He has contributed a key to many parts
of nature, through the rare turn for unity and simplicity in his mind.
Thus Goethe suggested the leading idea of modern botany, that a leaf,
or the eye of a leaf, is the unit of botany, and that every part of
the plant is only a transformed leaf to meet a new condition; and, by
varying the conditions, a leaf may be converted into any other organ,
and any other organ into a leaf. In like manner, in osteology, he
assumed that one vertebra of the spine might be considered the unit
of the skeleton; the head was only the uppermost vertebra transformed.
"The plant goes from knot to knot, closing, at last, with the flower
and the seed. So the tape-worm, the caterpillar, goes from knot to
knot, and closes with the head. Men and the higher animals are built
up through the vertebrae, the powers being concentrated in the head."
In optics, again, he rejected the artificial theory of seven colors,
and considered that every color was the mixture of light and darkness
in new proportions. It is really of very little consequence what topic
he writes upon. He sees at every pore, and has a certain gravitation
toward truth.
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