This book is the result of a lifetime of biological research seeking to penetrate through the phenomena to the formative principles that have shaped them. Following Goethe’s participatory method, and drawing on his observations on a number of continents, Andreas Suchantke shows how the development and evolution of plants and animals can be understood in terms of metamorphosis. Through his eyes, we come to see evolution as a dynamic process that unfolds on a far more fundamental level than Darwin’s natural selection. In the age of stem cell research, Suchantke’s insights into the formation of organisms as integrated wholes offer a much-needed complement to the findings of conventional genetics and microbiology.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

About the Author and this Book
Foreword
Introduction: Metamorphosis—Evolution in Action

1. Archetype and Evolution—a Contradiction? Understanding Metamorphosis

2. An Example of Metamorphosis: Goethe's Idea of the Vertebral Nature of the Cranial Bones

3. "From top to bottom the plant is all leaf." Formative Tendencies in the Domain of the Leaf

Everything is Leaf?
Metamorphosis in the Evolution of a Family of Plants: the Pathway of the Cacti from the Forest to the Desert and back again
The "Primal Leaf": the Ocean's Green Carpet
The Leaf-form—Outcome of a Dialogue between Earth and Cosmos

4. The Blossom

The Polarity of Leaf and Flower
Flower Color
The Morphic Field of the Blossom

5. Interim Summary: Metamorphoses—the Key to Understanding the Nature of Life

6. The Various Forms of Metamorphosis in the Plant Kingdom

Metamorphosis and Juvenilization
The Development of the Leaf through the Ages of the Earth
Evolutionary Countermovements
Pinnacles of Plant Evolution: Orchids and Grasses
"Reproduction" and "Nutritive Multiplication"

7. Polarity and Threefold Organization: The Dynamics of Metamorphosis

8. Polarity and Threefold Structure in the Animal Kingdom

The Mammals
An Interim Note on Method
The Birds
The Insects
Insects in general
Butterflies
Beetles
The middle group of insects

9. The Archetype in Action—Vacillation between the Inner and the Outer

Stages of Internalization
From Exoskeleton to Endoskeleton
Summary
Latimeria and the crossed alternation gait
The Formation of the Endoskeleton and the Limbs
Confirmation of Statements made by Rudolf Steiner on the Head and Limb Formation in Human Beings, and on the Question of how to Present this as a Teacher

10. The All-pervasive Endoskeleton

The Exoskeleton and the Endoskeleton in Coelenterates
Molluscs and their Skeletons

11. The Fate of Exoskeleton and Endoskeleton in the Further Course of Evolution

Life between Levity and Gravity
"Limbs" of the Head: Horns and Antlers
The Separating out of the Bodily Systems—The Embodiment of the Archetype in the Human Being

Notes and References

Bibliography