which I did. As long as the discovery was ridiculed by men of science Goethe was silent, but no sooner did it attain renown through the works of Meckel, Spix and others, than there grew up a murmur among Goethe's servile admirers that this idea originated with him. About this time Bojanus went to Weimar, and hearing of Goethe's discovery, half believed it, and sent the rumor to me, which I thoughtlessly printed in the Isis (1818, p. 509); whereupon I announced that I made my discovery in the autumn of 1806.' This is equivocal. He did not throw any doubt on Goethe's claim to priority, he only asserted his own originality. Now that Bojanus had brought the subject forward,' he adds,' Goethe's vanity was piqued, and he came afterwards, thirteen years subsequent to my discovery, and said he had held the opinion for thirty years.'

6

Such is Oken's statement. After a very long and minute investigation, I come to the conclusion that the charge made by Oken is utterly untenable against the facts; and I also come to the conclusion that he has mistaken the whole case at issue. It can be shown that Goethe was justified in claiming priority of the idea, and that Oken was justified in claiming priority of the discovery. Goethe had an aperçu which he did not develope. Oken had an aperçu which he demonstrated in detail. In Goethe's mind it was one of the many applications of a fundamental conception of organic evolution-a conception which led to his discovery of the intermaxillary. In Oken it was a special problem which a young anatomist set himself to solve. If Goethe is entitled to claim the discovery of the intermaxillary bone in man, the existence of which had been proclaimed by all the Galenists, but the demonstration of which is due to him alone, then, upon the same principles, is Oken entitled to the discovery of the verte

bral structure of the skull, although Goethe had originated the idea.*

Having thus placed the question on its true ground, and given to Oken all the merit he claims as a discoverer, I must now rescue Goethe from the moral accusation Oken so intemperately and, as I think, so equivocally, brings forward. Two questions present themselves: Why was Goethe silent when Oken first announced his discovery? and, Why did not Oken make the charge of plagiarism during Goethe's lifetime? The first question may be answered from Goethe's own works. In a note entitled Das Schädelgerüst aus sechs Wirbelknochen auferbaut, after alluding to his recognition first of three and subsequently of six vertebræ in the skull, which he spoke of among his friends, who set to work to demonstrate it if possible, he says: In the year 1807 this theory appeared. tumultuously and imperfectly before the public, and naturally awakened great disputes and some applause. How seriously it was damaged by the incomplete and fantastic method of exposition History must relate.' This criticism of the exposition will be understood by every one who has read Oken, and who knows Goethe's antipathy to metaphysics. In his Tag und Jahres Hefte he mentions that while he was working out this theory with his two friends,

* Unless this mode of considering the point be adopted, we must deny to both Goethe and Oken the claim of originality, and transfer it five centuries earlier, to Albertus Magnus, who in his treatise De Animalibus not only indicates an aperçu of the idea, and actually employs the expression limbs of the head,' which is the same as that used by the modern transcendental anatomists, but commences his description of the osseous system with the vertebral column. I speak only from second-hand knowledge of Albertus. Pouchet: Hist. des Sciences Naturelles au Moyen Age, p. 271.

† So also Cuvier's antipathy to this exposition made him blind to the profound truth which lived behind it.

Riemer and Voigt, they brought him, with some surprise, the news that this idea had just been laid before the public in an academic programme, ' a fact,' he adds, ' which they, being still alive, can testify.' Why did not Goethe claim priority? I told my friends to keep quiet, for the idea was not properly worked out in the programme ; and that it was not elaborated from original observations would be plain to all scientific men. I was frequently besought to speak plainly on the subject; but I was firm in my silence.'

I confess this evidence carries complete conviction to my mind. It was published many years before Oken made his charge, and it accused him in the most explicit terms of having prematurely disclosed an idea Goethe was then elaborating with the assistance of his friends. Nor was this all. It appealed to two honorable and respected men, then living, as witnesses of the truth. Oken said nothing when the question could have been peremptorily settled by calling upon Voigt and Riemer. He waited till death rendered an appeal impossible. He says, indeed, that he made no answer to the first passage I have cited, because he was not named in it, and he did not wish to involve himself in a host of disagreeables.' But this is no answer to the second passage. There he is named as plainly as if the name of Oken were printed in full; and not only is he named, but Goethe's friends speak of Oken's coming forward with Goethe's idea as a matter which 'surprised' them.

Having asked the question: Why Goethe was silent? I leave to those interested in Oken's character to answer the question: Why was Oken silent during the lifetime of the man whom he accused?

* A friend of Oken's suggests the answer:- -It was because the

To conclude this somewhat lengthy chapter on the Scientific Studies, it must be stated that, for the sake of bringing together his various efforts into a manageable whole, I have not attended strictly to Chronology. Nor have I specified the various separate essays he has written. They are all to be found collected in his works. My main object has been to show what were the directions of his mind; what were his achievements and failures in Science; what place Science filled in his life, and how false the supposition is that he was a mere dabbler, playing with science as an artist. What Buffon says of Pliny may truly be said of Goethe, that he had cette facilité de penser en grand qui multiplie la science; and it is only as a thinker in these great departments that I claim a high place for him.

Hegelians began to accuse Oken of having stolen the idea from Goethe, that in irritation at this charge he wrote the article in the Isis to which I have referred.

CHAPTER XI.

THE CAMPAIGN IN FRANCE.

6

We now return to the narrative, some points of which have been anticipated in the preceding chapter. In 1790 Goethe undertook the government of all the Institutions for Science and Art, and busied himself with the arrangement of the Museums and Botanical Gardens at Jena. In March of the same year he went once more to Italy to meet the Duchess Amalia and Herder in Venice. There he tried in science to find refuge from troubled thoughts. Italy on a second visit seemed, however, quite another place to him. He had a vision of his own, ah! why should he undo it?' Such impressions are not twice inspired. He began to suspect there had been considerable illusion in the charm of his first visit. The Venetian Epigrams, if compared with the Roman Elegies, will indicate the difference of his mood. The yearning regret, the fulness of delight, the newness of wonder which give their accents to the Elegies, are replaced by sarcasms and the bitterness of disappointment. It is true that many of these epigrams were written subsequently, as their contents prove, but the mass of them are products of the Venetian visit. Something of this dissatisfaction must be attributed to his position. He was ill at ease with the world. The troubles of the time, and the troubles of his own domestic affairs, aggravated the dangers which then