GOETHE'S FARBENLEHRE. 221 



the azure of noonday, and by the daffodil and crimson of the evening 

 sky. The inimitable lines written at Ilmenau 



" Ueber alien Gipfeln 

 1st Rub. 1 , 

 In alien Wipfeln 

 Spurest Du 

 Kaum einen Hauch" 



suggest a stillness of the atmosphere which would allow the columns 

 of fine smoke from the foresters' cottages to rise high into the air. 

 He would thus have an opportunity of seeing the upper portion of the 

 column projected against bright clouds, and the lower portion against 

 dark pines, the brownish yellow of the one and the blue of the other 

 being strikingly and at once revealed. He was able to produce arti- 

 ficially at will the colors which he had previously observed in nature. 

 He noticed that when certain bodies were incorporated with glass this 

 substance also played a double part, appearing blue by reflected and 

 yellow by transmitted light.* The action of turbid media was to 

 Goethe the ultimate fact the JJrphanomen of the world of colors. 

 " We see on the one side Light, and on the other side Darkness. We 

 bring between both Turbidity, and from these opposites develop all 

 colors." 



As long as Goethe remained in the region of fact his observations 

 are of permanent value. But by the coercion of a powerful imagina- 

 tion he forced his turbid media into regions to which they did not be- 

 long, and sought to overthrow by their agency the irrefragable dem- 

 onstrations of Newton. Newton's theory, as known by everybody, is 

 that white light is composed of a multitude of differently refrangible 

 rays, whose coalescence in certain proportions produces the impression 

 of white. By prismatic analysis these rays are separated from each 

 other, the color of each ray being strictly determined by its refrangi- 

 bility. The experiments of Newton, whereby he sought to establish 

 this theory, had long appealed with overmastering evidence to every 

 mind trained in the severities of physical investigation. But they did 

 not thus appeal to Goethe. Accepting for the most part the experi- 

 ments of Newton, he rejected with indignation the conclusions drawn 

 from them, and turned into utter ridicule the notion that white light 

 possessed the composite character ascribed to it. Many of the natu- 

 ralists of his time supported him, while among philosophers Schelling 

 and Hegel shouted in acclamation over the supposed defeat of Newton. 

 The physicists, however, gave the poet no countenance. Goethe met 

 their scorn with scorn, and under his lash these deniers of his theory, 

 their master included, paid the penalty of their arrogance. 



How, then, did he lay down the lines of his own theory ? How, 



* Beautiful and instructive samples of such glass are to be seen in the Venice Glass 

 Company's shop, No. 30 St. James's Street. 



