EDITOR'S TABLE. 



407 



the idea. He then undertook to carry 

 out his method systematically in a 

 chosen field, and failed so conspicuously 

 as not only to settle the question against 

 him, but to make his failure a landmark 

 of modern intellectual history. The 

 chief interest of the subject is, therefore, 

 by no means the question of the status 

 of Goethe ; it is a question of the claims 

 of antagonist methods in the views to be 

 taken of the surrounding world. 



Tbe view ineffectually maintained 

 by Goethe by no means fell with his 

 failure; it had been too long and too 

 firmly established. The poetic and artis- 

 tic method of regarding Nature was the 

 earliest ; and it was inevitable that the 

 mental procedures it involved should 

 become the universal habit and the basis 

 of culture. It was the all-accepted and 

 all-sufficient mode of viewing the natu- 

 ral order. The poet and the painter 

 pictured the world as presented to the 

 senses and the feelings. Philosophy 

 worked out, and theology enforced, the 

 first rude interpretations of natural ob- 

 jects and events, as they were open to 

 the observation of the senses. Litera- 

 ture, of course, embodied those current 

 modes of thought which were occupied 

 merely with the external aspects of 

 things, and such interpretations as were 

 possible with only this surface-knowl- 

 edge. 



This method was satisfactory for 

 many ages ; but there at length began 

 to grow up a curiosity or desire to pry 

 into things and see what would come 

 of it. Men began to penetrate beneath 

 the superficial show to the subtiler struc- 

 tures and underworking forces by which 

 all appearance is determined. Thus sci- 

 ence arose. It began in dissatisfaction 

 with the shallowness of the knowledge 

 of Nature and the insufficiency of its 

 current explanations; and it began at 

 the outset to devise new means of ar- 

 riving at truth. Instruments of scrutiny, 

 instruments of analysis, experiment, and 

 dissection, were devised, and, by their 

 diligent application, curious and star- 



tling revelations were made of the inner 

 workings, the finer constitution, and the 

 deeper harmonies of the surrounding 

 universe. 



This new procedure of science the 

 poets and artists have ever been inclined 

 to resent as a violence and desecration. 

 Accepting Nature as disclosed to the 

 senses, and interpreted by immediate in- 

 tuitions, they oppose science as a heart- 

 less agency, inappreciative of beauty, 

 and destructive of poetry and art. Goe- 

 the strongly shared this jealousy of sci- 

 ence as an intrusive rival of the great 

 arts that have enriched the life of man. 

 He was not only a representative poet, 

 powerfully dominated by aesthetic feel- 

 ing and artistic sentiment, but he was 

 also a philosophic thinker, and not with- 

 out some scientific aptitude, and with 

 these qualifications he was ambitious of 

 becoming the champion of artistic and 

 poetic ideals against the cold and ruth- 

 less processes of experimental science. 

 He chose a branch of optics as the field 

 of conflict, and Newton as his antago- 

 nist, with what result Professor Tyn- 

 dalFs paper sufficiently indicates. Pro- 

 fessor Helmholtz, some years ago, gave 

 a lecture " On Goethe's Scientific Ee- 

 searches," in which he treats his charac- 

 ter and labors from the point of view 

 here taken. "We subjoin some passages 

 from this instructive discourse : 



Goethe, though he exercised his powers iu 

 many spheres of intellectual activity, is nev- 

 ertheless, par excellence, a poet. Now, in 

 poetry, as in every other art, the essential 

 thing is to make the material of the art, he 

 it words, or music, or color, the direct vehi- 

 cle of an idea. In a perfect work of art, the 

 idea must be present and dominate the whole, 

 almost unknown to the poet himself, not as 

 the result of a long intellectual process, but 

 as inspired by a direct intuition of the inner 

 eye, or by an outburst of excited feeling. 



An idea thus embodied in a work of art, 

 and dressed in the garb of reality, does in- 

 deed make a vivid impression by appealing 

 directly to the senses, but loses, of course, 

 that universality and that intelligibility which 

 it would have had if presented in the form of 

 an abstract notion. The poet, feeling how 



