Goethe

GOETHE, Wolfgang (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749–1832), the great German poet and, at the same time, a major natural scientist whose views played a significant role in the history of science. Goethe studied mineralogy and geology. He explained geological changes in the history of the Earth by the "small but constant actions" of forces still operating today, but operating over "millions of years." He was particularly active in biology. He introduced the term "morphology" into science, understanding it not only as the general study of form, but also as the study of the formation and transformation of organisms. Goethe was an opponent of the dogma of the immutability of species and recognized the variability of organic forms on a broad scale. These changes in organisms occur, in Goethe's view, within the limits of a type that determines the original basic form, which remains constant. There is a constant interaction between the environment and the organism. The task of morphology is, therefore, the study of these transformations of the basic type—metamorphosis, the transition from one form to another. Thus, Goethe arrived at the theory according to which different parts of the flower—the calyx, corolla, pistils, and stamens—represent modifications of one and the same basic organ, the leaf. Goethe hoped that a single type, common to all animals, could be established. Goethe sometimes used the logical concept of type in another, genetic sense, meaning a "common ancestor," a living original form from which all others originated, modifying, perfecting, and specializing. Goethe's views thus approach modern evolutionary ones. Goethe applied the idea of a common structural plan to osteology, which he studied. Remarkable is his discovery of the intermaxillary bone (os intermaxillare), which he found in some human skulls, and the absence of which in humans was considered in his time one of the most important differences between humans and apes or other animals. No less interesting is his "vertebral theory of the skull." According to this theory, the skull is a modification and continuation of the spine, and among the bones of the skull, one can find groups lying in a row behind one another, representing modified vertebrae and their parts. Less successful was his "theory of colors," in which he diverged from Newton's optics; however, even here he provided a valuable exposition of the physiology of the sense of light and colors, and the study of colored shadows and color blindness received a solid physiological foundation from him. The influence of Goethe's natural-historical ideas on subsequent generations of naturalists, especially in Germany, was very great (the physiologist Johannes Müller, Haeckel).