46 ON Goethe's scientific kesearches. 



dependent of intuition, he sits down to contemplate them 

 as he would a work of art, complete in itself, and certain to 

 yield up its central idea, sooner or later, to a sufficiently 

 susceptible student. Accordingly, wh^n he sees the skull on 

 the Lido, which suggests to him the vertebral theory of 

 the cranium, he remarks that it serves to revive his old 

 belief, already confirmed by experience, that Nature has 

 no secrets from the attentive observer. So again in his 

 first conversation with Schiller on the ' Metamorphosis of 

 Plants.' To Schiller, as a follower of Kant, the idea is 

 the goal, ever to be sought, but ever unattainable, and 

 therefore never to be exhibited as realised in a phenome- 

 non. Goethe, on the other hand, as a genuine poet, 

 conceives that he finds in the phenomenon the direct 

 expression of the idea. He himself tells us that nothing 

 brought out more sharply the separation between himself 

 and Schiller. This, too, is the secret of his affinity with 

 the natural philosophy of Schelling and Hegel, which 

 likewise proceeds from the assumption that Nature shows 

 us by direct intuition the several steps by which a con- 

 ception is developed. Hence, too, the ardour with which 

 Hegel and his school defended Goethe's scientific views. 

 Moreover this view of Nature accounts for the war which 

 Goethe continued to wage against complicated experi- 

 mental researches. Just as a genuine work of art cannot 

 bear retouching by a strange hand, so he .would have us 

 believe Nature resists the interference of the experimenter 

 who tortures her and disturbs her ; and in revenge, mis- 

 leads the impertinent kill-joy by a distorted image of 

 herself. 



Accordingly, in his attack upon Newton he often 

 sneers at spectra, tortured through a number of narrow 

 slits and glasses, and commends the experiments that can 

 be made in the open air under a bright sun, not merely 

 as particularly easy and particularly enchanting, but also 



