70 GOETHE'S ' FARBENLEHEE.' 



asked, can the man be found, possessing the extra- 

 ordinary gifts of Newton, who could suffer himself to 

 be deluded by such a hocus pocus, if he had not in the 

 first instance wilfully deceived himself? Only those 

 who know the strength of self-deception, and the extent 

 to which it sometimes trenches on dishonesty, are in a 

 condition to explain the conduct of Newton and of 

 Newton's school. ' To support his unnatural theory,' he 

 continues, 'Newton heaps experiment on experiment, 

 fiction upon fiction, seeking to dazzle where he cannot 

 convince.' 



It may be that Goethe is correct in affirming that 

 the will and prejudice of the individual are all-influential. 

 We must, however, add the qualifying words, ' as far as 

 the individual is concerned.' For in science there exists, 

 apart from the individual, objective truth ; and the fate 

 of Goethe's own theory, though commended to us by 

 so great a name, illustrates how, in the progress of 

 humanity, the individual, if he err, is left stranded and 

 forgotten truth, independent of the individual, being 

 more and more grafted on to that tree of knowledge 

 which is the property of the human race. 



The imagined ruin of Newton's theory did not 

 satisfy Goethe's desire for completeness. He would 

 explore the ground of Newton's error, and show how it 

 was that one so highly gifted could employ his gifts for 

 the enunciation and diffusion of such unmitigated 

 nonsense. It was impossible to solve the riddle on 

 purely intellectual grounds. Scientific enigmas, he 

 says, are often only capable of ethical solution, ana 

 with this maxim in his mind he applies himself, in the 

 second volume of the ' Farbenlehre,' to the examination 

 of ' Newton's Personlichkeit.' He seeks to connect him 

 with, or rather to detach him from, the general character 

 of the English nation that sturdy and competent race, 



