The Metamorphosis of Plants (4 page)

Whereas in the animal that higher Principle which rules over every detail appears concretely before us as that which moves the organs, uses them according to its needs, etc., the plant is without such a
real
life Principle.
In its case this reveals itself in the less definite way in that all the organs are constructed according to the same formative type—indeed, that in every part the entire plant is potentially present, and under favorable circumstances could be brought forth out of it.
This becomes especially clear to Goethe in Rome as Councillor Reiffenstein, during a walk with him, broke off a twig here and there and asserted that this, if stuck in the ground, must grow, that it must develop to a complete plant.
In other words, the plant is an entity which develops in a succession of time intervals certain organs all of which, in relation to one another and also to the whole, are formed according to the same idea.
Every plant is a harmonious whole of plants.
As this became clear to Goethe, what was still necessary was only to make the individual observations which would render it possible to lay bare in detail the various stages of evolution which the plant sets forth out of itself.
For this also what was needed had already occurred.
We have seen that, in the spring of 1785, Goethe had made a study of seeds.
From Italy he reported to Herder on May 17, 1787, that he had found quite clearly and beyond doubt the point where the germ is concealed.
With this he had provided for the first stage of the plant life.
But the unity of structure of all the leaves was very soon clearly enough manifest.
Along with numerous other examples, Goethe found most especially in the fresh fennel the difference in this regard between the lower and the upper leaves, which are, nevertheless, always the same organ.
On March 25, he asked that Herder be informed that his theory of the cotyledons was so refined that it would scarcely be possible to go further.
Only a short steps remained to be taken in order to recognize also the petals, the pistils, and the stamens as metamorphosed leaves.
The researches of the English botanist Hill could lead to this, which were then generally known and which dealt with the transformation of indivdual flower organs into others.

As the forces which organize the nature of the plant come into actual existence, they take on a series of structural forms.
What was
now needed was the living concept which united these forms backwards and forwards.

When we consider Goethe's theory of metamorphosis, as it appears from the year 1790, we find that for him this living concept was that of alternate expansion and contraction.
In the seed the plant formation is most intensely contracted (concentrated).
With the forming of leaves, there follows the first unfolding expansion, of the formative forces.
What is pressed together to a point in the seed becomes spatially expanded in the leaves.
In the calyx, the forces are again concentrated around an axial point.
The corolla is produced by the next expansion.
Stamens and pistils come about from the next concentration, the fruit through the last (third) expansion, whereupon the total force of the plant life (this Principle of the entelechy) conceals itself again in the most intensely contracted state in the seed.
Although we have thus been able to trace fairly well all the details of the idea of metamorphosis up to its final application in the paper which appeared in 1790, it is not to its final application in the paper which appeared in 1790, it is not as easy to do the same thing with the concept of expansion and contraction.
Yet one will not be going astray in assuming that this idea, deeply rooted anyway in Goethe's mind, was also interwoven already in Italy with the concept of plant-formation.
Since the content of this idea is the fact of the greater or lesser spatial unfolding determined by the formative forces—and thus exists in that which is directly manifest to the eye in the plant—the idea would surely most easily arise when one undertakes to draw the plant in accordance with the laws of its natural process of formation.
Now, Goethe found in Rome a bush-like carnation plant which revealed metamorphosis especially clearly.
About this he wrote: “Seeing at hand no means for preserving this wonder-form, I undertook to sketch it exactly, and while doing this I gained more and more insight into the fundamental concept of metamorphosis.”
Such sketches were probably often made later and this could then lead to the concept in question.

In September 1787, during his second sojourn in Rome, Goethe expounded the matter to his friend Moriz, and discovered how full of life and how manifest it became through such a presentation.
He was always writing down how far he had progressed.
It seems probable from this passage and some other remarks of Goethe that even the writing down of the theory of metamorphosis, at least sketchily, occurred in Italy.
He says further: “In this way [in the presentation to Moriz] I could get something of my thoughts on paper.”
It is beyond question that the work in the form in which it now exists was written down at the end of 1789 and the beginning of 1790.
But to what extent this final
composition was only editorial in character and what was added will be difficult to say.
A book announced for the next Easter season which might, perhaps, contain the same ideas, induced him in the autumn of 1789 to work at his ideas and to arrange for their publication.
On November 20 he wrote to the Duke that he had been stimulated to write down his botanical ideas.
As early as December 18 he sent the writing to the botanist Batsch in Jena to be examined; on the 20th he himself went there in order to confer with Batsch; on the 22nd he informed Knebel that Batsch had received the thing favorably.
He returned home, worked the article over again, and sent it again to Batsch, who returned it on January 19, 1790.
What vicissitudes the manuscript, as well as the printed production, then went through Goethe himself has narrated completely.
The great significance of the theory of metamorphosis, as well as the essential nature of the theory in detail, will be discussed later in the section entitled
The Nature and Significance of Goethe's Writings on Organic Morphology.

The above chapter was reprinted from the book
Goethe the Scientist
by Rudolf Steiner, published in 1950 by the Anthroposophie Press, Spring Valley, N.
Y.
10977.
The material appears with kind permission from the publisher.

B
Y
J.
W.
G
OETHE

Anyone who observes even a little the growth of plants will easily discover that certain of their external parts sometimes undergo a change and assume, either entirely, or in a greater or lesser degree, the form of the parts adjacent to them.

So the simple flower, for example, often changes into a double one, if petals develop in the place of stamens and anthers.
These petals may either perfectly resemble the other petals of the corolla both in form and colour, or they may still retain visible signs of their origin.

If we see that in this way it is possible for the plant to make a retrograde step and reverse the order of growth, we shall become all the more aware of the normal course of Nature, and shall learn to understand those laws of transformation by which she produces one part out of another and creates the most varied forms by the modification of one single organ.

The secret affinity between the various external parts of the plants, such as leaves, calyx, corolla and stamens, which are developed one after the other and as it were one out of the other, has long been recognised in a general way by naturalists; indeed, much attention has been given to the study of it.
The process by which one and the same organ presents itself to us in manifold forms has been called the
metamorphosis of plants.

There are three kinds of metamorphosis:
regular, irregular
and
accidental.

Regular
metamorphosis we may also call progressive, for here we may follow the development step by step from the first seed-leaves to the final forming of the fruit, ascending through transformations of one form into another, as by a spiritual ladder, to that crowning aim of Nature, the propagation of the plant by male and female organs.
I have been attentively observing this process for some years, and it is in order to explain it that I am writing now.
In the following demonstration we shall therefore study the plant only in so far as it is annual and proceeds without pause from the seed to fertilisation.

Irregular
metamorphosis may also be called
retrogressive.
For as in the former case Nature hastens forward to her great aim, here she takes one or more steps backward.
In the former instance, with irrestible impulse and powerful effort she forms the flowers and fits them for the service of love; in the latter she seems as it were to relax, and irresolutely leaves her creation in an indefinite and soft state, often pleasing to the eye, but intrinsically powerless and inactive.
Frequent experience of this kind of metamorphosis will enable us to disclose what in the regular way of development is hidden from us, and to see clearly and visibly what we should otherwise only be able to infer.
In this way we may hope to attain our purpose with the greatest possible certainty.

The third kind of metamorphosis, on the other hand, which is brought about accidentally by external causes, and especially by insects, we shall not take into consideration; it might lead us astray from the simple path we have to follow and delay the attainment of our object.
Perhaps an opportunity
will be found elsewhere to speak of these growths; monstrous they are, yet confined within certain limits.

I have ventured to publish this attempt without explanatory illustrations necessary as they might seem in some respects.
I may introduce them later; this can easily be done as sufficient material still remains for elucidating and enlarging this short and preliminary treatise.
It will not then be necessary to keep so measured a step as now.
I shall be able to produce much that relates to the subject, and numerous quotations from authors holding similar views will appear in their right place.
Above all I shall not fail to make use of observations gathered from those contemporary masters of whom this science can boast.
To them I present and dedicate these pages.

As we have set out to observe the successive steps in the growth of the plant we will begin by directing our attention to it when first it develops out of the seed.
At this stage the parts which directly belong to it are easily and exactly distinguishable.
It leaves its sheathes more or less behind in the earth; these we will not examine now.
Then in many cases, when the root has fastened itself in the soil, the plant brings to the light the first organs of its upper growth, which were already there, hidden under the seed-coat.

These first organs are known as cotyledons; they have also been called seed valves, kernel pieces, seed-lobes, or seed-leaves, in the attempt to name them according to the different forms in which we find them.

They often appear unshapely, stuffed as it were with a crude substance and distended as much in thickness as in width.
Their vessels are unrecognisable and scarcely to be distinguished from the mass of the whole, and they have hardly any resemblance to a leaf, so that we might be misled into believing them to be special organs.

Yet in many plants they approach the shape of a leaf; they become flatter, and when exposed to light and air they assume a deeper green, and the vessels contained in them become more recognisable, more like leaf-veins.

Finally they sometimes even take on the appearance of real leaves.
Their vessels are then capable of high development, and their resemblance to the subsequent leaves does not permit us to regard them as distinct organs; we have to recognise them as the first leaves of the stem.

Now as we cannot conceive of a leaf without a node or of a node without an eye, we may conclude that the point at which the cotyledons are attached is the first true node of the plant.
This view is confirmed by those plants which produce young eyes immediately under the wings of the cotyledons, and from these first nodes develop complete branches, as, for example, is the case with the common bean,
Vicia Faba.

The cotyledons are usually double; and here we have a remark to make which will appear to us of still greater importance later on.
Namely, the leaves of this first node often appear in pairs, even when the subsequent leaves of the stem are placed alternately.
Here then is shown a coming together and uniting of parts which Nature later separates and places at
a distance one from the other.
Still more remarkable is it when the cotyledons appear like many little leaves gathered round a single axis, while the stem which gradually develops out of their midst produces the subsequent leaves singly around itself.
This may be very well observed in the growth of the different kinds of pine; where a wreath of needles forms as it were a calix.
As we proceed we shall be reminded of this in other similar phenomena.

For the present we will pass over the quite shapeless single cotyledons of plants which germinate with one leaf only.

Let us remark, however, that even the most leaf-like cotyledons, in comparison with the subsequent leaves of the stem, are always less developed.
Above all their margin is extremely simple, with as few traces of incisions in it as there are of hairs on the surface, or of any of those vessels which are to be observed in perfect leaves.