Metamorphosis of PlantsAracariaguides.com, 27 feb 2008 - 8 pagina's The Metamorphosis of Plants, originally published in 1790, was Goethe's first major attempt to describe what he called in a letter to a friend "the truth about the how of the organism" and is undoubtedly his best known and most famous scientific work. He sought a unity of form in diverse structures and came to see in the leaf the germ of a plant's metamorphosis - "the true Proteus who can hide or reveal himself in all vegetal forms" - from the root and stem leaves to the calyx and corolla, to pistil and stamens. With this short book - 123 numbered paragraphs, in the manner of the great botanist Linnaeus - the great German poet, philosopher and scientist accompanies the plant through all its outward transformations, from its development of a seed to its reformation into a seed, to present, in effect, a motion picture of the metamorphosis of plants. “If we observe all forms, especially the organic forms, we find that nothing is permanent, nothing is at rest, nothing concluded, but, on the contrary, that all is in continuous fluctuating movement. Nothing is held fast in experience for a single moment. "Nature is forever changing and in her there is nothing standing still a single moment.” In the multitude of plant forms Goethe seeks the form of the archetypal plant (Urpflanze). |