STUDIES IN SPECIAL SENSE PHYSIOLOGY 413 



clutched at a straw of definite specific statement, that straw was 

 instantly snatched away again. Is it worth while going through 

 so much for so little ? " 



I do not think such an objection at all unreasonable. It is 

 good to be as simple as possible, provided we do not sacrifice truth 

 in the process, and we find that deductions from stimulus values 

 do not lead us to any very simple results. Let us see, therefore, 

 what fortune attends us when we pursue our quest by a different 

 path altogether ; perhaps in this way we shall attain to some- 

 thing more intelligible and practical. 



The other line of investigation practically resumes the problem 

 at the point at which the Greeks left it, and dates from the 

 publication in 1810 of Goethe's Farbenlehre. 



The comparatively slight influence that has been exercised by 

 this work upon the development of modern physiological thought 

 respecting the nature of visual processes, is due to causes well 

 worth notice. The physical analysis of white light into mono- 

 chromatic constituents by Newton had naturally attracted the 

 chief, almost the exclusive, attention of those who occupied them- 

 selves with the study of colour vision. Goethe, however, saw 

 quite clearly that the difficulties of the problem were not to be 

 overcome by vague references to physical experiments. He saw 

 that the problem was one of sensations, and he therefore approached 

 it from a sensational standpoint. Had he contented himself 

 with this, with an analysis of sensations of colour, his work must 

 have had an enormous influence ; but he went further. The 

 prevailing tendency to over-estimate the significance of the physi- 

 cal side of the problem in visual theories led Goethe into the 

 opposite error. He sustained the thesis that the Newtonian 

 analysis was physically incorrect, and that the alleged physical 

 analysis of white light was not in general possible. Consequently, 

 much of his work is devoted to an attack upon the Newtonian 

 hypothesis from the physical side. Since this attack failed, 

 more valuable portions of Goethe's book became involved in the 

 discredit this produced. 



I can best give an idea cf the valuable parts by quoting a few 

 significant passages. 



" With regard to the German terminology, it has the advan- 

 tage of possessing four monosyllabic names no longer to be traced 

 to their origin, viz. yellow (Gdb), blue, red, green. They represent 



