CHAPTER V – The Adventure of Reason
This falling back from the stage of an organ of fertilization to that of a petal shows that the plant is capable of regressive metamorphosis, and we may conclude from this that in the normal sequence the different organs are transformed from one another by way of progressive metamorphosis. It is evident that the regressive type occurs only as an abnormality, or as a result of artificial cultivation. Plants once brought into this condition frequently show a general state of unrest, so that other organs also are inclined to fall back to a lower level. Thus we may come across a rose, an outer petal of which appears in the form of a leaf of the calyx (sepal), or one of the sepals is found to have grown into an ordinary rose leaf.
We now extend our mental exercise to the plant’s whole organism. By a similar mental effort as applied to the leaf-formations we strive to build up a complete plant. We start with the seed, from which we first imagine the cotyledons unfolding, letting this be followed by the gradual development of the entire green part of the plant, its stem and leaves, until the final leaves change into the sepals of the calyx. These again we turn into the petals of the flower, until via pistil and stamens the fruit and seed are formed.
By pursuing in this way the living doing of the plant from stage to stage we become aware of a significant rhythm in its total life cycle. This, when first discovered by Goethe, gave him the key to an understanding of nature’s general procedure in building living organisms, and in maintaining life in them.
The plant clearly divides into three major parts: firstly, the one that extends from the cotyledons to the calyx, the green part of the plant, that is, where the life principle is most active; secondly, the one comprising the flower itself with the organs of fertilization, where the vitality of the plant gives way to other principles; and lastly, the fruit and seed, which are destined to be discharged from the mother organism. Each of these three contains two kinds of organs: first, organs with the tendency to grow into width-leaf, flower and fruit; second, organs which are outwardly smaller and simpler, but have the function of preparing the decisive leaps in the plant’s development: these are the calyx, the stamens, etc., and the seed.
In this succession, Goethe recognized a certain rhythm of expansion and contraction, and he found that the plant passes through it three times during any one cycle of its life. In the foliage the plant expands, in the calyx it contracts; it expands again in the flower and contracts in the pistil and stamens; finally, it expands in the fruit and contracts in the seed.
The deeper meaning of this threefold rhythm will become clear when we consider it against the background of what we observed in the metamorphosis of the leaf. Take the mallow leaf; its metamorphosis shows a step-wise progression from coarser to finer forms, whereby the characteristic plan of the leaf comes more and more into view, so that in the topmost leaf it reaches a certain stage of perfection. Now we observe that in the calyx this stage is not improved on, but that the plant recurs to a much simpler formation.
Whilst in the case of the mallow the withdrawal from the stage of the leaf into that of the calyx occurs with a sudden leap, we observe that the delphinium performs this process by degrees. Whilst the mallow reaches the highly elaborate form of the leaf only in the final stage, the delphinium leaps forth at the outset, as it were, with the fully accomplished leaf, and then protracts its withdrawal into the calyx over a number of steps, so that this process can be watched with our very eyes. In this type of metamorphosis the last leaf beneath the calyx shows a form that differs little from that of a calyx itself, with its simple sepals. Only in its general geometrical arrangement does it still remind us of the original pattern.
In a case like this, the stem-leaves, to use Goethe’s expression, ‘softly steal into the calyx stage’.4 In the topmost leaf the plant has already achieved something which, along the other line of metamorphosis, is tackled only after the leaf plan itself has been gradually executed. In this case the calyx stage, we may say, is attained at one leap.
Whatever type of metamorphosis is followed by a plant (and there are others as well, so that we may even speak of metamorphoses between different types of metamorphosis!) they all obey the same basic rule, namely, that before proceeding to the next higher stage of the cycle, the plant sacrifices something already achieved in a preceding one. Behind the inconspicuous sheath of the calyx we see the plant preparing itself for a new creation of an entirely different order. As successor to the leaf, the flower appears to us time and again as a miracle. Nothing in the lower realm of the plant predicts the form, colour, scent and all the other properties of the new organ produced at this stage. The completed leaf, preceding the plant’s withdrawal into the calyx, represents a triumph of structure over matter. Now, in the flower, matter is overcome to a still higher degree. It is as if the material substance here becomes transparent, so that what is immaterial in the plant may shine through its outer surface.
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In this ‘climbing up the spiritual ladder’ Goethe learned to recognize one of nature’s basic principles. He termed it Steigerung (heightening). Thus he saw the plant develop through Metamorphosis and Heightening towards its consummation. Implicit in the second of these two principles, however, there is yet another natural principle for which Goethe did not coin a specific term, although he shows through other utterances that he was well aware of it, and of its universal significance for all life. We propose to call it here the principle of Renunciation.