When we follow Goethe in this way he comes before us in characteristic contrast to Robert Hooke. We remember Hooke's microscopic 'proof of the unrelatedness of human thought to outer reality (Chapter III). There can be no doubt how Goethe, if the occasion had arisen, would have commented on Hooke's procedure. He would have pointed out that there would be no such thing as a knife with its line-like edge unless man were able to think the concept 'line', nor a needle with its point-like end unless he were able to think the concept 'point'. In fact, knife and needle are products of a human action which is guided by these two concepts respectively. As such they are embodiments, though more or less imperfect ones, of these concepts. Here too, therefore, just as Goethe had discovered it through his way of observing the plant, we see Ideas with our very eyes. What distinguishes objects of this kind from organic entities, such as the plant, is the different relationship between Object and Idea. Whereas in the case of an organism the Idea actively indwells the object, its relationship to a man-made thing (and similarly to nature's mineral entities) is a purely external one.