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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the charm of his works is involved in an in- 

 tellectual process of this type, seeks to apply 

 it to other materials. Instead of trying to 

 arrange the phenomena of Nature under defi- 

 nite conceptions, independent of intuition, he 

 sits down to contemplate them as he would a 

 work of art, complete in itself, and certain to 

 yield up its central idea, sooner or later, to a 

 sufficiently susceptible student. Accordingly, 

 when he sees the skull on the Lido, which 

 suggests to him the vertebral theory of the 

 cranium, he remarks that it serves to revive 

 his old belief, already confirmed by experi- 

 ence, that Nature has no secrets from the at- 

 tentive observer. So, again, in his first con- 

 versation with Schiller on the " Metamorpho- 

 sis of Plants." To Schiller, as a follower of 

 Kant, the idea is the goal, ever to be sought, 

 but ever unattainable, and therefore never to 

 be exhibited as realized in a phenomenon. 

 Goethe, on the other hand, as a genuine poet, 

 conceives that he finds in the phenomenon 

 the direct expression of the idea. He himself 

 tells us that nothing brought out more sharply 

 the separation between himself and Schiller. 

 This, too, is the secret of his affinity with the 

 natural philosophy of Schelling and Hegel, 

 which likewise proceeds from the assumption 

 that Nature shows us by direct intuition the 

 several steps by which a conception is devel- 

 oped. Hence, too, the ardor with which He- 

 gel and his school defended Goethe's scien- 

 tific views. Moreover, this view of Nature 

 accounts for the war which Goethe continued 

 to wage against complicated experimental re- 

 searches. Just as a genuine work of art can 

 not bear retouching by a strange hand, so he 

 would have us believe Nature resists the in- 

 terference of the experimenter who tortures 

 her and disturbs her ; and, in revenge, mis- 

 leads the impertinent kill-joy by a distorted 

 image of herself. 



Accordingly, in his attack upon Newton, 

 he often sneers at spectra, tortured through a 

 number of narrow slits and glasses, and com- 

 mends the experiments that can be made in 

 the open air under a bright sun, not merely 

 as particularly easy and particularly enchant- 

 ing, but also as particularly convincing ! 



We have seen that Goethe rebels against 

 the physical theory just at the point where it 

 gives complete and consistent explanations 

 from principles once accepted. Evidently it 

 is not the insufficiency of the theory to ex- 

 plain individual cases that is a stumbling- 

 block to him. He takes offense at the as- 

 sumption made for the sake of explaining the 

 phenomena, which seem to him so absurd, 

 that he looks upon the interpretation as no 

 interpretation at all. Above all, the idea that 



white light could be composed of colored light 

 seems to have been quite inconceivable to 

 him ; at the very beginning of the contro- 

 versy, he rails at the disgusting Newtonian 

 white of the natural philosophers, an expres- 

 sion which seems to show that this was the 

 assumption that most annoyed him. 



To give some idea of the passionate way 

 in which Goethe, usually so temperate and 

 even courtier-like, attacks Newton, I quote 

 from a few pages of the controversial part of 

 his work the following expressions, which he 

 applies to the propositions of this consum- 

 mate thinker in physical and astronomical 

 science: "Incredibly impudent"; "mere 

 twaddle"; "ludicrous explanation"; "ad- 

 mirable for school-children in a go-cart " ; 

 "but I see nothing will do but lying, and 

 plenty of it." 



Thus, in the " Theory of Color," Goethe 

 remains faithful to his principle that Nature 

 must reveal her secrets of her own free will ; 

 that she is but the transparent representa- 

 tion of the ideal world. Accordingly, he de- 

 mands, as a preliminary to the investigation 

 of physical phenomena, that the observed 

 facts shall be so arranged that one explains 

 the other, and that thus we may attain an in- 

 sight into their connection without ever hav- 

 ing to trust to anything but our senses. This 

 demand of his looks most attractive, but is 

 essentially wrong in principle. For a natu- 

 ral phenomenon is not considered in physical 

 science to be fully explained until you have 

 traced it back to the ultimate forces which 

 are concerned in its production and its main- 

 tenance. Now, as we can never become cog- 

 nizant of forces as forces, but only of their 

 effects, we are compelled in every explanation 

 of natural phenomena to leave the sphere of 

 sense, and to pass to things which are not 

 objects of sense, and are defined only by ab- 

 stract conceptions. 



But this step into the region of abstract 

 conceptions, which must necessarily be taken 

 if we wish to penetrate to the causes of phe- 

 nomena, scares the poet away. In writing a 

 poem he has been accustomed to look, as it 

 were, right into the subject, and to reproduce 

 his intuition without formulating any of the 

 steps that led him to it. And his success is 

 proportionate to the vividness of the intuition. 

 Such is the fashion in which he would have 

 Nature attacked. But the natural philosopher 

 insists on transporting him into a world of 

 invisible atoms and movements, of attractive 

 and repulsive forces, whose intricate actions 

 and reactions, though governed by strict laws, 

 can scarcely be taken in at a glance. To him 

 the impressions of sense are not an irrefraga- 





