Goethe's Science of Living Form: The Artistic Stages

186 Pages·2007·5.262 MB·English

by  Nigel Hoffmann

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Goethes Science of Living Form
~ The Artistic Stages ~
Nigel Hoffmann
With a foreword by Craig Holdrege
Illustrated by Pamela Dalton
Copyright © 2007 by Nigel Hoffmann
Published by Adonis Press
321 Rodman Road
Hillsdale, NY 12529
www.adonispress.org
This publication was made possible through the generous support
of the Waldorf Curriculum Fund and the Foundation for Rudolf
Steiner Books.
ISBN 0-932776-35-3
ISBN 978-0-932776-35-8
Cover design by Dale Hushbeck
Black and white illustrations by Pamela Dalton
Color Plates by Nigel Hoffmann
Foreword ©2006 by Craig Holdrege
The cover image of Sisymbrium officinale, also used in Figure 2 on page 39, is from
New Eyes for Plants by M. Colquhoun and A. Ewald and is used with kind permission
of Hawthorn Press, Stroud, UK, 1996, I-869890-85-X; www.hawthornpress.com
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
I dedicate this book to those, around the world, who are
developing Goethes way of science with enthusiasm and
devotion — in particular, to Dr. Margaret Colquhoun,
who was an inspiration for me along this path.

Contents
Foreword by Craig Holdrege ...........esceessccesseeeeeereeeeeeeees ix
Part |
Toward an Authentic Science of Living Form. ........ I
Chapter 1. The Question of Method oc cceceeseereeeeeeeee: 5
Art and the Emergence of an Authentic Organic Science .....10.c1000+ 5
Goethe and the Phenomenological Method wu...eiccscccseseesessseeesseeee 9
Toward an Authentic Method in the Life Sciences ..iccccccccseecseee 13
A Goethean Methodology through the Elemental Modes ............... 20
Chapter 2. Ihe Elemental Modes of Cognition ............ 26
Earth Cognition — Physical Thinking — the Mechanical............ 26
Water Cognition — Imagination — the Sculptural ......cccccvieee 36
Air Cognition — Inspiration — the Musicdl w...eicccssccessecesseeesees 43
Fire Cognition — Intuition — the Poetical ......cccseccseccsseeesteeee 56
Part I]
A Goethean Study of Place w.c.cccecccecssesssessesseeeseeen 67
Chapter 3. Evolution, Place, and the Organs of Landscape. 71
TpAtrOAUction w.eeeseccseseccevscccsnecessccesneeceseeesneecesaeessneecsnaeeesneessaeecns 71
Evolution as Creative Process ..icccssscccssscccsessecsssscctssseesssnecsnsnseessaes /3
The Landscape and its O1GAns w..sseccsccsssecsssecsssecsseessseessneesseesneees 76
The Human Being and the Evolution of Landscape ....cccsccceeccveee 90
Chapter 4. The Yabby Ponds: A Goethean Study of Place... 95
TAtrOMUction wo.eeesecceseccessecceseccesnecesncecesceessaetssseessneessnnecssaesesaeeesas 95
First [MPvesstONs ..eciessssccccccsesssscccccsssssseseccesssseeeeesesesnssesenseeeseseens 96
Earth COgnition wo.cescccssscccssssccsscecssseetsnsecesacessueecesnseeseessneesssesegs 98
Water COGNILION ....eescecccccceeesssseescceeeeseessseeesceeesesseesssseeesseseeeeens 113
ALi? COQIUION .oiseeceeceeseesnsneccceceeneessseeeeeeeeseseesaesseseeeeeeeens beeeeeee 12]
Five COQNUHION oeeessecceeseccessecccenseccsncesesscecesneeessseeeesneecesnaeesenas 140
Epilogue 0... eeeecessseecssnceceeneeeesseecssceeessaeecssaeeesesaeesesseeeeneas 143
NOte .....cccceesecceseneeccesseecessseeccesceccsseeeesssseescessaeeecesaeeeeeeaaees 147
APPendix oo... eeeeeesccccessseeceseneeecssneeceesneeecesnseecessaeeeseesaeeseeeaeees I'70
Foreword ~ ix
Foreword
Having just celebrated, on August 28, 1786, his thirty-seventh birthday with
friends in the spa city of Carlsbad, Germany, Goethe stole away in the
middle of the night, incognito on a postal coach. His goal was Italy. Goethe
had already gained fame as a writer and poet. He had served for ten years as
a minister in the Dukedom of Weimar. And he had carried out an array of
scientific studies. But he needed a change; he felt stifled. His answer was to
gain fresh experiences and let the world breathe new life into him.
He crossed over the Alps and arrived in northern Italy, where he wrote
in his journal:
I console myself with the thought that, in our statistically minded
times, all this has probably already been printed in books which
one can consult if need arise. At present I am preoccupied with
sense-impressions to which no book or picture can do justice.
The truth is that, in putting my powers of observation to the test,
I have found a new interest in life. How far will my scientific and
general knowledge take me: Can I learn to look at things with
clear, fresh eyes? How much can I take in at a single glance? Can
the grooves of old mental habits be effaced? This is what I am
trying to discover.” (Itahan Journey, September 11, 1786, p. 21)
These sentences characterize beautifully Goethe’s approach to science.
First, he had a keen interest in all sensory phenomena. He was a born
observer. He wasn’t satisfied with single observations, but wanted to get to
know things in all their variations. So, for example, when he was traveling
— by horse-drawn coach — over the Alps he noticed how familiar species
of plants changed in their growth habits: “in the low-lying regions, branches
and stems were strong and fleshy and leaves broad, but up here in the
mountains, branches and stems became more delicate, buds were spaced
at wider intervals and the leaves were lanceolate in shape” (Itakan Journey,
September 8, 1786, p. 15).
x ~ Foreword
But Goethe was not only sensitive to sense impressions. He noticed
how he interacted with the world as a perceiving, thinking, and feeling
human being. When he asks, “How can the grooves of old mental habits
be effaced?” he is aware that how we think about things can hinder
experiencing them in fresh new ways. Goethe’s scientific writings are full of
comments about the relation between the observer and the observed. This
sensitivity toward the qualities of the phenomena and to his own interaction
with them is captured well in his expression “delicate empiricism” (which
Goethe first used in 1829; see Miller, 1995, p. 303). His goal was to let the
phenomena speak. To this end he knew he had to be most delicate in the
way he applied concepts —- so that pre-formed mental grooves did not
force the phenomena into particular conceptual frameworks.
Already in his time, Goethe felt that the phenomena of nature were,
on the whole, being molded to fit either into mechanistic or teleological
frameworks. Goethe certainly recognized the value of anatomy — the
dissection of an organism into parts. But he also realized that if you try
to build up a picture of an organism starting with the already dissected
parts, you end up with a mechanistic picture — the organism as a machine
in which the additive functions of the parts “explain” the whole. Such an
approach provides only a shadowy image of the reality of a living organism.
At the same time, Goethe was unsatisfied with teleological explanations
of organisms, explanations that project a divine goal or purpose into
things. Such explanations always presuppose an unknowable “beyond”
and, like mechanistic schemes, leave essential features of living organisms
untouched.
Goethe’s desire was “to understand living formations as such, to grasp
their outwardly visible, tangible parts in context, to see these parts as an
indication of what lies within and in this way to get a hold of and behold
the whole” (1817, p. 47). Since everything in the organic world is in a state
of flux — developing, changing form, reproducing, aging, dying — we need
to become mobile thinkers to gain understanding of the organic world. As
Goethe put it, “if we want to reach a living understanding of nature, we
must follow her lead and become as mobile and flexible as nature herself”
(1817, p. 48). For Goethe, doing science well meant that the scientist must
transform his or her own way of knowing to be adequate to the phenomena
in question.
In this book, Nigel Hoffmann encourages us to look at nature with fresh
eyes and to gain a new kind of mobility in our thoughts. His approach is
to lead the reader into different ways of cognizing natural phenomena. He
takes as his guide the ancient idea of the four elements —— earth, water, air,
and fire. Most of us think of these four elements as substances. Hoffmann