1880.] on Guelhcs ' Farhenhhre: 357 



classifier, but not a striiif]^('nt physical rcasoner. And had Newton 

 attempted to produce a Fanst, the poverty of his intellect on the 

 poetic and dramatic side might have been rendered equally manifest. 

 But here, if not always, Newton abstained from attenn)ting that for 

 which he had no capacity, while the exubeiance of Goethe's naturo 

 caused him to undertake a task for wliich he had neither ordination 

 nor vocation, and in the attempted execution of which his deficiencies 

 became revealed. 



One task among many — one defeat amid a hundred triumphs. But 

 any recognition on my part of Goethe's achievements in other realms 

 of intellectual action would, I fear, be regarded as impertinent. You 

 remember the story of the first Napoleon when the Austrian plenipo- 

 tentiary, in arranging a treaty of peace, began by formally recognizing 

 the French Eepublic. " Efiface that," said the First Consul ; " the 

 French Eepublic is like the sun ; he is blind who fails to recognize 

 it." And were I to speak of recognizing Goethe's merits, my efiacement 

 would be equally well deserved. " Goethe's life," says Carlyle, " if 

 we examine it, is well represented in that emblem of a solar day. 

 Beautifully rose our summer sun, gorgeous in the red, fervid east, 

 scattering the spectres and sickly damps, of both of which there were 

 enough to scatter; strong, benignant, in his noonday clearness, 

 walking triumphant through the upper realms — and now mark also 

 how he sets ! ' So stirbt ein Held ; ' so dies a hero ! " 



Two grander illustrations of the aphorism " To err is human '* 

 can hardly be pointed out in history than Newton and Goethe. For 

 Newton went astray not only as regards the question of achromatism, 

 but also as regards vastly larger questions touching the nature of 

 light. But though as errors they fall into the same category, the 

 mistake of Newton was qualitatively different from that of Goethe. 

 Newton erred in adopting a wrong mechanical conception in his 

 theory of light, but in doing so he never for a moment quitted the 

 ground of strict scientific method. Goethe erred in seeking to 

 engraft in his ' Farbenlehre ' methods altogether foreign to physics on 

 to the treatment of a purely physical theme. 



We frequently hear protests made against the cold mechanical 

 mode of dealing with aesthetic phenomena employed by scientific 

 men. The dissection by Newton of the light to which the world 

 owes all its visible beauty and splendour seemed to Goethe a desecra- 

 tion. We find, even in our own day, the endeavour of Helmholtz to 

 arrive at the principles of harmony and discord in music resented as 

 an intrusion of the scientific intellect into a region which ought to be 

 sacred to the human heart. But all this opposition and antagonism 

 has for its essential cause the incompleteness of those with whom it 

 originates. The feelings and aims with which Newton and Goethe 

 respectively approached Nature were radically difterent, but they had 

 an equal warrant in the constitution of man. As regards our tastes 

 and tendencies, our pleasiires and pains, physical and mental, our 

 action and passion, our sorrows, sympathies, and joys, we are the 



