432 i Flora Unveiled
The resurgence of asexualism in Germany during the first half of the nineteenth cen-
tury coincided with the emergence of Naturphilosophie, an intellectual movement associ-
ated with Romanticism that blended neoclassicism, rational philosophy, and spirituality in
novel ways. Inspired by the writings of Spinoza and Immanuel Kant, nature philosophers
attracted many disciples in Germany, and their ideas spread throughout Europe and the
Americas. Because it formed the intellectual milieu in which Goethe and other botanists
were working, some consideration of Naturphilosophie is required for an understanding of
the origin and appeal of asexualist thinking in the early nineteenth century. For example,
although Goethe frequently defended empiricism against subjective idealism, his enthu-
siasm for experimentation was tempered by moral concerns about “torturing” Mother
Nature to force her to reveal her secrets. Much as ethicists today have questioned the value
of information obtained from prisoners of war by torture, nature philosophers challenged
the validity of experimental results obtained by “torturing” nature. To Goethe and his com-
panions, nature was sacred. Only by treating her with the utmost respect and reverence
could her secrets be grasped. On the other hand, Naturphilosophie was never monolithic,
and Goethe was often at odds with different schools of thought within the movement.
Whether or not Goethe ever fully embraced asexualism in plants, he was clearly drawn to
it, and the underlying causes of this attraction have never been adequately explored.
Many eighteenth- century asexualists had been horrified by the licentiousness of the
Linnaean system, ostensibly because of the popularity of botany among women, and this
was also a concern of nature philosophers, especially Goethe. In the aftermath of the French
Revolution, the political climate underwent a shift in attitudes regarding women’s social
status. Arguments for biological determinism based on traditional gender stereotypes re-
emerged with a vengeance, and women’s biological role as mothers was cited as justification
for laws restricting their civil rights. Schelver, Lorenz Oken, and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich
Hegel all espoused the view that women were by nature passive and plant- like. Goethe him-
self made abundant use of floral metaphors when referring to women in his poetry, and in
his essay on “The Spiral Tendency in Plants,” written toward the end of his life, he attrib-
uted the reproductive capacity of plants to the feminine principle.
As has been noted by many scholars, Goethe’s development as a dramatist and poet is
intimately connected with his personal life. In parallel with his shifting views about plant
sexuality, Goethe’s attitude toward his own sexuality seems to have undergone transforma-
tions as well— from a Werther- like passion for unobtainable women in his younger years,
to a relatively stable married life in his middle years, to the more detached spirituality of his
later years. Throughout his long career, Goethe’s views about plant sex, like his plays and
poetry, also appear to have been influenced by his personal life.
The Romantic Response to HolbachA watershed event in France that provided an early impetus to German Romanticism was
the publication of Baron d’Holbach’s The System of Nature.
During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Descartes and Newton had trans-
formed the scientific landscape by conceiving of the universe as a gigantic, clock- like
machine. The mechanical universe had been created and put in motion by God, but, after
that it was capable of running on its own according to Newton’s laws, although God was