GOETHE'S ' FARBENLEHRE.' 53 



experiments with it are numberless. He places white 

 rectangles on a black ground, black rectangles on a 

 white ground, and shifts their apparent positions by 

 prismatic refraction. He makes similar experiments 

 with coloured rectangles and discs. The shifted image 

 is sometimes projected on a screen, the experiment 

 being then c objective.' It is sometimes looked at 

 directly through the prism, the experiment being then 

 'subjective.' In the production of chromatic effects, 

 he dwells upon the absolute necessity of boundaries — 

 'Granzen.' The sky may be looked at and shifted by a 

 prism without the production of colour; and if the 

 white rectangle on a black ground be only made wide 

 enough, the centre remains white after refraction, the 

 colours being confined to the edges. Goethe's earliest 

 experiment, which led him so hastily to the conclusion 

 that Newton's theory of colours was wrong, consisted 

 in looking through a prism at the white wall of his own 

 room. He expected to see the whole wall covered with 

 colours, this being, he thought, implied in the theory 

 of Newton. But to his astonishment it remained white, 

 and only when he came to the boundary of a dark or a 

 bright space did the colours reveal themselves. This 

 question of ' boundaries' is one of supreme importance 

 to the author of the ' Farbenlehre ; ' the end and aim 

 of his theory being to account for the coloured fringes 

 produced at the edges of his refracted images. 



Darkness, according to Goethe, had as much to do 

 as light with the production of colour. Colour was 

 really due to the commingling of both. Not only did 

 his white rectangles upon a black ground yield the 

 coloured fringes, but his black rectangles on a white 

 ground did the same. The order of the colours seemed, 

 however, different in the two cases. Let a visiting card, 

 held in the hand between the eye and a window facing 



