40 ON Goethe's scientific rese.\kches. 



tinct statement, unencumbered by disputes about the 

 correctness of detached facts and complicated theories. 



Groethe himself describes veiy gracefully, in the con- 

 fession at the end of his ' Theory of Colour,' how he came 

 to take up the subject. Finding himself unable to grasp 

 the aesthetic principles involved in effects of colour, he 

 resolved to resume the study of the physical theory, which 

 he had been taught at the university, and to repeat for 

 himself the experiments connected with it. With that 

 view he borrowed a prism of Hofrath Biitter, of Jena, but 

 was prevented by other occupations from carrying out his 

 plan, and kept it by him for a long time unused. The 

 owner of the prism, a very orderly man, after several 

 times asking in vain, sent a messenger with instructions 

 to bring it back directly. Goethe took it out of the case, 

 and thought he would take one more peep through it. To 

 make certain of seeing something, he turned it towards a 

 long white wall, under the impression that as there was 

 plenty of light there he could not fail to see a brilliant 

 example of the resolution of light into different colours ; 

 a supposition, by the way, which shows how little Newton's 

 theory of the phenomena was then present to his mind. 

 Of course he was disappointed. On the white wall he saw 

 no colours ; they only appeared where it was bounded by 

 darker objects. Accordingly he made the observation — 

 which, it should be added, is fully accounted for by 

 Newton's theory — that colour can only be seen through a 

 prism where a dark object and a bright one have the same 

 boundary. Struck by this observation, which was quite 

 new to him, and convinced that it was irreconcilable with 

 Newton's theory, he induced the owner of the prism to 

 relent, and devoted himself to the question with the 

 utmost zeal and interest. He prepared sheets of paper 

 with black and white spaces, and studied the phenomenon 

 under every variety of condition, until he thought he had 



