76 GOETHE'S " FARBENLEHRE." 



began by formally recognising the French Eepublic. 

 "Efface that," said the First Consul; "the French Ke- 

 public is like the sun; he is blind who fails to recog- 

 nise it." And were I to speak of recognising Goethe's 

 merits, my effacement 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 dif- 

 ferent 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 alto- 

 gether foreign to physics or 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 

 splendour seemed to Goethe a desecration. 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 intel- 



