3 i8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The main foundation of the moral law is a good will,* which, in accord- 

 ance with its own nature, is anxious only for the right. The main 

 foundation of character is a strong will, without reference to right or 

 wrong, good or bad, truth or error. It is that quality which every 

 party prizes in its members. A good will cherishes freedom, it has 

 reference to the inner man and to ethical aims. The strong will be- 

 longs to nature and has reference to the outer world to action. And, 

 inasmuch as the strong will in this world is swayed and limited by the 

 conditions of life, it may almost be assumed as certain that it is only 

 by accident that the exercise of a strong will and of moral rectitude 

 find themselves in harmony with each other." In determining New- 

 ton's position in the series of human characters, Goethe helps himself 

 to images borrowed from the physical cohesion of matter. Thus, he 

 says, we have strong, firm, compact, elastic, flexible, rigid or obstinate, 

 and viscous characters. Newton's character he places under the head 

 of rigid or obstinate, and his theory of colors Goethe pronounces to be 

 a petrified aper$u. 



Newton's assertion of his theory and his unwavering adherence to 

 it to the end of his life Goethe ascribes straight off to moral obliquity 

 on Newton's part. In the heat of our discussion, he says, we have 

 even ascribed to him a certain dishonesty. Man, he says, is subject to 

 error, but when errors form a series, which is followed pertinaciously, 

 the erring individual becomes false to himself and to others. Never- 

 theless, reason and conscience will not yield their rights. We may 

 belie them, but they are not deceived. It is not too much to say that, 

 the more moral and rational a man is, the greater will be his tendency 

 to lie when he falls into error, and the vaster will be that error when 

 he makes up his mind to persist in it. 



This is all intended to throw light upon Newton, but, when Goethe 

 passes from Newton himself to his followers, the small amount of 

 reserve which he exhibited when dealing with the master entirely dis- 

 appears. He mocks their blunders as having not even the merit of 

 originality. He heaps scorn on Newton's imitators. The expression 

 of even a truth, he says, loses grace in repetition, while the repetition 

 of a blunder is impertinent and ridiculous. To liberate one's self from 

 an error is difficult, sometimes indeed impossible for even the strongest 

 and most gifted minds. But to take up the error of another, and per- 

 sist in it with stiff-necked obstinacy, is a proof of poor qualities. The 

 obstinacy of a man of originality when he errs may make us angry, 

 but the stupidity of the copyist irritates and renders us miserable. 

 And, if in our strife with Newton we have sometimes passed the 

 bounds of moderation, the whole blame is to be laid upon the school 

 of which Newton was the head, whose incompetence is proportional to 

 its arrogance, whose laziness is proportional to its self-sufficiency, and 



* I have rendered Goethe's " gute "Wille " by good will ; his " Wollen," which he con- 

 trasts with " Wille," I have rendered by strong will. 



