50 ON GOETHE'S SCIENTIFIC RESEARCHES. 



blue edge of a red surface seen through the prism, and at 

 another to construct out of them a beautiful purple, as when 

 the blue and red edges of two neighbouring white surfaces 

 meet in a black ground. And when he comes to Newton's 

 more complicated experiments, he is driven to still more mar- 

 vellous expedients. As long as you treat his explanations as a 

 pictorial way of representing the physical processes, you may 

 acquiesce in them, and even frequently find them vivid and 

 characteristic, but as physical elucidations of the phenomena 

 they are absolutely irrational. 



In conclusion, it must be obvious to evpry one that the 

 theoretical part of the Theory of Colour is not natural philo- 

 sophy at all ; at the same time we can, to a certain extent, see 

 that the poet wanted to introduce a totally different method 

 into the study of Nature, and more or less understand how he 

 rame to do so. Poetry is concerned solely with the ' beautiful 

 show which makes it possible to contemplate the ideal ; how 

 that show is produced is a matter of indifference. Even nature 

 is, in the poet's eyes, but the sensible expression of the spiritual. 

 The natural philosopher, on the other haud, tries to discover the 

 levers, the cords, and the pulleys which work behind the scenes, 

 and shift them. Of course the sight of the machinery spoils 

 the beautiful show, and therefore the poet would gladly talk it 

 out of existence, and ignoring cords and pulleys as the chimeras 

 of a pedant's brain, he would have us believe that the scenes 

 shift themselves, or are governed by the idea of the drama. 

 And it is just characteristic of Goethe that he, and he alone 

 among poets, must needs break a lance with natural philosophers. 

 Other poets are either so entirely carried away by the fire of 

 their enthusiasm that they do not trouble themselves about the 

 disturbing influences of the outer world, or else they rejoice 

 in the triumphs of mind over matter, even on that unpropitious 

 battlefield. But Goethe, whom no intensity of subjective feeling 

 could blind to the realities around him, cannot rest satisfied 

 until he has stamped reality itself with the image and super- 

 scription of poetry. This constitutes the peculiar beauty of his 

 poetry, and at the same time fully accounts for his resolute 



