1880.] on Goethe's ' Farhenlehre: 353 



He repeated Newton's cxi)eriment8, and in almost every case obtained 

 his results. But he complained of their incompleteness and lack of 

 logical force. What appears to us as the very i)erfcction of Newton's 

 art, and absolutely essential to the purity of the experiments, was 

 regarded by Goethe as needless complication and mere torturing of 

 the light. He spared no pains in making himself master of Newton's 

 data, but he lacked the power of penetrating either their particular 

 significance, or of estimating the force and value of experimental 

 evidence generally. 



He will not, ho says, shock his readers at the outset by the utter- 

 ance of a paradox, but he cannot withhold the assertion that by 

 experiment nothing can really be proved. Phenomena may be ob- 

 served and classified ; experiments may be accurately executed, 

 and made thus to represent a certain circle of human knowledge ; 

 but deductions must be drawn by every man for himself. Opinions 

 of things belong to the individual, and we know only too well that 

 conviction does not depend upon insight, but upon will — that man 

 can only assimilate that which is in accordance with his nature, 

 and to which he can yield assent. In knowledge, as in action, says 

 Goethe, prejudice decides all, and prejudice, as its name indicates, is 

 judgment prior to investigation. It is an affirmation or a negation of 

 what corresponds, or is opposed to our own nature. It is the cheerful 

 activity of our living being in its pursuit of truth or of falsehood, as 

 the case may be — of all, in short, with which we feel ourselves to be in 

 harmony. 



There can be no doubt that Goethe, in thus philosophizing, dipped 

 his bucket into the well of profound self-knowledge. He was 

 obviously stung to the quick by the neglect of the physicists. He 

 had been the idol of the world, and accustomed as he was to the 

 incense of praise, he felt sorely that any class of men should treat 

 what he thought important with indifference or contempt. He 

 had, it must be admitted, some ground for scepticism as to the recti- 

 tude of scientific judgments, seeing that his researches on morphology 

 met at first no response, though they were afterwards lauded by scien- 

 tific men. His anger against Newton incorporates itself in sharp and 

 bitter sarcasm. Through the whole of Newton's experiments, he says, 

 there runs a display of pedantic accuracy, but how the matter really 

 stands, with Newton's gift of observation, and with his experimental 

 aptitudes, every man possessing eyes and senses may make himself 

 aware. It may, he says, be boldly asked. Where can the man be found, 

 possessing the extraordinary gifts of Newton, who would suffer himself 

 to be deluded by such a Jiocus pocus if he had not in the first instance 

 wilfully deceived himself? Only those who know the strength of 

 self-deception, and the extent to which it sometimes trenches on 

 dishonesty, are in a condition to explain the conduct of Newton and 

 of Newton's school. " To support his unnatural theory," he continues, 

 " Newton heaps experiment on experiment, fiction u^ion fiction, seeking 

 to dazzle where he cannot convince." 



