After repeated and careful observation of the different forms on either
of the plates, we build up inwardly, as a memory picture, the shape of
the first leaf, and then transform this mental image successively into
the images of the ensuing forms until we reach the final stage. The
same process can also be tried retrogressively, and so repeated forward
and backward.

This is how Goethe studied the doing of the plant, and it is by this
method that he discovered the spiritual principle of all plant life,
and succeeded also in throwing a first light on the inner
life-principle of animals.

*

We chose the transformation of leaf forms into one another as the
starting-point of our observations, because the principle of
metamorphosis appears here in a most conspicuous manner. This
principle, however, is not confined to this part of the plant's
organism. In fact, all the different organs which the plant produces
within its life cycle - foliage, calyx, corolla, organs of
fertilization, fruit and seed - are metamorphoses of one and the same
organ.

Man has long learnt to make use of this law of metamorphosis in the
plant for what is called doubling the flower of a certain species. Such
a flower crowds many additional petals within its original circle, and
these petals are nothing but metamorphosed stamens; this, for instance,
is the difference between the wild and the cultivated rose. The
multitude of petals in the latter is obtained by the transformation of
a number of the former's innumerable stamens. (Note the intermediate