68 GOETHE'S ' FARBENLEHRE.' 



Throughout the first 350 pages of his work, wherein 

 he develops and expounds his own theory, Goethe 

 restrains himself with due dignity. Here and there 

 there is a rumble of discontent against Newton, but 

 there is no sustained ill-temper or denunciation. After, 

 however, unfolding his own views, he comes to what 

 he calls the * unmasking of the theory of Newton ' 

 Here Goethe deliberately forsakes the path of calm, 

 objective research, and delivers himself over to the 

 guidance of his emotions. He immediately accuses 

 Newton of misusing, as an advocate, his method of expo- 

 sition. He goes over the propositions in Newton's optics 

 one by one, and makes even the individual words of 

 the propositions the objects of his criticism. He passes 

 on to Newton's experimental proofs, invoking, as he does 

 so, the complete attention of his readers, if they would 

 be freed to all eternity from the slavery of a doctrine 

 which has imposed upon the world for a hundred years. 

 It might be thought that Goethe had given himself but 

 little trouble to understand the theorems of Newton 

 and the experiments on which they were based. But 

 it would be unjust to charge the poet with any want of 

 diligence in this respect. He repeated Newton's experi- 

 ments, 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 perfection 

 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, he says, shock his readers at the outset 

 by the utterance of a paradox, but he cannot withhold 



