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[This document is reprinted from Goethe's Way of Science: A Phenomenology of Nature, edited by David Seamon and Arthur Zajonc (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1998). Copyright 1988 by SUNY Press. Reprinted by permission. You may not use, copy, publish, upload, download, post to a bulletin board, or otherwise transmit, distribute, or modify any contents of the site in any way, except that you may download one copy of such contents on any single computer for your own personal, non-commercial use, provided you do not alter or remove any copyright, author attribution, or other proprietary notices. To check out the book online or order it, go to www.sunypress.edu/backads/seamango.htm.]

Hence we conceive of the individual animal as a small
world, existing for its own sake, by its own means.  Every
creature is its own reason to be.  All its parts have a direct
effect on one another, a relationship to one another,
thereby constantly renewing the circle of life; thus we are
justified in considering every animal physiologically
perfect.  Viewed from within, no part of the animal is a
useless or arbitrary product of the formative impulse (as so
often thought).  Externally, some parts may seem useless 
because the inner coherence of animal nature has given
them this form without regard to outer circumstance.
Thus, in the future, members such as the canine teeth of 
the Sus babirussa (figure 1) will not elicit the question,
What are they for? but rather, Where do they come from?
We will not claim that a bull has been given horns so that
he can butt; instead, we will try to discover how he might 
have developed the horns he uses for butting.
    (From Goethe, Scientific Studies)

These thoughts of Goethe have become a leitmotif for a growing body of research that studies the animal as a creature with "its own reason to be" (1). Practicing Goethe's method entails overcoming ingrained habits of thought regarding the understanding of organisms. In the first sections of this essay, therefore, I address the nature of the Goethean approach to animals in the light of contemporary Neo-Darwinian thought. I then present two animals—the horse and the lion—to give the reader an impression of a concrete application of Goethe's method.

Why the horse and lion? I have studied them for a long time, and, through comparison, have found them increasingly to illuminate each other. As a large herbivore and a large carnivore, respectively, the horse and the lion in many respects represent a polarity, in terms of which the one appears more clearly in the light of the other.

Figure 1. Sus babirusa (Babyrousa babirussa). The four tusks are canine teeth. (Author's drawing based on H.W. Flower and R. Lydekker, An Introduction to the Study of Mammals Living and Extinct [London: Adam and Charles Black, 1891]).

The Neo-Darwinian Explanation

If, however, one keeps the horn qua form and structure separate in the mind from the horn qua function, then the functional description can be felt to be an explanation, but an explanation that reduces one phenomenon to another. The riddle posed by the horn is thus solved by the answer "butting". The horn no longer puzzles us but, rather, comes to rest in its defined, "explanatory" function.

In this way, Neo-Darwinian explanations reduce organic structure to particular functions that are purported to increase the survival value of the given organism or species. The bull's horns serve as weapons; its large molars are good for grinding grass; the eyes, positioned on the sides of the head, provide a large field of vision, enabling it to flee predators. In this approach, the organism disintegrates into a conglomeration of parts, each of which has "reason to be" outside itself in the purported selective value of its function. In this conventional perspective, the organism has no inner coherence. It is nothing in and of itself but, rather, the product of outer "causes", that is, natural selection.

The horns, of course, must come from somewhere and, in Neo-Darwinian theory, the origin of characteristics is the mutation, recombination, and expression of genes. Mutations are usually thought to be spontaneous, chance occurrances. Mutated genes are arranged in new combinations through sexual reproduction. New mutant traits, if they arise, may or may increase the survival value of the organism. The horn is thus "explained" in two different ways. First, it has arisen through the accumulation of mutations that gradually, through eons, lead from a small bony protrusion on the frontal bone to a fully developed horn. Second, the preceding "almost horn" stages and the horn itself exist by virtue of usefulness, contributing to the survival of the evolving species.

Dwelling within the Organism

Goethe's endeavor is to understand the unity of the organism—in the present case, the horse in the horse, the lion in the lion. Every part can reveal something of the whole organism. But one can also lose the organism in the study of its parts. It is a strenuous task to keep alive the intention of seeing the whole, while delving into the world of details that the organism presents. If, in moving through the structures and functions, the researcher can hold this intention present, then the whole can begin to form in the mind. One catches a glimpse of the animal, and a living understanding emerges. This understanding is a picture of the whole, however elementary. It is a picture that can grow richer and richer, revealing ever more dimensions of the animal.

Goethe clearly recognized the monumental task he set for himself and future science: "There is a delicate empiricism which makes itself utterly identical with the object, thereby becoming true theory. But this enhancement of our mental powers belongs to a highly evolved age" (3). This task is difficult because we must gradually change our way of thinking. Instead of adapting the organism to our preferred thinking, we must attempt to adapt ourselves to the organism. If we can follow it, the organism becomes a teacher and along the way begins to reveal itself. In this sense, one can say that the language of the animal slowly becomes decipherable. As Henri Bortoft writes, ""when the point is reached where the animal discloses itself, the animal becomes its own language. In this moment, animal is language" (4).

The Animal and its Environment

The statement "The fish exists for the water" seems to me to say far less than "The fish exists in the water and by means of the water." The latter expresses more clearly what is obscured in the former; i.e., the existence of a creature we call "fish" is only possible under the conditions of an element we call "water", so that the creature not only exists in that element, but may also evolve there (5).

Analogously, the lions that live in the African savannah share their surroundings with elephants, giraffes, rhinoceroses, monkeys, hyenas, zebras and many other mammals. Two animals may have the same surroundings, but they do not live in the same environment, which is, rather, the actual relationship between an organism and its surroundings. In this sense, the fruit of a tree belongs as little to the lion's environment as the flesh of a zebra does to the elephant's. The same watering hole is a very different environment for a lion (primarily a place where prey are stalked) than it is for the elephant (primarily a place to bathe). The environment as lived cannot be seen. It is a relationship and, therefore, cannot be described directly.

In describing how the lion stalks, feeds, sleeps and so forth, we form a picture of the lion and its environment. The environment is revealed through the animal, and the animal is revealed in its relationship to the environment. As Goethe explained:

We will see the entire plant world, for example, as a vast sea which is as necessary to the existence of individual fish, and we will observe that an enormous number of living creatures are born and nourished in this ocean of plants. Ultimately we will see the whole world of animals as a great element in which one species is created, or at least sustained, by and through another. We will no longer think of connections and relationships in terms of purpose or intention. This is the only road to progress in understanding how nature expresses itself from all quarters and in all directions as it goes about its work of creation (6).

The Horse and Lion in Their Worlds

As it eats, the horse stands or slowly walks. In fact, the horse will stand approximately twenty hours of the twenty four hour day and will also sleep while standing. The horse is an animal of endurance not only in feeding and standing but also in running. It can gallop for up to four miles (eight minutes) and trot for twenty miles (one hour) (7). When it stops, it does not collapse in exhaustion but remains on its legs. With its head held above the body, the horse also has an awareness of its environment on all sides. Its ears are mobile and can be turned in all directions. The eyes lie on the side of the head, giving the horse a very wide field of vision.

The lion is another world. If we imagine it in grass, then it is not grass for grazing but grass as a realm in which to stalk prey. The lion crouches, muscles tensed and eyes oriented to the front and focused on its prey. The lion attends to what is before it. A sudden thrust of activity follows as the lion sprints for its prey and lunges for the nape or throat, which it pierces with its canines. The forelegs grasp the prey and pull it down. The lion may open its gaping jaws and close on the muzzle of the prey, suffocating it. The lion proceeds to chomp into the flesh and shear off chunks with jagged cheek teeth. It swallows without any chewing. An adult lion may devour from twenty to fifty pounds of meat at one feeding so that to speak of gorging is to use a descriptive and not a derogatory term. A pride of lions feeding on one zebra can devour the entire carcass in thirty minutes (8).

The lion then retreats to a secluded spot and rests, sleeps, and digests for many hours. Most of the lion's day is spent resting, as Anne Morrow Lindbergh says,"poured out like honey in the sun" (9). Such utter relaxation alternates with periods of moving from place to place and the occasional burst of power and wakefulness in the hunt. The lion has no endurance. It embodies immense strength, tension and speed for short spurts, but then its power is spent. Extended periods of rest follow.

The Horse and Lion in Their Limbs

The skeleton is my point of departure in considering the whole through its parts. The skeleton is the most definitively formed structure in an animal. It resists decomposition when the animal dies and can then be studied as a clearly formed memory of the whole. In penetrating this memory, the whole can come to life in us. I focus primarily on the limbs and skull—those parts of the body through which the animal, in movement and perception, relates most directly to its surroundings, thereby meeting and making its environment.

As figures 2 and 4 illustrate, the horse rests upon long, stable columns of bone. The upper part of the legs are muscular but this muscularity is embedded in the trunk. The bones that are comparable to our human elbows and knees do not extend beyond the horse's trunk. The lower part of the legs below the trunk (comparable to our lower arms and legs, hands and feet) has few muscles. Long tendons extend from the upper muscles down into the lower legs and feet. Tendons permeate many of these muscles, a telling characteristic of the horse anatomy (10). Tendons are tougher and not as flexible as muscle so that when tendon permeates muscle, the muscle becomes less elastic but has more stability. The tendency toward hardening increases in the lower portion of the limbs; the tendons, for example, are exceedingly tough, almost like bone in their consistency.

The upper limb muscles in the trunk move the horse's leg. As a result, there is no finely differentiated movement of the limb. In a sense, the horse's limbs become living architecture. This structure of bone, ligaments and tendons has its own stability by virtue of which the horse can stand with no muscular effort (11). Its muscles can relax in sleep but the horse does not collapse. The stability of the horse limb is connected with the strength of bones but also with their form and the fact that the limb has fewer bones and joints than the limb of other land mammals. Figure 4 shows the bony structure of the horse's forelimbs, which carry about 70 percent of the body weight. We human beings can rotate our lower arm around its axis; this is only possible because we have two bones—ulna and radius—that allow this movement. In the horse, these bones are fused to form one straight, stable bone, which is the longest in the horse's body. Below it a "wrist" is formed by eight thick, compressed bones, or carpals. As figure 5 illustrates, these carpals have horizontal surfaces that rest upon one another and provide stability but little flexibility.

The columnar tendency of the horse extends into the elongated but stout bones of the feet. The horse does not stand upon feet with five toes but, rather, upon one enlarged toe that ends in the thick, horned sheath of the hoof. Through bone fusion and bone reduction, the horse's limb becomes a stable column. The fewer bones mean fewer joints; the fewer the joints, the fewer the muscles. The flexibility the horse thereby loses in the leg is compensated for by the stability and strength it gains through its bone structure. The horse can stand, walk, trot, and gallop with great endurance but cannot crouch to the ground or scratch an ear with its hoof.

We now turn to the lion, which has the possibility of supple and agile yet forceful movement. As figures 3 and 4 show, there are many joints in the lion's limbs and the bones are not so tightly connected as in the horse. The wrist bones, for example, have rounded surfaces—the gesture of mobility. They do not possess in themselves the stable architecture of the firmly set, horizontally placed carpals of the horse (figure 5). The ulna and radius are two separate bones, allowing rotation of the forelimb, which comes into play, for example, when the lion grasps its prey or cleans itself with its paws. Compared to those of the horse, the lion's limbs are short and stocky, embedded in an array of muscles.

The lion's front feet have five toes, the back feet four. The body's weight is carried by the pads beneath the joints between the last toe bones, so that the lion's characteristic softness and buoyancy in motion extends even into these outermost members. The other element of lion movement—the powerful forward thrust culminating in the leap for prey—also comes to expression in the feet, namely in the claws. Held hidden in the paw, they lash out, gash into the prey, and then retract. The activity of the claws in this hunting sequence vividly reveals the way of the lion as a whole—springing forward, penetrating, and withdrawing into inactivity.

Overall, one can say that the lion's stance and movement are directed and modulated at every moment by muscle. By living in the medium of muscle, the lion is capable of utmost force and complete relaxation. Moreover, every movement is characterized by a polarity of tension and restraint, power and suppleness.

From Neck to Tail

The horse's spine—the middle part of the vertebral column—is fairly rigid, although it consists of more vertebrae than the lion's. As in the legs, interlocking surfaces and strong ligaments make the spine a stable, horizontal axis supporting the body through its very structure. This spine keeps essentially the same form under all conditions, whether the horse is galloping or lying. In contrast, the lion's spine is much more mobile; its capacity to flex, extend and bend laterally is much greater. When a lion sprints, the spine rhythmically oscillates between concavity in expansion and arching convexity in contraction. And lying at rest, the lion can stretch out lengthwise or curl up. Because of this flexibility, the body can follow, in its form, any irregularities of the surface upon which the lion lies.

The vertebral column has its continuation in the tail, which can be said to be the animal's characteristic extension into the world behind it. The horse's streaming, long-haired tail emphasizes its vertical aspect. The tail hangs down, is blown by the wind, but also swishes to and fro. The muscular, bony core of the tail extends only into its upper half, while the rest consists of long strands of hair, a substance in which the animal no longer lives. In contrast, the lion lives in its muscular tail out to the very tip. The lion always holds its tail actively and never lets it hang down or drag. Perhaps more than any other organ, the tail with its fine undulating movements expresses the lion's momentary state and the inner direction of its alertness. In broadest terms, one can conclude that the horse's tail is an organ that is moved, while the lion's tail is informed by movement.

The Heads of the Horse and Lion

The head's high, broad rear portion is embedded in the neck and jaw muscles. The latter insert into the massive rear section of the lower part of the jaw. The center of gravity is therefore at the rear of the head, just as the rear of the horse is its most bulky aspect, as one can see from above (figure 8).

The horse's organs for perceiving what is around and behind it are the nose, eyes, and ears. The eyes are positioned not only sidewards but quite far back in the skull. The horse cannot focus on what is directly before it, for example, the grass, which is not prey and, therefore, is not a point to be focused on but, rather, a surface to be grazed calmly. Moreover, in times of danger, the horse typically flees by means of its swift, enduring gallop; it does not attack like the lion. Fleeing involves no aim before the animal, no focal point; the direction is only "away from." Because of its wide field of vision, however, what is behind the horse remains part of its world. The contrast with the lion's aggressive, focal relation to its surroundings could hardly be greater.

As figure 6 illustrates, the horse's jaw is dominated by long rows of large cheek teeth. Each row forms one uniform surface that meets with its counterpart in grinding. The image of persistent grinding in which surface meets surface is paralleled by the image of the horse standing or running with its hard hooves striking the surface of the earth.

Like the cheek teeth, the front teeth, or incisors, form uniform rows. All these teeth end evenly and the horse can easily tear grass. Characteristically, the one tooth type in mammals that is pointed and never forms surfaces that meet—the canine—is present in the horse only in a rudimentary form and, in mares, is missing altogether. Thus, the tendency toward the formation of unified, hard surfaces—in the horn of the hoof, in the tightly fit, stout bones, and in the rows of teeth—dominates in the horse. This important aspect of the language of the horse, revealed in its anatomy, corresponds to the constancy observable in its activity—standing, running, and grinding.

Figure 7 shows the lion's broad, compact skull—it is almost as wide as the shoulders and hips shown in figure 8. The back half of the skull is surrounded by a thick layer of muscles. The space between the broad arcs of the cheek bones and the cranium, are filled with the massive jaw muscles. The skull ends at the front in the powerful gesture of the enormous canine teeth.

The lion's canines are as deeply rooted in the upper jaw as they protrude from it. The form of the canines—pointed and conical—dominates the structure of the other teeth as well. In great contrast to those of the horse, the lion's incisors are not broad and spatula-like; rather, they are small and have the form of short spikes. The cheek teeth do not form flat surfaces but possess pointed cusps that give them a jagged appearance. When the jaw clamps down (the jaw can only move vertically and there is little lateral movement), the surfaces pass by one another, forming shears that pierce and cut the flesh of the prey.

It is as though the forward thrusting movement of the lion has become frozen in the form of the canines. As we have seen, the same is true in the claws. There is a further accentuation of this tendency in the frontal positioning of the eyes, which lie quite forward in the short skull. The gaze holds the prey, as it were, before it is grasped in claw and tooth. The male's mane is a majestic image of the forward thrust, which comes more to realization in the activity of the female, who is the dominant hunter among lions.

The Horse and Lion as Contrasting Wholes

Nonetheless, the horse's bone structure is not overly encumbered by gravity; the long legs and neck elevate the horse in its surroundings. Despite its size, the horse's movements are graceful and light. Moreover, with its head held high, the horse is acutely aware in the breadth of the world around it. In contrast, other more bulky and compact hoofed grazing mammals—for example, the rhinoceros and bison—hold their heads below the body proper, as if pulled down by gravity.

In contrast to the horse, the lion lives in its muscles, which function through an interplay between tension and relaxation. The life of a lion oscillates between extremes—focused, powerful action in the hunt, followed by complete relaxation and lassitude.

Stocky limbs and skull express in form the predominance of muscle in the lion. Since its legs are bent when stalking, the lion must draw on enormous body strength to hold its body close to the ground. This concentrated tonicity pours forth into the sheer might of its sinewy being when the lion surges, pulls its prey to the ground, and sinks its teeth into the flesh. The lion feeds ravenously upon the element in which it lives—muscle.

Only an animal that lives to such a degree in the power and tension of muscularity is capable of such complete relaxation. A lion can sleep curled up and entwined with the bodies of its kin, but it could never sleep while standing. It would collapse the moment its muscles relaxed. When the rested lion rises, it stretches every sinew.

Lion activity is not a matter of either force or relaxation. In the smoothness, softness, and agile muscular modulation of a moving lion, we can observe the interpenetration of tension and relaxation. The paws roll softly over the ground, and the tail undulates. As seen in the muscular fluidity of body movement, flexibility through joints—and not bony stability—predominates in the lion. This quality also manifests in behavior, for example, play between members of a pride often involves chasing, hitting, and biting. Lion play is a form of "relaxed tension" and, inasmuch, a reflection of the lion's way of life as a whole.

Beyond Horse and Lion

The course I have taken here can be expanded in at least two directions. First, much of what I have suggested concerning the horse is also valid for the zebra, just as what I have said about the lion can be related to the tiger or leopard. A next step of differentiation would be to grasp the specific qualities of the species within its respective genus. As Adolf Portmann points out, the skeletons of the lion and tiger are very similar, yet their outer appearance is significantly and clearly distinct (12). To begin to differentiate between the two species, therefore, we would need to consider such features as the color and pattern of the coat, differences in habitat, the fact that lions are the only species of cat that live in groups, and so forth.

Second, we can broaden our view to include other groups of mammals. The unique qualities of the giraffe stand vividly before the mind's eye when one has begun to penetrate the horse. The tendency towards elongation is carried to an extreme in a very particular way in the giraffe (13). The giraffe does not merely have a long neck. Rather, this length is mirrored in the formation of the rest of the body, especially in the very long legs. The forelegs are longer than the hind legs and the giraffe must spread its forelegs to reach the ground with its mouth. In addition, the giraffe's snout is extremely long and the even longer tongue extends from the mouth to embrace and tear tree leaves. In contrast to the horse's trunk, however, the giraffe's trunk remains proportionately short.

Through a Goethean approach, each animal begins to reveal its unique way of being-in-the-world. Each animal is one-sided, and yet, in its one-sidedness, points beyond itself to a greater whole that encompasses all animals. By dwelling within particular animals and moving from one to the next, we see the broader context "animal" gradually become filled with living content. Goethe's previously quoted words take on a more concrete meaning: "Ultimately we will see the whole world of animals as a great element in which one species is created, or at least sustained, by and through another." This statement can be understood not only in external ecological terms (e.g., prey-predator relationships), but also in terms of the principles of animal formation (e.g., the dominance of a particular aspect—bone in the horse, muscle in the lion). To achieve Goethe's dynamic picture of animals, we begin with an open interest in the animal as a creature with its "own reason to be." We attend to the phenomena of animal life and picture each aspect of the animal exactly and vividly. We then must draw upon our capacity to recreate, as it were, the particular animal in our mind. The imagination begins to weave among the parts, and a picture of underlying patterns emerges. This is a demanding task because it involves, as Goethe says, "dissolving the particular without destroying the impression itself" (14). It calls for the faculty that Goethe called "exact imagination", which only develops through practice (15). We must try again and again to gain the necessary inner flexibility to form a living picture of the animal. This way of knowing has a fluid quality, and its results cannot be fixed in any narrowly circumscribed definition.

At the same time, we must cultivate an inner tension that keeps us open for the new and does not let us become overly enamored with the knowledge already gained. As Goethe says:

For here at this pass, this transition from empirical evidence to judgment, cognition to application, all the inner enemies of man lie in wait: imagination, which sweeps him away on its wings before he knows his feet have left the ground; impatience; haste; self-satisfaction; rigidity; formalistic thought; prejudice; ease; frivolity; fickleness—this whole throng and its retinue. Here they lie in ambush and surprise not only the active observer but also the contemplative one who appears safe from all passion. (16).

When rat-sized transgenic mice are "produced" in a laboratory, the question of the mouse's size as an essential quality of its wholeness is not raised. But if the mouse becomes so heavy that it would break the plant stem it would need to climb to gather the seeds, then one has—by manipulating a part—radically changed the whole animal and its relationship to its environment. Such manipulation is performed with little awareness of the implications for the organism, because the living organism per se has never been taken into consideration. In this respect the ignorance of the life of the organisms in our day is staggering, and Goethe's approach is more needed than ever.

Notes

2. Work illustrating the Neo-Darwinian perspective includes: John Maynard Smith, The Theory of Evolution (New York; Penguin, 1975); Ernst Mayr, Population, Species, and Evolution (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1970); A.S. Romer, Vertebrate Paleontology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966); George G. Simpson, Horses (New York: Oxford University Press, 1951); George G. Simpson, The Meaning of Evolution (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1976); J.Z. Young, The Life of Vertebrates (London: Oxford University Press, 1973).

3. Goethe, Scientific Studies, p. 307

4. Henri Bortoft, "Counterfeit and Authentic Wholes: Finding A Way to Dwell in Nature," in Dwelling, Place and Environment, edited by David Seamon and Robert Mugerauer (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985), p. 299. This article is reprinted as chapter 12 in this volume.

5. Goethe, Scientific Studies, p. 54.

6. Ibid., p. 55.

7. James Gray, Animal Locomotion (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1968), p. 279.

8. George Schaller, The Serengeti Lion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972), p. 268.

9. Quoted in Schaller, The Serengeti Lion, p. 120.

10. R. Nickel et al., Lehrbuch der Anatomie der Haustiere, Bd. I: Bewegungsapparat (Berlin and Hamburg: Paul Parey Verlag, 1968), p. 402.

11. Gray, Animal Locomotion, p. 250f.

12. Adolf Portmann, Die Tiergestalt (Basel: Verlag Friedrich Reinhardt AG, 1960), p. 33ff.; also see Adolf Portmann, Animal Forms and Patterns (New York: Schocken, 1967).

13. Ernst Michael Kranich, Von der Gewissheit zur Wissenschaft der Evolution (Stuttgart: Freies Geistesleben, 1989). pp. 44f.

14. Goethe, Scientific Studies, p. 75.

15. Ibid., p. 46.

16. Ibid., p. 14.

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