Abstract
This chapter examines Goethe’s notion of the “economy of nature [Ökonomie der Natur]” to argue that his morphological writings play a more extensive role in the formation of evolutionary science than scholars have previously acknowledged. I suggest that Goethe’s economic analogy replaces the Newtonian model of force with an experimental conception of the formative drive, opening a large-scale programme of research. This feature of his work was rightly picked up by his early critics and yet was overlooked by later biologists given the emphasis on population genetics following the Modern Synthesis. Goethe’s economic analogy marks an important advance in the study of organic form, I conclude, for it places comparative anatomy within a biodynamic system of exchange.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
“By the Economy of Nature we understand the all-wise disposition of the creator in relation to natural things, by which they are fitted to produce general ends, and reciprocal uses” (Linnaeus and Biberg 1749, §1, c.f. §20).
- 3.
See Goethe’s account of his friendship with Schiller in “Glückliches Ereignis” (LA I 9:79–83).
- 4.
See Goethe’s account of the influence of Kantian philosophy on the physiology of the 1790s in “Einwirkung der neueren Philosophie” (LA I 9:90–94).
- 5.
An exception here is Bersier (2005), who attributes Goethe’s shift to the influence of Kielmeyer’s (1793) famous lecture at the Hohen Karlsschule. While I agree that the “First Outline” is deeply indebted to Kielmeyer, in what follows I suggest that Goethe sees beyond Kielmeyer’s prolegomena to a future comparative anatomy that examines the relation between the organic forces as the distribution of the Bildungstrieb.
- 6.
Kielmeyer presents the law as follows: “the more one of these forces on one side is cultivated, the more they are neglected on the other”.
- 7.
For an analysis of Kielmeyer’s relation to Newtonian physiology, see Cooper (2020).
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Cooper, A. (2022). The Economy of the Bildungstrieb in Goethe’s Comparative Anatomy. In: Kisner, M., Noller, J. (eds) The Concept of Drive in Classical German Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84160-7_5
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