbe's next great labor was his fam
Gus theory of the skulls of man and the
other mammalia, that they are only mod
iiications or ditferentiations of vertebrp
OF the spinal column, being composed
ct similar parts. This idea, further de-
Ve'oped and applied to other parts, is OF
f!hEs utmost Importance, and has affected