29 



ON 



GOETHE'S SCIENTIFIC RESEARCHES. 



A Lecture delivered before the German Society of Konigsberg, in the 

 Spring of 1853. 



IT could not but be that Goethe, whose comprehensive genius 

 was most strikingly apparent in that sober clearness with which 

 he grasped and reproduced with lifelike freshness the realities 

 of nature and human life in their minutest details, should, by 

 those very qualities of his mind, be drawn towards the study of 

 physical science. And in that department, he was not content 

 with acquiring what others could teach him, but he soon at- 

 tempted, as so original a mind was sure to do, to strike out an in- 

 dependent and a very characteristic line of thought. He directed 

 his energies not only to the descriptive but also to the experi- 

 mental sciences ; the chief results being his botanical and 

 osteological treatises on the one hand, and his theory of colour- 

 on the other. The first germs of these researches belong for 

 the most part to the last decade of the eighteenth century, 

 though some of them were not completed nor published till 

 later. Since that time science has not only made great progress, 

 but has widely extended its range. It has assumed in some 

 respects an entirely new aspect, it has opened out new fields of 

 research and undergone many changes in its theoretical views. 

 I shall attempt in the following Lecture to sketch the rela- 

 tion of Goethe's researches to the present standpoint of science, 

 and to bring out the guiding idea that is common to them all. 



