J. Social Biol. Struct.

1984 7, 325-344

The causal dimension of ’

Goethe’s morphology
Ronald H. Brady
School of American Studies, Ramapo College of New Jersey, Mahwah, New Jersey 09430, UsA

Any modern readings of Goethe’s morphological writings must struggle with the
author’s apparent satisfaction that his ‘morphology’ (Goethe coined the term) was
both a descriptive science and a causal one. This unlikely attitude is too easily
dismissed by readers who assume that Goethe’s work must either be encompassed
by modern developments or be mistaken. The assumption is aided by the fact that
Goethe’s notion of an archetype, which is the causal aspect of his work, has been
misread by inserting it within the context of Naturphilosophie and the work of
those men, particularly Oken and Owen, who seem most representative of it.
Goethe’s notion, as it is developed in his botanical writings, cannot be subsumed
over this model-it is a unique product. In order to develop a concept adequate to
his intention, however, it will be necessary to relate his approach to the history of
morphology, and by doing so, disentangle Goethe’s idea from the more common
one.
I shall argue that the misreading above arises from the assumption that Goethe,
like Oken and Owen, begins from the organizing concept of a common underlying
schema and offers a version of this as an archetype. Since the notion of such a
common structural plan is part of modern morphology, the misreading is inevitable
unless the reader is able to detect another starting point in Goethe’s work. Goethe
begins, in fact, with transformation functions rather than schemas, and describes
movement rather than stasis. We shall see what a great difference this will make
only when we understand how central the notion of a common schema was to the
historical development of morphology, excluding Goethe.

The anatomy of common plan

The fundamental concept of both pre- and post-Darwinian morphology is the common plan
shared by a group of organisms. Due to the fact that groups of organisms can be mapped
upon a single structural plan, their various organs can be identified as srandurd parfs, and
given a common name. Thus, in tetrapods, we may speak of the skull, the spine, the fore-
limb, or the upper bone in the forelimb-the humerus. These are all levels of standard parts,
the last being a single bone, the others identifiable complexes of several bones. The identity
of any of these organs depends, of course, upon its position with regard to the other
elements of the organism, and its particular structure-i.e., its position in the common plan
and its own structural plan.
Particular organs have been identified by such criteria since Geoffroy St. Hilaire (1818)
formulated his ‘principle of connections’ and ‘principle of composition’-identity of position

0140-1750/84/040325 + 20 $03.00/O 0 1984 Academic Press Inc. (London) Limited

 R. H. Brady

in the overall plan and of individual structural plan respectively. Geoffroy was particu-
larly acute in his insistance that it was plan, rather than function, which identified both
organisms and their parts, and his ideas of relation took their modern names at the hands of
Richard Owen (1848), who termed functional similarity analogy and standard part identity
homology. The former he defined as: ‘A part or organ in one animal which has the same
function as another part in a different animal’ and the latter as: ‘The same organ in different
animals under every variety of form and function’. Neither Owen nor Geoffroy defined
exactly what they meant by ‘the same’, but their meaning is easily recovered from the
context of argument. Geoffroy had claimed that a particular organ might go through almost
any transformation except transposition. Owen identified his homologies by their connec-
tions and structure. The identity preserved is obviously that of position and composition,
and one is thought to imply the other. The same concepts of morphological relation ground
modern work, although their significance is sometimes blurred by evolutionary explanations.
Thus Remane’s (1971) first and second criteria of homology are (1) the position of the
organs within comparable systems and (2) direct agreement between organs with regard to
numerous features-i.e., the ‘principle of connections’ and the ‘principle of composition’.
Both of the above criteria are logical derivations of the concept of common plan. Homo-
logous organs share the same position in the overall map of the organism, and by extension of
rhe same map, share the same compositional structure. Structural comparison of organisms
takes place by this conceptual reduction to schematic identity, and if we put aside functional
studies, there is little more to morphology. Homology is the whole game and the criteria of
homology must always be based on schematic identity.
Of course, direct comparison of adult morphology is not the only manner of determining
homology, but this does not alter the conclusion above. Two important additions are
embryology and grouping, but both derive from common plan. This is relatively easy to see
with regard to developmental evidence, for although such evidence will at times provide valu-
able information, comparison at this level must rest on the very same foundation as the com-
parisons discussed above. As Russell (1916) points out, the relation of embryonic structures
‘are still determined solely by the relative positions and connections of the parts,just ashomo-
logies are determined in the last of all stages of development, the adult stage’. Developmental
evidence is richer than adult evidence simply because, while including the adult stage, it adds
many other stages. But no further principle of structural relation is to be found here.
The grouping of organisms does provide a further criterion of homology (besides position
and composition), but it is still derived from common plan. Organisms sharing the same plan
are for that reason grouped together, and within the overall plan, those sharing a particular
variant of that plan also form a group. Thus, on the basis of shared and unshared variations,
the organisms within a plan are grouped in a hierarchical subordination of smaller groups
within larger ones. Since any particular homology will be a particular variant of that
standard part, which variation will either be unique or will be shared by a certain number of
species, each hypothesis of homology carries grouping implications. In practice, the impli-
cations of a particular character (homology) are compared with those of other characters
while constructing a branching diagram. If the character is congruent with the aggregate of
information (with the grouping implications of the majority of characters) it is evidently
correctly identified and passes the test. If it is not, it is judged mistaken-i.e., it is not a true
homology (Nelson & Platnick, 1981; Patterson, 1982). Although this is not a criterion of
position or composition, it is derived from the hierarchy of taxa which is itself derived from
the concept of plan. A group of taxa are the taxa that fit into a particular plan, or morphotype
(taking ‘plan’ as synonymous with any variant of the overaIl plan). We have still but one
structural concept.
 The causal dimension of Goethe S morphology 327

Darwin (1859) thought so too, for the relations described above are exactly those ‘mutual
affinities of organic beings’ to which his thirteenth chapter refers. The patterns resulting
from the study of these relations were to Darwin the standing patterns of natural history,
which his theory proposed to explain by an evolutionary account. The common plan was,
for Darwin, the plan of the original progenitor of the line, preserved by heredity. Variation
was introduced by descent, and channeled into particular lines of development’by selective
pressures. But this explanation can be seen in its historical context only when we under-
stand the ‘mutual affinities’ discovered by pre-Darwinian biology and reviewed above.
Darwin’s hypothesized process is addressed, in chapter thirteen, to a problem of morpho-
logical relations well known to pre-Darwinian biology. The original progenitor, in fact, had
a morphological form before it took on a historical one. In the same chapter Darwin writes:
‘the ancient progenitor, the archetype as it may be called . . . ‘-but the recovery of this
concept will take further review.

The archetype of ‘general homology’

Morphological concepts are concepts of relation-we can specify such a concept only by
defining the relation it provides. In the case of the archetype, the ‘origin or ruler of types’
through a translation of the greek archon, the most obvious meaning would seem to be the
common plan of a phylum. The vertebrates, for instance, will include many sub-groups, each
with its own set of defining characters or its morphotype. Since each morphotype is but a
variant execution of the same plan, the archetype is logically that schema which underlies
them all. But this is not quite enough to pin down the relation we are after.
In actual practice, while one assumes that all vertebrates are built upon a common plan,
they are identified simply by possession of one very general character-the axial skeleton.
Thus the actual underlying plan, if it exists, is unknown and the object of speculation.
(Darwin speaks of the ‘unknown progenitor’.) When we compare, for example, fishes and
tetrapods, the presumed homologies between fins and limbs are not clear. A good deal of
morphological guesswork has been concentrated on this problem, but without better evi-
dence-i.e., enough transitional forms between fins and limbs to make the positional
relations clear-the answers must remain questionable. If a commonality between fins and
limbs exists, however, it must be a form or schema that generalizes on both, and thus the
relation being specified in hypothetical homologies between these major groups is that of
the underlying unity, or archetype.
Of course, the more distant the forms related, the more general the common form will
have to be, and for most morphological thinking this requirement of generality translates
into simplicity. Thus for the evolutionist the progenitor of a kingdom was thought to be a
relatively simple organism. The pre-Darwinian archetype exhibits similar properties, reducing
complex forms to a simple schema which, at least by hypothesis, underlies them all.
One of the latest and most developed examples of the archetype was produced by Owen
(1848) who may have been the last important representative of Naturphilosophie in England.
Owen has absorbed a great deal from this German heritage, particularly the notion, found
in Lorenze Oken (1807), that the vertebrate plan was essentially a series of segments. Thus
Owen begins by postulating a ‘typical vertebra’ (Fig. 1)-a ‘map’ generalizing on the
vertebrae. He then projects the segments of the skeleton on this map. Thus, the thorax of
a bird (Fig. 2) becomes an expanded vertebra. The section of the sternum shown becomes
a ‘haemal spine’, the sternal rib a ‘haemapophysis’, and so on. Once he has mapped all
elements of the skeleton on this same schema, Owen is able to build the whole from nothing
but vertebral sections by repetition and transformation of parts. For the archetype itself he
328 . R. H. Brady

Ill ____. neural spine.

zygapophysis. =..
%

.__._--
--.neurapophysis.
diapophysis. -.___

---pleurapophgeis.

Fig, 1. Ideal typical vertebra. From Owen (1848)

Fig. 2. Natural typical vertebra: thorax o/a bird. From Owen (1848)

produces a fish-like diagram (Fig. 3) in which all the elements are easily traced back to their
vertebral composition. Even the skull is but a series of expanded vertebrae, and the vertebral
schema is the only irreducible element left.
The reduction to simplicy here is extreme, for Owen must unify such distant structures,
but the strategy is not unusual. Owen termed that relation ‘in which a part or series of parts
 The causal dimensions of Goethe’s morphology 329

Fig. 3. Ideal archetype skeleton. From Owen (1866)

stands to the fundamental or general type’-general homology (which was quite distinct
from the special homology between similar organs in different organisms-i.e., homology as
defined in the preceeding section). Of course, the general homology-homology with the
type-of several distinct elements indicates their homology with each other, but the crucial
point seems to be that their relation to each other could not be discovered without the
mediation of the type concept. Owen’s analysis of the limb, for instance, homologized the
whole structure with a single element of the ‘typical vertebra’. Owen dismissed the obvious
differences-the multiplicity of elements in the limb-by stating that the single element
of the schema had become ‘teleologically compound’, presumably for the purpose of
locomotion. Owen could affirm the homology of fins and limbs in this manner, since both
would be transformations of the same vertebral element, but the approach is more like
legislation than discovery. The real problem is not the extreme degree to which Owen pushed
his strategy of general homology, but the strategy itself. And in this he was hardly alone.
When the positional data is fairly clear, as is the case when the distance between forms is
not great, homology is traced by direct matching of connections and composition. When
these are ambiguous, however, the morphologist may take recourse in speculation, proposing
a form which generalizes on the two forms under examination. This can be done by con-
structing a hypothetical intermediate between the two forms, or by constructing a form or
schema simple enough that it could serve as common map. Either approach allows one to
hypothesize agreement between the forms compared on the basis of the agreement of both
with the mediating form, and this application of general homology was widespread before
and after the advent of evolutionary theory.
Patterson (1982) reviews the Owen version of the archetype, pointing out that the real
problem is general homology, by which ‘an idealization’ is homologized with actual features
through ‘abstract transformations’. He then argues that the same practice can be found in
the contemporary practice of homologizing dissimilar organs on the basis of the homology
between each and the primitive version of the organ in a hypothesized progenitor. Due to
the presence of the use of this strategy in contemporary works, Patterson concludes that
‘archetypes are by no means extinct’. But however far modern versions are from Owen’s,
they fail to qualify as empirical derivations for the same reason.
When we construct an intermediate form in order to trace positional relations we are
simply inventing the transformation without any foundation in observation. If the positional
information were clear enough, no additional form would be necessary. When the evidence
is incomplete, the addition of a hypothetical form is tantamount to inventing our own
evidence. The fact that we can invent an intermediate means nothing, for if the relations are
unclear we can invent many, and all would be possible routes of transformation. A similar
problem arises with the hypothetical ancestor, for this is equally without an empirical
necessity. We can just as well invent many, each as serviceable as the next. There is no way
330 R. H. Brady

to test such hypotheses, for what the descendents do or do not possess-i.e., the interpre-
tation of their positional data-will depend upon what the hypothesized ancestor says
they possessed. Noting that these results will not submit to test by comparison to known
forms (since they interpret these same forms), Patterson calls general homology ‘vacuous’.
Speculative construction of general forms may hold a certain fascination, but the practice
is only guesswork and tells us nothing about the actual paths of transformation. ‘General’
homology is not actual homology.
The Patterson critique of speculative forms shows both how widespread and how bankrupt
the practice is, but it does not dissolve the problem of the archetype. Given a series of forms
which are all, in some sense, transformations of one another, there should be some way of
generalizing upon them all. Goethe would agree, but he offers a very different approach.

Goethe
At first glance it seems obvious that Goethe may have exerted an influence upon Owen,
at least in so far as the latter figure looked to Nafurphilusophie for his notion of an under-
lying unity re-presented by every part of an organic whole. This idea has been prominent
in German thought since Herder and Goethe developed it in such a manner that Owen
may well have found a precursor in Goethe’s work. Yet the notion of vertebral transfor-
mations is really older than Goethe, and his own contribution, developed mainly in botany,
does not make the same argument. Before I clarify this statement however, let me point
out the appearance of similarity that has led some commentators to suggest a parallel
reading.
We are privileged, in Goethe’s case, to watch his botanical notions as they grow. The basis
of his Metamorphosis of Plants (published 1790; English translation, 1946) was worked out
during Goethe’s journey to Italy (1786-1787), and reflected in letters (collected and pub-
lished as the Italian Journey, 1968). The following excerpts bear directly on the emerging
idea of an archetypical (primal) plant:

Padula Botanical Gardens

September 27, 1786
To wander about among a vegetation which is new to one is pleasant and instructive. It is the
same with familiar plants as with other familiar objects; in the end we cease to think about
them at all. But what is seeing without thinking? Here where I am confounded with a great
variety of plants, my hypothesis that it might be possible to derive all plant forms from one
original plant becomes clearer to me and more exciting. Only when we have accepted this
idea will it be possible to determine genera and species exactly. So far this has, I believe,
been done in a very arbitrary way. At this stage of my botanical philosophy, I have reached
an impasse, and I do not see how to get out of it. The whole subject seems to me to be
profound and of far-reaching consequence.

Botanical Gardens,Palermo, Sicily

April 17, 1787
Here where, instead of being grown in pots under glass as they are with us, plants are allowed
to grow freely in the open fresh air and fulfill their natural destiny, they become more
intelligible. Seeing such a variety of new and renewed forms, my old fancy suddenly comes
back to mind: Among this multitude might I not discover the Primal Plant? There certainly
must be one. Otherwise, how could I recognize that this or that form MJUS a plant if all were
not built upon the same basic model?
I tried to disover how all these divergent forms differed from one another, and I always
found that they were more alike than unlike. But when I applied my botanical nomenclature,
I got along all right to begin with, but then I got stuck, which annoyed me without stimu-
lating me.
 The causal dimension of Goethe’s morphology 331

Naples
May 17, 1787
I must also tell you confidently that I am very close to the secret of the reproduction
and organization of plants, and that it is the simplest thing imaginable. This climate
offers the best possible conditions for making observations. To the main question-where
the germ is hidden-I am quite certain I have found the answer; to the others I already
see a general solution, and only a few points have still to be formulated more precisely.
The Primal Plant is going to be the strangest creature in the world, which Nature herself
shall envy me. With this model and the key to it, it will be possible to go on forever
inventing plants and know that their existence is logical; that is to say, if they do not
actually exist, they could, for they are not the shadow phantoms of vain imagination, but
possess an inner necessity and truth. The same law will be applicable to all other living
organisms.

Rome; second visit

July 31, 1787
While walking in the Public Gardens of Palermo, it came to me in a flash that in the organ of
the plant which we are accustomed to call the leaf lies the true Proteus who can hide or
reveal himself in a vegetal forms. From first to last, the plant is nothing but leaf, which is so
inseparable from the future germ that one cannot think of one without the other.

As other commentators have noticed, (Arber, 1950; Cassirer, 1950; Steiner, 1950), Goethe
begins by speaking of his ‘primal plant’ as if it were an ancestral form but makes it clear,
in later references, that he has in mind something abstract rather than physical. The appear-
ance of an altered opinion may be illusory. When Goethe speaks of discovering, ‘among
this multitude’, the primal plant (Urpflanze), he may not mean finding it among the plants
at the Palermo garden, but seeing it through their mediation. After all if Goethe is willing
to boast, a month later, that ‘Nature herself shall envy me’ the primal plant, the plant
could hardly be a natural product. The Urpflanze is a concept of plan and not an ancestral
species.
Connected with his notion of an archetypal plan, Goethe proposes the general identity
of all appendicular organs of the plant, or as it has usually been interpreted, the homology
of cotyledons, foliage leaves, sepals, petals, pistils, stamens, etc. The germ of this idea is
found as early as Theophrastes, is developed by both Grew and Malpighi, and is worked out
through the developmental evidence by Wolff 19 years before Goethe’s letter (Arber, 1950),
but Goethe seems ignorant of these predecessors and evidently thought he had none. Earlier
work is therefore without interpretive value for Goethe’s text.
Against the background of Naturphilosophie and the predilection of its adherents to
emphasize the repetition of parts in the vertebrate skeleton to the point at which the whole
becomes only vertebrae, Goethe seems to be postulating the general homology of all
appendicular organs of the shoot and then suggesting a generalized plan for the whole
shoot. Interpreted in this way Goethe’s work finds a later parallel in both Oken (1807)
and Owen, and too many figures have interpreted Goethe in this fashion to list them here.
This mistake is perhaps quite natural given the context in which Goethe would be read,
but it is still a mistake. The identity which Goethe postulates between organs is not that
of general homology, nor does his ‘leaf’ (Blatt) perform the same function as Owen’s
‘typical vertebra’. Nor, for that matter, can his Urpflanze be an Owenian archetype. Goethe
attempted to define another problem, but the more influential work of such known
biologists as Owen has effectively prevented historians from making a decent reading of
his text. (See, for example, Russell, 1916; Nordenskiold, 1928; Singer, 1959). If we pay
attention to the crucial details however, the difference between these two approaches will
become obvious.
332 R. H. Brady

Owen, and Oken before him, began from an existent structure-a vertebra-and attempted
to trace the metamorphosis of the skeleton from there. Goethe appears to do the same thing,
but we find, in the Summay of his Metamorphosis of Plants (1946), a warning against such
an interpretation:
119
Just as we have now sought to explain the protean organs of the vegetating and flowering
plant all from a single organ, the leaf, which commonly unfolds itself at each node; so we
have also attempted to refer to leaf-form those fruits which closely cover their seeds.
120
It goes without saying that we must have a general term to indicate this variously meta-
morphosed organ, and to use in comparing the manifestations of its form; we have hence
adopted the word leaf. But when we use this term, it must be with the reservation that we
accustom ourselves to relate the phenomena to one another in both directions. For we can
just as well say that the stamen is a contracted petal, as we can say of a petal that it is a
stamen in a state of expansion. And we can just as well say that a sepal is a contracted
stem-leaf, approaching a certain degree of refinement, as that a stem-leaf is a sepal,
expanded through an intrusion of cruder saps.
121
In the same way it may be said of the stem that it is an expanded flowering and fruiting
phase, just as we have predicted of the latter that it is a contracted stem.

Goethe’s leaf is not, as Arber noticed (1950), a foliage leaf, but a totally general concept.
That Owen’s ‘typical vertebra’ is not the same thing may be demonstrated by the following
reflection.
When Owen used the generalized plan of a vertebra for his basic element, it was obvious
that he thought of this plan as most directly represented by the vertebrae themselves. The
vertebrae cannot be conceived as contracted limbs-the added elements of the limb are not
basic but teleological. Owen, like the Darwinians, imagines an archetype as the simplest
execution of the whole, and his archetype of the vertebrate skeleton is therefore least
removed from a vertebral column, which is his model. As the Patterson critique implies,
however, there is little necessity in the strategy. The worker who postulates a general
homology or constructs an original progenitor decides upon ‘general’ characteristics and
then interprets the available forms on this basis. But the attempt to imagine a generalized
structure must always produce a specific form. Thus Owen acts as if he thought that every-
thing developed from vertebrae-that the structures of the vertebral column were somehow
more ‘general’ than those of the rest of the skeleton. This is the very direction that Goethe
refuses to take.
That Goethe does not mean to suggest that the primal plant was totally foliar in nature,
or that the foliar members are somehow more generalized than the other organs of the
shoot, would follow from the remarks above (paragraphs 120, 121) if they were taken to be
logically binding. That they must be taken in this manner can be seen from a consideration
of Goethe’s criteria for the postulation that whether the plant produces foliar, floral, or
other members, ‘it is still the same organs which, with different destinies and under protean
shapes, fulfill the part proscribed by Nature’ (1946, paragraph 115). This certainly looks
like homology, but if it is we must change the definition, for Goethe does not apply the
criteria of congruence, composition, or even position in the normal sense. The two criteria
he does use are particular to botanical arguments.
The various organs of the flowering plant are generally identified by common recognition
rather than any particular formula, for the foliage leaf, sepal, petal, or stamen ail seem
obvious. Of course, there is a positional element here, since one normally expects the foliage
 The causal dimension of Goethe’s morphology 333

leaf to be found in a vertical sequence on the stem, the sepal to be produced from a whorl
of nodes immediately below the corolla, the petal from the next whorl, etc. Position, in this
sense, simply tells us what the nodes of the various zones would produce were the plant to
follow its normal progression. Since we can identify the normal production of any particular
node, however, we can also detect abnormal production-the situation that arises when the
node in question gives rise to something other than its expected member. Thus we find that
the whorl of nodes that usually produce the corolla may go vegetative and produce foliage
leaves instead, or the nodes normally responsible for the stamens may give petals instead,
producing a sterile ‘doubled’ flower. In this manner we may establish that the node is multi-
valent in any position, and we may find a suggestion in this fact that the organs which rise
at the nodes may themselves share an underlying identity.
The multivalence of the node, irrespective of position was Goethe’s first criterion, the
second was the actual observation of intermediate forms. It is well known that the nodes
that produce, in a bormal blossom, pistil and stamens, may give rise to petals instead. It is
equally common to find that these nodes have given rise to forms intermediate between
petal and stamen or petal and pistil. The plant seems quite able, in fact, to produce organs
which are transitional between any two neighbouring forms in its progression, and this
strengthens the suggestion of identity between the two. But although this evidence was
enough, for a number of later botanists, to postulate homology between a number of the
shoot members, it is not the notion of homology we find in comparative anatomy.
A careful reading of Goethe’s texts will demonstrate that he never postulated compo-
sitional schema for the general organ. After all, the criteria given above contain no impli-
cation of composition with regard to the general organ, and these are all that Goethe applied.
His ‘leaf’ is not a generalization upon foliar members, but upon all members of the shoot
-it underlies all in exactly the same manner and therefore is specially related to none. All
actual forms, compared to this level of generality, are quite specialized, for Goethe’s general
organ has no form at all.
Because his postulation of identity rests neither on identity of position nor identity of
composition, Goethe’s notion is not parallel to either special or general homology, at least
in as far as these are usually determined by position or composition. The ‘same’ means
here only that the organs of the shoot are largely interchangeable at the same nodal position,
and that transitional forms may connect organs which are usually distinct. Although later
studies have often proceeded as if Goethe meant, by his ‘leaf’, some form of general
homology, it is more profitable to emphasize the distinction between Goethe’s approach
and that of the majority.

Formation, transformation, and the ‘graded series’

Since Goethe begins with a search for the Urflanze, which he thinks must exist on the
evidence of common recognition-‘how could I recognize that this or that form was a
plant if they were not all built upon the same basic model?‘-it is obvious that his postu-
lation of the identity of shoot appendages is intended as a step toward this ‘model’ (Muster).
It is equally obvious, on the evidence discussed above, that no advance toward a pattern
parallel to those of comparative anatomy can be made in this fashion. After all, the
homology statements dealt with above all postulated positional identity of some sort,
whether this was of a standard part within a common plan (by connections), or a complex
identified by its internal positions (composition). The Goethean ‘leaf’ does not possessa
compositional schema, and its transformations freely violate the normal positional order
of organs. It provides no positional identity, therefore, and does not move toward a schema.
 R. H. Bra+

Barring simple confusion on Goethe’s part, it would seem that his ‘model’ is not a plan of
connections.
This point, had it been realized by historians, could have radically altered the manner
in which Goethe’s morphological work was read, but I suppose it departed from the
common expectations-and mental habits-a bit too far. Many historians, for example, have
quoted Goethe’s account of his first scientific conversation with &chiller (Goethe, 1952:
Propitious Encounter-Gluckliches Ereignis) during which Goethe drew a sketch of a
‘symbolic plant’. Schiller’s famous reaction was ‘That is not an empiric experience, it is
an idea’-leading to several years of discussion and an evolution of both positions. But what
a ‘symbolic plant’ may be is hardly clear from Goethe’s sentence or Schiller’s reaction.
What is clear, however, is the propensity of the unwarned reader to make the sketch into a
positional schema.
Goethe evidently worried about the tendency himself. In 1817 he decided to add an
introduction to his botanical writings which would point the reader in the right direction.
The piece was titled Formation and Transformation (Bildung and Umbildung: Goethe 1963)
and the opening paragraphs of the second section-‘The Intention Introduced’-follow:
If we become attentive to natural objects, particularly living ones, in such a manner as to
desire to achieve an insight into the context of their essence and activity, we believe our-
selves best able to come to such a comprehension through a division of the parts, and this
method is suitable to take us very far. With but a word one may remind friends of science
of what chemistry and anatomy have contributed to an intensive and extensive view of
Nature.
But these analytical efforts, continued indefinitely, produce many disadvantages. The
living may indeed be separated into its elements, but one cannot put these back together
and revive them. This is true even of inorganic bodies, not to mention organic ones.
For this reason, the urge to cognize living forms as such, to grasp their outwardly visible
and tangible parts contextually, to take them as intimations of that which is inward and so
master, to some degree, the whole in an intuition, has always arisen in men and science.
How closely this scientific demand is tied to the artistic and imitative impulses need not
be worked out in detail.
One finds, therefore, numerous attempts in the course of art, learning, and science, to
found and develop a study which we may call morphology. The varied forms in which these
attempts appear will be discussed in the historical section.
The German has the word Gestalt for the complex of existence of an actual being. He
abstracts, with this expression, from the moving, and assumes a congruous whole to be
determined, completed, and fixed in its character.
But if we consider Gestalts generally, especially organic ones, we find that independence,
rest, or termination nowhere appear, but everything fluctuates rather in continuous motion.
Our speech is accustomed to use, therefore, the word Bildung appertaining to both what has
been brought forth and the process of bringing-forth.
If we would introduce a morphology, we ought not to speak of the Gestalt, or if we do
use the word, should think thereby only of an abstraction-a notion of something held fast
in experience but for an instant.
What has been formed is immediately transformed again, and if we would succeed, to
some degree, to a living view of Nature, we must attempt to remain as active and as plastic
as the example she sets for us.

This description of morphology as the study of process rather than result distinguishes
Goethe’s approach from that of comparative anatomy, but the emphasis upon a dynamic
aspect is not entirely foreign. Most biologists would sympathize, at least, with the impression
that ‘everything fluctuates . . . in continuous motion’ and ‘what has been formed is
immediately transformed again’. The morphologist knows that the problem is transformation.
But if one may sympathize with Goethe’s impressions, the actual study of transformation
 The causal dimension of Goethe’s morphology 335

has clearly been based upon the positional schema and the series of variants to which it
may be applied. And since each variant is essentially futed-a Gestalt-Goethe’s advice is
problematic. His idea will become more understandable if we apply it in a test case.
During his argument against Owen’s general homologies of the vertebrate skull, Huxley
(1858), offered a plausible reconstruction of the mental steps by which Owen came to his
‘typical vertebra’. The tendency to abstract an idealized figure was only normal, he said.
After all, ‘how can the intelligent student of the human frame consider the backbone, with
all its numerous joints or vertebrae, and consider the gradual modification which these
undergo . . . without the notion of the vertebra in abstract, as it were, gradually dawning in
his mind: the conception of an ideal something which shall be a sort of mean between these
actual forms, each of which may then be conceived as a modification of the abstract or
typical vertebra?’ But this is applicable to the vertebral column only-the attempt to follow
these ‘gradations’ of vertebral forms into the skull bones must rest upon guesswork, unless
we turn to embryology, where we find no support for the thesis. I have already indicated my
difficulty with general homology and my agreement with the epithet of ‘guesswork’. My
interest now is in that part of the process which Huxley describes as normal-the treatment
of the successivegradations of the spine, or any other ‘graded series’ of forms, as if it could
be understood as a continuous modification of an underlying or general form.
Transitional forms were used by Goethe as a means of tracing identity, and botanical
morphology is particularly rich in serial transformations, a fact that may have led to the
statement that ‘what has been formed is immediately transformed again’. The same sort of
evidence would be used, as Remane (197 1) points out, in comparative anatomy, where it
would be interpreted as a means to trace the transformation of connective and compo-
sitional schemas. Remane’s understanding of the graded series is therefore very similar to
Huxley’s, for both treat it as the continuous modification of a single schema-a positional
criterion. No doubt some serial transformations may be treated in this manner, but the
strategy is questionable when applied to all such series.
Let us take, for example, the series of foliage leaves presented by the field buttercup
-Ranunculus acris (Fig. 4; shown in ascending order from bottom left to bottom right).

Fig. 4. Series of foliage leaves presented by Ranunculus acris

 .
336 R. H. Brady

The series covers an extensive range and is gradual enough to create the impression of overall
unity. But should we attempt to assign an underlying schema we shall run into difficulty.
The simplest schema, patterned after the three-part compound leaf on the lower right, tells
us almost nothing about the complex forms. The reverse procedure, beginning with the most
complex form, gives of a schema which can map the simple forms only by deletion. And
neither approach tells us anything of the progression itself. The information content of a
schematic approach would seem to be trivial.
If we begin, on the other hand, from the progression rather than from any particular
form, we will obtain a very different result. Let the reader imagine, for a moment, how one
could decide whether an additional form, not included in this series, could be placed within
it. By what criterion would the judgement be made? (Since 1 have performed the experiment
with several luckless classrooms of students-mostly ignorant of biology-I can report that
the solution is almost immediate for most observers.) The forms of a graded series have the
peculiar property of appearing to be arrested stages-we might call them ‘snapshots’-of a
continuous ‘movement’. If we begin with the first leaf on the stalk (lower left) and follow
the transformation to the last (lower right), we have the sense that we are watching the
transformation of a single form. (It is this impression that underlies Huxley’s claim that the
notion of single form must ‘dawn’ in the mind of the observer.) Now since we see the series
in the context of this imagined or ‘intended’ movement, an adequate criterion for accepting
or rejecting a new member is near at hand.
We must reflect that the ‘movement’ of the forms becomes more visible in the actual
phenomena to the degree that the missing pictures-the forms transitional between the
forms we have-are supplied. The movement we are thinking would, if entirely phenomenal,
be entirely continuous, leaving no gaps. Thus as gaps are filled the impression of movement
is strengthened. Even so, the technique by which the new form can be judged consists of
placing that form within one of the gaps and observing the result. When the movement is
strengthened or made ‘smoother’, the new form may be left in place. But if the impression
of movement is weakened or interrupted, the new form must be rejected. Thus, the context
of movement is itself the criterion by which we accept or reject new forms.
Unfortunately, the movement of such an extensive transformation does not preserve any
particular schema-connections and composition are themselves transformed. The only
general element of the transformation is the movement itself, and as we have just seen, this
is also the element by which membership in the series is determined. Huxley’s remarks
suggest that he was quite cognizant of the dynamic appearance, since his statement that
the vertebra-which are actually static form-are seen to undergo ‘gradual modification’,
can only refer to the sort of ‘seeing’ that follows the movement of the series. Yet Huxley’s
habits of mind, in which he is hardly alone, allowed him to miss the obvious analysis. The
impression of ‘gradual modification’, or continuous transformation, cannot depend any
more on what the forms possess in common than on what they do not share. Change
demands difference, and continuous change, continuous difference. We can take the con-
tinuity of the series as an indication of a common underlying schema only by a sort of
mental laziness-we do not care to undertake the problem of how things may be unified by
difference, preferring the empty alternative that they were not really different at all, that is,
are unified by sameness.
Having recognized the unifying function of the intended movement (to use the pheno-
menological term), we are in a position to admit what Huxley could not. We are able to ‘see’
such movement between the forms only by the distribution of sameness and difference
between them. We intend the dynamic context in an effort to discover the lawful relation
between the forms, and we find that relation when we gain the impression of continuity.
 The causal dimension of Goethe’s morpho1og.v 337

At this point we have found the particular differential that unifies the series. All this usually
happens tacitly, as an unnoticed aspect of ordinary perception, but the fact that it is normally
unnoticed does not hinder our analysis of it now. And it is at this point in the analysis that
we shall recover Goethe’s meaning.
Notice that in order to take the forms as part of a continuity, we must ‘cancel their
independence. If we ‘see’ the movement, we do not at the same time record the stasis.
Our compromise consists in taking each individual form as an arrested stage of the trans-
formation-akin to a series of photographs breaking a continuous process into a series of
‘shots’-which then become transparent to the transformation as a whole. But now we
may say quite literally that, for the purposes of our intention, the arrested stage, or Gestalt,
is in itself an abstraction. It is held in arrest by our sensible experience, but as we attempt
to detect the relation between stages, we must dissolve the condition in the mind. We move
our intentional focus from text to context, from the individual forms to the unifying
movement.

Fig. 5. Two leaves extracted from different zones of the series presented in Fig. 4.

As we perform these exercises, a rather remarkable experience may emerge. I have

already noted that the ‘normal’ reaction to the graded series, as exemplified by Huxley’s
remarks, supposes that the continuity is due to a single underlying form. The thinking
involved in such a conclusion may be found wanting, but the original impression is one
of viewing a single form. Form for perception, however, may be a more subtle thing than
our habitual categories will allow. Compare, for example, the forms of two leaves extracted
from differing zones in the series (Fig. 5). When compared without the context of the
series, they are quite unlike. But let the observer work through the series, as Goethe
claimed that he did, both forward and backward, until it becomes a continuous move-
ment, and then glance again at our two extracted forms. If the observer can place these
forms in the context of that movement they will not seem unlike. They will, in fact,
bear a distinct resemblance to each other, and bear it so strongly when the trick is learned
that the impression obtained is that they are somehow the same form. Here is the intuited
single form of the series, but it cannot be identified within a static schema.
 .
338 R. H. Brady

When we compare the information content of these two approaches-i.e., the common
schema and the common differential-the contrast between them becomes more pointed.
The series of Fig. 4 may be mapped on a common plan, but if this discovers an unvarying
element it tells us nothing of the diversity of the series. The differential, on the other hand,
provides a relation from which both the common and the particular may be deduced. The
movement specifies more about the particular forms than a schematic could, and since this
is the important distinction, an examination of how this specification takes place will pin-
point the difference.
The differential cannot, of course demand that any particular form will be present in the
series, but it does specify all potential forms and assigns their positions. This is why the
movement serves as a standard of inclusion or exclusion with regard to the introduction of
new members. It determines the range of forms that may occupy the ‘missing pictures’-the
empty spaces of the series. After all, were our imaginative completion of the movement to
become actual, we should be watching a continuous transformation which would produce
every form possible to the series. As it is, the movement specifies the forms potential to all
the positions of the transformation. Whether an actual form will occupy this or that position
is determined by something else, but each form that does appear will be lawfully derived
from the overall differential.
We may say, therefore, that the differential of a series is its law, in so far as we mean, by
law, that which governs the instances of experience while not determining which instances
will appear-the constant relation to which the particulars conform. This is the usage
implied by Goethe’s approach, but I will attempt to prefigure the reaction of most readers
and point out that this use of the term ‘law’ raises certain problems. One may speak of a
‘law’ either in the sense of a descriptive rule which discovers a regularity in the phenomena,
or as a causal principle which, to some degree, generates the phenomena. In the first case
we are referring to something produced, in the second, something productive. The descrip-
tive concept can be derived from the phenomena and is therefore unproblematic. The
causal notion is proerly a hypothesis, added to the phenomena by a speculative act, and
capable of generating predictions (if it is a worthwhile hypothesis). When we examine the
argument so far, the only prediction following from the differential is the shape of possible
new members. This much, however, follows simply from the extension of the observed
pattern and is made necessary by observation-that is, it is a descriptive result. Unless
Goethe is speculating about some sort of causal principle, vitalistic or other, behind such
phenomenal regularities, must we not suppose that his morphology is descriptive rather
than causal?
Since Goethe’s method seeks merely to relate observed forms to one another and not
to pass beyond them, it has nothing to do with causal h-vpotheses of any sort, and we can
be done with that option. On the other hand, while Goethe’s morphology is descriptive,
the rigid dichotomy between descriptive and causal ‘law’ above does not seem adequate to
the evidence as presented. Keeping in mind that Goethe’s approach is purely descriptive
and rejects all hypothetical additions, let us examine more closely the logic of the
perceptual experience involved.
As I have shown above, the movement or differential of a graded series is derived from
the members. I must now remind the reader that I also observed that the members were
derived from the movement. If the second point is not immediately apparent it is because
I did not emphasize, when passing from Gestalt to Bilding, from the static form to the
continuous transformation, the implicit distinction between detection and generation. If
we add this distinction, the previous claims become: the differential is detected through
 The causal dimension of Goethe’s morphology 339

the observed forms; the members of the series are generated by the differential. The meaning
of the first claim is obvious. We must make a further examination of the second.
When faced with a collection of forms, we ‘detect’ the movement of the series simply by
‘seeing’ the forms in terms of transformation, or movement. To do this we must ourselves
‘intend’ the differential that is capable of unifying the forms, but we are guided in this oper-
ation by the empirical evidence. Yet this is not to say that we merely add the forms together
to achieve the resultant unity. When we are successful, no form will stand in isolation,
or seem complete in itself, but all will appear to be but partial disclosures of the whole
-each form will bring all the others to mind. The emergent whole may be identified with
the movement itself, but we cannot suppose that this is in any way constituted by the
empirical forms. In forming the intention of the movement, we did not ask what the sum of
the forms would look like, since a sum would be a mere collection, but what differential
would generate the forms. We are attempting to find, a productive unity rather than an
additive one.
My argument here turns on the distinction between the empirical form, as static Gestalt,
and the members of the transformation series. If these can be equated, then my premise is
false, but in order to admit this identity we should have to propose that there was no differ-
ence between a leaf-form taken alone, and the same form placed in the context of a con-
tinuous transformation. Once we have observed that the static Gestalt must undergo an
alternation to become a member of the transformation, we are in a position to clarify the
relation between the forms and the movement. Forms gain membership in the transfor-
mation only by fitting into a context which canels all stasis or independence-i.e., when
negates the Gesfalr character. Thus the empirical Gestalts are not, and cannot be, ‘parts’ of
the transformation. This position must be reserved for the altered forms-those produced
by contexting the empirical individuals in an intended movement. But since these latter are
clearly producfs of context, the movement must now be identified as a whole which deter-
mines its own parts. This result is a logical demand of the perceptual analysis above, and I
cannot see how we can deny it without discarding the intended movement as well. But if we
accept the result, what sort of ‘law’ are we now imagining?
A descriptive rule would be nothing more than a statement of regularity regarding the
products of nature-it would say nothing of the productive unity. A causal law, in the
normal usage, would be a hypothesis implying the existence of some form of energy capable
of producing the suggested effects. Goethe’s law says nothing about energy (or efficient
cause, in the Aristotelian sense), but discovers something like an idea in nature, or by which
nature forms its productions (reminiscent of the Aristotelian formal cause). Because this idea
is productive of all potential forms in the series, Goethe spoke of it in generative rather than
descriptive terms.
Of course, my example of the single transformational series is the narrowest possible
example, but I needed a simple example to establish the principle. By expansion, of course,
we may trace an analogy between the relation of particular lines of transformation (types)
to the archetype, and the relation of particular forms to a line of transformation, although
this analogy can only be an inexact one. For an application of these considerations to
foliar development in general, I refer the reader to Bockemuhl (1982), whose work rep-
resents a very promising continuation of a Goethean approach. Bockemtihl points to certain
‘formation movements’ (Bildebewegungen)-which might be termed as well ‘forwnaking
movements’-within the foliar series, and argues that these constitute the transformations.
Differing leaf-series may then be characterized by different combinations of these basic
‘gestures’. Developmental transformations (embryo to mature leaf) submit to the same
treatment, and may thereby be compared with serial transformations. (Bockemtihl has
340 . R. H. Brady

extended his examination to the entirety of the shoot, but I cannot review the approach here.
A partial bibliography is included in the references.) Bockemiihl is exemplary in his aware-
ness of the intentional function and his sensitivity to the perceptual changes that result from
our efforts to hold the empirical forms within a context of movement. His language is well
attuned to the difficulty of examining the dynamic aspects of form, and this characteristic,
as well as his remarks on Goethe’s locutions, provide as fine a criticism and interpretation of
Goethe’s botanical language as I have seen anywhere.

Form and potency

Form, in morphological study, is never entirely static. Morphology proceeds by comparison,
and the interest of the morphologist is focused upon what is revealed by the juxtaposition
of forms-i.e., upon transformation. As our familarity with transformation sequences
increases, however, so does the capacity of a single form to bring other forms to mind, or
of two forms to build a connecting bridge between them. The morphologist not only ‘sees’
that two distinct configurations are still ‘the same’, but is made aware, by the same faculty,
of nascent potentials that seem to arise from every juxtaposition. This peculiar potency of
organic form has acted as a constant spur to thought, and a fair amount of theory-including
speculations of ‘vital force’ and ‘final cause’-has responded to it. But as we have seen,
neither Owen’s speculative leaning towards Naturphifosophie nor Huxley’s hard-headed
analysis produced a satisfactory account of the mediating element between the members
of a transformation. Goethe’s approach is far more successful, but for just this reason his
concept of a unifying element will be more difficult to grasp.
The capacity of perceived form to suggest potential form is derived from the context
in which the empirical forms are viewed. When forms are put into motion-Goethe’s major
contribution-their independence is cancelled and they are no longer complete in themselves.
Each form will now call for a before and after, from which it arises and to which it develops,
thus filling the ‘missing pictures’ of the transformation. After alI, it is the whole transfor-
mation that the individual now represents to the mind, and the whole moves towards percep-
tion as the individuals move towards continuity. Potential forms come to mind because they
are contained in the whole we are attempting to see.
But ‘seeing’ this whole, as Goethe discovered, was quite problematic. In a short essay
entitlted Indecision and Resignation (Bedenken und Ergebung), he considers the Kantian
argument that the ‘ideas of reason’ cannot be sensibly portrayed, and comes to the following
reflection (Goethe, 1952):
In all scientific research the difficulty of uniting idea and experience appears to be a great
obstacle, for an idea is independent of time and place but research must be restricted within
them. Therefore, in an idea, the simultaneous and the successive are intimately bound up
together, whereas in experience they are always separated. Our attempt to imagine an operation
of Nature as both simultaneous and successive, as we must in an idea, seems to drive us to
the verge of insanity. The intellect cannot picture united what the senses present to it separ-
ately, and thus the duel between the perceived and the ideated remains forever unsolved.
What remains forever unsolved is the problem of how to picture-to imagine in experimental
terms-the whole which simultaneously comprehends all the parts (the succession of possible
forms). To imagine after the node of sensible experience would be to display in space and/or
time, but the idea will not submit to this. All objects in space are outside of other objects,
alI perceptions in time before or after other perceptions. Neither qualification fits the idea
we have in mind. The movement of a transformation is not an object to be related to other
objects, but a context by which objects are related. Before and after are positions within
the transformation rather than attributes predicated to it.
 The causal dimension of Goethe’s morphology 341

Unlike Owen or Huxley, Goethe could not objectify his mediating form. It was not a
configuration within the sensible text (as Owen’s schema was meant to be), but a context
that could never be reduced to an element of the text. How are we to think the whole?
Goethe could not provide a discursive model, but his morphological practice had already
solved the problem. Morphology, he remarked ‘nur darstellen und nicht erklaren will’ (‘is
intended only to present and not to explain’) (Goethe, 1963: Preliminary Notes for a
Physiology of Plants-Vorarbeiten zu einer Physiologie der Pfanzen). We merely describe
what we ‘see’-the phenomena clarify themselves. A Darstellung was, as Arber (introductory
essay, Goethe, 1946) remarked, an untranslatable term which indicated something like the
‘representation of an object, brought into relation with others in such a way that its signifi-
cance is revealed’. This is a phenomenological description, and by this means Goethe sought
to reflect the intentional structure by which the empirical forms were connected.
My choice of the word ‘structure’ may be misleading. As we shall now see, the term form
would be a better candidate. But let me trace the path of reflection that leads to this conclu-
sion. We become aware of the potency of organic forms, as already noted, by seeing them as
arrested stages in a continuous transformation, ‘caught in the act’ as it were, of becoming
something else. The arrest of each empirical form is forced upon us by sensible conditions,
but in our attempt to understand their relations we place the forms in a contexting
movement that integrates the static forms by taking them as representations of the move-
ment (through the described understanding as arrested stages). Thus, each form now emerges
as partial-the rest of it is before and after. In this way, the sensible form becomes a partial
disclosure of another sort of form.
The individual form now loses its independent unity and is made complete only by its
unity with all the forms potential to the transformation. But this new unity can appear
within the conditions of sensible experience only through continuous transformation
-through change. I said earlier that the movement of the series unifies forms by their differ-
ences as well as their similarity. We see now that it requires their difference-that no two
positions in the succession can be alike without the loss of the representative function. Form
in space requires that distinct loci be represented as a continuity, but these are differences of
‘here’ and ‘there’, each ‘outside’ the next and presented simultaneously. With regard to
succession we have to do with ‘before’ and ‘after’ rather than ‘here’ and ‘there’, and the
positions of the succession exclude one another by distinction in time rather than space
(when the succession is experiential). A principle that does for successivepositions in time
what spatial form does for multiple loci in space must be a principle of form as well, and
so we may speak of a time-form when dealing with Goethe’s notion of the type.
Since the time-form can only manifest to sensible experience through continuous change,
it cannot appear as an object but only as a quality of objects-or a type of form. The
partiality of the empirical forms which discloses the larger whole produces a tension between
the sensible arrest and the identification of the form with movement. The visible image is
not static, nor sensibly moving, but displays, due to its very configuration, a felt potency to
be otherwise. According to a recent analysis, it is just this ‘manifest being of an entity’s
capacity to be otherwise’ that constitutes what Aristotle termed becoming (Kosmon, 1983).
It is this quality that makes a form organic, or a manifestation of life.

Theories of the living

We have arrived at a characterization of organic form from which we can derive two import-
ant characterizations of the living. By the application of these Goethe’s position with regard
to ‘vital force’ and teleology will become clear.
342 R. H. Brady
.
Goethe thought ‘vital force’ to be an obscure explanation, borrowed from mechanical
habits of thought and actually made redundant by what we already know about life. The
parts of an organism, for example, are no more separable from their context than the entire
animal-they are all equally alive. The parts, singlely and collectively, are continually trans-
formed by development, and are but a partial disclosure of the whole development at any
point in time. They are therefore inseparable from the potential-to-be-otherwise that I have
identified as becoming, for if we think of them without this we think of them without
context, and they are no longer parts. On the other hand, a ‘force’ in the normal sense of
the word is something applied to something else, and the affected object is in existence
before the impress of the force and sometimes after its cessation. The force is separable from
its object, but the parts of an organism are not separable from their potency. They are alive
in themselves, and do not need the addition of another power to make them change. (This is
a description, of course, of perceptible organic structure. It does not apply to the chemical
level, but on that level the laws of chemistry suffice, and again, no vital force need be
added.)
As one might expect from the results of the above analysis, Goethe also rejected ‘final
causes’ and any analogy to human purpose. The partiality of organic forms, their appearance
of being caught in the act, as it were, of becoming other, may suggest teleology, but this
cannot include any reference beyond the form itself. Human purpose refers to the process
to be explained to a purposer and a goal beyond the process. Life, in Goethe’s analysis,
was a continuous becoming without either purpose or goal other than that becoming. The
part was indeed ‘designed’ by the whole, but the whole was an immanent form, and develop-
ment proceeded by the unfolding of its potentials through continuous change. The time
form was a law of becoming by which the particular was transformed, not for the sake of
a future goal, but simply in harmony with its own being-i.e., with the developmental whole.
Development in time does not move toward this whole, but rather expresses it. One must
remember that in this analysis, the part is the whole, in partial manifestation through the
limitations of space and time, and is becoming other because this is the only way in which it
can continue to be the whole. No external additions, such as the purposer or goal, can have
any place in this description.
The same thing must be said with regard to the modern notion of design by ‘program’ or
‘teleonomy’ (Mayr, 1974). Unfortunately, a program must pre-exist the process which it is
to direct, and is in this sense external to it. Since the process of development is complete in
itself, the addition of a program is redunant. ‘Teleonomy’ is a theoretical reconstruction of
the development of organic form by mechanical means. But when appearances can be
brought to explain themselves, of what use is a further explanation? I can suggest only one
reason for such unparsimonious additions.
The account of organic form given above offers no connection to the mechanical and
chemical laws that explain the characteristics of inorganic bodies. Obviously, we need an
account of how the differing levels are related, and Goethe’s questions concerning physiology
show that he recognized this need. For many moderns, however, an account of a ‘connection’
between the organic and the inorganic can only mean a reduction of the former to the
latter. This is what the teleonomic approach accomplishes, since the program is separable
from the growth it governs, and this is why the approach has found favor with some
biologists. But to accept the ubiquitous assumption that this reduction is necessary is to
ignore the phenomenal evidence.
As we have seen above, the organic differs from the inorganic by being inseparable from
its potency for change. This is the given structure of organic form (and possibly living
phenomena in general, although we cannot review the argument here). If our habit of
 7ke causal dimension of Goethe’s morphology 343

dividing matter from energy, or object from force, is supremely valuable to us we can
discredit the structure of appearances and presume that however things look, they must
be modeled on the interaction of these mutually exclusive principles. (I am aware that in
modem physics this description no longer holds, but I am not speaking of actual physical
theory but of basic habits of mind which often govern our approach to biology.) By com-
parison to Goethe’s form of empiricism, such an approach must appear dogmatic.
Should we decide, on the other hand, to mount a science after his descriptive or pheno-
menological example, we shall be forced to sacrifice the model, which is the device by
which we may substitute relations drawn from other phenomenal levels for those that obtain
in the phenomena before us. The teleonomic hypothesis, for example, models the organism
on the machine in general, and the computer in particular. It is logically consistant and
reasonably convincing, but it reduces to separable parts what appears as a simple unity in the
phenomena. Ultimately, its implications contradict appearances. The worst mistake, for a
phenomenological approach, is to lose fidelity to the ‘being’ of the phenomena. Once we
take this step we are inventing our own world.

Relationship to phylogenetic morphology

Phylogenetic morphology has labored to trace evolutionary relationship between organisms,
living and extinct. To do so it constructs branching diagrams in which smaller groups are
subordinated under larger groups in a heirarchical order. In purely morphological terms, this
practice identifies lines of transformation by ‘rooting’ them according to shared characters
and ‘branching’ them according to difference. There is no conflict between this approach
and Goethe’s.
Goethe speaks only of the potentials of a type (group) or archetype (Phylum). He had
speculated about evolution, suggesting that both heredity and environment could play a part
in releasing or constraining these potentials (Goethe, 1952: An Attempt to Evolve A General
Comparative Theory), but he never progressed far enough to consider evolutionary history,
which by his own admission, is the other half of the problem (the first half being the
potentials of the type). Phylogenetic morphology is aimed at recovering this history by
tracing not the potential but the actual development. The question of how one may general-
ize on transformation is not proper to this endeavour, which must limit itself to how one
may reconstruct particular lines of transformation by grouping their products.
As I have explained above, this reconstruction depends upon the hierarchy defined by the
aggregate of characters, and has been shown to be possible on a purely descriptive basis
(Nelson & Platnick, 1981). For this reason, speculative reconstructions of an original
progenitor have no legitimate part in this morphology. As this paper has demonstrated, a
particular form cannot define the potentials of transformation, and thus the only bearing the
progenitor can have on the transformation series is that of one more member. To invent a
progenitor, therefore, is not to generalize upon a transformation, but simply to invent some
of the data by which a line of transformation is to be recovered. This is the point of the
Patterson critique, and from this vantage point we can now see that it does not apply to
Goethe’s archetype, which cannot be identified with a particular form.
The fact that systematists are sometimes tempted to construct ‘archetypes’ in Patterson’s
sense indicates their interest in Goethe’s project as well as their lack of adequate method. It
would seem possible for the two approaches-the comprehension of potentials and the
history of their realization-to be combined, as Goethe imagined that they would be. But
that possibility rests on the willingness of biologists to recognize morphology as a purely
descriptive science. Much of the current tendency to misread Goethe in the ways indicated
344 R. H. Brady

may derive from the fact that, for the moment, speculations on evolutionary mechanisms
have obscured the actual character of the study of form.

References
Arber, A. (1950). The Natural Phi1osoph.v of Plant Form. Cambridge, Ma.: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press.
Bockemtihl, J. (1982). In (W. Shad, Ed.) Coetheanistische Naturwisseschaft: 2: Botanik.
Stuttgart: Verlag Freies Geistesleben. (Originally published in Eletn. Naturw. 4, 1966.
See also the articles below.)
Bockemiihl, J. (1969). Elemen. Naturw. 10.
Bockemiihl, J. (1967). Elemen. Naturw. 7.
Bockemiihl, J. ( 1964). Elemen. Naturw. 1.
Cassirer, E. (1950). The Problem of Knowledge. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Darwin, C. (1859). On the Origin of Species. London: John Murray.
Geoffroy, E. St. Hiliare (18 18). Philosophie Anatomique. Paris: J. B. Bailliere.
Goethe, J. W. (1946). Translation by A. Arber. In Goethe’s Botany. Chronica bot. x: 63-
126.
Goethe, J. W. (1952). Goethe’s Botanical Writings. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
Goethe, J. W. (1963). Bildung und Umbildung Organischer Naturen: Gesamtausgabe, 39.
Miinchen: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag. (My translation).
Goethe, J. W. (1968). Italian Journey. New York: Schockerr.
Huxley, T. H. (1858). R. Sot. Proc. ix: 1857-59, 381-457.
Kosman, L. A. (1983). Contributed paper at the Conference on Aristotle’s Physics and
Epistemology, organized by J. Hintikka and R. Dancy, Tallahassee, Florida, Jan. 3-8.
Mayr, E. (1974). In Methodological and Historical Essays in the Natural and Social Sciences.
Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. xiv. Boston: Reidel.
Nordenskiold, E. (1928). The History of Biology. New York: Tudor.
Oken, (1807). Partial translation and summary. In (T. H. Huxley, Ed.) Lectures on the Ele-
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Owen, R. (1848). Report of the Archetype and Homologies of the Vertebrate Skeleton,
London: Voorst
Owen, R. (1866). On the Anatomy of Vertebrates, vol. 1. London: Longmans, Green
and Co.
Patterson, C. (1982). In Systematics Association Special Volume No. 21, Problems in
Phylogenetic Reconstruction. 21-74. London: Academic Press.
Remane, A. (1971). Die Grundlagen des naturlichen Systems der vergleichenden Anatomie
und der Phylogenetik. Koeltz: Konigstein-Taunus.
Russel, E. S. (19 16). Form and Function. London: John Murray.
Singer, C. (1959). A History of Biology. New York: Abelard-Schuman.
Steiner, R. (1950). Goethe the Scientist. New York: Anthroposophic Press.