THE BELFAST ADDRESS 



similar power in all other domains. Thus 

 theologians have found comfort and as- 

 surance in the thought that Newton dealt 

 with the question of revelation forgetful 

 of the fact that the very devotion of his 

 powers, through all the best years of his 

 life, to a totally different class of ideas, 

 not to speak of any natural disqualifica- 

 tion, tended to render him less, instead 

 of more, competent to deal with theo- 

 logical and historic questions. Goethe, 

 starting from his established greatness as 

 a poet, and indeed from his positive dis- 

 coveries in Natural History, produced a 

 profound impression among the painters 

 of Germany, when he published his 

 " Farbenlehre," in which he endeavoured 

 to overthrow Newton's theory of colours. 

 This theory he deemed so obviously 

 absurd that he considered its author a 

 charlatan, and attacked him with a corre- 

 sponding vehemence of language. In 

 the domain of Natural History Goethe 

 had made really considerable discoveries ; 

 and we have high authority for assuming 

 that, had he devoted himself wholly to 

 that side of science, he might have 

 reached an eminence comparable with 

 that which he attained as a poet. In 

 sharpness of observation, in the detection 

 of analogies apparently remote, in the 

 classification and organisation of facts 

 according to the analogies discerned, 

 Goethe possessed extraordinary powers. 

 These elements of scientific inquiry fall 

 in with the disciplines of the poet. But, 

 on the other hand, a mind thus richly 

 endowed in the direction of Natural His- 

 tory may be almost shorn of endowment 

 as regards the physical and mechanical 

 sciences. Goethe was in this condition. 

 He could not formulate distinct mecha- 

 nical conceptions ; he could not see the 

 force of mechanical reasoning ; and, in 

 regions where such reasoning reigns 

 supreme, he became a mere ignis fatuus 

 to those who followed him. 



I have sometimes permitted myself to 

 compare Aristotle with Goethe to credit 

 the Stagirite with an almost superhuman 

 power of amassing and systematising 

 facts, but to consider him fatally defective 



on that side of the mind in respect to 

 which incompleteness has been just 

 ascribed to Goethe. Whewell refers the 

 errors of Aristotle not to a neglect of 

 facts, but to "a neglect of the idea 

 appropriate to the facts ; the idea of 

 Mechanical cause, which is Force, and 

 the substitution of vague or inapplicable 

 notions, involving only relations of space 

 or emotions of wonder." This is doubt- 

 less true ; but the word " neglect " 

 implies mere intellectual misdirection, 

 whereas in Aristotle, as in Goethe, it 

 was not, I believe, misdirection, but 

 sheer natural incapacity, which lay at the 

 root of his mistakes. As a physicist, 

 Aristotle displayed what we should con- 

 sider some of the worst of attributes in 

 a modern physical investigator indis- 

 tinctness of ideas, confusion of mind, 

 and a confident use of language which 

 led to the delusive notion that he had 

 really mastered his subject, while he 

 had, as yet, failed to grasp even the 

 elements of it. He put words in the 

 place of things, subject in the place of 

 object. He preached Induction without 

 practising it, inverting the true order of 

 inquiry by passing from the general to 

 the particular, instead of from the par- 

 ticular to the general. He made of the 

 universe a closed sphere, in the centre 

 of which he fixed the earth, proving from 

 general principles, to his own satisfaction 

 and to that of the world for near 2,000 

 years, that no other universe was possible. 

 His notions of motion were entirely 

 unphysical. It was natural or unnatural, 

 better or worse, calm or violent no 

 real mechanical conception regarding it 

 lying at the bottom of his mind. He 

 affirmed that a vacuum could not exist, 

 and proved that if it did motion in it 

 would be impossible. He determined 

 a priori how many species of animals 

 must exist, and showed on general prin- 

 ciples why animals must have such and 

 such parts. When an eminent contem- 

 porary philosopher, who is far removed 

 from errors of this kind, remembers 

 these abuses of the a priori method, he 

 will be able to make allowance for the 



