Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/758

Rh H'.¢hlccr- '0 null- schaften. Farbcw .’-"h re. 73-1 Gr 0 E pathos to incidents of universal experience, it deals with the deepest problems which can engage the mind of man. In this combination of qualities it is perhaps superior to any one of Shakespeare's plays. The plot is as simple and as well known to the audience as the plot of a Greek tragedy. The innocence and the fall of Gretchen appeal to every heart; the inward struggles of Faust, like those of Hamlet, and the antagonism of the sensual and moral principles, interest the reader just in proportion as his ‘own mind and nature have been similarly stirred. Each line is made to stand for eternity; not a word is thrown away; the poem has entered as a whole into the mind and thought of modern Germany; nearly every expression has become a household word. Characters are sketched in a single scene ; Valentine lives for us as clearly as Faust himself Deeper meanings are opened up at every reading, and the next age will discover much in it which is concealed from this. Goethe, writing of Faust in his eightieth year, says with truth, “The commendation which the poem has re- ceived far and near may be perhaps owing to this quality, that it permanently preserves the period of development of a human soul which is tormented by all that afllicts man- kind, shaken also by all that disturbs it, repelled by all that it ﬁnds repellent, and made happy by all that it desires. The author is at present far removed from such conditions ; the world likewise has to some extent other struggles to undergo; nevertheless the state of man, in joy and sorrow, remains very much the same, and the latest born will still ﬁnd cause to acquaint himself with what has been enjoyed and suffered before him in order to adapt himself to that which awaits him.” In 1809 he ﬁnished Die Walelveru'a7zdtschcg"ten (The Elec- tive Afﬁnities), a story which is always cited to prove the immoral tendency of his works. A married couple, Edward and Charlotte, are thrown into constant companionship with two unmarried persons, the Captain and Ottilie. A cross attraction takes place similar to that which is often seen in chemical experiments. Edward unites himself with Ottilie, Charlotte with the Captain. The psychological changes by which this result is produced are portrayed with a masterly hand. The moral may be held by some to exalt the preponderance of fatality in human affairs, and the use- lessness of contending against irresistible circumstances. Others may believe that the story is intended to show the disastrous ealamities which may be wrought by a Weak and self—indulgent will. Ottilie, though she cannot resist her passion, l1as strength enough to starve herself to death ; Edward is the prototype of Arthur Donnithorne and Tito .Ielema. The work is replete with earnest purpose and terrible warning. In 1810 Goethe ﬁnished the printing of his F arbenlelzre (Theory of Colours), a work which had occupied his mind ever since his journey to Italy. His theories were rejected and disregarded by his contemporaries, but he left them with conﬁdence to the judgment of posterity. Goethe’s labours in this domain fall into two natural divisions—one in which he tries to prove that the hypotheses of Newton are unsatisfactory, and another in which he promulgates a theory of his own. In his ﬁrst work, published in 1791 and 1792, he describes with great accuracy and liveliness the experiments which he has made. They consist chiefly of the appearances presented by white discs on a black ground, black discs on a white ground, and coloured discs on a black or white ground when seen through a prism. There are two points which he considers fatal to Newton’s theory,—that the centre of a broad white surface remains white when seen through a prism, and that even a black streak on a white ground can be entirely de- composed into colours. The scientific friends to whom he communicated these observations assured him that there was T H E nothing in them opposed to Ne'to11’sthcory,—that they were even confirmations of it. Ile would not be convinced, and took no pains to acquire that exact knowledge of mathe- matics and geometrical reasoning without which the more abstruse problems of physical optics could not be in- telligible. He went on further to formulate a theory of his own. Ilis views on the subject are contained in their shortest form in a letter addressed to Jacobi from the camp at Marienburg in July 1793. They are divided into six heads, of which the following is an abstract. (1.) Light is the simplest matter we have knowledge of, the least capable of analysis, the most homogeneous. It is not a Compound body. Least of all is it compounded of coloured lights. Every coloured light is darker than colourless light. Brightness cannot be compounded of darkness. (3.) Influx- ion, refraction, reflexion, are three conditions under which we often observe apparent colours, but they are rather occasions for their appearance than the cause of it. (4.) There are only two pure colours, blue and yellow; red m-ay be regarded as a property of both of them. There are two mixed colours, green and purple; the rest are gradations of these colours, and are11ot pure. Colourless light cannot be produced out of coloured lights, nor white from coloured pigments. The colours which appear to us arise solely out of a modification of the light. The colours are excited in the light, not developed out of the light. These views he afterwards extended and explained, but very slightly modiﬁed. In Goethe’s opinion, yellow was light seen through a thickened medium ; blue was darkness seen through an illuminated medium; all other colours were de- rived froni these two. The theory of the I"cu-Zzenlclwc has not yet received the recognition which Goethe anticipated for it. I11 his own day he had some adherents,—the most distinguished perhaps was the philosopher Hegel, whose views, however, of natural philosophy l1ave caused many inquirers to recoil from his theory of metaphysics. Goethe complained that no physicist believed in hi_1n, and as that ie still true in an age which has been devoted more than any other to physical inquiries, we may conclude that the prin ciple upon which his theories are based is radically wrong. The year 1809, in which Die Wu/zlverwamltsc/aqftm w-as written, was for Goethe the beginning of a new era. Ile was then fresher and brighter than he had been for ten year.» before. He had lived through a troubled period of oppressive sorrow. The death of Schiller, the violation of his beloved Weimar, the deaths of the duchess Amalia and of his mother, his own bodily and mental sufferings, had given a tone of sadness to his poetry. As if to put the finishing stroke to the efforts of his life, he married the mother of his children, arranged and published his collected works, and C01ll]_)lClLL1 his theory of colours. The unﬁnished drama of Pumlorez is a symbol of this time. The part which is completed refers only to past experiences of sadness; the continuation was to have lifted the curtain of future hope. It was natural at the beginning of a new course of life that Goethe should write an account of his past existence. Tl..- study of his collected poems made it apparent to him hm.‘ necessary it was to furnish a key by which they might be understood. These various causes led to the composition of .Iut..m Dir-Ittztizg marl ll'a]u']¢eit (Poetry and Truth), an autob1ogra- .'/:"1'7'.-. phical history of the poet’s life from his birth till his settle- ment at Weimar. This work is the cause of much embarrass- ment to the poet’s biographers. Where it ought to be the most trustworthy source of information, it is most mislead- ing. t is probable that Goethe intended it to be an accurate and circumstantial aecount of his life. But the innerlife of an individual is more clear to him than the outer. The stages of our self-development are better remembered than the exact circumstances which produced them, still less than the order of time in which they followed each other. Goethe